Shooting at Synagogue in Germany

[Lonestar]

https://www.afp.com/en/news/15/two-dead ... oc-1l951f3

Two dead as German synagogue targeted in Yom Kippur attack

t least two people were shot dead in the German city of Halle on Wednesday, with witnesses saying a synagogue was among the gunmen's targets as Jews marked the holy day of Yom Kippur.

One suspect was captured but with a manhunt ongoing for other perpetrators, security was tightened in synagogues in other eastern German cities while Halle itself was in lockdown.

"Early indications show that two people were killed in Halle. Several shots were fired," police said on Twitter, urging residents in the area to stay indoors.

Police said the "perpetrators fled in a car", adding later that one suspect had been caught.

Jewish community leader Max Privorotzki, who was in the Halle synagogue, told Stuttgarter Zeitung that "we saw through the camera of our synagogue that a heavily armed perpetrator wearing a steel helmet and rifle was trying to shoot open our door."

"The man looked like he was from the special forces. But our doors held firm," he said, adding that there was also an attempt to shoot open the gate to the neighbouring Jewish cemetery.

"We barricaded our doors from inside and waited for the police," he said, adding that "in between, we carried on with our service."

Between 70 and 80 people were in the synagogue on a day when Jews around the world were marking one of the holiest days in the Jewish calendar, Privorotzki said.

Two people also suffered serious bullet wounds in the attack and were being operated on, a spokesman for the city's hospital said.

Germany has been on high alert following several attacks in recent years, including some claimed by the Islamic State group, as well as neo-Nazi plots.

- 'Hid in the toilet' -

Anti-terrorist prosecutors confirmed that they were taking over the probe given "the particular importance of the case" which he said involved "violent acts that affect the domestic security of the Federal Republic of Germany".

Bild daily reported that one of the two shot dead were killed in front of the synagogue, while a hand grenade was also flung into a Jewish cemetery.

Witness Conrad Roessler told news channel NTV he was in a Turkish restaurant about 600 metres (yards) away from the synagogue when "a man wearing a helmet and military uniform" tossed a hand grenade.

"The grenade hit the door and exploded," he said.

"(The attacker) shot at least once in the shop, the man behind me must be dead. I hid in the toilet and locked the door."

Police would not confirm the details, saying only that there were also kebab restaurants and churches in the area where the shooting took place.

An unauthenticated video circulating in German media showed a man wearing a helmet getting out of a vehicle before firing several shots in the air.

"It is terrible news from Halle and I hope very much that the police will manage to catch the perpetrator or perpetrators as quickly as possible so that no other person will be in danger," Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert told a news conference.

- 'Big threat' -

Wednesday's shootings came three months after the shocking assassination-style murder of local pro-migrant politician Walter Luebcke in the western city of Kassel, allegedly by a known neo-Nazi.

Luebcke's killing has deeply shaken Germany, raising questions about whether it has failed to take seriously a rising threat from right-wing extremists.

Investigators have been probing the extent of suspect Stephan Ernst's neo-Nazi ties and whether he had links to the far-right militant cell National Socialist Underground (NSU).

The former communist states in east Germany have also gained notoriety for their far-right extremists. Just last month, a neo-Nazi "terrorist" cell based in the eastern town of Chemnitz was put on trial accused of plotting a violent political uprising in Germany.

Interior Minister Horst Seehofer last month warned of the rising danger of the militant far right, calling it "as big a threat as radical Islamism".

Seehofer said that police had uncovered 1,091 weapons including firearms and explosives during probes of crimes linked to the far right last year, far more than in 2017 when 676 were found.

Fears of a new Islamist attack were also revived on Monday when a Syrian man hijacked a articulated lorry and smashed it into cars stopped at a traffic light in the city of Limburg, injuring several people.

The 32-year-old has been remanded in custody suspected of attempted murder and bodily harm as well as a traffic offence, Frankfurt prosecutors told AFP.

I have seen video and other imagery on Twitter that has me convinced the weapon used was a Luty Home Depot Special. Possibly even with blackpowder munition.

[MKSheppard]

If this manifesto is right, they were all home depot level specials.

link to image

[Ace Pace]

Would the results have been different if they used modern arms?

[Lonestar]

Dunno, supposedly he gave up because the freakin doors were locked.

[Ace Pace]

Dunno, supposedly he gave up because the freakin doors were locked.

There's also been reports that his gun jammed.
I can't help but think that if he had access to stronger weapons then there would be more casualties...

[Formless]

Dunno, supposedly he gave up because the freakin doors were locked.

There's also been reports that his gun jammed.
I can't help but think that if he had access to stronger weapons then there would be more casualties...

It really is hard to say, though. Guns jam, its a simple fact. All machines can malfunction, and modern firearms are basic machines. A lot of blowback firearms can jam simply because the user has a limp wrist. Seriously. Too much of the kinetic energy goes into moving your wrist/hand around and not enough goes into cycling the gun. Whereas a hand made revolver could cycle perfectly precisely because revolvers are a simpler mechanism. It just depends on the craftsman's skill at making the gun (and whether or not they did in fact use black powder-- if that stuff gets wet, it famously doesn't want to go boom).

Consider how simple the old Sten submachine gun was from WWII. It was designed by a couple of bicycle shop owners to be made mostly out of parts you can find in such a workshop. And they worked so well (considering their crudeness) they helped win a world war. And such guns are actually cruder than a semi-automatic firearm, and could easily cause more casualties in a mass shooting such as this-- if the attacker hadn't let the door stop him. Turns out the behavior of an active shooter isn't always easy to predict.

Edit: as an example of how unpredictable jams can be, consider this incident from France where an attacker with an AK rifle got overpowered by a couple of off-duty US marines and two civilians who were completely unarmed-- all because his rifle jammed.

[Lonestar]

There's also been reports that his gun jammed.
I can't help but think that if he had access to stronger weapons then there would be more casualties...

Which is a feat because Brasilian gangs can make luty SMGs run fine.

[Dominus Atheos]

Dunno, supposedly he gave up because the freakin doors were locked.

There's also been reports that his gun jammed.
I can't help but think that if he had access to stronger weapons then there would be more casualties...

According to the manifesto thing Shep posted, the guy deliberately set out to (try to) shoot a large amount of people with guns you can make in your garage.

One of those guns is just two pipes that fit together, one inside the other with an endcap, nail, and buttstock attached to one end, with "gunpowder" made from sugar, bleach, and sodium-free salt. Insert flanged "shotgun shell" of some kind into smaller pipe, insert smaller pipe into larger pipe with nail at other end, push together until nail presses onto firing pin, other end of pipes go bang, recoil at that end keeps pipes together, remove smaller pipe, repeat, whole bunch of dead people. (or not, if the doors are closed, thank god)

[loomer]

Christ, I don't think I've seen the Luty surface in a while. The designs for this kind of thing float round in that sector constantly anyway but the last thing we needed was someone giving them a field test and reminding the kind of morons who do this that full disarmament is impossible so not having a gun is no excuse.

[LaCroix]

Yeah, this guy was prepareing a lot of crude guns. Lucky he was either a bad handyman or did not have access to shop tooling, so his designs were pretty prone to failure. All but the slam guns are not really reliable.

Especially since he mostly used sugar-derived ammunition which is very hygrophilic and also, quite anemic, worse than real blackpowder. No wonder he did not get through a reenforced door, as most synagogues do have these days.

Which is a feat because Brasilian gangs can make luty SMGs run fine.

I'm pretty sure they run them on real ammunition - any gun used with his type of home made ammunition will pretty much fail after a handfull of shots, unless you run a wire-brush through it after each shot.

If that guy had real ammunition (which you can only get with a license in Germany), that would have made all the difference. Death toll would be in the dozens.

[Beowulf]

Edit: as an example of how unpredictable jams can be, consider this incident from France where an attacker with an AK rifle got overpowered by a couple of off-duty US marines and two civilians who were completely unarmed-- all because his rifle jammed.

Neither military member was a Marine. One was USAF, and the other US Army.

[tezunegari]

20 miles from my home town... just half a year ago I drove down Paracelsusstraße, right next to the Water tower where it happened.

[Formless]

Edit: as an example of how unpredictable jams can be, consider this incident from France where an attacker with an AK rifle got overpowered by a couple of off-duty US marines and two civilians who were completely unarmed-- all because his rifle jammed.

Neither military member was a Marine. One was USAF, and the other US Army.

Ah, sorry, I misremembered that detail. Marines have a likely undeserved reputation for their hand to hand skills relative to other military personnel, with special forces being the only exception. You are right, though the point stands. In more detailed reporting, the two military guys saw the gun jam and instantly called to jump the gunman before he could clear it. They did, and all the gunman could do was pull a boxcutter to try and ineffectively counterattack. Even AK pattern rifles jam, and if anything a lot of hand made guns jam less often due to their simplicity. They of course have other problems, especially if you try to make your own propellant. Though apparently this German shooter did kill two people and injure two more, so its not like his gun was a complete dud.

[madd0ct0r]

A mild post requesting that disscussion of better designs and better ammo designs are not held in public. Two dead is bad enough.

[Ace Pace]

A mild post requesting that disscussion of better designs and better ammo designs are not held in public. Two dead is bad enough.

I don't think hiding information really changes things. People find ways to create weapons even in oppressive situations. Making better weapons requires tools which are not as easy to acquire.

It is worth pointing out that we're all better off that it was hard for him to build good guns.

[madd0ct0r]

A mild post requesting that disscussion of better designs and better ammo designs are not held in public. Two dead is bad enough.

I don't think hiding information really changes things. People find ways to create weapons even in oppressive situations. Making better weapons requires tools which are not as easy to acquire.

It is worth pointing out that we're all better off that it was hard for him to build good guns.

It does. There have been three attacks on infrastructure in the UK that i am aware of. They all failed absolutely because the "common sense" method was utterly wrong, but i see no need to broadcast that or how to do a better attack. There have also been attacks like the manchester bombing which succeeded.

This idiots attack was ineffective using his combination of tools, guns and ammo. I see no reason to help the next idiot solve one of those three problems.