https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64910415

Seven JWs in Hamburg, Germany, including an unborn baby (the mother survived) were shot and killed on Thursday inside their meeting place.

Eight other people were injured. Four are said to be in serious condition. One person is Ugandan and one Ukrainian (some sad irony there) and the rest are said to be German nationals.

Apparently the shooter, who killed himself when police quickly closed in, was an ex-member.

The article (link above) states that his motive is unknown but then says he had "ill feelings" towards the community. (Understatement?)

It says "Police confirmed that they had previously received an anonymous tip-off that raised concerns about the perpetrator's mental health. Officers had visited him after the tip-off - but did not have enough grounds to take away his gun at the time." Ouch. How unfortunate.


There are said to be about 170,000 JWs in Germany (8.7 million worldwide).

The article calls JWs "Christian-based" and says they believe that "the traditional Christian Churches have deviated from the true teachings of the Bible, and do not work in full harmony with God".

That is a far milder statement than any I ever heard in a JW Kingdom Hall, where they teach that "Babylon the Great, described in the book of Revelation, is the world’s collective body of false religions, which God rejects". They teach that "The Bible describes her [Babylon the Great] as “a woman” and a “great prostitute...". They also use the term "whore of Babylon" and "the great harlot" in reference to the world's religions.

Wince-worthy terms and imagery really. Did not age well this many years after their founder founded them, after women's lib 'n all and our somewhat more enlightened views in that regard.

I note that one police officer (I think it was) called the victims "Jehovahs". Yow. People so often get their name wrong which surprises me as it's fairly simple. Jehovah is the name of God, so they believe (they often refer to him as "Jehovah God") and they follow him and preach or "witness" about him, therefore "Jehovah's Witnesses". *They* are not "Jehovahs".

No matter their theology, this is so sad. I've said before how I really liked the JWs I knew. They were good people and like so many others were just trying to find a way to figure out the universe, in effect.

If we didn't have such questions as what does it all *mean* maybe the church buildings would be emptier and the pubs busier. Or something like that.

I feel for the people who lost their lives just because they went to a meeting in a certain building on a particular day when somebody else was in crisis and it cost them their futures. And the woman who lost her 7-month-fetus, tragic for her.


PS: I hope this isn't considered shamefully or frustratingly off topic - it's religion and we seem to have a broad allowance for that here, even if it's not specifically Mormonism. I see parallels in a lot of the somewhat-allied discussions which I think is of value.

Besides, I spent a fair amount of time myself inside a Kingdom Hall, for a while thinking it was the one true faith and yada yada yada.

So please excuse if this bugs you. I've found it quite upsetting, even though my view is from afar. And. It's religion. And maybe how it screws somebody up to the extent that they completely lose the plot and then look what happens.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 03/10/2023 08:04PM by Nightingale.

How sad. I saw the story on the news.

Germany doesn't have near the number of guns per capita as the USA. I was surprised. Disgruntled people with mental issues are out there. You never know when or where the next tragic shooting will occur.

> You never know when or where the
> next tragic shooting will occur.

Yep. We can only be sure that there will be a next tragic shooting. But since firearms became a human resource, it's never been an issue regarding innocents being shot, only just when, where, and how often.

Washington State legislature has a bill working thru that would ban AK-14 type weapons, idk the details such as completed transactions, home possession, etc.

As usual the Republicans are opposing, but they're in the minority on all 3 bases here.

eta: ChurchCo & all churches should post “No Weapons Allowed” signs on each entrance, even if the offends Bob or Brenda GunRights



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/10/2023 08:53PM by GNPE.

It's weird how so many groups (not necessarily religions) that encourage gun proliferation somehow feel the need to prohibit guns at their own meetings.

Wouldn't you?

LOL. Not publicly.

I mean, wouldn't you prohibit firearms in your meetings?

That seems a sufficiently obvious consideration for any organization.

Yes, I agree. It's the hypocrite piece I'm ragging about. (The NRA, for example, is doing their best to put guns everywhere except their own conventions.)

One would think, one would hope, that the poor people who donate to the NRA would figure out what that means.

The LDS church bans the general congregation from bringing guns to church but they do call certain members to be security people. They scan for potential trouble and they can be armed. Usually it’s people who have a police or military background.

Lot’s of things go on in a ward and stake the general membership don’t know about. I had to work the security detail for a regional conference when Dallin H Oaks and another general authority were in attendance.

There’s the AK-47 and the AR-15. There is no AK-14. If you banned it you would be banning nothing. The AK-47 is a select fire assault rifle and is classified as a machine gun. You have to have a class 3 firearms license to own one in the US.

The AR-15 is a semi-automatic rifle. It has been sold to the public in the US since the 1950’s.

There is a lot of confusion on what an assault rifle is. The first assault rifle was invented in Germany during World War II. It’s basically the combination of a rifle and a machine gun. You can select single shots or full-auto. Smaller cartridges are used to keep the recoil controllable and you sacrifice range for fire power. In modern ware fare most fire fights occur under 300 meters. If a rifle does not have full auto capability it is not an assault rifle.

You can modify an AR-15 to fully automatic which you can easily find instructions on the internet.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/11/2023 08:55AM by moehoward.

An AR-15 has a completely different lower receiver than a M-16. Also the bolt carriers are different.

You would have to have a full-auto trigger group and you would have to completely re-mill the receiver and drill a hole for the auto-sear pin.

You would have to have a mill and be very mechanically capable and have the parts. Trigger groups are precision. If the geometry are off it’s not going to work right.

Bubba Joe isn’t going to make a M-16 in his garage off of some blue prints he down loaded on the internet.

I served as a missionary in Brooklyn. The JW headquarters was in our proselytizing area. We knew lots of JW’s. We had a friendly rivalry with them. I think the JW’s and LDS are the only church’s who proselyte door to door.

if ChurchCo puts signs on each entrance, I'll believe they mean it.

To advertise that they're sitting ducks?

The JWs are pretty active in Germany. We have been visited by them several times over the 8 years we've been here this time. They're always polite when we say "Nein, danke."

I heard about this shooting yesterday. The violence of the incident surprises me, since people have to go through a lot to be allowed to carry a weapon in Germany. But I'm not surprised he was a disgruntled ex member, since the JWs are all about disfellowshipping and shunning.

I have a cousin who was a JW, and raised his kids in the religion. They left when a supposed pedophile was put in charge at their local Kingdom Hall.

I recently was surprised by a booklet left in my mailbox by L. Ron Hubbard... I had to look up the origin of the booklet,as it wasn't mentioned that it came from the Scientologists.

I was thinking about you, Nighty, when I heard about the shooting. I guess there are mentally unbalanced people everywhere. It's a shame that the police did not have sufficient reason to take his gun away from him.

There are times over the years when I wish teachers could flag students who should never be allowed to own a gun. One could make the argument that if a student starts numerous fights, bullies others, punches out walls, regularly cusses out the adults in a building, or has serious, documented mental health issues, gun ownership may not be the wisest idea.

Germany has extremely restrictive gun laws already and they are going to tighten them up further. In Europe, a lot of gun crimes are committed using guns which are black market or smuggled in from other parts of the world... unlike this one apparently. It isn't like America where guns are more freely accessible.

Gun running is big business. Mexico has very strict gun laws but that doesn’t stop the cartels from being very well armed.

I heard an awful story this past week. One of my school's families, from central America, split up to cross the border. Mom and the two kids she was traveling with made it across safely. The dad and the child that he was traveling with were kidnapped and held hostage by a Mexican cartel. They handed over everything they had, and returned to their home country to regroup. They successfully crossed the border about two years later to rejoin the rest of the family.

You would not believe the stories that I hear. It's not unusual for families to walk the entire way to the U.S. from central America. Regardless of politics, I don't think that most Americans understand the level of motivation that these immigrants have to make it here and to succeed. Most Americans have no idea. Many immigrants are escaping truly horrific circumstances in their home countries.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/11/2023 05:54PM by summer.

Jehovah's witness and Mormons are different sides of the same coin.

Crazy man murders people ...

Both JW and the Mormons have their origins in Wild West shoot outs.

Unfortunate. I do not know much where Jehovah's Witnesses are concerned. I know the Witnesses I have known are/were pleasant. I have worked with several in the past. I went to HS school with a couple of brothers who were Witnesses. They were a hoot.

This event in Germany is, without a doubt, saddening. It has made me wonder how instances like the shooting in Hamburg are not more common. Religions which take and take, then discard members are a scourge. I recall being in ward council once and the bishop arrived. You could tell he had been crying. Why? He had just had a PPI with the stake president who berated him to the point of tears. Here was a fellow who worked full time, was going through cancer treatments, being a "full time" bishop in a church college ward, getting harangued for not fulfilling his calling. Thank you for your service.

Obviously we will not be privy to the actual cause unless someone talks. Like other hardcore religious groups, when you give for years then are jettisoned for an infraction, or disallowed royalty status, or have family hate you because you left the family's faith, depression hits deep. The behavior should never be excused however.

"Officers had visited him after the tip-off - but did not have enough grounds to take away his gun at the time."

Why didn’t the JWs try to take away his gun?

Many churches are in the same boat. They recruit the mentally ill and are then saddled with them. Missionaries bring them in and the bishop is forever writing them welfare checks. Which is better than ending up dead.

Four people killed in Seattle this weekend, no religious affiliation listed.


https://komonews.com/news/local/4th-person-killed-overnight-in-seattles-deadly-weekend-of-gun-violence

So tragic. One of my oldest and friends is a JW member in Calgary. I can't imagine the grief he is experiencing.

https://www.businessinsider.com/german-gunman-jehovahs-witness-attack-claimed-make-clients-millions-2023-3

German authorities identified the shooter only as Philipp F. — a former Jehovah's Witness and member of the congregation he later attacked. Police said he had left "voluntarily, but not on good terms" a year and a half ago, according to the Associated Press.

The shooter used a semiautomatic handgun he legally owned and fired more than 100 shoots during the attack. The assailant shot and killed himself when police arrived on the scene on Thursday.

It was later reported that police had been tipped off by an anonymous letter about concerns that Philipp F might be suffering from "an undiagnosed psychological illness" two months before the deadly shooting, according to the Guardian.

DAlthoughhe had "particular anger against religious members or against the Jehovah's Witnesses and his former employer," police decided there was no cause for concern at the time.

Phillip F. was identified as a business consultant, according to German news outlet Der Spiegel, for which he charged clients an "astronomical daily rate" of 250,000 euros (about $266,000) for consulting services.

According to his website, Phillip F. justified the massive fee because he believed his coaching would produce "at least 2.5 million euros" for his clients, Der Spiegel reported.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz described the incident as a "brutal act of violence," according to the BBC, while Hamburg Mayor Peter Tschentscher called the news "shattering."

The four men and two women killed in the attack were all German nationals, and an injured pregnant woman lost her baby.

Gun laws in Germany are relatively lax compared to the rest of Europe, and there has been a recent push for the country to tighten its gun control measures.



https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/03/10/hamburg-shooting-jehovah-witness-germany-police-motive-attack/




A former Jehovah’s Witness and self-styled business coach has been confirmed as the gunman behind a shooting at a Hamburg church on Thursday that left six people dead and many more injured.

German authorities have identified the man who stormed a Kingdom’s Hall belonging to the religious group as Phillip F, a 35-year-old.

They say that he left the congregation 18 months previously after a fall out with other members.

The Telegraph has identified the killer as Philip Fusz, freelance consultant whose business website describes him as an expert in the finance and energy sectors.

On the website, he offers exorbitantly priced consultancy for a daily fee of €250,000, stating that “the fee incorporates the fact that my work should generate you a leverage or value added of at least 2.5 million EUR”.

According to his own account, Mr Fusz grew up in a strictly religious household in the Alps before studying business in Munich.

German authorities have ruled out a terrorist attack or any political motive.