Va. Tech Shooting

[nowensone]

I have a similar gun. It's a great sidearm to have, just incase. This fool, however, respects neither the sidearm nor human life. When "assault weapons" were illegal, the good guys were far out-armed. Thankfully now, we good guys can be just as armed as the bad guys.

If guns were allowed on campuses, this guy probably wouldn't have made it as far as he did.

[Captain Worley]

^Probably more like the bad guys stealing guns from the good guys.

I still can't believe he did that with two handguns. Unreal.

[nowensone]

^ Yes, forgot to make that explicit, those who buy guns legally (because they can) usually sell their guns to the bad guys, but also have them stolen, and with either scenario, the funnel and the direction of flow are the same.

[Captain Worley]

Just a peice of trivia, this is the worst mass shooting in US history. The worst mass murder at a school:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_School_Disaster

I guess there are nuts throughout the ages...

[dgreco]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Tech_massacre

shocking information on the writeup... to see the professors who died and the students it is really sad. In there is says students were locked in the hall to keep the killer inside I guess, that seems a little odd. Obviously 20/20 hindsight says otherwise, but it still makes me wonder. The pictures from a camera phone are pretty crazy too.

[torgo]

What bothers me about the whole thing is that this guy was able to kill two people in a dorm, leave, and go into another building later and kill a bunch more. When I was in college, my dorm was full of people, even at 7 AM. Didn't anyone hear the shots, or see someone leaving?

[FromCityToRural]

I just can't believe that the school wasn't much more proactive in protecting its students. Nobody checks e-mail at that hour, and the email was late, at that. The school is culpable, to a degree, for those that died in the second attack. You can't assume that someone who's nutty enough to shoot up a dorm will necessarily flee.

[dimebag1980]

Humans have proven that as a whole we can not be trusted to respect human life, or a piece of metal and plastic. Based on the VT shooting as well as general trends that are undeniable in the U.S., other countries are already discussing what is wrong with us and our culture. The numbers don't lie, other similar Industrialized nations that have serious restrictions on guns have murder counts in the double digits whereas our large cities are singly and by themselves in three digits. Yet this is lost on people.

I agree with Britain and how it's laws are structured - no handguns or automatics of any kind, just rifles, and even that very strictly. It would be difficult for 33 people to have died if the shooter at VT had to use a rifle, in fact, he wouldn't have easily moved from place to place with such a large weapon unseen.

Drunken people with guns are dangerous and deadly, drunken ones without them are not nearly as much (drunks in vehicles not relevant here). A gun can kill instantaneously and from a distance, other means of killing a person are more difficult and time consuming and drunken people will usually get separated before death can occur (generally). You can shoot several people in the time it takes for a few people to wrestle you to the ground and take away your gun. A guy with a knife has to be a couple of feet from a person and hit the right areas, and isn't likely to stab someone on the far side of the room in the process.

As far as the "bad guys" having guns and the "good guys" needing them for protection, I have a solution to this problem - completely end the sale of ammunition for a time until guns can be safely confiscated. Cops don't confiscate now because there aren't enough cops and we don't want to lose all of our cops. And they wouldn't want that job unless it was much safer. It wouldn't be a perfect solution, but would limit the casual shooter significantly.

The problem with the "good guys" having guns is that they are typically the ones providing the bad ones with theirs, not rogue cops, not 3rd world nations, and not the military. The good guys purchase and sell their guns to the gang bangers and unstable suburban teenagers since their records are clean. Gun dealers sell to the bad guys. The obvious problem is with the definition of "good guy", who by our standards is anyone who has not yet been proven to be a "bad guy".

[suburban george3]

We have the right to keep and bear arms, and if we want to own an arsenal we should be allowed to do so. No one should tell us what kind of firepower we should have. And in the event it ever gets to the point where we can only have weak or slow weapons, we will be outarmed by the bad guys and there will be even more loss of life and property.

[Gusterfell]

We have the right to keep and bear arms, and if we want to own an arsenal we should be allowed to do so. No one should tell us what kind of firepower we should have. And in the event it ever gets to the point where we can only have weak or slow weapons, we will be outarmed by the bad guys and there will be even more loss of life and property.

[monsoon]

The Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly that "the right to bear arms" doesn't work that way. Look at the language used in the Constitution: "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." In legalese, "the people" refers to the public as a group. If the 2nd amendment meant to extend the right to all individual citizens, it would have used the term "persons," plural of "person," as is done when referring to individual rights elsewhere in the Constitution. Furthermore, at the time the 2nd amendment was written, the phrase "to bear arms" was a common euphamism for military service, and would have been understood as such. The amendment guarantees the American public the right to organize and serve in a "well-regulated militia" for its defense, nothing more. It certainly doesn't allow individual citizens to stockpile arsenals of whatever weapons they choose.......

[torgo]

The gun laws are fine. If a law-abiding citizen wants to buy a pistol, then he/she should be able to do so. Even with the toughest gun laws on earth, some whack job will always be able to get a gun and go shoot a bunch of people if he/she really wants to. However, the idea that everything would have been fine if all these college kids were carrying concealed weapons is insane. I was in college recently, and most of those people couldn't handle the responsibility of owning a chia pet, much less a firearm.

[nowensone]

But this whole theory of yours isn't based in reality... the reality is, the bad people will always have the guns that the good people won't have, whether a ban is in place or not. There is a black market for everything illegal, and guns are a hot commodity on the black market... more specifically, any gun that is outlawed or unregistered.

We have the right to keep and bear arms, and if we want to own an arsenal we should be allowed to do so. No one should tell us what kind of firepower we should have. And in the event it ever gets to the point where we can only have weak or slow weapons, we will be outarmed by the bad guys and there will be even more loss of life and property.

Screw the gun laws... it's bad government. Try forcing states to enforce the death penalty for the people who are committing serious crimes and killing others, whether they're insane people, retards, kids, etc... it doesn't matter. If someone kills someone else or commits any other type of serious crime, the government should just off the sick beotchs and allow the rest of us to own whatever kind of weapons stockpiles we want to own.

[cityboi]

I think the governemnt is not cracking down on gun laws. Its so easy for these kids to get these kind of guns on the streets.

[erdogs]

This punk did not do these killings because of a lack of gun laws. He actually waited the thirty days to get the second weapon. He planed this for quite a while and was going kill one way or the other. Maybe he straps bombs to himself and kills even more people. I don't think you can honestly blame this on our second amendment rights.

The difference between our country and Europe, is we have a much more violent society. We have too many young men full of testosterone that want to prove what bad arses they are. We have a culture that looks up to people like fifty cent and want to emulate. We have video games based on mowing down as many people as you can, as fast as you can. We all know how violent our movies are.

If you ban guns, you leave us all vulnerable to home invasions and other violent acts. If you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns.

[Snowguy716]

We should have strict gun registration. You should have to renew your registration yearly at the local police station. If you wish to sell or dispose of your gun, you have to register that with the police station as well. Also, it should be a crime to lose possession of your gun. If your gun is stolen, the gun OWNER should be responsible to a degree. If you're an upstanding citizen who chooses to own guns, then you should take the responsibility of keeping those weapons safely in your possession.

Just like its against the law to lose control of your vehicle, even if its because there was unexpected ice on the road, gun owners need to take responsibility.

Gun control laws won't prevent massacres like the one yesterday. What they will prevent, however, are crimes of passion, accidents, etc. that happen without warning and without pre-meditation.

I come from a state where hunting is second nature. Some schools get deer hunting opener off of school. I understand the role that guns can play a positive role in society. But we shouldn't ignore the ills that guns produce in the name of "rights." Not when people who legally own guns go and kill someone when that death could have been prevented if the assailant hadn't had a gun.

[Lowerdeck]

This punk did not do these killings because of a lack of gun laws. He actually waited the thirty days to get the second weapon. He planed this for quite a while and was going kill one way or the other. Maybe he straps bombs to himself and kills even more people. I don't think you can honestly blame this on our second amendment rights.

The difference between our country and Europe, is we have a much more violent society. We have too many young men full of testosterone that want to prove what bad arses they are. We have a culture that looks up to people like fifty cent and want to emulate. We have video games based on mowing down as many people as you can, as fast as you can. We all know how violent our movies are.

If you ban guns, you leave us all vulnerable to home invasions and other violent acts. If you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns.

[Gusterfell]

The difference between our country and Europe, is we have a much more violent society. We have too many young men full of testosterone that want to prove what bad arses they are. We have a culture that looks up to people like fifty cent and want to emulate. We have video games based on mowing down as many people as you can, as fast as you can. We all know how violent our movies are.

[Captain Worley]

If we have a more violent society, it is due to the ease of commiting a crime, not to any innate difference between Americans and Europeans.

[monsoon]

The difference between our country and Europe, is we have a much more violent society. We have too many young men full of testosterone that want to prove what bad arses they are. We have a culture that looks up to people like fifty cent and want to emulate. We have video games based on mowing down as many people as you can, as fast as you can. We all know how violent our movies are.

[Pillsbury]

I think guns are needed for safety---certainly not automatic weapons, just some sort of defense against criminals. I'm not a fan of guns by any means (I don't own one) but they are the great equalizer between weak and strong.

In simpler terms, I don't own a gun and don't really care about them, but when my fiance starts working late shifts at the hospital, I would want her to have a gun kept in her car.

[nowensone]

This punk did not do these killings because of a lack of gun laws. He actually waited the thirty days to get the second weapon. He planed this for quite a while and was going kill one way or the other. Maybe he straps bombs to himself and kills even more people. I don't think you can honestly blame this on our second amendment rights.

The difference between our country and Europe, is we have a much more violent society. We have too many young men full of testosterone that want to prove what bad arses they are. We have a culture that looks up to people like fifty cent and want to emulate. We have video games based on mowing down as many people as you can, as fast as you can. We all know how violent our movies are.

If you ban guns, you leave us all vulnerable to home invasions and other violent acts. If you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns.

[Pillsbury]

Best I understand though, many in England are fearful of the increased crime. While it's true that murder and rape are much higher in the USA, many other forms of crime, such as home invasions are much higher in England (especially while the occupants are there). I'm not sure how this relates to guns, but I would seriously expect Europe to have lower levels of crime than the USA given its more educated populace and the social programs in place to help its poorest citizens.

I agree though that guns, especially handguns, should not be easy to get. I think you should be put under the highest scrutiny to get a gun, which is, sad to say, just not done in the Southern states.

[monsoon]

Just yesterday there were two separate school lockdowns in Charlotte due to gun incidents. In one case a 16 year old threatened people with a gun then went outside and shot himself dead right in town. The details of this are not out yet, but I would suspect the gun was most likely from his own home.

Guns are way too easy to get, and I don't buy the argument that people need them for protection so, as a result, lets anyone buy one.

[nowensone]

^ I saw that, and was surpirsed that he got a gun inside the school, aren't all CMS schools equipped with metal detectors now?