President Erdogan announces new gun ownership restrictions and school safety measures following two attacks that left nine dead.
ISTANBUL: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has vowed to introduce sweeping new measures, including restrictions on gun ownership, following two deadly school shootings last week.
The announcement comes after eight students, aged 10 and 11, and a teacher were killed on Wednesday. A 14-year-old student opened fire at a school in the southern province of Kahramanmaras before dying at the scene.
Authorities said the attacker had brought five firearms to the school. He was the son of a former police inspector, who has since been arrested.
In a separate attack on Tuesday in southeastern Sanliurfa province, a former student opened fire at his old high school. He took his own life when confronted by police.
“We will implement additional legal regulations regarding the limitation of gun ownership,” Erdogan said after a weekly cabinet meeting. He added that penalties would be increased for firearm owners who fail to properly secure their weapons, particularly when children gain access to them.
Mass shootings are rare in Turkey, and the incidents have sparked significant public concern. Erdogan stated that school safety would now be among the government’s top priorities.
“When we look at similar attacks around the world, especially those carried out in the United States, we see that one of the perpetrators’ aims is to terrorise society,” he said. “Such attacks target not only the shedding of innocent blood but also, like terrorist organisations, provoking public outrage and creating anxiety, unease, fear, and distress within society.”
The president also said authorities would expand online surveillance, including by using artificial intelligence. He called on relevant institutions to address what he described as “violence and moral decay” on television screens.
Erdogan urged for greater emphasis on productions that promote family values. “Portraying perpetrators in productions themed around crime and violence as strong, influential, exempt from punishment, or even respectable undermines our youth’s connection to reality,” he added.
