atleast 20 killed in campus shooting at Virginia Tech
POSTED BY: Feity
UPDATED: Friday, November 7, 2025 15:59
VIEWED: 17813
PAGE 8 of 12
Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
While I don't see it as my responsiblity to protect others, I can and will protect myself such as is reasonable and possible from for lack of a better word, baddies.
Sorry for saying so, but I have exactly zero confidence that you can do so without negatively effecting those in your line of fire, innocent or not. Go ahead and protect yourself in whatever way you want. But, as soon as it /is/ going to effect those around you, you have the responsibility to consider them.
As in, you may not have the responsibility to protect them from the danger that you will be protecting yourself from, but you have exactly the responsibility (and duty as a citizen) to protect them from yourself.
Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
Believe me, I'd *like* to live in a world where these kind of things don't happen, but as long as we do, I plan to ensure to the best of my ability that they don't happen to ME.
And what's so very wrong with that, then ?
That's an easy one given what you've just said. You see, there is no possible way that you can prevent these things from happening to you, period. Don't you see that carrying and using a firearm is /reactionary/. By definition a firearm can _not_ prevent. It can only be used to /react/ to a situation that has already happened!
And if you are as old and in as poor health as you imply, how exactly are you supposed to get "the drop" on someone who is likely to be in better health than you? Not to mention that they'll already be have there gun out and at the ready.
Don't you see that by pulling out your weapon (and possibly firing) your provoking an extremely dangerous reaction in an already dangerous situation? One that is more than just likely to cause people to be killed.
I honestly don't think that you've thought this through at all. Here's a clue. You're not the hero, and you're not going to save the day. You're going to get people killing by making that powder keg go off.
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I am on The List. We are The Forsaken and we aim to burn!
"We don't fear the reaper"
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Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
You know how you can spot a Canadian in a crowd of USers? They walk with their heads up, looking around with interest. USers OTOH are defensive, furtive folk, used to trying to avoid being a target.
Not ALL places are dangerous hostile little worlds. Some places are quite pacifist, nice places to visit, to work and live, actually. My question is - how does the US get from here to there.
- Treatment not prison
- shifting priorities from self-centered to others
- starting to respect education
- move the society away from a military one
- get rid of Fundamentalist Christianity (i.e. Evangelical)
I could go on. There was many disturbing things I noticed when I lived in Berkeley. But, IMO, that'd be a great start. But, education is key for any of this to happen.
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I am on The List. We are The Forsaken and we aim to burn!
"We don't fear the reaper"
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Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/guncrime.htm
Note the Brady Bill was passed in 1993.
This makes sense. IMO, having strict gun laws makes it harder for the criminals to get them. Or at least it significantly increases the risk. Thus, the street price will go up making guns unavailable to a lot of people if only due to cost.
Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
The other way I could interpret gun bills is this - the laws are too fragmented from state to state and too full of loopholes, giving easy access to anyone with motivation. The house of straw isn't holding up. Maybe one needs a house of brick.
Such as federal law that can't be easily countered by state law?
----
I am on The List. We are The Forsaken and we aim to burn!
"We don't fear the reaper"
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Sig, you've been downright hostile and insulting to an offensive degree, unlike Rue who's actually discussing the matter, you have decided to take up an arbitrary, phoney, and hostile position based on some damned ridiculous assumptions of my intent and character.
I highly suggest you READ some of the posts I have made instead of classing me as some gung ho wannabe militia nutter while spouting off some idealistic position you've entrenched yourself in so firmly that no reason or reality will move you.
You wanna be an ass, that's fine, but i'm done discussing the matter with you due to your zealotry.
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Nonsense. Gun licenses are there to ensure that people know how to use and maintain a weapon. This is /very/ important from a safety point of view. Keeping guns off the streets means lessening accidental shootings. Keeping very powerful weapons in the hands of law enforcement and/or the military ensures very not intelligent people don't blow the neighbourhood up... literally.
Only allowing bodyguards, etc to carry is actually appropriate. Keep the guns in the hands of the people who are protecting, and try to keep the guns out of the ones trying to do the killing.
1) Licenses are a permission slip to do something that is otherwise illeagal.
2) Using this logic people who are poor become once again victims, serfs, & slaves (even if by other names)
3) Not once in all the years I've had a carry permit has anyone asked my about my level of training.
4) Not once in all the years that I've owned firearms have I ever shot at a living soul.
5) I have lived in a neighborhood where a good friend of mines apartment was broken into 3 times, & I got to sleep for 2 nights on the floor of the outer room with a shotgun for company because the police couldn't/wouldn't take action.
6) In the US because we do have a level of personal freedom everyone gets a free criminal act...& if it happens to be murder...
7) The Texas sniper all those years ago...ex marine, Lee Harvey Oswald..ex Marine, there are many other examples, they had a high level of training & were trusted by the government to use deadly force...yes?
8) The shooter (according to the official line) bought his guns leagally, therefore his name & background was run through the NCIC computers & the Government said it was ok to own a handgun
9) As to the world has changed comment...is it safer, does man no longer make war against his brother, do governments no longer seek to subjugate thier people, do men no longer kill/maim to posess women/land/wealth etc.?
10) Would you feel better if he drove an UPS truck packed with explosives into the lobby? (I can walk into any grocery store in the world & get the chemicals nessecasry to make 1 hekuva bomb)
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Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
When it comes to 'gun laws' I don't think the laws on the books mean much if they're not enforced. Not to shame any particular country, but there are many countries with great laws on the books that have nasty reputations as being extremely corrupt. http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0781359.html
Not sure that this correlates directly to gun law enforcement, since corrupt governments usually don't want the general populace armed, but anyway.
Quote:
So rather than looking at gun laws, it would be more meaningful to correlate per capita number of guns with gun-related homicides. I think it would be VERY useful to be able to pull figures on per capita handguns v gun-related homicides.
Probably kind of hard to do, as capturing statistics on illegal gun ownership is kind'a tricky. For example, back in Jamaica, there are 65,000 registered guns, and 900 murders a year, most with guns(still looking for precise figures, but lets say 75%).
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/html/20021123T230000-0500_35669_OB
S_LEGAL_GUN_SUPPLIES_DRY_UP.asp
In the US, the best estimate is about 200 million guns, and 8259 murders with firearms. http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_wit_fir-crime-murders-with-f
irearms
So in Jamaica, one out of every 96 guns, on average, is used in a murder. In the US its one out of every 24000 or so.
But, you say, that only covers legally owned guns in Jamaica. Okay then, let's turn it around. figure 675 gun murders in Jamaica times the 24000 guns per murder of the US, and you get a bit over 16 million. There are 2.75 million people in Jamaica, or almost 6 guns per man, woman, and child. I suspect that the number of guns, legal and illegal, in Jamaica is somewhat less than that.
Somewhere in passing I also noticed that Finland has the third highest per capita gun ownership, after the US and Yemen, yet only 14% of murders in Finland are committed with guns.
Quote:
And I thought there was an interesting omission in the charts and that was gun murder v modal income.
I could swear I've sen that somewhere. I'll look around.
Quote:
But since we are talking about the US, it stands far above any developed nation in gun-related homicides. What are the factors in the US that make it an elephantine exception to all other developed countries?
If you just look at the numbers, the biggest bulges in groups who commit murder are by gender, race, and age.
We could reduce homicide 88.7% by getting rid of all the men.
http://www.ojp.gov/bjs/homicide/gender.htm
-or 65% by getting rid of everyone 18 thru 34 years old. http://www.ojp.gov/bjs/homicide/teens.htm
-or 54.1% by getting rid of everyone who's not white. http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/race.htm
-or we could have a total gun ban, which, to be effective, would require enforcement measures which would make the Patriot Act look like a license for anarchy.
-or we could give everyone a mandatory lie detector test monthly, to be reasonably sure they weren't planning to commit a crime.
-or we could strictly enforce all the local, state, and federal laws already on the books relating to use of a firearm in the commission of a crime, and build a bunch more prisons.
-or
-or
-or
You got an easy answer? I sure don't.
"Keep the Shiny side up"
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Simple solution,
Lock everyone in a maximum security facility, plastic & paper tableware, slippers without laces etc.
You can have social interaction with other human beings only under close supervision & state sanction.
Let us just assume that everyone is a natural born killer (to an extent we are) & treat all people accordingly...oh wait wouldn't the guards & wardens etc. also be human?
I know let's build security robots & allow them to dictate the rules to us dumb animals (wasn't there a Trek episode like that?)
Let us build the hardware to prevent our hurting each other with hardware.
Let's implement "tool control" no more hammers (listen to the lyrics of Bang-Bang Maxwell), no more knives (Jack the Ripper et. al.), no more pencils or pens (the're sharp), no saws (particularly chain saws), certianly no nail guns.
Where do we stop?
When do we admit that there are those among us that are always going to commit atrocities, Jack-the-Ripper, Gengis Kahn, Adolph Hitler, Al Bundy, Jeffry Dahmer, Saddam Hussein, etc.; etc.; etc.
Remember too that those that want safety...if you sacrifice freedom for safety...you get/& deserve niether.
Just out of curiosity...does anyone out there really believe that if guns were ejected off the planet there wouldn't be any more murder?
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I take back what I said, I want Don Imus back in the headlines. Should've seen this completely pointless and irrelevant gun control debate being restarted as a result of the shootings. 
"The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter."
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Quote:
Originally posted by SigmaNunki:
Only allowing bodyguards, etc to carry is actually appropriate. Keep the guns in the hands of the people who are protecting, and try to keep the guns out of the ones trying to do the killing.
There were 15,000 student on that campus. One was a killer, the rest law abiding citizens. Campus rules don't allow students to have guns on campus, thus there were 15,000 unarmed law abiding citizens and one armed killer.
Now suppose a reasonable gun policy, one that ensured that only folk with clean records and some training could carry and that there was no campus rule banning guns. Even if only half of 1% chose to carry that would leave the killer outnumbered 75-1. Much better odds then before.
It is sad but true that one armed law abiding student or professor could possibly (although not likely) have stopped this killer. But five, ten, fifteen, the more law abiding persons armed the more likely lives are saved.
The other argument is for stricter laws...this person committed mass murder and suicide...don't think a felony gun violation would have been a big deterrent.
H
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And it just gets weirder.
Quote:
BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) - The gunman blamed for the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history had previously been accused of stalking two female students at Virginia Tech and had been taken to a mental health facility in 2005 after an acquaintance worried he might be suicidal, police said Wednesday.
Cho Seung-Hui had concerned one woman enough with his calls and e-mail in 2005 that police were called in, said Police Chief Wendell Flinchum.
He said the woman declined to press charges, and neither woman was among the victims of Monday's massacre on the Virginia Tech campus.
During the stalking second incident, also in late 2005, the department received a call from an acquaintance of Cho's who was concerned that he might be suicidal, and Cho was taken to a mental health facility, Flinchum said. About the same time, in fall 2005, Cho's professor informally shared some concerns about the young man's writing but no official report was filed, he said.
http://wtop.com/?nid=644&sid=1116587
So if either of the two women had pressed stalking charges that led to a conviction or a restraining order, Cho would have popped up on the NICS instant check when he tried to buy a gun, and been turned down (and probably arrested).
Also, if someone had followed through on the questions of his sanity and he had been involuntarily committed, he'd have shown up on NICS for that.
http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cjisd/nics.htm
"Keep the Shiny side up"
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