Atleast 22 dead in US college shooting

[finderella1]

Wow... no self confidence huh? That must suck.

 

SB, I love you man, but who was talking about gunbattles? This ain't a John Woo movie, this is very real.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Its not about self confidence at all. For all you know I might think I'm the most amazing person ever, and everyone else is just inferior, and should be wiped off the planet by my righteous judgement. Oh wait, you're right, wheres the nearest gun shop?

[mcnuggets]

As terrible and absolutely horrific this tradgedy is calls for gun control will not help prevent a future tradgedy from occuring.

 

1.) Statistically speaking I'm more likely to die from a lightning strike then from a school shooting like this. It's an awful tragedy but a statisically unlikely one. This isn't a leading cause of death for students. It's just a highly visible one yet statistically insignificant.

 

2.) There are too many guns in the states. I mean something on the order of millions. So even if the 2nd Amendment were overturned and guns were confiscated (like in the UK) many would fall through the cracks. Practically speaking a gun ban wouldn't work for many years.

 

3.) Here's something out of left field. Some of you may not agree. But I'd say that guns are the last check on government power. Take a look at the American Revolution to see how effective private ownership of guns are against a tyrannical government. You have to keep guns legal ultimately for this reason.

[HeuteGegangen]

Call it what you will, dismiss it if it makes you feel a little better. The fact remains, the man believes he doesn't want himself to be armed so that others will share the same fate. He doesn't believe he can decide who should be given arms in a society.

 

And please finderella1, continue making up unfounded and baseless arguments to try and prove your points. Maybe a little 'british sarcasm' to spice things up! You don't have to be right, as long as you can make an imaginary argument sound wrong.

[mentalpatient]

luckily here in the uk gun murders are rare, but there are a few of you good old americans at my school and they didnt like the wide availability of guns in the us, well atleast the girls didn't.

 

 

i think we need to tackle the root of the problem--- stop them getting so angry or help the mentally impaired etc

 

then again i know little of american life so i will shut up now

 

 

just watched the bbc news a while ago.... they reckon thre are about 200 million firearms privatly owned in the us!!! that is about 3.7 times as many guns as there are people here in the UK!!!!

 

(i think there are just over 60 million people here!!)

[hardboiledcop]

whatever happened to solving ones problems without guns, a good fistfight should be enough to prove who has the bigger wang, then you can both go for a pint afterwards.

 

You can't go for a pint with a corpse.

 

And while I agree wholeheartedly with everyone's right to gun ownership, the 'need' to carry a weapon in the unlikely event of a mad gunman on the loose is just a signal of a fractured society, there are other countries in the world where gun ownership is even more popular the the US, and they don't go around shooting one another.

[finderella1]

Call it what you will, dismiss it if it makes you feel a little better. The fact remains, the man believes he doesn't want himself to be armed so that others will share the same fate. He doesn't believe he can decide who should be given arms in a society.

 

And please finderella1, continue making up unfounded and baseless arguments to try and prove your points. Maybe a little 'british sarcasm' to spice things up! You don't have to be right, as long as you can make an imaginary argument sound wrong.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I think some "British" common sense is more appropriate here. Please point out where my unfounded and baseless arguments would get people killed.

[HeuteGegangen]

This is where I'm conflicted. It's easy to say that carrying a concealed weapon is a paranoid, needless and dangerous action. At the same time, here is a very real event which might have been prevented by just that. The weapons used were pretty clearly illegally obtained, do legal gun carriers deserve to be punished through removal for this man's actions?

 

 

And there you are again finderella1, making up stupid arguments. When did I say that you claiming to be inferior to other people would kill those other people? That's just dumb... Think a little before you post.

[Ze_wolf]

Sorry to anyone who was caught in this

 

the only thing i can say is that america should follow britain and have strict rules on how guns can be used/accesed

[hitmanNo2]

Yeah, only let the criminals have guns, that'll work.

[hardboiledcop]

Sorry to anyone who was caught in this

 

the only thing i can say is that america should follow britain and have strict rules on how guns can be used/accesed

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

good god, if there's one country in the WORLD that American SHOULD NOT FOLLOW... it's the United Kingdom.

 

---

 

Oh, and I'm not against CCW, I just think this event is a symptom of a far bigger problem than gun control, it comes from deep within the American psychie, where Brits are known for their stiff upper lip (hell most of us still tip in restaurants even if the service and food was obismal), Americans are known for shooting off the handle..

 

Perhaps if we met in the middle we'd both be the better for it.

[finderella1]

This is where I'm conflicted. It's easy to say that carrying a concealed weapon is a paranoid, needless and dangerous action. At the same time, here is a very real event which might have been prevented by just that. The weapons used were pretty clearly illegally obtained, do legal gun carriers deserve to be punished through removal for this man's actions?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Assuming they were illegally obtained, what are the chances they were taken from a friend or relative who is legally allowed to keep weapons?

[HeuteGegangen]

What are the chances they fell off the back of a truck? Trucks have weapons sometimes don't they?

 

 

 

Illegally obtained weapons are Illegally obtained weapons. It should be noted that the weapon's serial numbers were filed off. These were clearly Illegally obtained.

[NKVD]

Due to the events of today, I found myself thinking about my airsoft gun and related gear at home. Then I realized I still had an account here. After not sleeping I decided to see what a community of people who might be greatly impacted by the event might have to say on the event. Expecting some informative and possibly intelligent commentary I was interested to find the topic being split off into tangents that really didn't apply much to the issue at hand. One of my favorites being the issue of gun control after the fact. Well let's try to remember a few things.

 

1) Most college campuses aren't fortified therefore anyone with a vendetta or some sort of anger could find a relatively simple way on to the campus and into buildings since most colleges don't have the money or time to install lengthy checkpoints to insure that no one is carrying anything potentially harmful into class.

 

2) The fact that guns are illegal doesn't mean it's impossible to get your hands on them. Therefore if no one was allowed to carry when a gun was present it would create a situation that was possibly harder to respond rapidly and effectively to.

 

I think the most important issue here is how schools and other public or private places with people gathered in moderate amounts respond in this type of situation. Given the fact that two people were shot earlier in a dorm before the gunman came back and killed thirty one more people. I think it's quite obvious that we are in need of a solid system to rapidly contain or neutralize these types of situations. I personally think that the death of two people is enough to stop classes for a day, and calls for tight security for a few days later since there was no suspect apprehended for the first slayings. For some reason the school didn't feel this way and choose not to take any serious precautions other than sending around an e-mail as the next round of students and faculty were being killed.

 

How about this? Instead of wasting your time with trying to heal chest wound with a bandaid...you find a solution to remedy these situations for the future.

[mcnuggets]

Someone is going to burn for that mistake. What a complete *fruitcage* up.

[hardboiledcop]

Assuming they were illegally obtained, what are the chances they were taken from a friend or relative who is legally allowed to keep weapons?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

it doesn't matter how the guns were obtained, they executed a room full of students, they would have gotten hold of weapons reguardless of legality.

 

The important thing is why they did it, not that they had the means.

 

I have the means to mow down pedestrians in my car, but I choose not to do so every day of my life. Something happened to these men which made them desire the outcome this incident would give them.

 

Perhaps fame isn't enough for the outcasted young American? perhaps the new fame is Notoriety?

 

-edited for less generalising

[HeuteGegangen]

Thats quite a sweeping generalization you're implying.

[hardboiledcop]

Thats quite a sweeping generalization you're implying.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Yes, I realised that after I'd posted it.

 

But my point stands, both our countries have a habit nowadays of wanting to look like they are doing something, without actually doing very much at all.

 

Most of these massacres are commited by outcasted youths are they not? Surely looking into this issue and trying to understand the backward reasoning of people willing to murder innocent people is more important to solving the problem than inforcing more controls over the law-abiding populous?

[Delfi]

Personally my thoughts are not just with the families and friends of all those killed and injured but also with those who have to clean up after this tragedy.

 

From what I've read on various sites this madman executed people against a wall.

 

I can't begin to understand what it must be like for those who have seen and/or experienced this.

 

D

[finderella1]

What are the chances they fell off the back of a truck? Trucks have weapons sometimes don't they?

 

 

 

Illegally obtained weapons are Illegally obtained weapons. It should be noted that the weapon's serial numbers were filed off. These were clearly Illegally obtained.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Its a lot easier to illegally obtain weapons if your grandad/best friend's dad/pet hamster has a gun cabinet that you are fully aware of. There is a considerable problem with gun crime in South London at the moment. However if my girlfriend dumps me and I decide to go out in style taking a lecture full of my fellow students with me I can't just walk down to Croydon and one of the local gang members to sell me a glock. Neither can I crack open pop's armoury.

 

How about this? Instead of wasting your time with trying to heal chest wound with a bandaid...you find a solution to remedy these situations for the future.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

How about trying to make it harder for people to grab a gun every time they aren't happy with the world, rather than trying to make it harder for them to go about their rampage once they're already armed to the teeth.

 

 

Hardboiledcop: A car is designed for transport, as are planes, boats, unicycles etc. Whilst they could be used to kill, so could a pen, or a beer bottle, or your bare hands. I could pick up my pennyfarthing, walk out to leicester square and starting braining people with it. But these things are not designed with killing in mind, they have another legitimate use. A gun, on the other hand, is designed for one thing only, and its very good at doing it. I agree that the bigger problem is the psychological cause for the incident, I don't think the means to achieve whatever it is they are aiming for should be so easily obtainable for potential mass murderers.

[sniper_boi]

Oh dear, how sad, nevermind.

[mentalpatient]

bush wont change any laws, he is near the end of his presidency (i think)

obama(need to check spelling) could and hillary clinton could but they wont

 

nobody in the US will change the constitiution because the majority of people want guns either as protection or for their livlihood (gamekeepers etc) or sport

 

they need a british government (or atleast its lack of understanding what people want. over 60% of people were for foxhunting- look what the idiots decided)

[NKVD]

Well, to me it now appears that people are starting to make arguments on things other than facts. Let's take a look at a list of all the school shootings in the united states over the years and see how DIVERSE the people who committed these slayings are.

 

April 2007: A gunman shoots dead at least 20 people at the campus of Virginia Tech university in Virginia.

 

October 2006: A 32-year-old gunman shoots dead at least five girls at an Ambush school in Pennsylvania, before killing himself

 

September 2006: Gunman in Colorado shoots and fatally wounds a teenage schoolgirl, then kills himself; two days later a teenager kills the head teacher of a school in Cazenovia, Wisconsin

 

November 2005: Student in Tennessee shoots dead an assistant principal and wounds two other administrators

 

March 2005: Minnesota schoolboy kills nine, then shoots himself

 

May 2004: Four people injured in shooting at a school in Maryland

 

April 2003: Teenager shoots dead head-teacher at a Pennsylvania school, then kills himself

 

March 2001: Pupil opens fire at a school in California, killing two students

 

February 2000: Six-year-old girl shot dead by classmate in Michigan

 

November 1999: Thirteen-year-old girl shot dead by a classmate in New Mexico

 

May 1999: Student injures six pupils in shoot-out in Georgia

 

April 1999: Two teenagers shoot dead 12 students and a teacher before killing themselves at Columbine School in Colorado

 

June 1998: Two adults hurt in shooting by teenage student at high school in Virginia

 

May 1998: Fifteen-year-old boy shoots himself in the head after taking a girl hostage

 

May 1998: Fifteen-year-old shoots dead two students in school cafeteria in Oregon

 

April 1998: Fourteen-year-old shoots dead a teacher and wounds two students in Pennsylvania

 

March 1998: Two boys, 11 and 13, kill four girls and a teacher in Arkansas

 

December 1997: Fourteen-year-old boy kills three students in Kentucky

 

October 1997: Sixteen-year-old boy stabs mother, then shoots dead two students at school in Mississippi, injuring several others

 

Clearly you can see that all these people come from different age groups, and back grounds and have all different motives. Perhaps instead of trying to understand the rash snap decisions of someone who is less than mentally stable and who is also not with us to interview. We once again look at taking some precautionary and also more importantly REACTIONARY measures to stop this.

 

Source:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4371403.stm

[hardboiledcop]

I don't think the means to achieve whatever it is they are aiming for should be so easily obtainable for potential mass murderers.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Then the real problem lies with the illegal supply of firearms, and no matter how much gun control over legall owned firearms, this has no effect on illegally obtained guns.

 

Tell me if I'm wrong, but most gun ownership in America is not because of a need to kill, it is for self-protection at home, CCW, and for the main part, Shooting.

 

This is because shooting is quite a lot of fun, if we didn't think this we wouldn't be playing Airsoft. So I'm afraid I don't agree with any increase in gun control.

 

Just look at the UK situation to see that gun control has no effect on gun crimes, only on the law abiding population who choose firearm related sports and activities as their hobbies.

[mcnuggets]

Finger any sort of rollback or regulations won't put a dent on the millions of guns in the states. Maybe if America repealed the 2nd Amendment at the beginning of the 20th century this tragedy wouldn't have happened but as it stands there's no way to go against the sheer number of guns out there.

 

Again guns are necessary tools for rebellion and the last check on government power. I'd be very wary of any sort of hard regulation that could compromise that.

[HeuteGegangen]

Sadly, that seems to be a value our friends across the pond do not share. I don't see this ending in any kind of truth or compromise.