Massacre in Virginia: 33 students dead

[Fiberfar]

I can't see any reason to take a gun into a school. The problem is that in most US schools, at least, there aren't guards to frisk and remove weapons beforehand. In any case, on a university campus, this is much more difficult to accomplish. Some students live off campus. Others live on, but in the typical campus, it's easy enough to step aside, and there's no rule that says you can't.

That's true, there is no reason to take a gun to school, but I've read on several places that people think students should be able to carry guns on school to protect themselves against something similar Virginia Tech massacre.

[fable]

That's true, there is no reason to take a gun to school, but I've read on several places that people think students should be able to carry guns on school to protect themselves against something similar Virginia Tech massacre.

There is nothing worse than a person who carries a gun and has no idea how to use it--as many people unfortunately do. Not only do accidents occur, but when arguements break out, people are tempted to use whatever comes to hand. A gun in the wrong thing to bring to a frat party, or to carry around when you're pissed at a professor who just gave you a failing grade. And it wouldn't help a bit in the heat of an attack, when you're close to hysteria.

That's one solution which IMO is no solution at all.

[TEMPLAR67]

I'd not like to be around if someone was pulling out a gun and suddenly ten others would do the same to stop that person. They'd likely end up shooting everyone around them with guns.

You do make a good point, even cops seem to have an issue with shooting each other on accident.
and fable, we could go on with this whole gun debate for weeks probably, it would be best to leave it at i have my view and you have yours

There is nothing worse than a person who carries a gun and has no idea how to use it--as many people unfortunately do. Not only do accidents occur, but when arguements break out, people are tempted to use whatever comes to hand. A gun in the wrong thing to bring to a frat party, or to carry around when you're pissed at a professor who just gave you a failing grade. And it wouldn't help a bit in the heat of an attack, when you're close to hysteria.

well at least we can agree on one thing

P.S. kinda new to forums what is flaming

[mr_sir]

Britain has a rising violent crime rate, that is true. Britain also has had a significant rise in gun crime in recent years due to the growing gang culture in some cities. The two are related. There will be violent crime as long as their are humans living close together and having arguments, but the rise in gun crime in the UK is due to people in the UK trying to immitate the gang culture that they percieve America to have as portrayed in the media. Saying that however, I have never once felt in danger in the UK, even when walking alone through London in the middle of the night. Crime happens here just like everywhere else, but it is not happening at the rate which the media claims. The media like to sensationalise everything, and they blow stuff out of proportion. The majority of the UK is still as safe as it ever was, but reporting no crime does not make good headlines.

I personally do feel that legal possession of guns and gun related events are closely linked. People can say what they like about Britain, I'm not a huge fan of the country myself, but since the gun laws were tightened even more after Dunblaine, I cannot think of one instance of there being a case of a mass murder by a maniac wielding a gun. All the gun crimes are generally gang related or robberies.

In the 90s a farmer was jailed for shooting and killing a teenager robbing his farm. He shot him with his rifle/shotgun. If he didn't have a gun at hand, then this would not have happened. Its much harder to consciously be aware of stabbing someone than it is to simply point a gun and pull the trigger out of fear or anger. Yes, stabbings happen, but they take more thought and a lot closer contact than pulling out a gun, and its a lot harder to accidentally thrust a knife into someone than it is to accidently shoot someone while pointing a gun at them, especially if adrenaline is pumping through your body and you are not thinking straight.

P.S. kinda new to forums what is flaming

Flaming is when you make a personal attack against someone, their beliefs, culture, nationality etc. rather than just having a civilised discussion. It is also when you ridicule someone for their beliefs, opinions, or even just for asking a question about a game which you may feel was a stupid question to ask.

[TEMPLAR67]

In the 90s a farmer was jailed for shooting and killing a teenager robbing his farm. He shot him with his rifle/shotgun. If he didn't have a gun at hand, then this would not have happened.

True, it would not have happened, but i believe that every person has the right to protect his property. that farmer should not have been jailed for shooting him.

[mr_sir]

True, it would not have happened, but i believe that every person has the right to protect his property. that farmer should not have been jailed for shooting him.

There is a difference between having the right to protect your property and having the right to kill an unarmed man.

[TEMPLAR67]

There is a difference between having the right to protect your property and having the right to kill an unarmed man.

They can be the exact same thing if defending your property means killing a person. And i dont think we can put all of the blame of the teens death on the farmer, if he had not chosen to be there and attempt to rob that man he would not have been killed.

[mr_sir]

They can be the exact same thing if defending your property means killing a person. And i dont think we can put all of the blame of the teens death on the farmer, if he had not chosen to be there and attempt to rob that man he would not have been killed.

Armed robbery maybe, but there are other ways to protect your property than resorting to killing someone when they are not even armed. I agree they should not have been there and it was therefore their fault, but killing someone because they are on your land when they are unarmed cannot be justified. Further, the farmer did not mean to kill him, yet did because he had a gun. Had he not had a gun, he would have been forced to find other means to protect his land, means that would most likely have resulted in the teenager being arrested rather than being sent to the morgue. Murder or manslaughter are still murder/manslaughter whether they are on your land or not. You might disagree but to me, killing an unarmed man for trespassing can never be justified and no possessions are worth someone dying over.

[Moonbiter]

There is a terrific paranoid delusion nurtured by the NRA and other gun advocacy groups in the USA, and that is that Gun Control = Taking Away The Guns. Without this quite frankly preposterous idea, they wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. They blatantly ignore and push under the table the fact that there are free, democratic countries all around the world where gun ownership under controlled conditions is a normal way of life, and where guns are as plentiful as in the US, without the people shooting each other. A good example is my own country, where guns are absolutely everywhere, yet gun related crime and fatalities is at a minimum. We have IMHO the best gun law in the world, and it doesn’t prevent anyone from owning one except for the specific purpose of shooting another human being. This notion is suppressed by the NRA, and they actually feed the illusion that controlling access to firearms means banning them altogether. They actually make people believe the deranged idea that in a country with 200 million firearms, “They” will come and take them away and leave them defenceless against “Them” whoever that may be. The whole notion is ludicrous, and impossible to achieve no matter what kind of legislature is passed. It is just as impossible up here, but apart from the token nutjobs nobody actually believes it could ever happen.

Gun Control means that a madman like this Cho would never be able to purchase a gun legally. According to CNN the store that sold him the Glock 19 has sold five handguns used for killing during the last year alone. The system is preposterous, as is being proven by the spin doctors of the NRA being out in force this week to do damage control. Instead of promoting the idea of a better controlled distribution system for firearms, they are saying that if the students of Virginia Tech were armed, this wouldn’t have happened! They utterly fail to acknowledge the fact that a person who had been under numerous police investigations for threats and also a medicated mental patient, could walk into a gun shop and buy an automatic pistol and ammo in a five minute transaction. That could not have happened up here, or in any country with a functioning Gun Control system. It must be a basic premise for a civilised society not to help arm psychotic killers. That’s what Gun Control is all about, not preventing ordinary citizens from owning guns.

Of course Gun Control is only one initial step in the right direction. A broad change in mentality is needed through education and information. People need to understand that there is no “Them” out there, only themselves.

[Vicsun]

The latest issue of The Economist just arrived on the doorstep, and they have an interesting, if surprising, take on gun control.

After the Virginia Tech massacre
America's tragedy

Apr 19th 2007
From The Economist print edition
Its politicians are still running away from a debate about guns

The Economist

IN THE aftermath of the massacre at Virginia Tech university on April 16th, as the nation mourned a fresh springtime crop of young lives cut short by a psychopath's bullets, President George Bush and those vying for his job offered their prayers and condolences. They spoke eloquently of their shock and sadness and horror at the tragedy (see article). The Democratic speaker of the House of Representatives called for a “moment of silence”. Only two candidates said anything about guns, and that was to support the right to have them.

Cho Seung-hui does not stand for America's students, any more than Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris did when they slaughtered 13 of their fellow high-school students at Columbine in 1999. Such disturbed people exist in every society. The difference, as everyone knows but no one in authority was saying this week, is that in America such individuals have easy access to weapons of terrible destructive power. Cho killed his victims with two guns, one of them a Glock 9mm semi-automatic pistol, a rapid-fire weapon that is available only to police in virtually every other country, but which can legally be bought over the counter in thousands of gun-shops in America. There are estimated to be some 240m guns in America, considerably more than there are adults, and around a third of them are handguns, easy to conceal and use. Had powerful guns not been available to him, the deranged Cho would have killed fewer people, and perhaps none at all.

But the tragedies of Virginia Tech—and Columbine, and Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, where five girls were shot at an Amish school last year—are not the full measure of the curse of guns. More bleakly terrible is America's annual harvest of gun deaths that are not mass murders: some 14,000 routine killings committed in 2005 with guns, to which must be added 16,000 suicides by firearm and 650 fatal accidents (2004 figures). Many of these, especially the suicides, would have happened anyway: but guns make them much easier. Since the killing of John Kennedy in 1963, more Americans have died by American gunfire than perished on foreign battlefields in the whole of the 20th century. In 2005 more than 400 children were murdered with guns.
The trigger and the damage done

The news is not uniformly bad: gun crime fell steadily throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. But it is still at dreadful levels, and it rose sharply again in 2005. Police report that in many cities it rose even faster in 2006. William Bratton, the police chief of Los Angeles (and formerly of New York), speaks of a “gathering storm of crime”. Politicians on both sides, he says, have been “captured” by the vocal National Rifle Association (NRA). The silence over Virginia Tech shows he has a point.

The Democrats have been the most disappointing, because until recently they had been the party of gun control. In 1994 President Bill Clinton approved a bill banning assault weapons (covering semi-automatic rifles plus high-capacity magazines for handguns) and the year before that a bill imposing a requirement for background checks. But Democrats believe they paid a high price for their courage: losing the House of Representatives in 1994 shortly after the assault-weapons ban, and then losing the presidency in 2000. Had Al Gore held Arkansas or West Virginia or his own Tennessee, all strongly pro-gun, he would have won the election. These days, with hopes for a victory in 2008 dependent on the South and the mountain West, it is a brave Democrat who will talk about gun control. Some of them dismiss the very idea as “insensitive”.

Mr Bush however, has done active damage. On his watch the assault-weapons ban was allowed to lapse in 2004. New laws make it much harder to trace illegal weapons and require the destruction after 24 hours of information gathered during checks of would-be gun-buyers. The administration has also reopened debate on the second amendment, which enshrines the right to bear arms. Last month an appeals court in Washington, DC, overturned the capital's prohibition on handguns, declaring that it violates the second amendment. The case will probably go to the newly conservative Supreme Court, which might end most state and local efforts at gun control.
Freedom yes, but which one?

No phrase is bandied around more in the gun debate than “freedom of the individual”. When it comes to most dangerous products—be they drugs, cigarettes or fast cars—this newspaper advocates a more liberal approach than the American government does. But when it comes to handguns, automatic weapons and other things specifically designed to kill people, we believe control is necessary, not least because the failure to deal with such violent devices often means that other freedoms must be curtailed. Instead of a debate about guns, America is now having a debate about campus security.

Americans are in fact queasier about guns than the national debate might suggest. Only a third of households now have guns, down from 54% in 1977. In poll after poll a clear majority has supported tightening controls. Very few Americans support a complete ban, even of handguns—there are too many out there already, and many people reasonably feel that they need to be able to protect themselves. But much could still be done without really infringing that right.

The assault-weapons ban should be renewed, with its egregious loopholes removed. No civilian needs an AK-47 for a legitimate purpose, but you can buy one online for $379.99. Guns could be made much safer, with the mandatory fitting of child-proof locks. A system of registration for guns and gun-owners, as exists in all other rich countries, threatens no one but the criminal. Cooling-off periods, a much more open flow of intelligence, tighter rules on the trading of guns and a wider blacklist of those ineligible to buy them would all help.

Many of these things are being done by cities or states, and have worked fairly well. But jurisdictions with tough rules are undermined by neighbours with weak ones. Only an effort at the federal level will work. Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, has put together a coalition of no fewer than 180 mayors to fight for just that. Good luck to him.

Thoughts?

[Tricky]

Yes, interesting article. I had no idea guns killed more people on American soil than in the wars it participated in. Kind of makes me wonder if jokingly calling all those deaths within America a civil war would actually belittle the issue.
Thanks for bringing this up.

[fable]

You do make a good point, even cops seem to have an issue with shooting each other on accident.
and fable, we could go on with this whole gun debate for weeks probably, it would be best to leave it at i have my view and you have yours

well at least we can agree on one thing
P.S. kinda new to forums what is flaming

Bear in mind that unlike most "Speak Your Mind" style forums, when you post in serious threads on GameBanshee you will be challenged on inaccurate facts or skewed logic. We pride ourselves on having intelligent members with excellent credentials in a variety of professional fields, who combine courtesy with a love of truth, and some very passionately held beliefs. Responding with courtesy to these questions or corrections is essential if you (or anybody) wants to remain a member of GameBanshee.

So when I point out, for example, that the right to bear arms in the US is not constitutionally guaranteed, that isn't a "view." It's a fact. Whether you like it, or I like it, or anybody else here likes or dislikes it, it's simply true. The same applies to other facts that people post--unless you can point out that they have their facts wrong. And responding with attacks on another nation, or swipes at the people who are in discussion with you, isn't allowed.

That's flaming. Frankly, I'm surprised you haven't heard the term before, but whether you have or not, I'm sure you've seen the genuine article. So please take that into account when you post.

If you want to continue this off-topic discussion, please send me a personal message. But I think this answers your question in full.

Now, let's all get back to cudgeling one anothers' heads with dignity.

[TEMPLAR67]

Armed robbery maybe, but there are other ways to protect your property than resorting to killing someone when they are not even armed. I agree they should not have been there and it was therefore their fault, but killing someone because they are on your land when they are unarmed cannot be justified. Further, the farmer did not mean to kill him, yet did because he had a gun. Had he not had a gun, he would have been forced to find other means to protect his land, means that would most likely have resulted in the teenager being arrested rather than being sent to the morgue. Murder or manslaughter are still murder/manslaughter whether they are on your land or not. You might disagree but to me, killing an unarmed man for trespassing can never be justified and no possessions are worth someone dying over.

That farmer had no way of knowing if the teen was armed or not, if i were in the farmers position i would not wait until he began shooting at me to find out if he was armed or not.

[mr_sir]

That farmer had no way of knowing if the teen was armed or not, if i were in the farmers position i would not wait until he began shooting at me to find out if he was armed or not.

I think this is a difference in cultures - in the UK most burglaries are carried out by unarmed robbers as it is still very difficult to obtain illegal guns unless you have links to the crime or gang world and most common burglars do not have these links, especially those that rob farm houses. It is also impossible to legally purchase guns without a license, and those licenses are very difficult to obtain. As Galrean stated earlier in this thread, only certain members of society have access to licenses and even then they are required to store their weapons securely so they are not obtainable to just anyone - and their storage facilities are checked regularly. I know this as I have several members of my family who have such licenses for various reasons.

[TEMPLAR67]

in the UK most burglaries are carried out by unarmed robbers as it is still very difficult to obtain illegal guns unless you have links to the crime or gang world and most common burglars do not have these links, especially those that rob farm houses.

True, but i still dont see how you can give a criminal the benefit of the doubt, you just cant hope that he is not armed because you consider to be unlikely.
(and by you i dont mean you personally )

[galraen]

True, but i still dont see how you can give a criminal the benefit of the doubt, you just cant hope that he is not armed because you consider to be unlikely.
(and by you i dont mean you personally )

With regard to the case of the farmer (a guy called Martin), what wasn't pointed out by the original poster is the fact that the teens were running away when he shot them in the back.

[TEMPLAR67]

With regard to the case of the farmer (a guy called Martin), what wasn't pointed out by the original poster is the fact that the teens were running away when he shot them in the back.

ok thats different, if someone is running away its best to just call the police since they no longer pose a threat. unless they had just killed a member of your family its kinda pointless to shoot them.

[Obsidian]

In regards to the use of deadly force, as was explained to me during my unarmed combat course.

You require three things to use deadly force (or techniques causing significant injury, like joint destruction)

1) Your opponent must have the intent to kill.

2) You opponent must have the means to kill.

3) They must also have a delivery system.

Intent is clear, either by action or statement, they mean to kill you or cause grevious harm to you or another.
The means requires that they have the capability, by skill or by weapon to kill you.
Clearly, guns increase this drastically.
The third criteria, the delivery system, is closely linked to the means. For example, someone could have the intent to kill me, a knife, so they have the means to do so, but are seperated from me by a fence. Until they cross that fence, I can't shoot them.

The thing about guns is that they greatly increase the threat of means, and delivery. They have the potential to be instantly fatal, and are capable of covering fairly long distances with deadly effect.

Touching back on the right to bear arms to defend yourself from government oppression, seriously consider the weapons you and your friends have access to, and the ones my friends and I use as professional soldiers.

No factor in the degree of training, command and control that defines a soldier.

You'd barely slow us down. So I can't really imagine that owning 20 some weapons provides you any real security against the forces of the government.

Note, my assualt rifle, (named Heathen) is locked securely in the armoury weapons vault, Section C, rack 18.

Can I get to it ina hurry? Nope. Probably 20 mins minimum. Do I have a need to get to it in a hurry? Probably not. Barring zombies or alien invasion.

I think my point is that weapons of a certain power don't belong in the hands of untrained users, with only limited controls on them. Access to my weapon is tightly controlled, and my use of it more so.

[mr_sir]

With regard to the case of the farmer (a guy called Martin), what wasn't pointed out by the original poster is the fact that the teens were running away when he shot them in the back.

Thanks for pointing that out, I actually forgot all about that detail of the events.

@Obsidian, thanks for listing the points from your training. Just one question though, in the US does the same apply when someone is being prosecuted for killing someone in order to determine if it was self defence or murder?

[TEMPLAR67]

Touching back on the right to bear arms to defend yourself from government oppression, seriously consider the weapons you and your friends have access to, and the ones my friends and I use as professional soldiers.

I live in texas so with enough money i would have perfectly legal access to the same weapons that you have, except for things like rocket launchers and the like(they really need to change that )

You'd barely slow us down. So I can't really imagine that owning 20 some weapons provides you any real security against the forces of the government.

6 of those weapons are assault weapons for which i have several thousand rounds of ammo, i could do some serious damage with that, and the rest are big bore rifles and shotguns(gun shows are amazing ), but thats beside the point, i dont think we have to worry about the govt coming after me any time soon

Can I get to it ina hurry? Nope. Probably 20 mins minimum. Do I have a need to get to it in a hurry? Probably not. Barring zombies or alien invasion.

I can get to any of my guns in about 20 seconds, one of them is always loaded(with the clip full nothing in the chamber), i would think that you would have more free access to your weapon being a soldier, im not sure why they would make it such a hassle.
Oh yeah, and a zombie attack would be so much fun