France A: Mountain Of Sorrow

While the easy availability of firearms in the U.S. has helped produce an epidemic of violent deaths, the affliction is not uniquely American. Last week in the French village of Luxiol, near the Swiss border, a farmer with a history of mental illness managed to obtain a hunting gun and went on a shooting spree that lasted 30 minutes. When the rampage was over, Christian Dornier, 31, had murdered 14 people, including his mother and sister, and wounded his father and eight others.

Townsfolk speculated that the killer had become deranged because of business problems and opposition to his sister’s recent marriage. After shooting his relatives, Dornier drove through Luxiol (pop. 128) and neighboring communities, picking off people along the way. One villager shot Dornier in the neck with a rifle, but that did not stop him. Eventually captured by police, Dornier was taken to a nearby hospital for emergency treatment. On Friday he was transferred to a prison hospital near Paris, where he was reported in stable condition. Said Luxiol Mayor Roger Clausse, whose five- year-old niece was among the dead: “It’s appalling, the mountain of sorrow that he has caused.”