A combo picture shows 18-year-old Pekka-Eric Auvinen who killed eight people in Jokela school in Tuusula, Finland Nov. 7. Auvinen sent a video clip to YouTube the day before the shooting took place. (Xinhua/AFP Photo)
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HELSINKI, Nov. 7 (Xinhua) -- A student who killed eight people on Wednesday in a school shooting in southern Finland and turned the gun on himself died at the hospital on the evening of the same day, the Finnish media reported.
The shooting took place in Jokela High School in Tuusula, some 50 kilometers north of Helsinki, the capital of Finland.
Except that eight people were killed in the shooting, among them, one is headmistress of the school, and others are the school students, several more were injured. The gunman shot himself in the head.
Finnish police identified 18-year-old Pekka-Eric Auvinen as the killer. As a student in Jokela High School, he had no criminal background, and comes from a very normal family of four. He received his gun permit a few weeks ago, and is a member of a shooting club.
According to a recent study, Finland has one of the world's highest gun ownership rates, ranking third behind the United States and Yemen. Most of the registered weapons in Finland are hunting riffles.
Death toll from Finland school shooting rises to eight
Police officers are seen in Tuusula, Finland, Wednesday, Nov. 7, 2007 where a teenager opened fire at a school in southern Finland. (Xinhua/AFP Photo)
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HELSINKI, Nov. 7 (Xinhua) -- Eight people have been killed in a school shooting on Wednesday in Finland's southern city of Tuusula, Finnish police confirmed on Wednesday evening.
Finnish police said at a press conference that the shooter was arrested after a siege. Full story
Finnish PM extends condolences to school shooting victims
HELSINKI, Nov. 7 (Xinhua) -- Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen extended on Wednesday his government's condolences to a school shooting earlier in the day that claimed eight lives and left a few more wounded, government officials said.
After a government session dedicated to the discussion of the tragedy on Wednesday evening, Vanhanen extended his government's heartfelt condolences to the families and friends of victims of the incident. Full story
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An interior window shot through by the killer
Pekka-Eric Auvinen, the gunman who killed eight people in the Jokela school shooting in Finland yesterday, has died in hospital from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

"He died at 22h14 of a one-bullet injury in the head," said traumatology physician Eero Hirvensalo, chief of the Helsinki University Hospital.

Auvinen, 18, murdered his headmistress, school nurse and six students, as well as wounding one other victim, before turning his gun on himself.

When police special units arrived on-scene and entered the school they were initially shot at, but when they reached Auvinen he was already unconscious, and no rounds were fired by the police.

Auvinen had no previous criminal convictions, and had received his gun license several weeks previously. He purchased his gun on October 19.

In a text describing himself on the video sharing site YouTube, where he had posted a total of 89 videos, including some showing him firing his gun and others directly referring to the killing, he said that he was "a cynical existentialist, anti-human humanist, anti-social social-Darwinist, realistic idealist and god-like atheist."

"I am prepared to fight and die for my cause," he continued. "I, as a natural selector, will eliminate all who I see unfit, disgraces of human race and failures of natural selection."