I didn\'t wanna bring it up, BUT...

[DaN]

Now, I don\'t normally air my views on matters such as these, but with regards to the media frenzy surrounding the catastrophic shootings in Virginia, one particular thing really annoys me.

And that is the \"amateur psychology\" that is given.

I watched a BBC news report on it, and it came out with such crap as:

\" ... He was OBSESSED (Yes they used that word) with the song \"Shine\" by comedown, which include the lyrics \'Heaven shine a light down on me\' ...\"

\" ... He often went to gym, alone (GASP!), and would work out without saying a word to anyone (Who\'s ever talked at the gym??) ... \"

So by this inference, are we assume that anyone who likes that song is more likely to go on a murderous killing spree...?
That people who don\'t strike up conversations with strangers at the gym are MORE likely to be nuts than those who DO??

This sort of bollocks is ALWAYS brought up by the media and it really hacks me off - it\'s normally violent videos and computer games that cop the most criticism.

Is it really that suprising that people with a violent nature are going to watch and play violent videos and games?
Making the link that because they do means that anyone who watches or plays them is also likely to be more violent is just a false Syllogism.

Anyway - rant over.
In short - The dude was nuts, he shudn\'t have had access to guns, and the whole incident was terrible. We don\'t need to know anything else. Let them grieve in peace.

 

[DaN]

How can \"The drugs don\'t work, they just make you worse\" be a bad thing ... ?

 

[Shawn R. L.]

Agree with much of the afore mentioned and will add my own rant.....

IT DIDNT HAVE TO HAPPEN!!! Virginia Tech proudly proclaimed itself a \'gun free\' campus! Guess Mr Cho didnt get the memo. I\'m to the point of vomiting from those who would disarm the us good citizens and leave us DEFENSLESS in this type of situation.............Note to criminals - THEY\'re UNARMED! GO FOR IT!! They\'re easy picking.

If you have such a desire to not defend yourself, FINE....Dont ask me to cry when you are confronted with vicious evil and all you\'re armed with is Give Peace a Chance...No thanks. I\'m past the point of debating the whole gun issue. If VT dosent get through to you then NOTHING will. You dont like armed citizens - FINE. Dont get a gun. BUT dont you dare tell us responsible citizens, that recognise that the world is a rough place, that we cant take steps to protect ourselves!!

All those poor dead kids. Shot in a gun free paradise..............:cussing: It didnt have to happen. Some good citizen packing could have stopped it. The police, God bless em\', cant be there fast enough..............

IT DIDNT HAVE TO HAPPEN!!

 

[JakeSh]

Yes, we should all arm ourselves. That way we can all fly off the handle when we percieve any imagined threat. The \"lets all arm ourselves and this won\'t happen\" idea is ridiculous, yet gun nuts always spout it off.

If we didn\'t have so many guns in this country this crap wouldn\'t happen.

That being said, I don\'t mind rifles so much, but I\'m all for banning pistols. These crimes aren\'t being committed with rifles, but with easily concealed weapons. There is no practical use (other than in a military or law enforcement capacity) to having or carring a pistol in this world. They are weapons designed to be concealed and to kill.

 

[Shawn R. L.]

The criminals dont seem to respond to the over 20,000 gun laws on the books.

Maybe if we outlaw fire extinguishers there wont be any more fires.

 

[Sand Rat]

Originally posted by JakeSh
There is no practical use (other than in a military or law enforcement capacity) to having or carring a pistol in this world. They are weapons designed to be concealed and to kill.

You obviously have never been confronted by 300 pounds of angry pig in heavy brush where there is no room to swing a rifle or a shotgun. Pistol comes in real handy about then.

 

[airhead]

Originally posted by JakeSh
...There is no practical use (other than in a military or law enforcement capacity) to having or carring a pistol in this world. ...

and you\'ve never been in a situation where you had to defend yourself or your family from a deadly threat (i.e. Bad Guy). Oh, wait, maybe that is \"law enforcement?\"


As in \"thou shalt not mug me or mine.\"

I\'ll be happy to give up my handguns when you can guarantee that all the other handguns in the world are not in the hands of the bad guys - not that it is just illeagle to have them.


and finally, I guess sport shooting (Cowboy Action, SASS, IPHG, etc.) are not practical uses. But minis are not practical uses for lead or pewter, and should not be allowed either?

 

[DaN]

Slightly off-topic
I KNEW this would happen lol

 

[airhead]

Sorry DaN.

Yes, the drivel spouted by the media talking heads and guest experts is enough to make you vomit. That is why I no longer read the newspaper or rarely watch the news.

 

[Duende]

[saractic rant]Oh sure, let\'s give everybody guns. Like my brother, he a good citizen and a good guy.... when he\'s sober.
Oh, and after he passes out, and I\'m certain he would use utmost care in making sure the gun was stowed away properly before blacking out, I\'m certain teh small children, especially the one with metal disabilities, would be certain never to touch it if they found it lying around.[/sarcastic rant]

Sorry, after having quite a few jobs that involve dealing with the general public, the thought of the majority of them being armed *just in case* scares the crap outta me. There\'s a lot of freakin IDIOTS out there, and arming eveybody is just asking for a lot more bloodshed and many more innocent victims caught in the crossfire.

I think that if handguns were regulated to trained and/or certified people, and not just sold in handy gunshops to seemingly \"clean-cut college kid\" (as I believe is how the gun shop owner described Cho), then this might (emphasis \"might\") not have happened. It certainly wouldn\'t have been as easy for him to get guns if stricter laws were in place.

Just my two sense.

But just think about all the people you know. How many of them would you trust with a gun near you?

 

[JakeSh]

Originally posted by Shawn R. L.
The criminals dont seem to respond to the over 20,000 gun laws on the books.

Maybe if we outlaw fire extinguishers there wont be any more fires.

Do fire extinguishers cause fire? No. Do handguns cause murder and violent crime? Yes, at the very least it attributes to it.

It\'s like saying we can end world hunger by filling the world up with more people, therefore they could work on farms. It is backward and flawed logic.

Regardless, I really don\'t feel like getting into it, so I\'m done.

 

[Aidan K]

Yeah, a pretty shocking event, but doesnt the media just take it too far?? I hate the whole coverage of outpourings of \"grief\" like other tradgedies dont happen every day.

IT DIDNT HAVE TO HAPPEN!!

Yeah, some sort of requirement that stops a depressed troubled young man from getting his hands on two handguns in 30 mins.

Its because it is so easy to acquire guns for criminals that criminals all have guns. Restrict gun ownership, limit the number of guns in criminal hands, reduce the perceived \"need\" of \"good\" citizens to want guns, which\'ll lower the number of guns making it to criminals and so on ad infinitum.

I bet you\'d have been good there Shawn, popping caps in that guy

 

[Shawn R. L.]

Originally posted by Aidan K

I bet you\'d have been good there Shawn, popping caps in that guy

Yup. Maybe there would be about 28 more kids around because of it. Tell me where the problem is with that. Tell all the dead kids families that having their kids being defensless is a good thing. Wishful thinking wont stop some nut with a gun.

I TRUELY wish there were no guns..........but, they are here and they aint going away. All the laws and wishful thinking isnt going to change that. Face reality - it\'s a rough world out there. Stick you head in the sand if you wish.......that kind of thinking only enables evil people who have NO regard for the laws to mow down the innocent....Wake UP!

 

[philologus]

Once again the myth that Gun control makes for a safer society. Once again I will provide the facts that indicate otherwise:

British Home Office crime stats



US FBI UCR violent crime stats

If you compare by population and look at violent crime per 100,000 it appears that the US averages about 470-500 violent crimes per 100,000 while the UK averages about 2300. Apparently the British report covers Sept. 2005 to September 2006. It is NOT 2 years worth of data being compared to 1 year.

 

[DaN]

Argh! Not another \"Tony Manero - do you like guns\" thread! Nooo

PS. My only comment on off-topicness:
@Phil - You can\'t make a true comparison with just two random lots of statistics.
You need to take into account population density and other such factors, as well as what actually constitutes \"Violent crime\" for both sets of stats.

And not all violent crimes are gun-related.

 

[Evil Dave]

Originally posted by DaN
\" ... He was OBSESSED (Yes they used that word) with the song \"Shine\" by comedown, which include the lyrics \'Heaven shine a light down on me\' ...\"

That would be Collective Soul that sang \"Shine\" from the \"Hints, Allegations & Things Left Unsaid\" Album, 1994. The irony is through all his railing about religion, Collective Soul was often classified as a Christian rock band.

If you look at the guys history, from the teachers, his room mates, the fact that he had been complained about for stalking two girls, this guy had red flags all over the place.


The issue here really isn\'t about guns.
That\'s merely political garbage.
Had he wanted to get a gun and not legally been able to, he STILL would\'ve gotten one. It is illegal for me to get an assault rifle without registration and a background check, yet for $300 cash I can get a cheap knock off AK-47, no questions asked. Sorry, but that\'s the way it is.
Ask the National guard the majority of weapons they were bringing in during the Katrina mess, the vast majority were illegally obtained. The laws don\'t work. When you\'re about to kill a crapload of people, then yourself, an added charge of \"Possesion of an Illegal Weapon\" won\'t really scare you or change your mind.

As I said the issue truly isn\'t about guns, he could\'ve gotten one if he wanted. The true issue is how did someone like this, who had huge red flags all over the place slip through the cracks.
Everyone who knew him said he was crazy, yet not one of them did a damn thing.

 

[COG]

i thought i was interesting that he was commited for a while because he was a danger to himself and others, but yet here he is killing people and mailing out parcels(kind of odd ) i heard they thought a 2nd person might have been involed also? don\'t know about that one though.
Oh and the gun thing i had read a while ago that they were going to make the gun powder have a shelf life (wouldn\'t really matter if you made your own ammo) or like chris rock said make the bullets like 10,000 dollars so that anybody dies you know he did something to deserve it.lol

 

[Nelson]

@Phil: From your sources, it seems that being the chances of being a victim of homicide in the states is ~56 per million people, while it is 14 per million in England and Wales.

The population density of the U.S. is 31/km2 as opposed to 388.7 /km² in England.

@Shawn...

Remember, this was a university campus. The vast majority of people on campus are students, from 18 to their early twenties. Teenagers, many of them. I\'m sorry, but despite being a reasonably responsible teenager myself, I just don\'t think allowing a whole fuckload of teens to pack heat every day (who knows when a shooting could happen) is a very good idea. Lotsa testosterone flowing, and lotsa young love everywhere, especially in the dorms. Not a good mix with guns.

This sort of thing happens very infrequently, and hasn\'t even occured at all in many universities. Do you really think allowing kids to carry guns at university would decrease the amount of homicides a year at universities? Personally, I feel far safer knowing that my campus population at large is unarmed.

 

[Sand Rat]

Ahh, but Nelson, while the Brits may have a denser population, they also have a smaller one - one would not expect a country with approximately 1/5 the population of the US to have 4 times the violent crime per 100,000 even if the population density is approximately 10 to 1.

 

[Recoil889]

Plain and simple fact is that as american citizens we have the right to bear arms. So like shawn said..give the people guns...Get them liscensed, trained and permited, and there should not be a problem, cause i know, if i were going to commit a crime and i knew that everyone around me had a gun..i\'d think twice...

Do fire extinguishers cause fire? No. Do handguns cause murder and violent crime?

NO. People Cause crime and violence...if there were no guns people would find another weapon..Its completley stupid to strip an american of one of the most important rights they have..remember if it werent for guns you wouldnt(or I) have the right to voice your opinion on a matter such as this.its bad enough we dont have freedom of speech...