>BERLIN, Germany (CNN) — Fifteen people died Wednesday in the shooting spree in the German town of Winnenden, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) northeast of Stuttgart, police spokeswoman Renate Roesch told CNN.

The shooting, which lasted about two minutes, happened at the Albertville-Realschule Winnenden school, a junior high school, about 9:30 a.m. About 1,000 students attend the school.

Police said the gunman was a 17-year-old former student dressed in military gear.

Authorities had sealed the town off and launched an intense manhunt for the man they described as 1.80m (5’11”) and heavily armed.

According to Welt Online, a shoot out between the gunman and police officers ensued in a grocery store, during which the gunman was killed. Two other people also died during the shootout, which left two police officers seriously wounded, it said.

“It is a small town, an idyllic town,” said Frank Nipkau, the editor in chief of local Winnenden Zeitung newspaper. “The town people are devastated and they can’t understand why this is happening in this town.”

“Police are coming through the whole time. They’re obviously looking all over town for him,” said Roberto Seifert, who works at a company next to the school. “We’ve never had anything like this,” he told Reuters.com by phone.

Security at German schools has been an issue in the past. In November 2006, an 18-year-old former student strapped explosives to his body and went on a rampage at a middle school in western Germany, shooting and wounding six people — most of them students — before killing himself.

In July 2003, a 16-year-old student shot a teacher before taking his own life at a school in the southern German town of Coburg.

A year earlier, 18 people were killed when an expelled student went on a shooting spree at his school in eastern Germany.

Another European country, Finland, is planning to toughen firearms laws after two school shootings there left 20 people dead. Those incidents occurred in November 2007 and September 2008.

Finnish news reports on Wednesday said an Interior Ministry working group has issued a proposal calling for age 20 as the minimum age for handgun ownership and 18 as the minimum for rifles. The proposal will be circulated among legislators.

“Under the proposal, a firearm license applicant would be required to provide a certificate from a shooting club instructor to certify that the applicant has practiced shooting at a gun club for two years prior to applying for a permit.

“The ministry also wants applicants’ health and behavior to come under closer scrutiny and has suggested adopting aptitude tests used by the Defense Forces,” according to yla.fi.