A former student at an Austrian high school opened fire on the campus on Tuesday, June 10, 2025, and killed 10 people before apparently killing himself, a rare and shocking episode of the sort of gun violence that is far more common in the United States than in Europe.
The killings in Graz, a wealthy university town that is Austria’s second-largest city, were among the worst European school shootings in years. It was the deadliest such attack in memory at an Austrian school, and it profoundly rattled the small Alpine nation.
Austrian Chancellor Christian Stocker cleared his schedule to travel to Graz and declared three days of national mourning.
Shooting rampage
Stocker said in a post on social media that “The shooting rampage at a school in Graz is a national tragedy that has deeply shaken our entire country.”
State police said the shooter was a 21-year-old who had previously attended the school, BORG Dreierschützengasse, but never graduated. He killed six females and three males on campus, whom police did not publicly identify. Another victim, a woman, later died at a hospital. Authorities said they would not release more information on the victims, including how many of them were students, until preliminary investigations had finished.
The shooter was found dead in a school bathroom. Police said he had arrived at the school carrying a pistol and a longer gun — they did not clarify whether it was a shotgun or a rifle — that he had legally bought.
Heavily armed
Austrian civilians are among the most heavily armed in the world but still trail the United States significantly on gun ownership, according to data from the Small Arms Survey, an independent research body based in Geneva.
Austrians hold about 2.6 million guns, only about 837,000 of which are registered, according to the survey. Austria ranked 12th in the world in gun holdings per person. That’s about 30 firearms for every 100 civilians. The United States had about 120.5 guns for every 100 people, the survey showed.
Mass shootings in Austria are rare. Two such incidents occurred between 2000 and 2022, according to an analysis published in 2024 by the Rockefeller Institute of Government, a think tank.
