Rampage at Virginia Tech, Blacksburg

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Hyperbole and hogwash...I never said anything about forcing anyone to carry a gun. You know Chandos, you used to be better at this, but you appear to be turning into a Republican...don't take a persons words for what they said, twist them around into something absurd and then beat them over the head with it.

Please, somebody here show me any statistics, however skewed and played with, that show that legally licensed citizens carrying a firearm has increased the violence level in general or in specific types of cases...don't expect me to hold my breath .

So there is a stupid oversite in the Virginia gun laws...sure it need to be closed, but even if it was, do you think it would have stopped this loon from getting the guns and ammo he wanted? No way. Obvously what we are doing now doesn't work, and as we already admitted there is no way we are going to get rid of the guns, so now give me a solution that will work in reality, not the fantasy world of those who think we can make guns go away by making them illegal.

 

You asked the question - sorry you did not like the answer. And I have no desire in trading personal insults with you. Please save your personal comments for elsewhere.

 

No, I asked "if he would have had", not "if he had been forced to have", you injected your personal views on the question and drug more into it than it stated.

Sorry if I hurt your feelings, I guess I just take it personally when people try to ridicule what I state and thus ridicule me by default) by twisting what I said and attributing positions to me that I don't hold or endorse.

 

Hmmh... just saw a news report showing part of the video the shooter sent in. It appears he sent dozens of pictures and the video between the two situations. Quite a nutcase, it seems. All pictures shown (twenty or so) were of him aiming the camera with a gun, aiming himself with a gun, pushing a knife against his throat and so on.
In the video he seems to blame the victims, telling that they "had cornered him" in some way and he had no other choices.
Also, as to what I've read, he seemed to be quite weird at the school too.

Sad, just sad.

 

Yes, I've read a report that he had once (in 2005) been in a mental health clinic, after he had been involved in 2 stalking incidents.

Either way, I think things are a bit too lax with gun control. If the gun was illegal, then it's a bit too easy to get an illegal firerm on a student campus (and it makes a difference in how easy it is to get illegal firearms, imo). If it was legal, it's even worse - this is only two years after the guy has been examined, for crying out loud. I can understand gun ownership as a grave responsibility, and it seems the US is falling short of that imo. What's the big deal of there being a register of gun owners, and one's rights being revoked in case of a crime or a mental disorder?

[ April 19, 2007, 22:46: Message edited by: The Shaman ]

 

DW: There are many, many studies that show the number of deaths from violence increase greatly as firearms are added to the equation. The amount of violence doesn't seem to change from one place to another (if that's your point then I agree with you), but those places with greater restrictions on firearms have a lower death rate from violence.

As someone pointed out earlier (sorry to not give credit where credit is due) in increasing the number of guns being carried by the populace you will decrease the number of deaths associated with the mass murders -- this is true here just as it would have been in Columbine, I'm certain that track coach could have taken the gun men down, if he was armed, before they ever got to the library.

But increasing the number of guns in the populace will most likely also increase the number of deaths by guns (I guess we will see that in a few years as meaningful statistics come out of Texas). I personally believe the onesy-twosy killings that occur when a larger populace carries guns would outnumber the deaths from these tragic mass-murders.

As the saying goes -- rob from Peter to pay Paul. Both are equally terrible outcomes.

 

DW - You did not hurt my feelings, so no harm was done. The rules on this forum are specific regarding personal comments. Your view regarding the tragic murder of the Professor was posed as a question, and I thought you were seeking the opinions of others regarding the point of if he should have had a gun in the classroom. He did not have a gun with him, so we would guess that given normal circumstances the man had no interest in having a gun in his classroom. The question you asked seemed quite plain to me. Otherwise, I can hardly understand your point in asking it. Either you thought he should have had a gun in the classroom, (and he should have had some training with it), or you thought he should not have had one, even though it is already quite obvious that -- by choice --he did not have one. Otherwise, why would you ask a question like that?

 

Not quite. About a hypothetical yes, and an unlikely one, but one you brought up. I shall elaborate:

You asked whether the professor might have stopped the massacre, had he carried a firearm to work that day. This sort of thing comes up whenever a violent crime catches a lot of headlines and generates discussion, and the basic point is, as far as I can tell, that guns can and do prevent crime (this ties in to your earlier post about armed citizens preventing three other school shootings). The implication being that more citizens should carry firearms.

I hope I have adequately summarized the message you intended your question to convey; if I have not, please correct me.

My point was that, for citizens carrying firearms' to be an effective method of preventing such massacres, virtually all citizens will need to carry them. Otherwise, you're relying on chance to put an armed citizen in the right place at the right time to stop such violence (or violent crime in general, for that matter).

I posited that if most people carried firearms most of the time, firearms would be used more often, though not for massacres. T2 expressed my position quite well.

If anything in this chain of reasoning seems problematic, I would appreciate an explanation.


Dinsdale,

Your first paragraph is addressed in my reply to DW, though I would add that LOEs are likewise required to train with firearms, yet one still finds many, many cases of LOEs erring in situations in which it is necessary to use their weapons (in large part this is due to inadequate training, but it is rather unlikely citizens with concealed carry permits receive better training than LOEs).

In the first place, I brought up Mogadishu and Beirut to make the point that the oft-heard saying 'an armed society is a polite society' is rather problematic.

In the second place, I in no way blamed the situations in those cities on the presence of firearms.

 

amaster, i would say thet at LEAST 1/3 of private gunowners are better trained than most LEOs. most of the LEOs that i know only fire their pistols at the twice yearly certification. most of them score at or barely above the minimum required to pass. almost all of the private owners i know practice anywhere from 2-7 days a week every week. most of them handload their own ammo to keep the cost down, or buy from those who do. check out just about any shooting competition and probably 99% of those shooting will be private citizens not LEOs

 

I was refering more to training in (and especially experience with), ah, hostile situations than I was to marksmanship, but your point is well taken.

 

Given that Virginia law, like almost every "will issue" state, prohibits any CCW permit holders from carrying their firearm on campus I am not sure that you can make that assumption with complete confidence.

Personally I don't agree with that law, but it is the same here in Oklahoma, unless the school President provides an personal exemption, which of course would never be provided unless there was a dire reason.

I am not sure that students or guests should be allowed to carry concealed on campus even if permited, but employees absolutely should be able to.

Funny thing is that during my year in the dorms at OU I knew of 6 handguns on just my floor, plus one of the guys had a deer rifle and a 12 gauge in his room. Strange that I was never afread of them. I was speaking to a coworker who lived in the dorms at OSU for 3 years and every year he knew at least 1 person who had a gun in their room. Of course both schools had their own Barney Fife's, under-trained cops that I could outshoot any day of the week, walking around with Glock 17s, and 2 spare mags. That would be 52 rounds of ammo per incompitent cop.

Yep, I would definitely be more worried about a Prof legally carrying a 5 round snubbie or a 7 round KelTec than I would about armed students and campus cops squaring off.

If anyone is interested in educating themselves about the carry laws in their state, or any other state I would recommend checking out packing.org.

 

That was a part of my point. When you take a job, you agree to the terms and conditions of employment at the time they are offered. You make the choice that the conditions are acceptable. He knew when he took the job that there would be no firearms on campus and if he wanted to carry a firearm to work, then he could join the Highway Patrol. We "almost always" have a choice.

 

As much as I think gun control is a worthy subject of discussion how about socities responsibility to pin point these nutters and give them help before they do stuff like this.

I work in a mental institution and I know how easy people are let back out and how hard it is for someone to get help. Often they seek help, they know that they are a danger but they dont get help until smoething happens. Hopefully they only threathen their families but every now and then they kill someone.

That is in Sweden and I have really no idea how it is in the states but I cant imagine their mental care being more aggressive and accesible. People who are about to go kokobananas usually show plenty of signs and very often actively try to seek out help but due to cost restrictions, lack of rooms and so forth they dont actually get help until it is already too late.

Common sense tells you that if you have a mental record you sure as hell shouldnt have a weapon.

 

Darkwolf, if that professor would have had a gun, he probably would now be dead, too.
You try to face a nutcase without any moral qualms about shooting people who carries not one, but two guns yourself. You hesitate, he does not. You're dead.

A regular guy (or girl) will always hesitate before shooting someone, except being a soldier (or former soldier) who are trained to shoot on sight.

 

http://www.harvardmagazine.com/on-line/090433.html

Evidence that more guns do cause more fatalities. Note this bit:

 

Forget it, I quit.

[ April 20, 2007, 15:15: Message edited by: Darkwolf ]

 

This bit from the Economist seems timely:

 

That is very interesting, though I'd like to see more examples and data before forming any conclusions.

 

Can there be a rational explanation for insanity? The Medieval theologians were supposed to have asked, "How many Angels can dance on the head of a pin?" How many bodies can fill a void in the soul? Thirty-two apparently, in this case, since the murderer committed suicide when he had reached this number. But this is merely a fact, not an explanation.

I found myself remembering Gus Van Sant's film "Elephant", loosely based on the notorious shootings at Columbine High School just ten years ago. Van Sant used an almost entirely amateur cast of real high school students, who wrote and spoke their own lines--the main shooter is a truly frightening creation. But Van Sant gives no answers, draws no conclusions. The camera periodically turns to the sky, as though seeking an answer that will not come. The title, I believe, comes from the story of a committee of blind men trying to describe an elephant.

I doubt if we'll get much closer than this to the truth of what happened. Except to add that we live in a culture that preaches that all problems--political, social, personal--can be solved by violence.