Rampage at Virginia Tech, Blacksburg

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Tal,

I guess the view "Why should I give up my gun, after all I'm a responsible law abiding citizen who can handle it?" is much more common. Of course, the result is the same.

And I wouldn't really say that they feel threatened in general (though some certainly do), but rather that they feel being discriminated against and they're frustrated because of what they see as activist politicians imposing on them burdens or sacrifices because of the irresponsible conduct of others, namely lunatics and criminals.

That is actually rather comprehensible. And partly the activist politician part of the view has merit.

That said, IMO the US gun lobby is pretty bonkers for being so utterly hysterical about the issue.

From my cold dead hands, hear me?!!!!

 

Nothing but sympathy from me for the families and the victims. It's all so heart-wrenching.

 

@ Ragusa

The problem is that everyone is a law-abiding citizen---that is until they aren't anymore, at which point, if a handgun is involved, their ex-wife, themselves, their classmates, or whomever is dead.

 

Late-Night Thinker, the vast majority of handgun owners don't buy their weapons to feel manly. They buy them for protection. And what about the large number of women who own firearms? Are they getting them to feel manly?

 

Let me ask this...do you think that if Professor Joe Librescu would have had a handgun that he was reasonably proficient with that he could have stopped the massacre right there, instead of doing the only thing he could, sacrificing himself to save others?

Let me take this a step further, though it is a little off topic.

Tal stated:

I agree, and have stated so on many occasions. Let us emphasize the fact that even if guns were make illegal in the US today, and every reasonable means possible (read Constitutional) was made to remove all guns from our society it would take generations to make a major dent in illegally owned guns, besides the fact that the black market would become very lucrative and still can't enforce the borders.

Now, given the fact that guns are going to be prevalent in the US for the foreseeable future, do you believe that it is your right to tell people that they do not have the option to defend themselves? If personally you choose not to have a firearm to defend yourself that is fine, and I respect it as only people who have the time and money to practice and who will keep their firearms secured from children should have them.

Is it sad that many Americans don't feel secure if they aren't armed??? Yep, but it doesn't change reality.

Last rant and I will give up on this. The gun lobby is partially responsible for this situation as they portray every reasonable piece of gun control legislature as the first step in taking away 2nd amendment rights...but it doesn't help when you have very visible organizations like the Brady Campaign out there saying that every bill is the "first step" in their crusade.

Again politics polarize and society suffers, but people never learn this lesson and demand change.

 

The thing is, a society in which everyone goes armed in public will have a higher level of 'background killings' than we do now (in all likelihood). Yeah, you won't get the massacres. You'll almost certainly get a greater total number of deaths, however. They may be more palatable because they come in ones and twos, scattered around the country, granted.

An armed society is not a polite society. See Mogadishu. Or Beirut.

 

And a motive has appeared:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/18/vtech.shooting/index.html

I'm not sure what to think of it other than: I really dislike (well, obviously, but I mean, I find it a sick excuse) when people try to martyr themselves, fighting against the 'oppressive' upper-class by killing innocent people.

This was a very sad incident, I hope all of the families make it out relatively alright.

EDIT: So to Aldeth, who said "the guy never had to leave campus in the first place," apparently he did leave (to mail the video/pictures), so a lockdown would not have caught him, but perhaps it could have prevented him from re-entering the campus, although as has been stated, with such a large campus, I am sure he would have been able to find a way in.

 

I am sorry, I know I am off topic, but I can't let this pass:

Please present some statistical or scientific evidence for that claim. "in all likelihood" is the same thing as "everyone knows" and everyone new that the world was flat, that the moon was made of cheese and that global cooling was a great threat to mankind. Your premise is based upon the assumption that you can keep guns out of peoples hands...we already determined that in the US you can't. The fact is that nation wide, of those people issued concealed carry permits, less than 1% ever commit a crime with their firearm, and that includes illegal presentation (drawing without cause). There are no statistics kept for their use except when a crime is committed (drawing without cause) or shooting, but there is evidence that they are used many times more often to peacefully resolve dangerous situations without a shot being fired. The premise that the introduction of another gun to a potentially violent situation only raises the threat level is false...it often times immediately eliminates the true threat.

Both the states I have lived in have "will issue" concealed carry laws, and yet both have less than 5% of their population who chose to do so, so your premise of allowing people to choose to be armed will result in an armed populace is way off the mark.

You know, I might excuse someone from another county comparing America to these types of places, but I can't here. This is a completely invalid comparison. Are you going to compare America's issues with discrimination with apartheid South Africa next? Maybe I should make claims about California based upon Compton and south-central LA?

I dare you to do a study of murder rates in "will issue" states and compare them to murder rates in states that only issue on an exception basis or cities that have banned handguns completely, and the homicide rates in those states before and after they created their will issue laws. Will that prove that guns make people safer? Nope, but it will prove that allowing people to carry guns does not increase the risk of being murdered with one, and it proves that in the US murder is a social issue, not a gun control issue.

 

Saber, I don't think he was trying to martyr himself. I tend to think he was deranged at best, evil at worst, and behaved accordingly. I realize that's implicit in your post, but feel the need to make it explicit.

DW:
Apparently I didn't make myself clear. I apologize, and shall clarify.

I should further make clear in advance that I'm aware no one was arguing that everyone (law-abiding citizens, at any rate) in America should carry a firearm. However, it seems to me that the only way to make sure an armed, conscientious, law-abiding citizen is present at any violent or potentially violent situation is to arm the entire populace.

True enough. However, I'm unaware of any place in America where the entire populace--or anything approaching it--goes armed on a regular basis. If you are, please share.

Point being, there's not much for me to go on but assumption. Especially when one starts asking questions about the type(s) of people who obtain permits and carry weapons, and how they might--or might not--be exceptional. Again, if you have relevant information, please share.

No, it isn't.

My premise is that most Americans don't carry firearms with them on a regular basis, concealed or otherwise. I base this premise on the number of concealed carry permits issued in states where they are available which, while significant, does not approach a majority of the populace. The assumption this rests on is that people without concealed carry permits tend not to carry firearms. At least not regularly.

I readily acknowledge that you cannot prevent people from owning firearms. I likewise acknowledge that you cannot prevent them from carrying them. I note with interest, however, that most people don't seem to (referencing the above assumption).

Quite possibly, which I noted, though only implicitly, in my post. However, I never mentioned potentially violent situations in any of my posts in this thread. I did, earlier, mention that the introduction of new shooters in an already violent situation would likely result in inadvertant 'blue on blue' casualties, but that's all. I didn't argue that that the blue on blue would exceed what occured in this case.

I base that premise on the fairly frequent, and entirely understandable, occurances of LOEs erring in their use of force (compare the number of LAPD officers shot by other officers to the number shot by perps over the past 15 years, for instance).

Actually, there's some value in comparing the Jim Crow of America to the Apartheid of South Africa, but that's neither here nor there.

Why do I cite Mogadishu and Beirut? Because I have some difficulty envisioning how a society in which everyone goes armed differs from Hobbes' 'state of nature'; the 'war of all against all'.

Then again, not everyone had weapons there. I doubt, actually, that even a majority did.

I was addressing the hypothetical case of 'everyone has a gun', not the existing cases in which 'law abiding citizens can get guns and carry them if they want'. I remain unconvinced that 'everyone goes armed' wouldn't result in more injuries and fatalities (albiet in a pattern more diffuse than at present), but am open to contrary arguments and evidence.

Calling 'bs', however, won't convince me.

As a final note, you, apparently, make the mistaken assumption I'm unaware of--or unconvinced by--the data supporting the 'legal carry doesn't increase crime' argument.

 

So your whole statement was about an admited impossible hypothetical?

Like I say to my kids...if pigs were to start fly you better start looking up and if the sun never rose tomorrow you wouldn't have any worries anyway.

 

Perhaps Prof Librescu wanted to teach a class, rather than act as the Highway Patrol in the classroom. It's not really feasible to tell teachers that they need to arm themselves before thay can give a lecture to a classroom full of students. It's like saying: "Don't count on the laws and authorities to protect you, as they are pretty worthless. Here take this gun, learn how to use it, and just start blasting if a criminal comes into your classroom."

What a great idea. But let's not stop there, let's give them to preachers and priests, bankers, doctors and lawyers, too. (they can just send all the security gaurds home- who needs those slackers anyway?).

How about the guys who work on my yard? You never know when a six-shooter will come in handy instead of a rake. Let's give them to waiters and waitresses at restaurants as well. "Would you like a table near the shoot-out this evening? Or would you prefer something a little less exciting?"

Who needs laws that nobody pays any attention to? Who needs the police who are never around when you need them? Just pack a side-arm of your very own - and YOU can stop a crime in progress, just like a policeman - only better.

 

LNT,

Yes. That's the point.

Chandos,

I imagine that being particilarly sensible in a law school.

[ April 19, 2007, 08:13: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

Well said Chandos the red.

The thing is, in this particular situation, yes if someone else had a gun there *might* have been less bloodshed. But then where does it stop? As Chandos says, if carrying guns is the norm, he without a gun is screwed. Imagine the playground bully armed with a 9mm instead of a stick.

Arming people is treating the event rather than the cause. What you need to do, is take the guns away, so that Cho couldnt have got one, and if Cho, and people like him dont have them, there wont be any need for anyone else to have guns. Works well in Britian - we dont have much gun crime, the cops dont even carry guns. Coming from South Africa, I used to wonder why the cops werent walking around with automatic assault rifles, but I get it now. Its all about escalation. If you have guns freely available, your cops need to pack bullet proof vests and assault rifles. If guns arent so freely available, your cops only need guns for really illegal stuff, for gang violence. yes people will get guns, they will always get guns, but then its also the job of the police to stop illegal sources of firearms, and to respond with force when all else fails.

Asking the civilians to be law enforcers only makes more trouble for the police in the end. Do you think the police would rather that Cho had not been able to get a gun? It was right, they did a background check, he got them totally legally. but of course, hindsight is the perfect sight - everybody knows he should never have been able to get one.

 

Well, that's pretty much the case, actually. I think that what happened illustrates that rather well.

Edit: With some luck his entire manifesto will be released and we can get a better picture of his thinking ... of course, they still haven't released the tapes made by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold yet, so maybe not.

[ April 19, 2007, 13:13: Message edited by: Aikanaro ]

 

It's true though. Decication is not barred by laws, it's nothing. I know that, as I have broken quite a few laws in my days(still do, as I'm pro-piracy).

 

Hmm, I found this while I was searching for the writings of Dylan Klebold (or the rest of them anyway - I've found the first and last parts of a story by him, but the middle is missing...): http://www.courttv.com/news/2006/0202/riehm_ctv.html

Strange how I find the Columbine killers more interesting than Cho Seung-hui, but they just seem like much more sympathetic characters. It's possible to relate to them to some extent. This guy ... I don't really think I could. He sounds more insane than anything.

 

Now that we know a little more detail, it turns out that Cho Seung-hui was a mental patient and was in a continuing out-patient program, which was never followed up on. The local police already had a file on him and he was a "person of interest." He was held for 72 hours at a state mental hospital because he was a "potential threat to himself or others," and under the state law he was released.


And all he had to do was walk into the corner store and buy a gun. Would you sell a gun to a mental patient? One who was a potential threat to himself and others? But hey, at least nobody violated his 2nd Amendment rights to own a gun....

 

Sorry Aikanaro -- all mass murderers are, by definition, insane. Yet I cannot feel any sympathy for such forms of insanity.

 

Hey 33 people died but rednecks get to keep their guns so they can shoot them varmints. thems good eatin'.

 

I don't know where to start here so I'll just say that I generally agree with Darkwolf.

All this talk about "everyone" being armed is absurd. Even if concealed carry permits were easy to get in every locale, most people still wouldn't carry. Those that do choose to obtain a permit and carry a weapon are required to have training in how and when to use the weapon. All it would have taken to stop this creep is one or two armed citizens.

Comparing an armed U.S. with an armed Mogidishu is equally absurd. The conditions in the two places can't even remotely be compared. So I guess the evil guns infiltrate the minds of the otherwise peaceful warlords and incite them to violence. Wow, that's a lot of power for an inanimate object. I'm surprised that my firearms haven't started speaking to me, telling me to mount a machine gun on a truck and terrorize the city.

In my opinion, the police and the university did the best that they could and should not be blamed. A general lockdown seems unreasonable and unfeasable.