Shooting in Hamburg; Germany

I thought on the run but maybe caught now

RIP the 6 deceased

just dropping a direct link because that is an absolute abomination of a website to wade through.

Clear your cookies all ye who venture forth.

First of all sympathies for the families of the bereaved.

I live in Germany and travel between Berlin and Mecklenburg (East Germany). The latter is one of the most racist places I have lived and I have lived in the US before this. I have personally witnessed black and Asian friends being harassed in public here. I stood up for them of course but it didn't make them feel more welcome. A few years ago the town I lived in erected plaques to the Jewish people killed during the holocaust here. Some of the locals tore them up. What is more dangerous than the racism is the silence of the locals in this regard. Rarely will a German here step in when a foreigner is being accosted. An Iranian here was recently beaten within an inch of his life by thugs who previously hurled racist abuse at him. It didn't even make the news or the local papers. It's not just people of darker skin tone. It's anyone with a foreign accent, doesn't speak perfect German or any international. In other words what the German's call Ausländer. A Swedish girl I know was also attacked by a crowd in a shop. I was told to go back to Ireland after an incident while seeking medical care. It's worth pointing out that there's a huge distinction between east and west Germany here but all in all it's a problem the German's are refusing to engage properly with.

Yes indeed. I always wonder at that mentality. Does it make a difference to the victim of the crime if the perpetrator is Irish or not? Maybe after a murder the police should issue a press statement reassuring the victim's family that the killer was Irish so they shouldn't feel as bad.

I just saw a report which said that the shooter may be a former member. No confirmation yet. That would make sense. The JW are ridiculously strict and there's loads of reports of coercion and shunning.

If the person was baptised and had since been disfellowshipped or disassociated themselves, all of their family and friends would have shunned them. Literally wouldn't look at them if they saw them in the street. Keep in mind, you could be disfellowshipped for having pre-marital sex, looking at porn, smoking, celebrating any holidays like Christmas etc - the list is endless.

A lot of folks cant handle the shunning abuse and rejoin the religion cult just so they can have a relationship with their family and friends again.

Just to note that to 'rejoin', you have to go to meetings and sit at the back of the Kingdom Hall - nobody is allowed to talk to you until you are officially 'reinstated'.

By 'going to meetings' I mean a LOT of them. Back when I was in, a week went like this:

Monday evening - family bible study (1 hour)

Tuesday evening - group book study in someone's house you all went to as a family (usually took from 7pm till 9pm)

Thursday evening - Kingdom Ministry school - (7pm to 10pm at the Kingdom Hall)

Saturday Morning - Ministry, so knocking on people's doors.

Sunday Morning - Sunday meeting at the Kingdom hall. There would be a 1 hour talk followed by a questions and answers session on a part of The Watchtower magazine. (you'd usually be there from 10am till about 12:30pm) - a lot of folks would then go on the ministry again after this.

Keep in mind for all of this, you are suited and booted like a 1950s salesman.

Aside from all of this, you are also meant to engage in 'personal bible study' and 'Witness' to your colleagues in work, fellow students in school etc'

Not excusing the actions of the attacker, but I could see how the mental torture of the shunning practice after living through all of the above, week after week could push someone over the edge.

That's the big hook they get people with, they do the 'shiny happy people' thing without going overboard very, very well.

Yep, they're lovely people. However, they're really not allowed to express themselves truly as real people. What you're seeing isn't really them. You'll never see them angry, swearing, genuinely upset, it's all just smiling happy faces. If I went back to my local Kingdom Hall 20 years later, I'd be greeted with those same smiles and what seems like genuine interest - keep in mind these are people who haven't spoken to me in 20 years.

There's a phrase they use continually in their publications, to 'put on a new personality' - from Ephesians 4:24

Article here on their website where they try to put a positive spin on it, but it basically amounts to not really being yourself but taking on the whole Jehovah's Witness smiley happy people personality instead. It's all incredibly false.

https://www.jw.org/en/library/magazines/watchtower-study-august-2017/put-on-keep-on-new-personality/

Mirror has a lot more detail, somehow

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/breaking-hamburg-church-shooting-gunman-29422006

You start your post with a completely unrelated comment about immigration despite the fact that gunman is not an immigrant. Do you know what's worse than immigration? Using a random mass murder as an excuse to make a point about immigration.

Hardly a stretch to imagine these shootings could be carried out by islamists. This one may not have been but I make no apologies for assuming it may be an Islamic terrorist attack given the recent history in Europe of attacks. It’s down to good police surveillance that we do not experience more of them.

Btw I’m not sure you give much of a damn who it was or how many died so long as you can soapbox your anti racism credentials.

Why would I give a flying f about who the shooter is? A German shooter is the same as an immigrant shooter. One isn't worse than the other.