IF VA TECH HADN'T OUTLAWED GUNS ON CAMPUS

[missmanners]

10 years of no lone gunmen massacres in the UK

A series of bomb attacks on London's transport network has killed more than 30 people and injured about 700 others.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4661059.stm


Interesting your homegrown terrorist group hasnt been active in 10 years, but before that......

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1201738.stm

so let me repeat....

Gun Control will not control the actions of a determined crazy person. If he/she can't get or make a gun, he'll find another way....

mm

 

[Mentalist]

Well 7/7 was a "terrorist" attack and the Irish Republican Army are, well, Irish.

Not to say that there isn't a lot of violence in England. There is. It's just this insane gun culture doesn't exist over there.


And as I said in my previous post "gun control" isn't a blanket statement. That's not to say that having stricter controls on weapons will not help the situation though. It has to be a component in some capacity at some point.

There is no one fix but one thing is clear: Adding more guns to the situation won't end up solving the problem of when guys go haywire they can strap themselves up like Rambo and act out their frustrations with life in a rather deadly way..

 

[headvoid]

The UK legislation was aimed directly at lone law abiding gun owners who love their mom a little too much.

It has been successful. No lone gunmen killings in 10 years.

I own a gun, my ownership is regulated and I have to pass very easy tests regularly. Why do people have a problem with this?

 

[Mentalist]

And our accents are cool.

 

[Sarek]

Va Tech graduating class of 2007.......
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[Donovan]

Possibly. But instead, a lot of unarmed citizens got killed.



They give them cars. Frankly, that scares me more than the thought of one having a gun.

Besides, there's nothing going on on campus that doesn't happen off campus in bar districts. And we haven't seen and incredible rise in bar fight related murders.

To paraphrase a point already made, a person cannot generally pick off 33 people with a single automobile.

 

[Sarek]

To paraphrase a point already made, a person cannot generally pick off 33 people with a single automobile.

Drive through San Francisco. Pedestrian bowling is to San Francisco what broomball was to New York.

 

[Tyrant]

To paraphrase a point

To paraphrase a fucking no-nothing who wants to debate ZE GERMANS:

I've just run out of hyperbole. Sorry. Seeya next season.

 

[Mentalist]

The disclosure followed word from university police that Cho had been accused of stalking women students and was taken to a psychiatric hospital in 2005 because of worries he was suicidal.
A Virginia court order issued at the time declared him "mentally ill and in need of hospitalization," saying he presented "an imminent danger to self or others," ABC News reported.

Yet nothing was done and because there was no proper gun control he was still able to buy guns and ammo with ease.

 

[Mentalist]

 

[jack]

He may have taken those between killings too. He got the zipcode wrong, though, so he kind of fucked up what he really wanted to do.

 

[Alex Buchet]

This wackjob should never ever ever have been allowed to purchase a gun. WTF shows up on the background check ?

CNN also learned Wednesday that in 2005 Cho was declared mentally ill by a Virginia special justice, who declared he was "an imminent danger" to himself, a court document states.

A temporary detention order from General District Court in the commonwealth of Virginia said Cho "presents an imminent danger to himself as a result of mental illness."

A box indicating that the subject "Presents an imminent danger to others as a result of mental illness" was not checked.

In another part of the form, Cho was described as "mentally ill and in need of hospitalization, and presents an imminent danger to self or others as a result of mental illness, or is so seriously mentally ill as to be substantially unable to care for self, and is incapable of volunteering or unwilling to volunteer for treatment."

 

[RobL]

Shit.

Well, I said I wasn't going to post at all about this. However, I've got some things on my chest that I've got to get off, so here it goes....

This is a failure of multiple organizations, people, and scopes. First, after the first shooting, the local law enforcement should have done more to lock down the campus and actually LOOK for the dude. They didn't. They thought that it was an "isolated" incident, and took absolutely NO steps to protect the citizens at large. I'm actually not surprised at this. Most local schools (California schools, anyway) have their own law enforcement agencies, and they like to keep everything "internal." They hate to have outside juristictions in their campus. If they had been a little bit more open about what was going on, and asked for help, then perhaps it wouldn't have been so bad.

Second, this is why only CITIZENS of this country should be allowed to purchase firearms. If you aren't allowed, capable, or willing to take that oath, then sorry, you don't have the right to bear arms. Period.

Third, and I thought that I'd never say this, but perhaps the "10 day cooling off" period that we have out here in California is a good thing. Of course, once you have some guns, its quite silly, but in this case it would have prevented the handgun related deaths.

Fourth, this was going to happen anyway, even without the guns. Look at the pictures of the dude with the knife and the hammer. He was going out to kill people. It just so happened that guns were the easier way to do it. And, probably just as many people would have been dead because, surprise, VA TECH had a "no firearms" policy. One single student with firearms training, or professor, or whoever could have ended this quickly with less dead bodies in the hallway. And for those of you who were claiming before that all college students were druggie/drunkards who couldn't be trusted, then you have shit for brains. Not everybody goes to college to do that shit. You have a lot of retired military people who did their service, and are now using their well earned grants to pay for their education. That's not including off-duty/retired law enforcement, or others who have had some sort of previous gun training. If anything, this is an argument for MORE concealed carry, not less.

Fifth, it just goes to show how silly the federal forms are that you have to fill out at the time of purchase. This guy was crazy. Straight up, no fucking doubt about it. Yet, he walked in, and when he filled out the federal form, he wrote "no" to the "Have you ever be found mentally defective, or been hospitalized for any mental disorder?" (or however it goes) question. And, there is no *Legal* way to check if he's lying, because all that kind of info is considered confidential under the "Healthcare Information Protection Act." I mean, sure, if they do find out about it at some later time, they can throw him in prision, but if he's just going to go out and cap some people, and then himself, I'm sure the thought of doing five to ten in a federal prision isn't going to stop him.

I am sure there are other factors that will play into this when its all analyzed in the coming weeks. And I'm sure that guns, and gun ownership will take the biggest blame and be lambasted in the media. However, just blaming they gun industry, gun owners, the NRA, or whoever isn't going to prevent the next crazy from offing a shitload of people. And even if you do find a way to remove all the guns from society, it will still happen, because there will still be crazies out there who want to kill others.

 

[Sarek]

The only question I have in regard to that is, again, just like after Columbine, law enforcement agencies all over the country are talking about "lessons learned". We just got notified that we're going to be going through some training for this type of situation soon, again, I guess.

But the question I have is, what the fuck have we learned? The shit keeps happening and the higher ups keep making the same damn stupid decisions.

 

[RobL]

The only question I have in regard to that is, again, just like after Columbine, law enforcement agencies all over the country are talking about "lessons learned". We just got notified that we're going to be going through some training for this type of situation soon, again, I guess.

But the question I have is, what the fuck have we learned? The shit keeps happening and the higher ups keep making the same damn stupid decisions.

Isn't that the usual way it is, though? The command staff only looks after their own hides after all.

 

[dogbert]

I say we need stricter gun laws. Some kind of waiting period to do background checks to make sure the purchasers arent loonies. But the NRA says they want guns in the hands of loonies because they look out for the rights of loonies.

 

[Cacophony]

I'm sure most of you have seen the video he sent to NBC.

I watched it. I probably shouldn't have, because it feels wrong to comply with the intentions of a lunatic, but I was curious to see what could possibly cause someone to act like he did. And what did I see? A complete avoidance of responsibility.

He blamed the world for his problems. He was quick to jump on everyone else while completely disregarding the fact that maybe it wasn't the world that was at fault, it was him. The statement "You caused me to do this..." is complete bullshit. The only thing that caused him to go on a killing spree was his own depraved belief that the world needed to be punished for not handing him things on a silver platter.

The problem is not so much a lack of gun restrictions. Granted, he was easily able to acquire and gun to go on his rampage, but had he not been able to, he would have found a different way to release his wrath on the world. He might not have been so successful knifing his way through campus, but what if he had made a bomb? The fact that 33 people died is horrible, but the death toll could have been much higher had he strategically placed bombs around the buildings. I don't see the fact that he was able to get guns or that others on campus were not allowed to carry them as a problem. I see the ever-increasing mentality that people should be spoonfed by the world as the problem. Had he stepped back and saw his problem as just that - his problem, he might have been able to adjust his life to deal with it. But no, he chose to ignore that he had any responsibility in how his life turns out. I understand that he had a history of mental illness, and this could have resulted in how he viewed the world, but it's not just him that I'm talking about. I see people my age every day just waiting for the world to drop a juicy piece of meat on their plate so they can eat it up. They expect it. And when it doesn't happen, they get extremely angry.

I'm also a bit curious about the handgun laws in VA, if anyone knows. My parents got their New York pistol permits a year or so ago, and they had to jump through hoops to get them. I remember that they had to go be interviewed for them (at the State police barracks, if I remember right) and they had to wait for months before they got them. I know NY is a tad bit more liberal than VA, but I can't imagine someone just going into a store and having to fill out minimal paperwork to obtain a gun.

 

[Alex Buchet]

I'm also a bit curious about the handgun laws in VA, if anyone knows. My parents got their New York pistol permits a year or so ago, and they had to jump through hoops to get them. I remember that they had to go be interviewed for them (at the State police barracks, if I remember right) and they had to wait for months before they got them. I know NY is a tad bit more liberal than VA, but I can't imagine someone just going into a store and having to fill out minimal paperwork to obtain a gun.

Thoughtful post. FYI, Virginia has some of most liberal gun laws in the country. It's a "shall issue" state, which means that, unless there is a reason to deny a person a gun, that person must be sold a gun that day. New York and New Jersey have much stricter laws, and it would have been very difficult for Cho to obtain a weapon in those states.

In Virginia, there are federally-mandated background checks (b/c of the Brady bill), which check a driver's license against a state-run database. Convicted criminals are in that database, and people who have been involuntarily committed to a mental hospital are supposed to be in it as well. Even though Cho had been committed and deemed a danger in the past, he somehow wasn't flagged.

The Brady bill mandates only that bg checks occur for the sale of new guns by stores or licensed dealers. Used guns (approx 40% of gun sales) are not subject to background checks, which essentially means gun buyers who know they can't pass a bg check will try to buy one resale.

 

[Cacophony]

In Virginia, there are federally-mandated background checks (b/c of the Brady bill), which check a driver's license against a state-run database. Convicted criminals are in that database, and people who have been involuntarily committed to a mental hospital are supposed to be in it as well. Even though Cho had been committed and deemed a danger in the past, he somehow wasn't flagged.

The Brady bill mandates only that bg checks occur for the sale of new guns by stores or licensed dealers. Used guns (approx 40% of gun sales) are not subject to background checks, which essentially means gun buyers who know they can't pass a bg check will try to buy one resale.

I guess I can understand VA having somewhat lax laws about gun control. I can't imagine that there's the amount of gun crime in VA that there is just in NYC. But regardless, guns, especially handguns, should not be that easy to get. I didn't think that the process my parents went through was at all unreasonable, and neither did they. I wouldn't be object to more stringent gun control laws, as long as they are not denying the average citizen the right to bear arms. I plan on getting a pistol permit eventually (I grew up shooting guns and though I don't hunt, I love to target practice) and if I can't get it immediately, I'd be fine with that.

I'm still not trying to blame the (maybe lack of?) gun buying restrictions in VA, because that's not the crux the problem. Maybe I'm just a realist, but it amazes me how many people think that the world is a perfect little place and flip a shit when they find out that it isn't.

 

[Cassie]

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YzEzYzQ0Y2MyZjNlNjY1ZTEzMTA0MGRmM2EyMTQ0NjY=

A Culture of Passivity
"Protecting" our "children" at Virginia Tech.

By Mark Steyn

I haven’t weighed in yet on Virginia Tech — mainly because, in a saner world, it would not be the kind of incident one needed to have a partisan opinion on. But I was giving a couple of speeches in Minnesota yesterday and I was asked about it and found myself more and more disturbed by the tone of the coverage. I’m not sure I’m ready to go the full Derb but I think he’s closer to the reality of the situation than most. On Monday night, Geraldo was all over Fox News saying we have to accept that, in this horrible world we live in, our “children” need to be “protected.”

Point one: They’re not “children.” The students at Virginia Tech were grown women and — if you’ll forgive the expression — men. They would be regarded as adults by any other society in the history of our planet. Granted, we live in a selectively infantilized culture where twentysomethings are “children” if they’re serving in the Third Infantry Division in Ramadi but grown-ups making rational choices if they drop to the broadloom in President Clinton’s Oval Office. Nonetheless, it’s deeply damaging to portray fit fully formed adults as children who need to be protected. We should be raising them to understand that there will be moments in life when you need to protect yourself — and, in a “horrible” world, there may come moments when you have to choose between protecting yourself or others. It is a poor reflection on us that, in those first critical seconds where one has to make a decision, only an elderly Holocaust survivor, Professor Librescu, understood instinctively the obligation to act.

Point two: The cost of a “protected” society of eternal “children” is too high. Every December 6th, my own unmanned Dominion lowers its flags to half-mast and tries to saddle Canadian manhood in general with the blame for the “Montreal massacre,” the 14 female students of the Ecole Polytechnique murdered by Marc Lepine (born Gamil Gharbi, the son of an Algerian Muslim wife-beater, though you’d never know that from the press coverage). As I wrote up north a few years ago:

Yet the defining image of contemporary Canadian maleness is not M Lepine/Gharbi but the professors and the men in that classroom, who, ordered to leave by the lone gunman, meekly did so, and abandoned their female classmates to their fate — an act of abdication that would have been unthinkable in almost any other culture throughout human history. The “men” stood outside in the corridor and, even as they heard the first shots, they did nothing. And, when it was over and Gharbi walked out of the room and past them, they still did nothing. Whatever its other defects, Canadian manhood does not suffer from an excess of testosterone.

I have always believed America is different. Certainly on September 11th we understood. The only good news of the day came from the passengers who didn’t meekly follow the obsolescent 1970s hijack procedures but who used their wits and acted as free-born individuals. And a few months later as Richard Reid bent down and tried to light his shoe in that critical split-second even the French guys leapt up and pounded the bejasus out of him.

We do our children a disservice to raise them to entrust all to officialdom’s security blanket. Geraldo-like “protection” is a delusion: when something goes awry — whether on a September morning flight out of Logan or on a peaceful college campus — the state won’t be there to protect you. You’ll be the fellow on the scene who has to make the decision. As my distinguished compatriot Kathy Shaidle says:

When we say “we don’t know what we’d do under the same circumstances”, we make cowardice the default position.

I’d prefer to say that the default position is a terrible enervating passivity. Murderous misfit loners are mercifully rare. But this awful corrosive passivity is far more pervasive, and, unlike the psycho killer, is an existential threat to a functioning society.

— Mark Steyn, a National Review columnist, is author of America Alone.