Horror at US Shootings

As the scope of the tragedy became clear, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who currently holds the European Union's rotating presidency, expressed her sympathy to US President George W. Bush and the American people.

The leaders of her two coalition partners followed suit. Kurt Beck said he had experienced the events of April 16 at Virginia Tech University in the town of Blacksburg with "terrible sorrow." Edmund Stoiber, the head of the Bavarian sister party to Merkel's Christian Democrats, said the fact that more than 30 people could be "mowed down" was "beyond what is humanly imaginable."

French President Jacques Chirac also said he was "horrified and concerned" at the killings and expressed France's complete solidarity with the US.

Police have identified 23-year-old Cho Seung-Hui, a South Korean studying at the university, as the gunman responsible for at least 30 of the deaths. Police also said one of two guns recovered was used in both of the two separate shooting incidents at the campus on Monday -- the first in a student dormitory and the second in a building used for lectures. Cho subsequently killed himself.

"Only the names change"

But as Europeans were articulating their sympathy for the victims and their families, some raised the perennial issue of easy availability of firearms in the United States.

Beck said that while school attacks were not necessarily unpreventable, laws could be beefed up to "at least hinder or restrict" access to "certain forms of weaponry."

European newspapers were more direct in their criticism. The Spanish daily El Pais expressed doubt that the Blacksburg tragedy would lead to a change in availability of weapons.

Gerard Baker, United States editor for The Times of London, cited the long list of school shootings in the US in an editorial for that publication.

"It's so familiar you could write the script yourself," he commented. "Only the names change -- Jonesboro, Columbine, Lancaster County and now Virginia Tech. And the numbers."

The vast majority of European bloggers have also expressed incredulity that America has refused to limit access to guns in reactions to such mass shootings. Although similar events have taken place in Europe, including a high-school massacre in the German city of Erfurt in 2002, a disproportionate number of them happen in the US.

US President Bush expressed his horror and sympathy with the victims on Monday. A short time later, his press spokesperson said, "The president believes that there is a right for people to bear arms, but that all laws must be followed."

Ongoing investigations and mounting criticism

On Tuesday, authorities in and around the university continued to reconstruct what had happened.

Some Virginia Tech students and others involved have questioned why police and university authorities issued no general warning between the first set of shootings in the dormitory and those in the lecture building, which happened some two hours later.

There has been no substantiation for rumors that a second gunman may have been involved in the attacks.