31 Students killed at Virginia Tech

[DakX]

I read it in the newspaper yesterday morning, its a most horrible thing. People are right when they say it happens more in America, this is a sad truth. Many beleive this is caused by the fact that it is apperently easy to get a firearm. ( I myself have no idea, I do not live or have been to america)
I hope the family can have some peace and that they don't get harrased by the media.

[nihil]

Well, I would suggest that those of us who believe, pray to whomsoever we believe in, for the families involved.

As for "gun control"................ it doesn't work. We had a school shooting in Scotland............. Dunblane............. the government banned pistols as a typical knee jerk reaction............ handgun crime has risen over 200% (that's two hundred percent) since then............

European gun control is largely directed at public safety, rather than criminal activity, or the mentally ill.

OK, I have to get my doctor to sign my renewal form, and I need a couple of "worthies" to sign as well (parish priest and county court clerk do for me)

Guns are dangerous, as are may other things, so they should be controlled for the public good. This does not mean that it will prevent criminals or nutters............ only scumbag politicians will try to tell you that

[Syini666]

@ Nihil

Not questioning your post at all but do you have a source for the stat on the rise in handgun crime because I could definitely use that information for some debating going on at other forums regarding gun control which have recently heated up quite a bit?

@ DakX

The ease with which you can get a gun in America varies differently actually. Virginia for example is pretty straight forward with gun laws for the most part: provide two forms of valid identification, fill out all your paperwork right, pass a background check and you can walk out the store the same day with the gun provided you have the money. Probably the three biggest areas where you could be denied the gun (other than failing the background check of course) would be if you have renounced your citizenship, admit to being a drug addict, or having been committed to the care of the state against your will (aka put into a mental institution). Some states enforce waiting periods I believe, and in some places like NYC and its various borroughs you will have to jump through alot more hoops.

The problem here is not the fact that it was easy to get the gun, the dude met all the legal requirements to obtain a firearm, the problem is that we can't read minds and we don't always catch the crazies before they go off the chart and hurt others. Truthfully we will never get to that point because that would require people to be completely honest all the time and that just wont happen.

[nihil]

Hi Syini666,

I am afraid that I don't have an online link. I got it from the BBC TV news........

The actual topic was street crime, street gangs and drugs Yes, we have the same problems over here.

My point was that firearm + mental illness is relatively rare, and the "legality" of the firearm is pretty much irrelevant? so "law" does not work here? Nutters are nutters and will do their own thing.

It is a very sad event, but I do not think that you can legislate against it, simply because you cannot legislate against mental illness.

You can legislate to make things a bit safer, like authorised dealers, type and calibre, amount of ammo, safe storage, and the like............

I am trying to be positive here............. maybe a link from health and social welfare to gun registration? OK my Doc has to sign that I am no more crazy than the rest of his patients, but that is only once every 4 years!

But we have a National (State funded) Health Service, so we could probably do that. In the USA it would not be possible?

In this case and Columbine I don't think that there was any real evidence of mental instability prior to the event?

[Syini666]

Actually in the case of Columbine if I recall details correctly Eric Harris (who was arguably the force behind it, Klebold was just a follower) was on an antidepressant medication but quit prior to the attacks after he was turned down by the United States Marine Corps.

Linking criminal records to mental health records would probably be the best move that could come out of all this, since to the best of my knowledge criminal records currently do not contain mental health information if the person has a clean record, but I can see where the complaints with this would come in the form of people saying that by linking the two it would be considering people with mental health as criminals without them ever committing a crime.

[dalek]

Seems to me if you take guns out of the equation there would be less gun related deaths? or is this just a fantasy?

Yes there are always going to be the losers out there who will have access to a firearm and use it to carry out their manifesto or whatever, Imho I believe they should make it as hard as possible to qualify for a gun, I think a 30 day waiting period so all avenues of investigation into the application can take place and medical background checks should be a part of it...maybe just maybe if this guy's police report from a previous fire disturbance had of been available to the gun shop across from the VT university, this guy wouldn't qualify.

How many times have you heard of kids having access to Uncle I'm so stupid's handgun that they find in the nightstand, if it was locked up in a certified location, these deaths of children wouldn't take place, and sure some advocate is going to say, well if I lock up the guns how can I protect myself from an intruder...get a dog, a big dog...

I have no beef with responsible gun owners, but at some point what happens when a "responsible" gun owner loses his/her cool and because the weapon was available used it to commit a crime...oh well too late so sad....

The ones who advocate concealed weapons are truly delusional, to say that suppose one of the students had of had a gun, maybe they could have stopped this guy....woulda, coulda,shoulda....hindsight is alway's 20-20, but why stop there, lets equip/arm all 26,000 students and oh yeah the 10,000 employees at the university, I am sure the ratio of nutcases being approx 2% of 36,000 will ensure that the majority of the students will remain safe, allowing for the fudge factor of course, give or take a percentage point...

[Aardpsymon]

Ok, so I skimmed some of this and no way am I answering individual posts here. Spending days away from forums results in too much backlog :P

Lets start with the whole "You can kill someone with a hammer/car/knife/toothpick" arguments.

Yes, that is true. HOWEVER a hammer is a tool used to hammer nails. Cars get me from A to B. Guns have one purpose and one purpose alone - to kill. As for the relative merits of guns vs knives say, I don't think I could walk up to 30 people and stab them. I'm not strong enough and bursting into their room covered in blood might raise peoples suspicions. However, I do think I could walk round and shoot 30 people.

Availability of guns.

Right, if someone wants a gun they will get it. However, with guns being legal just about ANYONE can get one. That means that not only is it a quick trip to a shop to get one but there could already be several in the house for when you do decide to go nuts. I'm not saying outlawing guns would stop this from ever occuring, but I do think it would reduce the frequency. Also consider this - what if a guy breaks into your house, finds your gun then shoots you with your own gun when you try and confront him?

Police taking more action...

Well, if it was me I would think "two dead people, killer gone, well this was tragic" not "oh look, two dead people. I expect this killer will most likely wait two hours then go kill 30 more people" its just not normal (as far as murdering anyone is normal).

Perhaps the 30 dead always played loud music when the guy was trying to sleep. That could well explain it. Hey, perhaps he played a lot of violent computer games because we all know that turns people into rampaging murderers.

[JPnyc]

Somewhat nitpicky, but they have 2 purposes. To kill/injure, and to intimidate. Not every firearm drawn is fired.


(and you can hammer nails with em )

[gore]

Oh boy...

OK first I've read the posts since my last one and I just want to point out the old West of the US. Remember history class? The duals where two people met at high noon and one died?

Why is no one bringing this up? Were those cow boys playing Doom and listening to Body Count and Ice - T when they were killing people ? If they were I'd love to have a time machine because those must be RARE albums after 300 or so years.

Video games don't breed violence. I shoot guns and play Doom a lot, I listen to music thta scares people and watch underground horror which is as violent as it gets and most are banned in a lot of countries.

I haven't shot anyone with a real gun with intent to kill them. I've experimented with things that change how you think and feel too, so basically I've done everything people here have blamed on violence without the violence side effect. I can't kill someone. I don't believe it's right to shoot someone and kill them.

Unless it's self defence,but even then I'm big enough to probably not need a weapon.

This is a computer security site meaning most of you have been using a computer for YEARS longer than me, in all those times, I'm sure most of you have played Doom and smoked pot and watched some violent movies.

Berkeley is known for two things; BSD, and LSD, and Intel has a company policy against playing Doom specifically. That alone is a mix of what we're talking about yet everyone here seems to be against school shootings, so explain that.

[RoadClosed]

Time for Statistical Analysis....

The argument goes like this... if guns were outlawed, and a founding principle of gun ownership by citizens to counter the big ass guns owned by a government military, we would all be safer.

So lets take a look, and pick a year. How about 2003:

14,000 homicides. 9,000 involved firearms and out of the 9,000 almost 400 were justifiable, meaning police taking someone from the gene pool.

5,000 not related to guns. And this ONLY includes homicide not other death factors. Here is a breakdown of firearm death by region and percentage. Most in the high 60 percentile that means about 32 percent of those murders are by other than handgun.

Northeast 61.9
Midwest 68.1
South 67.7
West 67.8

By giving up some freedom we are less likely to be killed by a firearm? Perhaps but I'll take freedom and we are much more likely to be killed in other ways regardless of anything else.

I was thinking 14,000 out of 300,000,000 isn't bad. In fact if you remove the criminal element, those who are outside of the law anyway regardless of regulation and controls, you achieve a ratio of 3,000 gun murders out of 300,000,000 people. Now lets flip, what are our leading causes of death? Back to our target year:

Traffic fatalities: 38,444 car crashes killing over 47,000 people. Just over 3 times the number of gun fatalities. Want to help and leave the constitution alone? Improve traffic safety, don't let idiots buy a gun and don't let them drive either? Over 5,000 of those deaths were pedestrians and bicyclist just putting along. Minding their own business.

Right now You are more likely to die of:

Heart disease: 654,092
Cancer: 550,270
Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 150,147
Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 123,884
Accidents (unintentional injuries): 108,694
Diabetes: 72,815
Alzheimer's disease: 65,829
Influenza/Pneumonia: 61,472
Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 42,762
Septicemia: 33,464

Just about 4 times more people die of the Flu. Take that anti-gun motivation factor and buy vaccines. You get a better return on effort. Assuming the goal is to reduce what I call an unnecessary death.

Almost HALF a million peole died from accidents around their home! I was thinking of that hanging off my roof hanging Christmas lights this year...

Besides the constitutional argument many make a case for protection in a nation with so much freedom. Maybe that will be my next topic since this is getting long.

//EDIT I know it's tragic that these kids died. In 2003 your child was more likely to be killed by a babysitter than a hand gun. That's a tough statistic no?

Source o matic:
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/03cius.htm
http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/lcod.htm
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/dvs/lcwk9_2003.pdf