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So much of what people are saying now is hindsight. The creative writing thing is relatively significant. The fact that he was a "loner"... Well, that's only significant after the fact. If we had tried to refer every kid who met the threshold this guy was at, you'd end up intervening with 5-10% of your population at one point or another. Of course, the social patterns combined with the school thing look significant, but you won't realistically have all the people who see these different facets in a position to compare notes, even at a smaller school. Some schools are uneasy about even attempting stuff like that in light of privacy concerns, which can lead to court cases. And most places are unable to MANDATE counseling. You can suggest it, but it nigh impossible to MAKE someone go. I became really adept at phrasing my suggestions so that they sounded like mandates without actually being so. I guess what I'm getting at is that a lot of kids at school are (or go through periods of being) a little unstable. Since they internalize these instabilities, it's about impossible to know which way it's gonna go. So snap and sing hymns for 19 hours without stopping, some lock themselves in the shower and quote Shakespeare, some develop chronic psycho-somatic illnesses like seizures, some develop fixations on cleaning their homes with bleach while hording water bottles in their bedrooms, some try to kill themselves, and every once in a while one will go and try to hurt someone else. I've seen all of the above firsthand except for the last. The only truly reliable indicator that a person will try to hurt someone is a history of doing so. |
According to this report which states
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For those that have never bought a gun before here's a little play by play that you have to do before you ever walk out of the store with your new firearm whether you buy it at a gunshop or one of the infamous gun shows that is always brought up by gun control advocates. {1} you decide what firearm you are purchasing and haggle the price until you are satisified {2} the dealer then hands you a state form and a federal form which you have to fill out {3} the dealer then looks over the federal form to make sure all your answers are what they should be, if not you are automatically denied on the spot {4} if you have answered the questions properly and everything is legit the dealer then makes a call to the BATF for final approval. The BATF then searches their database for any red flags and either denies, puts you on hold for further investigation and they have 10 days to complete this phase or you are approved and you can then leave the gun store or gun show with your new purchase. The forms are then sent to the state and federal authorities. The dealer keeps his copy of the forms forever, he can never destroy them because it is the record of the firearm he once had in his possession. He also has to keep a log of every single firearm that has ever come into his possession. His log, the serial numbers of the guns on his shelf, the paperwork of all the guns he has ever sold, the paperwork with your information and all the other pertinent details have to match or he loses his license. You don't just walk in and give the man a handful of money, show your drivers license and walk out with a newly purchased firearm, not legally anyway. Quote:
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I don't get how it's important that he got the gun in a legal fashion.
The true problem should be that due to the legal structures, it's very easy to get a gun (if lying on a dead-giveaway question like that isn't even checked). Shakran: After reading up on the second amendment and its history, I can't say I agree with you on your interpretation of that sentence. Due to the brevity and unclear (to me) phrasing, it had me going around a bit, but "A well regulated militia, being necessary for the preservation of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militia "Militia is the activity of one or more citizens organized to provide defense or paramilitary service, or those engaged in such activity. ........ a militia is distinct from a regular army" So interpretation of the word Militia alone, can even make a huge difference as to the exact meaning of the amendment. Given that alot of people seem to interpret it very broadly anybody, even on their own, can qualify as a militia at some point. It sounds like the constitution defines a militia as being necessary for a free state to function, and because of this, the right of people to bear and keep arms will not be restricted within limits: Infringe In the context of the Constitution, phrases like "shall not be infringed," "shall make no law," and "shall not be violated" sound pretty unbendable, but the Supreme Court has ruled that some laws can, in fact, encroach on these phrases. For example, though there is freedom of speech, you cannot slander someone; though you can own a pistol, you cannot own a nuclear weapon. http://www.usconstitution.net/glossary.html#INFRINGE I can't say I agree with the 2nd Amendment, *at all*. But that to me is what is written in your (America's) constitution. edit: cuz I forgot to add the bit about interpretation of Militia halfway in my post. |
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so cruising around the net this morning looking for more infotainment on this, i stumbled across this fine example of powerful deduction as the headline on cnn.com:
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gee...you think so? what idiots..... anyway, more generally: cant control arbitrariness folks. no way no how. you just have to accept that. no amount of fantasy concerning universal armament will change the simple fact that arbitrary shit happens. of course this is amurica, so it is easier for this arbitrariness to happen with guns than it is elsewhere. the fantasy of universal armanent is a fantasy of universal control looped through political conceptions of where ultimate control should lie--but the simple fact is that in this kind of situation, there really was nothing to be done. another way: folk indulge the parlor game of ex post facto thinking because arbitrariness freaks them out. i think most are smart enough to see the problem with the logic, but they play the game anyway. it is therapeutic: rather than having to think about chance, you think about breakdowns in some order that could have remained perfect in its perfect control had errors not happened, and that can be imagined as still-perfect in potentia if such "errors" can be controlled for in the future. from this viewpoint, total state surveillance and universal armament turn out to be variants of the same logic, versions of the same thing. |
The shooter did not have a "clean" history. He was accused of stalking twice and placed in a mental health facility. These are the types of things background checks would bring up and cause further scrutiny.
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I'm sorry, I just don't see it, and your attitude comes off as xenophobic. |
i *knew* the resident alien status of mr. cho would come up refigured in terms of some rightwing xenophobia. it follows in a straight line from the ongoing construction of him as someone Other who was lurking about within the Us. it almost seemed unnecessary that the stories be written which appeared yesterday describing him as an "eccentric loner"---that's right folks, not to worry, the guy was a cliche.
as more information emerges, he gets positioned more and more clearly in this dubious space of the Outsider Amongst Us. next step would be a raising of the collective hysterometer to orange of some such because he would have been entirely blurred into the fiction of the "terrorist" as a kind of one-man sleeper cell. it is ridiculous. get a fucking grip, folks. |
This may be a topic for another thread, but it relates because I don't see what his green card status has to do with anything.
Rights granted on the basis of the constitution are granted because we're human, not because we're Americans. I'm deeply disturbed by the trend to deny rights and protections to people based on their national status - whether it be fair trial or something like gun ownership. If it's a right, it's a right. |
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Playing the xenophobia card on these forums is getting so bad I think we need another Godwin's Law.
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With that been said I do see 1 reason to deny foreigners weapons that I would deem appropriate. If there was a system in place which required extensive background checks in order to purchase a weapon (ie interviewing previous employers, family, ect) a new resident alien would not have much background to probe. In this case I would support not allowing resident aliens to buy a weapon for the first couple years they are in the US. |
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Edit: for example: Statistically speaking, Mexican immigrant workers are less likely to commit crimes than American citizens, therefore those that say Mexican immigrants are coming into the US and committing crimes (other than the act of illegally immigrating) could be xenophobic. |
style note: probably the most irritating legacy of the o.j. simpson trial is the popularization of that meaningless construction:
"to play the x card..." end style note. the post: in samcol's post above, this tedious, empty phrase functions as if it use alone constitutes an understanding and containment of a particular critique. so it is that the idea behind the post is essentially to disable recourse to a category--xenophobia--which in the case of posters like samcol is a prefectly legitimate way of characterizing such logic as there is behind trying to get explanatory mileage out of cho's resident alien status as if that would in some bizarre-o world make him more inclined to snap and go around shooting people. the claim is idiotic. again, all this is about trying to find some peculiar "not one of us" status for this guy--an operation that has nothing at all to do with understanding anything, nothing to do with questions of what, if anything, would constitute a rational response to the vt murder/suicide, nothing to do with anything except insofar as if feeds into some pathetic ideological illusion that there is an amurica of "normal righteous folk" who would never snap, would never indulge acts of arbitrary violence, and then there are those Others, those Fucked Up People who explain any and all disturbances to the otherwise perfect harmonious world of "real amuricans". this is a really problematic way of seeing this fiction of the "us" or "amurica" or the nation--what it functions to do is establish the conditions of possibility for efforts to cleanse the body amurican of disordered folk---because there is no "us" there is no coherent boundary to be defended--but the illusion that there is one is enough to set up consent for attempts to maintain it in its "order" in its "virtue" in its "purity"--and so you get to see the same retro-nationalism that we all know and love so bloody much turning up again here, in debates around a situation that has fuck all to do with it. the only reason that there is any objection to the category of xenophobia here is as an attempt to block the laying out of the logic behind such moves in this (or any) context because once you lay out the logic, its idiocy is transparent. |
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I don't get it and I probably never will. This is much like the liberal left movement to cry foul at the denial of certain God given rights to the terrorists housed at Gitmo while bringing up legislation to deny the God given rights of the law abiding citizens of the United States. They haven't had time to bring up all the legislation they promised including legislation for the impeachment of the President, although they promised they would. According to them he has broken many, many laws and is perhaps the biggest criminal in American history. But by golly they have had time to craft anti-gun legislation. what the fuck? |
Thou shall not kill......
I don't think God intended everyone to be armed as one of the rights he gave us. On the contrary the New Testament over and over and over talks about forgiveness and love and not revenge and hatred. Somehow I find it hard to believe that a gun leads to forgiveness and love but I can definitely see it leading to revenge and hatred. |
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What guns laws have been introduced that want to "completely disarm the populace" by this new (or any recent) Dem congress? When did the majority of the Dem who were recently elected to the majority "proimise legislation for the impeachment of Bush"? I find it a bit contrarian that some of the gun rights folks here fight so hard for unrestricted rights under 2nd amendment but are ready to trash the 14th amendment. What the fuck? |
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At the start of the downward spiral, I was clear I valued his opinion but not his analysis. Later, I requested that a mod lend a neutral voice to the assessment of the data (a suggestion I've made directly to Halx in terms of what role moderators might consider in a form of "pre-emptive" in-thread moderation). Even after that I reiterated that I valued his opinion, that I took issue with the analysis, and then labeled the inability or unwillingness to reassess the data in light of what I was explaining as "dumb." I also added misquoting people was "dumb", but I never labeled either of the persons behind those posts unintelligent. Both responses were limited to the behavior exhibited. I don't know what calling a position or saying a person is being "obtuse" would resolve since my understanding is it means unintelligent, dull, lacking insight, etc. But I already apologized, because I recognize that my standards of certain things aren't the same as the communities. So it goes that I happened to have realized last night what pigglet alluded to regarding the past discussions on these types of things...basically that the "political" interactions are back at square one and I'm not particularly interested in that kind of discourse...although I may choose to read what some friends have to say from time to time (which is why I'm even here currently) but I doubt I will contribute much thought of my own for some time again. |
god given?
what are you talking about? when that phrase appears, it is an 18th century reference to theories of natural law. since the claims of the american revolution were based on an idea of restoring rights violated by england, the language of natural law served a tactical function. but the notion of natural law itself is at the very best problematic, based as it is, as it always was, on fundamentally religious committments simply transposed from the register of religion to that of transcendent categories (limits, prohibitions and their opposite)...but without the category of religion behind it, this transposition holds no water. you have a long history of ethics as a branch of philo that tracks the problems encountered when western folk noticed that there was a world beyond them that could not simply be understood as less than them, or as repetitions of their history and so trapped in some eternal childhood waiting around for the heroic western white folk to rescue them and show then the way to adulthood--which was of course embodied in the euro-americans themselves. the notion of natural law became untenable. this still freaks out some ethicists so deontology persists, but is mostly a space ccupied by religious thinkers who for whatever reason continue to blur their religious committments and philosophical work into each other. meanwhile, in most other areas of ethics, folk have worked out the obvious: that constructions on the order of natural law were, are and always will be political matters. there is no natural law: the language of it provided a veneer of legitimation to the constitution itself--but within the constitutional regime, any rights are stipulated by the document itself, they function as rights within that regime because of the status accorded the document itself. this god character has nothing to do with it. =================================================== aside, added: smooth---i wish you'd reconsider what you say about your participation here in your last post. for what it's worth, i think this is a better more interesting place because you play about in it as well--your views are consistently interesting and thoughtful---if folk are bothered by the style in which they are sometimes presented--well---in my view anyway---fuck em. |
Well WOW! What an amazing thread. took me a long time, and I STILL have yet to finish every post. MOST people on this thread know that I am pro-gun ownership. Now that it is clear to everyone my basic stance, here is my take on some of what has been said here:
As far as students being allowed to carry on campus: 1: I disagree that they should be allowed. It is difficult enough to go around campus worrying about studying for exams and socializing, than to add "who is carrying a piece". 2: From the news articles I have read, MOST of those students that were killed were under the age of 21. Now correct me if I am wrong, but my research showed that HANDGUNS are not allowed for purchase in Virginia until the age of 21. So it is a moot point to consider what MIGHT have happened, or NOT happened, if students were allowed to carry on campus. As far as faculty carrying on campus: Personally, I don't see it as a bad idea, considering what HAS happened in the past. However I DO agree that if you ARE going to allow faculty to carry, then they should ALL be given extensive background checks, and go through a POLICE sanctioned gun training class on how to use it, and WHEN to use it. History has shown that in the states where concealed wepons permits have been enacted, that crimes against INDIVIDUALS has decreased over time. Now OBVIOUSLY this doesn't include such a HORRIFIC situation as that at Virginia Tech. There will ALWAYS be anomolies in life. We can't begin to predict human bahavior or emotions when under stress; and lets face it, there are not many things more stressful than highschool and college. It is terrible what has happened, and there is nothing that we can do now to go back and change things, but lets cool down before we start taking action too soon. Face it, after September 11th, we jumped the gun pretty quick, and see where THAT led us? (Don't go jumping me about the war or anything...if ANYONE can attest to how I feel about the war, support of/or the actual fact that we are there in the first place it is Willravel, whom I have ENJOYED many discussions of our difference of opinions in threads of that subject!) Now as to the 2nd amendment: I love how some people are trying to give their opinion on what it menas, so here is mine... "A well regulated militia, being necessary for the preservation of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" Maybe the grammar is a little off, but I read it thusly: "A well regulated militia, being necessary for the preservation of a free state" (because we may NEED at some point in the future, a militia), "the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed"(the right of individual gun ownership, will not be taken away) I do not read it as a FULL sentence, meaning that only those needed for a militia will be allowed to own/carry guns, but as a WHOLE statement. As a thread jack here: Am I the only one who thinks that maybe the reason the United States has never actually been invaded by a foreign nation, is because they are worried about the fact that every Tom, Dick, and Harry in the USA has a half dozen or more guns in their own home? I mean face it, when Germany invaded France, do you think it MIGHT have been tougher if everyone in France had a couple of guns in their home? I mean face it, if we were invaded say at Miami, how long do you think it would take to get an actual FULL military presense to defend it?...but If say 50% of the people there had firearms of their own...then BANG! there is our Militia, per the constitution!... |
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I'll again call on the UK to cite as an example of a nation that has a successful gun ban. The short history of that ban has shown that a gun ban can lower gun crime when carried out correctly. While it's easy to call the VT massacre an anomaly, the fact of the matter is it's much easier to commit a massacre with a gun than it is with a knife or bat. I'd rather face a man in a dark alley if he were armed with a knife or bat than a gun. I'm sure you agree. Quote:
What was the intended function Second Amendment? The populace was able to wage war against the superior forces of the British Army partially because of their militia's armaments. Had the populace not been able to organize militias, it's entirely possible we'd all have all bad teeth and snobby accents. Bearing that in mind, when one starts a new government who's genesis features such realizations, the idea of regulating power between the government and the populace should be balanced by having an able militia that is not federally controlled. In the unlikely case that the federal government, using the military, were to infringe on our rights and such we should have the organizational capacity to hold our ground by having a capable militia. Do we have anything like that now? Not really, and it's a shame because I believe that things like Waco could have been prevented if representatives from a militia were to speak with the ATF they could have brought with them the promise of armed resistance that could have acted as a deterrent (one would hope). Moving back to what this means so far as the Amendment, I believe that the Amendment is in place to protect the ability of the populace so far as maintaining military power in the form of a militia or militias. The clear reasoning would be to make sure that a potential police state would meet with heavy resistance. How would this apply today? Let's say, for the sake of argument, that the Federal government continues on it's current authoritarian road. Let's say that, in the name of fighting crime or terrorism, that we have tanks rolling down our streets, curfews, kidnappings, the loss of due process for those citizens captured, and detention camps for those suspected but not tried. If this were to ever happen, I would have the Constitutionally protected right to organize a militia to the ends of returning order. It's the right to resist governmental tyranny in organized groups. I'd probably use bombs instead of guns, personally, because it's clear that IEDs are the most successful way to combat a military like ours. They're cheap and easy to construct from common parts and compounds. When you ask a gun owner why they own a gun, I'd be willing to bet that they'd say they have the gun to protect themselves or their families from criminals or aggressors. While I concede that this is reasonable, I do think it's clear that that intent is not in the Second Amendment, and thus things like the right for an individual to bear arms is not Constitutionally protected unless they are a member of a militia which has the function of supporting the power of the populace in case the government oversteps it's bounds. My fingers hurt, and I have to get back to work. |
quick post: i concur, perhaps obviously, with the above posts of roach and smooth. the perspectives and approaches are appreciated by some, but apparently not by others. c'est la vie. i'd suggest further discussion take place in a separate thread if necessary.
/end threadjack |
An armed nut goes on a rampage and kills dozens of other people for his 5,555minutes of fame, but he's dead. What a concept.
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thing is that i dont see a police state being met with any particular resistance simply because people have guns---they are not magic objects, they do not bring with them political consciousness--what would matter is the organization of consent. if consent is organized on grounds that folk find to be compelling, they will not resist--it wont occur to them. so they would be docile people who happen to have guns. they would not percieve a police state as a police state: they would probably think in terms of necessary security measures carried out for some political objective that they would agree with. if the consent ran deep enough, people with guns would be no more or less inclined than people without guns to turn over suspected dissidents to the state.
same logic obtains for a revolutionary movement--what matters really is the political program--that is what would give a sense of direction and coherence to any such movement. either way, people with guns are just people with guns. there IS NO POLITICAL MEANING TO OWNING A GUN. none--no more than political orientation can be derived from the car you drive or the pants you wear--insofar as all are commodities, all are functionally equivalent. having a gun does not make you free--it doesnt make you anything---a gun is a tool that no more tells you what to do with it than having a saw tells you how to cut pieces of wood to size for a building. to think otherwise would require that you also think that you can build a complex model spontaneously because you bought a tube of glue. in the present political and legal environment, owning a gun is a type of accessorizing. some people like chanel, other people like a glock. it is a consumer choice. nothing political about it, the imaginings of gun fetishists notwithstanding. in a non-revolutionary situation, political conflict is primarily ideological and can be seen as a war of position. gramsci was right. |
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RB, great post.
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A Virginia district court found that Virginia Tech killer Cho Seung-Hui was "mentally ill" and was an "imminent danger to others," according to a 2005 temporary detention order. click to show This did not appear on the "instant" background check. Virgina needs to reevaluate its instant background check as it is apparently way to lax. All the warning signs where there. The University was warned by a professors, students had complained about him for stalking, he started a fire in his dorm room, and yet none of this showed up on a background check. I think the University was highly negligent in not reporting this information to police. Well these types of things are not always preventable this one most definitely was. Virgina really needs to improve there background checks. |
Rekna, yes this seems to have little or nothing to do with the Second Amendment and more to do with bad decision making by whomever is in charge of security and background checks. Anyone who would stalk or start a fire should require a psych profile (which could have prevented this massacre).
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I'm betting Virgina is going to be paying a lot of money in lawsuits for negligence.
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Virginia can afford it - she's no longer a virgin. The shooter may have been.
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If that same person accosts me, i'm going to tell him no, as I draw my own gun against him. I am now FREE of being forced to submit to said attackers demands. Quote:
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I've already posted a straightforward way to avoid this: public monitoring by both government and corporation of each gun by putting a bar code on every gun. Every gun produced is a matter of public record. The records start when the guns are produced. The record has a list of the factory, shipping company, vendor, and owner. If a gun goes missing, they can track down exactly when in the process it went missing and can take steps to prevent it in the future. If there's a dirty vendor or shipper, they get shut down. If the gun is stolen from a legal owner, then policy on how to keep guns must change. |
sorry, wrong thread. don't..shoot me.
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My simple point is: there's something bizarre and utterly arbitrary about choosing national origin as a way to explain this incident. There is absolutely zero evidence that his being Korean (or more broadly a non-citizen) had an atom's worth of bearing on what happened. You cannot even construct a hypothetical explanation of how such linkage might operate, because it's completely absurd. |
It reminded me of Bill ORly's argument in that other thread.
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Hopefully they find enough shit mentally wrong with this guy that they can't blame benign devices like video games and rock music for long. That is unless they say it caused the insanity. Then we know who the real psycho is.
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However, every article I've read featuring statements from people who interacted with him gave very grim and creepy views of this guy... so you would think somewhere along the line a warning flag would have gone off in someone's mind and prompted further investigation. |
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I believe that psychology has the potential to be a much more effective preventitive measure than any number of policies or bans that lawmakers can come up with. However, obviously the barrier here is educating enough people and having the manpower in place to provide the necessary help. |
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1) Having better funded and researched programs in elementary schools reinforcing positive and healthy mental health. (not necessarily for this case, as he grew up in Korea, but in other similar cases) 2) Better screenings of people who exhibit unhealthy behavioral patterns. 3) Universal mental health care. |
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Will, I find your posts quite insightful, and DO enjoy seeing you bring out some interesting points, even if I disagree with you. Again it is a priveledge to debate things with you!:thumbsup: Quote:
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While I agree with you that MOST people would say they keep a firearm in their home to protect their family, It's not like you would ask someone that question and honestly expect them to respond "I keep my firearm just in case a militia is formed to raise up against a tyranical government"...:oogle: Unfortunately our country is what it is today. and as such, we have an inordinate amount of criminals that are themselves armed. I see it this way, if were were to finally have the government say "thats it! enough! we have decided to repeal the 2nd amendment, and will require all citizens to disarm themselves"...next thing you know, the CRIMINALS who ARE still armed, now know that NOBODY is at home with a firearm. They can now go on a crime spree, knowing that homeowners can no longer defend themselves against them with them carrying a gun! To be honest, I wouldn't mind at all giving up my gun, if the government could GUARANTEE that I would be protected in my own home against said criminals. Our country is what it is. and unfortunately I cannot see a sucessful ban on firearms. I DO agree with stricter MONITORING of gun purchasing and ownership. EVERY gun I own is registered. Even the ones purchased from a private individual gets registered with my local sherriff's office. On a side note. There is much talk about the "mental stability" of the person who commited the massacre at VT. The biggest thing is this....when filling out a gun purchase form, one of the questions is "have you ever been hospitalized or treated for a mental condition"...this question is COMPLETELY voluntary in answer, because if you all remember, Mental health conditions are like a lawyer, client's privacy is protected, so it is not like when the people involved in doing the background check can ACTUALLY check to see if you have ever been commited, unless the commiting was done by a court order..... And as was mentioned earlier. it is federal law that you cannot purchase OR own a handgun under the age of 21 in ANY state. If yo uwere given a HANDGUN as a gift, and are under the age of 21, then the person who gave it to you has VIOLATED FEDERAL LAW...I had looked this up not that long ago. The law was enacted by Bill Clinton in his last year in office. Unless Things have changed. If so, then I say we should push for it again! |
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We can't always stop this sort of thing from happening but just because we can't stop something doesn't mean we shouldn't try to stop it. This is why we have increased our security in the US. We can't stop the terrorists but we can stop some of them. The whole we can't always do something so do nothing attitude is completely ridiculous. |
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They could keep the weapons at home, locked up. Quote:
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And no. your infrance does NOT still stand. A child CHOOSING to drink and risk themselves has NOTHING to do with a person whose SOLE INTENT was to kill people. The teenage drinker, or drug user is NOT going out with the INTENT to try and kill someone else, in a mass production way. I am in NO WAY saying that we shouldn't try to do something to prevent crime. What I AM saying, is that there really is no way to totally prevent all crimes. I am simply stating that trying to take guns away from everyone is a flawed concept in THIS country. Back to the weapon specific disussion: I have read your posts about "fingerprinting" a gun when purchasing. Did you know that I can fire less than 200 rounds through a pistol, and change the "fingerprint" so to speak by the 200th round? The rifling of a barrel can change over time. The way they get a match in the riffling is usually due to a limited number of rounds fired after the one that is being investigated. So fingerprinting a barrel would really be insignificant. Quote:
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Again, I am honoured to have debates with you Willravel!:) |
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Ok DK you are right we should abolish all laws because prohibition doesn't fix anything. We should allow parents to beat their children senseless, men should be able to rape women when ever they please. There should be no laws against robbing people. After all prohibiting these behaviors doesn't stop it. Anarchy rules!
DK it seems like the ideal society for you is a feudal society where might makes right. We had this a long time ago, it was a flawed system and barely worked. Hell they have this now in Afghanistan with the tribal warlords and look how well it works for them. I'm not saying we should ban guns, i'm saying we should ban certain types of weapons and have better background checks when purchasing weapons. |
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I fail to see how more comprehensive background checks isn't going to help prevent this sort of thing from happening. Will it stop it? No. Will it reduce the occurrence of gun related crime? Yes. Will it stop law abiding citizens from getting guns? No. What is wrong with more comprehensive background checks? Do you feel there should be no background check at all?
On the same point I don't see any reason (other than ego) to own an RPG, submachine gun, or other weapons which have high rates of collateral damage. |
This is much like when Limbaugh took the London bombings and turned them political that day..... I feel sad and disgusted with the people (and especially the politicians, who show how much they truly care about the citizenry) on both sides turning this event into a political arena.
Granted, there should be debate and both sides will bring forth great educational and beneficial facts for some to ponder and come to an opinion over. However, I believe good taste and respect to the families would be to give it a week of mourning and recovering then begin the debate. Going straight to debate hours or a day or 2 afterward is grandstanding and trying to gain political points and to me shows very little concern or care for those who lost family members. You are not going to change policy, or people's opinions this soon anyway, so why not show respect and wait a week to calm down, think truly about the event that happened, feel the pain and loss, gather your thoughts and then bring forth your debates. Otherwise you are nothing but vultures, picking at the bones, rehashing what-ifs and playing on the heightened emotions of the people. That's just my opinion. There are good points made by both sides... but I do feel that this debate could have waited until respect was shown to the lost. |
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As a tangental discussion I'd like to look at the idea that many students are carrying weapons. Someone in one class room starts shooting. People start screaming and yelling shooter. People with guns in other class rooms grab their guns and start running in the halls. All the sudden we have people running around looking to shoot someone with a gun while they have a gun. What is going to stop all of these people from shooting each other? Then the police come and see people with guns shooting each other and they pull out their guns and start shooting them because they are unable to identify the real shooter from the people with guns. That is a very bad but likely situation if everyone comes running with guns. People that are not trained panic, they do not know how to react and they react poorly. The situation could get much worse because of lots of people having guns. Being someone who has taught college courses I can tell you that I would not be comfortable with my students packing heat. Nor would most of my colleges. |
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and that has no bearing on my statement.
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It isn't age that bothers me. I don't feel that I should have to teach in front of a potential firing squad. If I hand someone a bad grade I don't want to worry about will they snap.
Please respond to my comments on Iraq and gun control and the case where people don't know who the gunman is because lots of people are running around with guns trying to find the gunman. |
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Let me start by saying I do respect your views and your passion, I always have and always will. However the post I quoted (and yes there was more and I agree with that portion), is plain and simple emotional bullshit. Just as the side that says "This proves we need gun control" is plain and simple emotional bullshit. To state the above Quote:
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To use this and play on people's emotions to further your own political gain is wrong, especially this soon afterward. There are better arguments and ways to prove points without having to reduce your arguments to such tasteless statements that do not take into account the feelings of those that have lost loved ones. We are talking about a fucking tragedy in a painful time and both sides want to politicize it and make brownie points. When there is no need to, when there is no justification in doing so, and when people just need to digest and accept and mourn over the losses. I am truly saddened and believe this shows how torn our nation has become when such an event is not mourned for what happened but is politicized and emotions preyed upon to further one's views. |
If we look at the intent of the 2nd amendment it is there so that the population is armed in order to keep the government in check. You can have weapons at home and accomplish this. It's intent was not to have a population walking around with guns. No that sounds like the middle east to me.
If the government were to go crazy tomorrow and need to be overthrown the majority of the population would have time to go home and get their guns. I highly doubt the government is going to be able to raid every single office and home in the US at the same time. |
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And as far as students running around with guns, Personally, I don't agree with arming the student populace, as I have stated in an earlier post in this thread, Rather ALLOWING the faculty to arm themselves IF THEY CHOOSE TO, after completing an appropriate firearm training class and background checks. Quote:
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1) don't teach. ( I know, not very reasonable.) 2) have your institution implement the types of security that were talked about earlier....armed guards on every floor, metal detectors monitored by armed guards at every entrance, and an unscalable wall with only one guarded entrance 3) carry your own gun for defense. Quote:
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I don't see whats wrong with making sure people who want a gun know how to use a gun and making sure that people who want a gun are mentally and criminally fit to own a gun. |
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All in all, when I say that gun control contributed to the deaths, I'm not blaming it directly. The blame lies squarely on the shoulders of the one who perpetrated the crime, but we can ALL see the ONE SINGLE THING that these 32 victims had in common, right? The fact that they were all unarmed and defenseless. |
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On an asside, I chuckled a little at the wording "criminally fit to own a gun" If you read it as a third party, it sounds kinda funny! |
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I can say that if the UK can do something, so can we. .05% of all crime in the UK has anything to do with a gun. CAN YOU IMAGINE THOSE STATS HERE?! |
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The AP is reporting that the other gun was legally purchased from an internet website located in Green Bay. http://www.todaystmj4.com/news/local/7103521.html Quote:
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Not true. Every household is allowed one AKM style weapon and one full magazine of ammunition for it. |
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Iraqis are not allowed to carry weapons, period. If we caught them with a weapon in their car we would arrest them and turn them over to the police, who would immediately let them go.
Handguns were not allowed, but we usually turned a blind eye when we found one. First off, none of the violence being perpetrated in our AO involved pistols. Second, we figured that if we lived in Iraq we'd all want a pistol, too. EDIT- Note: there are a lot of weapons either not addressed or prohibited under CPA and Iraqi law that are non-issues. For example, we had many hunters in our area, and equally many shotguns. We never confiscated these except when we found other damning evidence in the residence or vehicle. Often times we would actually give hunters shotgun ammo when we came across them, as we recieved a metric fuck-ton of #6 shotshells for our shotguns (which were totally useless to us). |
Thanks for the information debaser. How many tours have you done?
I personally like the idea of allowing people to own reasonable guns and keep them in their home. What I don't like is the idea of a everyone carrying a concealed hand gun. I don't have any stats on this but i'm willing to be the majority of gun crime in the US is done with a handgun. |
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Gun Deaths - International Comparisons Gun deaths per 100,000 population (for the year indicated): Homicide/Suicide/Unintentional USA 4.08 (1999)/6.08 (1999)/0.42 (1999) Canada 0.54 (1999)/2.65 (1997)/0.15 (1997) Switzerland 0.50 (1999)/5.78 (1998)/- Scotland 0.12 (1999)/0.27 (1999)/- England/Wales 0.12 (1999/00)/0.22 (1999)/0.01 (1999) Japan 0.04* (1998)/0.04 (1995)/<0.01 (1997) * Homicide & attempted homicide by handgun Data collected by Philip Alpers, Harvard Injury Control Research Center, and HELP Network Arguments for loosening gun control so everyone has the capacity to return fire?! :shakehead: The Wild West was over with nearly 120 years ago. |
Wow, what is Japan doin?
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Japan has a culture that puts large amounts of emphasis on honor. I'm guessing that might be part of it.
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American culture puts large amounts of emphasis on Loony Toons. It makes sense.
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mindless violence + enjoyment = Loony Toons
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I love looney toons....
not so much in favor of guns, but i also have to question...just when did these country enact their gun control laws/etc and how many were publicly available at the time. I'm no gun lover by any means, but i can easily see how difficult it would be for the gov't to take alllllll of the guns that are currently privately owned out of circulation. they can reasonably control the supply of new guns, but the sheer number of gun-owners right now would make it almost feasibly impossible to revoke. as it stands right now, i can hope and hope to enact some changes that may help our grandkids, but for my lifetime, i don't see much of a change coming in this area..for better or worse |
A couple of points about the data that no one has mentioned yet:
1) In the U.S. half again as many people commit or attempt suicide by gun as commit or attempt homicide. Put another way, you are more likely to kill yourself with a gun than you are to get killed by someone else. Of course, in Canada you are 5 times as likely, and in Switzerland 10 times as likely. Yes, I realize that this is only the most primitive sort of reading, but the numbers really jumped out at me as something I didn't expect. 2) Switzerland's numbers are very interesting (and Canada's as well, but less extreme) in that their rate of suicide by gun is nearly as high as ours while their rate of homicide is 1/8 of ours. That says something about culture vs. access to firearms. 3) I hate to be that guy, and I'm not saying this changes anything, but the most recent statistic shown is 7-8 years old. Just saying so no one else has to... I'm sure that (in the U.S. at least) a more detailed breakout would be even more illuminating. I'd be willing to bet that rural vs. urban, geographic region, age, and economic strata would produce some very unbalanced numbers. I'd be curious to see how those things work out, just as a point of interest. Quote:
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You're welcome. I've done too many, with another looming. You are correct regarding violence being commited with handguns, very rarely are long guns used. |
Maybe we should all be armed if anybody is.
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In addition to the 3 items that Ubertuber pointed out, I'd like to add that the "unintentional" number is nearly triple the next largest one. Not only do we kill people (ourselves or others) intentionally at a much higher rate than all others on this list, but we do it unintentionally at the roughly the same rate.
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Which is why a good first step would be to mandate gun safety courses in school.
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And you don't see any potential problems with that? |
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Nice idea, but I don't think it's actually workable if it were even politically possible. |
You can demonstrate on a gun without bullets.
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Sorry, this is just a bad idea. |
Guns only do what the person holding them tells them to do. I am fond of saying guns dont kill people, husbands that come home early do. What happened to the students in Virginia was wrong. No gun control law in the world will stop it. People can kill with darn near anything. Special kool-aid served at lunch can kill too.
Could the officials have prevented the second happening? I sincerely doubt it. They knew that the first happening had occured but how were they to know where the gunman was? Could they have cancelled classes? Yes. What would have stopped the guy from waiting around for them to vacate the buildings and picking them off as they fled? It is easy to point fingers and say what should have been done. What would we have done had we been the ones trying to figure this all out at the time that it happened? The hardest thing to do is accept that it has happened. Unfortunately that is what we have to do at this point. There is no bringing them back. If they outlaw guns, perhaps the next person will kill the masses with a sword or a box cutter. Perhaps light a shipment of fertilizer with a bomb in it. Strap themselves up with a home made bomb and detonate it in a building full of children. Where there is a will there is a way. I am not saying that it is right, I am saying that is the way of things. Feel free to toss me under the bus now. |
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