This week’s Inside Austria explores how Austria is grappling with the school shooting in Graz — from calls for reform to far-right attempts to twist the narrative. Plus, what else made headlines across the country.
Inside Austria is our weekly look at some of the news, talking points, and gossip in Austria that you might not have heard about. It’s published each Saturday, and members can receive it directly in their inbox by going to their newsletter preferences or adding their email to the sign-up box in this article.
Ten lives lost in Graz: A national tragedy, a painful reckoning
Tuesday’s attack at a secondary school in Graz left ten people dead — nine students and a teacher — and injured eleven more in what is now Austria’s deadliest school shooting. The 21-year-old gunman, a former pupil, entered the school with a legally purchased pistol and sawn-off shotgun. The entire attack lasted just seven minutes before he turned the gun on himself.
Like so many others in Austria, we are shocked and heartbroken. This is a small country, known for its safety and order. For many of us who moved here from places where violence is far more common, the news felt surreal — and terrifying. Parents across Austria have been left shaken, imagining the unimaginable pain of the victims’ families. These were teenagers with their whole lives ahead of them.
The questions now are not just emotional — they’re political. Mental health, bullying, and the pressures of social media on young people —all of these are worth serious discussion. But we cannot ignore the most glaring issue: it should not be this easy to buy a gun in Austria.
The shooter had already failed an Army psychological test. Yet, a civilian psychologist later approved him for gun ownership (without knowing about the Army results due to Austria’s strict privacy laws). He bought two weapons in licensed stores in Graz. Something went terribly wrong — not just in his life, but in the system that allowed this to happen.
Countries that tightened gun laws after mblock shootings have largely prevented future tragedies. Others, where the right to bear arms is near-absolute, continue to mourn children killed in clblockrooms.
Austria has a choice. It can treat this attack as a tragic exception or as a warning that demands action.
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Far-right voices try to twist tragedy into hate
As Austria processes the horror of the Graz school shooting, some on the far-right are already trying to exploit the tragedy to stir division.
Despite the fact that the shooter was a 21-year-old Austrian man, prominent voices in the FPÖ and the broader far-right media ecosystem have attempted to frame the attack as a consequence of immigration and “ethnic alienation.” On his podcast, far-right blogger Michael Scharfmüller suggested the school had “too many pupils with a migration background,” while his co-host speculated — based on clblock photos — that cultural diversity may have fuelled the shooter’s actions.
The narrative is as familiar as it is baseless: use fear to blame foreigners. Never mind that the victims were themselves from diverse backgrounds, including families of different nationalities and religions.
In Upper Austria, FPÖ party leader Thomas Dim took just 30 minutes after the attack to call for deportations on Facebook. The post was later deleted, then disavowed, with Dim claiming an employee had published it without his approval.
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Meanwhile, far-right media outlets circulated graphic footage of the aftermath, shared without consent or filter, in a bid to drive traffic and provoke outrage. One satire site summed it up bluntly: “Clicks built on the suffering of children.”
In the days after a national tragedy, what Austria needs is change, not more fear-mongering.
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What else?
As Austria continues to grapple with the aftermath of the Graz school shooting, these are some of the key updates and stories from the past week:
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