Shooting at Virginia TechFollow

And just for the obligatory "we need more gun control" argument...

It's worth noting that this massacre was committed using a single 9mm pistol and a single .22 cal pistol. No "assault weapons" were involved.

I'd also like to point out that had a single one of those students (or teachers) possessed a firearm, the death toll would have been much much lower. It's arguable that the entire reason he did this in the manner he did (locking the doors and doing the whole thing solo) was because he *knew* that his victims would be unarmed and helpless to stop him. He did not intend to survive the event, so he didn't care about the cops in terms of prep. The only deterent to his action was whatever degree of resistance would appear from within the building itself. He picked a place where he knew that no one could stop him. He continued killing people until the police succeeded in breaking down the doors and were heading up to the second floor.

In otherwords, the only thing that stopped him was the proximity of people with firearms. Think about that...

Okay. So the occasional random psycho going on a shooting spree may be deterred if he thinks the other students and/or teachers are packing, but you can't honestly think that if everyone has guns less shootings are going to occur, can you? I said this yesterday, but this argument for guns as gun control is the stupidest fUcking thing I've ever heard. Tell you what guns in the classroom would deter, though, they would deter me from ever taking a class again. I mean, why not just distribute body-armor to every student? I'd rather see that than a pistol in every backpack.

Edited, Apr 17th 2007 5:21pm by Barkingturtle

I often here the arguement that the US needs to have stronger gun control laws. Please note, gun control laws are in the hands of state governments also. I live in MA. and we have the strongest laws in the country.

This clown walked into a store and bought a gun by showing his greencard. Here, in MA, there is a 5 day waiting period were they WILL conduct a background check on you before you by a handgun.

When I got my class B licence (non-concealed), I had to fill out a long application as well as have 3 non-family members provide letters stating I wasn't crazy. They licence officer also contacted my boss at work to make sure I wans't disgruntled.

My point...stronger laws could have helped.

I also believe most gun crime is committed by stolen guns. As soon as I have a cite, I will link it.

Yes. I do. Because the higher the percentage of a population that owns guns legally, the more likely that criminals will avoid violent crime out of fear of reprisal. You have to understand that fundamentally the criminal who uses a gun to commit a crime does so out of fear of opposition. He's trying to avoid a conflict over whatever he's doing. He's typically not looking for a fight. He brings a gun to *avoid* one, figuring that no one will stop him if he's got a gun.

Same deal here. He choose a population that could not fight back. In fact, that is a common pattern with shootings like this, even going back to Charles Whitman in the tower at the University of Texas. Why do you think he choose a long range rifle? Why at the top of a tower? The pattern of gun use to commit murder (expecially mass murder like this) is very very consistent. They don't want anyone to interfere with what they are doing. They want to avoid a physical confrontation. They want to be "in control" of the situation, and find that a gun gives them that control.

Take that away, and while it wont prevent the motives, it will at the least stop the "low hanging fruit" like this guy.




Why is it stupid? Does you saying it is make it so? Have you actually thought this through, or just assume that your position is correct?

Your problem (and that of most anti-gun folks) is that you approach the entire issue by assuming that guns are the problem. The very term "gun control" shows this assumption. Thus, to you it *is* illogical to use more guns at a form of "gun control". However, the problem isn't the guns, but the way that some people use them. In this case, how do you prevent people from deciding to grab a couple firearms, head to a populated area and just start killing people?

Reducing the number or availability of guns doesn't prevent that. Afterall, someone who's planning to do something like this will make sure to find a way to get the guns he wants/needs. All you really do is decrease the likelyhood that any of his potential victims will possess a gun, making his job *easier*, not harder.

It's not a stupid proposition. How about you actually address the issue on its merits instead of based on your own starting assumptions?



I'm betting that the kids would be a hell of a lot more polite in class though, wouldn't they?


Arguably, our entire society would be much more polite if more people walked around with guns. You are assuming that the guys with guns would be the troublemakers. But that's an assumption born of an anti-gun mentality that has actively made it so that the only people with guns are the troublemakers.

Those people are always a minority. If more people carried weapons on them, then a much greater percentage of non-troublemakers would be carrying weapons then troublemakers. It would keep those guys in check. The absolute worst case would be some suicidal freak (like the guy in this case). The difference being that he'd have died in the first room he entered rather then being able to walk from room to room systematically killing people.


With the exception of gun accidents, there's no case in which the carrying of weapons legally would make gun crime *worse*. And your argument was specific to "shootings", not accidents.

Edited, Apr 17th 2007 5:21pm by Barkingturtle[/quote]

See? We agree! Take away the gun and he no longer has control.

All kidding aside, have you been around 18-24 year-olds lately? Would you want them carrying guns while going about their day-to-day activities? That's what the problem with your idea is; if folks are walking around, everyone strapped, then everything has the potential to end with a gunshot. Every disagreement, every hurt feeling, every time they get cut off in traffic, every time something just deosn't go their way. Happiness isn't a warm gun just because of the sensation of hot metal in your hand, it's because of the elimination of whatever was just bothering you. Yeah, in our current society of instant gratification, I can really see the wisdom in arming the masses for the greater peace.

Give me a fUcking break.

Yes. I do. Because the higher the percentage of a population that owns guns legally, the more likely that criminals will avoid violent crime out of fear of reprisal.

Totally. Also, if only the World Trade Center had their own fleet of passenger jets swarming around ready to smash into possible attacks, that tragedy could have been avoided too.

I mean it's only common sense. If more private buildings legally owned fleets of jets patrolling their airspace ready to smash into oncoming jets, no one would have even tried that ****.

A Liberal looks around at the problems of the world, concieves of an idealized world in which the people would all collectively prevent those problems and goes about changing the laws/rules to build the world those people would live in. He assumes that humans will make good choices if only given a world in which those choices would work perfectly.

A Conservative sees those same problems. But he realizes that you can't change human nature. So he builds a set of laws/rules to minimize the damage that human nature will cause. He assumes humans will make bad choices and builds his system to deal with that.


The liberals world may seem like the "right way". The problem is that it does not work because the people who have to live in it are not perfect. We are mean, greedy, and violent. We always have been. Maybe someday humanity will evolve socially to the point where we wont. But that has to happen *first*. Building a system that requires us to be "good" does not work because it ultimately empowers those who are not good, and weakens those who are. In the end, it provides incentive for those evil tendenies to occur.


In the case of gun control, you ultimately end up disarming all those who would use those weapons responsibly, while those who would use them irresponsibly will always be able to find a way to get them. And *that's* why the concept is fundamentally flawed.

No, not close. That doesn't even vaguely resemble the view of the modern left. If you were referring to 13th century Holy Roman Empire politics or something, perhaps.

I realize that you're mentally ill and all, but you do understand that the idealistic unrealistic view is that arming everyone would somehow prevent crime, not vice versa, right? That the very reason it would make sense to not allow legal possession of handguns is that legally purchased and possessed handguns are used to kill innocent people all the time.

Like this time, for example.



Edited, Apr 17th 2007 9:50pm by Smasharoo

Yeah, I mentioned that about a day ago. This will help those who want to ban handguns though!Or so you just assume because it makes your argument for you. Or else the guy would have shot the armed student first. Or else the armed student would have fired and hit another student. Or else...

Well, it's easier if we just assume that the armed student would have gunned down this guy and saved the day, huh? So that's certainly what would have happened.

Um. It's exactly right. In an ideal world, no one would need guns because there would be no violence. Thus, if we get rid of guns, we'll get rid of the violence.

That is the fundamental assumption of the Left in this country Smash. You assume that if you make the rules that you think a perfect society should have, that the people will magically become perfect as well.


Conservatives see that the violence is in the person, not the weapon he uses. Thus, taking away the weapon only disarms those who would not seek to break the law in the first place. Overwhelmingly, this results in the criminals having weapons and the law abiding people not having them, making it easier for criminals.


As to whether or not these weapons were gained legally is irrelevant. Every act designed to make it harder to obtain those weapons increases the ratio of criminals owning guns versus non-criminals owning guns. Because the criminals have a motive to obtain them, while the law abiding citizen does not. If it were easy to obtain and carry one, many law abiding people might. When it's really difficult to do so, most will not. But the guy planning something like this will do whatever it takes to get those weapons so he'll have the advantage.


Your argument might make sense if we could magically make every firearm in the world disappear. But we can't, can we? Once again, we see the Conservative taking a position that works within the context of the real world, while the Liberals are taking one that only works in fantasyland. In the real world, in which guns do exist and will exist for quite some time, it makes more sense to ensure that the greatest percentage of gun owners are *not* criminals, rather then the other way around.


But Liberals, in their blind pursuit of the "perfect world, where no one owns a gun", will happily make it harder and harder for the law abiding person to own one, effectively giving the criminals more power. 100 years ago, no one would have done what this guy did. Not because there weren't some pissed off people back then, but because anyone contemplating such a thing would have realized that he'd never get very far with just a couple pistols. The fact that this guy was so confident in his ability to completely control everyone in that building that he chained the doors is a good indicator of what I'm talking about. He walked in with nothing more then a couple pistols. Whitman baracaded himself on a tower with a sniper rifle. Huberty walked into a McDonalds with an uzi, a rifle and a shotgun. The Columbine kids had multiple weapons and used bombs and distraction tactics to do their work. This guy simply walked into a building with a couple pistols *knowing* that no one would be able to stop him.


That's not because pistols are so incredibly powerful Smash. It's because over time our society has changed such that it's become obvious that all you really need are a couple pistols to pull something like this off. The fear that most people contemplating some act like this have that someone will oppose them has disapated over time as they've seen that in most cases no one *can*. And this act will only embolden the next nutcase to do it. Because he's proven just how easy it is.

And no amount of gun control will change that.

I sat with in 5 feet of a so call kid, (between age of 18 to 22) who went off today at the director and for a moment we all thought he was going for a gun in his pocket. Instead he just told the director to **** Off and walked out the door. While this was happening, the client working at the front desk, made 8 people wait on the other side of the locked glass doors.

This wasn't a coddle kid. Coddle boys in his neighborhood, means you never let them out of the house, or even near a window. Most start selling drugs, so they can feed themselves and their younger siblings, while their parent are too busy getting high to care.

While you can't buy guns legally in the city, they are easy to get hold of by anyone who wants one. The kid just being a client, would cause him to fail a back ground check, but I wouldn't be surprised if he ever used one in a crime.

Bad enough that I have a friend, who lost a grandson few weeks back. He was honor roll and had a full schalorship to John Hopkins. He was just down the block acrossing the street, on his way her house for his cousin's 17th birthday dinner. Someone shot him in the back of the head. Police think he was mistaken for someone else. My friend, worries that the rest of her grandkids will seek revenge, adding to the numbr of dead here in a city already with a high death toll this year. All she can do is try to convince them not to follow the law of the streets of "Eye for an Eye."

Then you would think these kids, killing each other off, is a good thing. No wonder why they feel they have no future. Poor parents, and a society that rather see them in jail, then let them have a decent school and chance of living the american dream.

Um. It's exactly right. In an ideal world, no one would need guns because there would be no violence. Thus, if we get rid of guns, we'll get rid of the violence.

That is the fundamental assumption of the Left in this country Smash. You assume that if you make the rules that you think a perfect society should have, that the people will magically become perfect as well.

All due respect, even if you weren't intellectually crippled, I think I'd be able to more accurately speak to the political theories of the Left in this country.

The fundamental assumption of the Left in this country is that it's the job of government to make the standard of living better for everyone. Not getting shot in the head while attending your engineering class would certainly fall into that.

Passing laws that protect people from being injured needlessly is hardly some Utopian theory. It's a necessity.


Conservatives see that the violence is in the person, not the weapon he uses. Thus, taking away the weapon only disarms those who would not seek to break the law in the first place. Overwhelmingly, this results in the criminals having weapons and the law abiding people not having them, making it easier for criminals.

Right, see, this is the Utopian viewpoint, that people are by and large responsible and self governing and that by some insane extension of that criminals will make rational reasoned decisions weighing things like how well armed the general populace is before committing crazy mass murder suicides.

While obviously a normal well adjusted person doesn't find a gun on the ground and go on a mass killing spree, it's ludicrous to argue that the easy availability of guns doesn't magnify the intensity of the violence committed by people who snap and decide they want to hurt other people. Having devices who's sole purpose is to kill other people more efficiently will have that effect. If there were 300 million canisters of Sarin floating around the country that you could buy in WalMart for $100, he probably would have gone that route. We wouldn't ever let that happen, however, because there would be no reason to allow citizens to own something which had the sole purpose of killing other people efficiently. The same applies to handguns.


As to whether or not these weapons were gained legally is irrelevant. Every act designed to make it harder to obtain those weapons increases the ratio of criminals owning guns versus non-criminals owning guns. Because the criminals have a motive to obtain them, while the law abiding citizen does not.

Of course it's relevant. Had they been obtained illegally you'd have spend 1000000 words by now crying about gun laws wouldn't have mattered at all because evil nefarious criminals scoff at the law. Since that's not the case here, and the evil nefarious criminal was handed a gun over the counter, along with boxes of amo with no waiting period, no standard to measure his mental state, nothing. "Here you go, son. Now don't go shooting anyone with this weapon designed only for shooting people, wink wink!"


If it were easy to obtain and carry one, many law abiding people might. When it's really difficult to do so, most will not. But the guy planning something like this will do whatever it takes to get those weapons so he'll have the advantage.

I tend to think a 'guy planing something like this' isn't going to go through that much effort to get his implement of destruction. He's going to take the path of least resistance. If all that was available to him was a single shot shotgun, I think he'd have bought that. If he could have bought a machine gun, I think he'd have bought that. He just went out and bought what was easy, and that's the problem. It's too easy.


Your argument might make sense if we could magically make every firearm in the world disappear.

No, it makes perfect sense. Your wild eyed assumption that criminals will go through massive efforts to get guns is baseless.


But we can't, can we?

No, we can't do what you invented would be required to solve a problem. Also, since the only way free market economies will work if is we pain all of the pigs in the world bright green, that's out too.


Once again, we see the Conservative taking a position that works within the context of the real world, while the Liberals are taking one that only works in fantasyland. In the real world, in which guns do exist and will exist for quite some time, it makes more sense to ensure that the greatest percentage of gun owners are *not* criminals, rather then the other way around.

Yeah, I got it the first 90 times. As usual, no one's having any trouble understanding what you're arguing for, they're having trouble understanding how anyone could be so delusional. Lets say your argument were correct for just a moment.

Why wouldn't it apply equally well to land mines? Honestly. Land mines are defensive weapons that private citizens could use to defend their property from criminal invasion. As it stands now, only criminals can use land mines to defend their property, or to carry out sabotage of other people's property.

Shouldn't we want most law abiding people to have land mines and be trained in their use to be better able to protect their property?


But Liberals, in their blind pursuit of the "perfect world, where no one owns a gun", will happily make it harder and harder for the law abiding person to own one, effectively giving the criminals more power. 100 years ago, no one would have done what this guy did. Not because there weren't some pissed off people back then, but because anyone contemplating such a thing would have realized that he'd never get very far with just a couple pistols.

No, it's largely because there weren't cheap effective semi-automatic weapons flooding the market in 1807. If your theory was anything approaching true, Somalia would be a garden paradise of crimeless safety, since everyone is armed to the teeth. Funny how it isn't.

Oh wait, I know why, darkies right?



The fact that this guy was so confident in his ability to completely control everyone in that building that he chained the doors is a good indicator of what I'm talking about. He walked in with nothing more then a couple pistols. Whitman baracaded himself on a tower with a sniper rifle. Huberty walked into a McDonalds with an uzi, a rifle and a shotgun. The Columbine kids had multiple weapons and used bombs and distraction tactics to do their work. This guy simply walked into a building with a couple pistols *knowing* that no one would be able to stop him.

That's not because pistols are so incredibly powerful Smash. It's because over time our society has changed such that it's become obvious that all you really need are a couple pistols to pull something like this off. The fear that most people contemplating some act like this have that someone will oppose them has disapated over time as they've seen that in most cases no one *can*. And this act will only embolden the next nutcase to do it. Because he's proven just how easy it is.

And no amount of gun control will change that.

So, just to sum up, your argument is that if he had determined that it would require more firepower than just a couple of pistols, because society has changed soooo much since 1999 that less people own guns and it's easier to exploit that. Right?

Did I miss anything? Let me check again.


The Columbine kids had multiple weapons and used bombs and distraction tactics to do their work. This guy simply walked into a building with a couple pistols *knowing* that no one would be able to stop him.

That's not because pistols are so incredibly powerful Smash. It's because over time our society has changed such that it's become obvious that all you really need are a couple pistols to pull something like this off.

Nope, that's your argument all right.


The number of privately owned guns in the U.S. is at an all-time high.

Interesting. The NRA says there are more guns in private hands then ever. Well, that could just be the good smart hardworking people who own 100 guns each, I suppose.


The number of gun owners is also at an all-time high.

Oh. Well, damn if that isn't inconvenient for you. Wait though, maybe they own them, but the laws are so restrictive that they can't use them for protection. I mean if we're passing laws making it impossible to carry one..

The number of Right To Carry states is at an all-time high

Oh.

Do you ever get tired of being wrong? Just out of curiosity. I mean it's clear it doesn't bother you much, but I wonder to myself if you ever just get weary of being so completely wrong and having it proven so easily.

Let me know.



Edited, Apr 18th 2007 12:01am by Smasharoo

Absolutely not, I could not disagree more. I own a handgun and I am not using it to kill people.

My brother-in-law is a cop and as a male bonding ritual, we head down to the local firing range. Wouldn't you consider that another purpose?

I think some of you need to realize that most of the gun crime committed in the US is committed by illegal guns (i.e. stolen guns with serial numbers scratched off). Most gun crime in the US is committed against criminals by other criminals.

Check out the site for statistics link

I found it interesting that when Canada enacted very strict laws against owning a gun, the B & E rate jumped 25%.

People are crazy if they think that if all guns magically disappeared the murder rate would go down. I will tell you what would happen, the murder rate with knives would go up.