ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkiye will tighten gun-ownership rules and increase penalties for owners whose children find the firearms, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday after last week's rare, deadly school shootings.
The second of the two separate attacks by students last week killed eight pupils and a teacher in a southeastern province of Kahramanmaras, shocking a nation in which such school-based violence is very rare.
Erdogan said the government will also take additional steps to monitor the internet as part of its response to the incidents.
Kahramanmaras province governor Mukerrem Unluer earlier said that a teacher and three students were killed in the attack. The attacker was also dead.
"A student came to school with guns that we believe belonged to his father in his backpack. He entered two classrooms and opened fire randomly, causing injuries and deaths," Unluer told reporters.
The attacker, an eighth-grade student, was the son of a former police officer, Unluer said, adding that the suspect was carrying five guns and seven magazines.
"We suspect he may have taken his father's weapons," the governor said.
Unluer said the attacker was also dead.
"He shot himself. It is not yet clear whether this was suicide or happened amid the chaos," he said.
Footage released by IHA private news agency showed a person, body and face covered, being evacuated in an ambulance, as well as tearful parents who had rushed to the school in the southern province's main city, Kahramanmaras.
Witnesses quoted by media said intense gunfire was heard.