General Chat / Student Goes Apeshit At Virginia Tech

Imo, guns don't need to be banned. Now, you can protect yourself legaly. If you ban guns, criminals will get them illegaly anyway, and for protection, you would have to get them illegaly. So, you could be arrested for trying to protect yourself.

Imo, guns don't need to be banned. Now, you can protect yourself legaly. If you ban guns, criminals will get them illegaly anyway, and for protection, you would have to get them illegaly. So, you could be arrested for trying to protect yourself.

Sorry but I've never had a gun pulled on me and I don't think I've even ever seen a loaded gun in real life...why would you need a gun to protect you?

it doesn't matter, he still would have killed a bunch of people. then everyone would have been "oh noez knives are bad IMO" which is completely ridiculous.

First of all, you can't massacre people with a kitchen knife. Plus, knives actually have a practical purpose. Guns exist for no reason except to kill shit. Yes, some people would still get guns if tighter restrictions were placed on them. But fewer people would. There would be fewer gun-related crimes. Who's to say that the VT guy would've still gotten a hold of a semi-automatic weapon if they were banned? You can say, well if he was dedicated enough he'd get it! Okay, sure. Or maybe someone would've been tipped off and he would have been arrested and none of this would have happened. We don't know for sure.

Additionally, Midnight Aurora makes a good point regarding the militia thing. I don't think the founding fathers had the rights of teenage rednecks who go in their backyard and kill squirrels to pass the time when they wrote up the Constitution. (They also didn't have semi-automatics back then either.) But if you want to go on believing that the right for just about anyone to purchase a gun somehow makes everything safer, I guess I'm not changing your mind. But please, think of the squirrels.

Sorry but I've never had a gun pulled on me and I don't think I've even ever seen a loaded gun in real life...why would you need a gun to protect you?

Just because you've never seen a loaded gun doesn't mean they aren't there. People buy guns to protect themselves and their property. Shit, even my grandparents have a shotgun (they live in a rural area). If someone broke into your house with a knife, wouldn't you want something that you know would deter them? I'm not saying I have a gun or I ever want one, but I don't think that right should be taken away. I have no fear of a gun being pulled on me, but guns are used for other things too, like hunting. I know lots of people that hunt, and I thank them because venison tastes pretty damn good. For the record, I've shot a few guns in my life and to be honest it's pretty fun.

My problem is that the gun is supposed to protect you. Most of the time someone bursts into your house you probably don't even have time to react to get your gun unless you always carry it with you which again in most cases isn't very likely, since most people probably have it stored somewhere in their house (which btw means people can steal guns from someone else to commit their crimes). The only situation most likely is a burglary when you would have time to react, but still I doubt it would make any difference, because the burglar still can hear you coming (especially if you're living in a wooden home).
The idea is to keep the guns out of the hands of the normal non criminal people, who for whatever reason turn into a killer or other type of lone criminal.
Main problem for the US is that a gun enforcement would be hard to execute at the current state. Guns are too wide spread atm and I don't see most people turning in their gun. In other words, you created a very akward situation. If the enforcement would be enacted a lot of shortsighted people would shout that it isn't working and the law would be repealed within several years. It would take a few decades before the desired effects would surface though. Luckily it's not my problem since gun enforcement here works very well.

The current state of drug laws in this country is ridiculous. A 90+ year old woman was shot by the police here in Atlanta a few weeks ago during a drug raid on her house. The cops went in shooting. The source for the information relating to this woman lied. She was killed over the belief that there was marijuana in her house. Treatment, not prosecution.

So one exception means the country is going to hell? Sucks for the old lady, but it's not the norm.

Exactly. The government claims that the USA PATRIOT Act is making us all safer. Is it? Who here believes President Bush when he says that? The job of the police gets easier the more powers they have, but we know the police are human. That is why warrants and reading fo rights must take place.
It appears this kid was known to have problem. The debate that needs to take place is at what point can a person be commited to a mental hospital against his will.

I see no connection between this kid and the Patriot Act. Invoking terrorism or communism is just bad form, dude, and strait up shitty manipulation.

Either way, the kid wasn't normal, but who's to say he wasn't mentally healthy [before this happened]? Mental health is a real touchy subject, and I invite you to read up on it before you round up and fence off all the Jews Blacks Japanese Commies Mentally unstable out of fear and panic.

There is no conrete evidence that gun control reduces crime. Some places it works, other places gun related crime rises. What ever happened to all the shootings in Florida? Guns have become a scapegoat. It is easy to blame one item then look harder at what else is going on and doing something. Banning guns places responsibility in the hands of another and ignores so much more. Remember, the most famous gun fight of the old West, the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, was to enforce gun control.

No evidence? Gun crime + gun control = less crime.

Want me to prove it? here:

Guns-guns= no guns.

Q.E.D.

Just because you've never seen a loaded gun doesn't mean they aren't there. People buy guns to protect themselves and their property. Shit, even my grandparents have a shotgun (they live in a rural area). If someone broke into your house with a knife, wouldn't you want something that you know would deter them? I'm not saying I have a gun or I ever want one, but I don't think that right should be taken away. I have no fear of a gun being pulled on me, but guns are used for other things too, like hunting. I know lots of people that hunt, and I thank them because venison tastes pretty damn good. For the record, I've shot a few guns in my life and to be honest it's pretty fun.

I live in a rural area and never lock my door. Why? No need. People couldn't find my house with directions, so I'm sure as fuck not worried about the terrorists coming to bomb my house or a robber looking to steal all of my belongings. Yuo only need to protect yourself from guns if everyone has guns. If nobody has guns, you dont need to protect yourself from guns. It's not that hard to fucking figure out...

My problem is that the gun is supposed to protect you. Most of the time someone bursts into your house you probably don't even have time to react to get your gun unless you always carry it with you which again in most cases isn't very likely, since most people probably have it stored somewhere in their house (which btw means people can steal guns from someone else to commit their crimes). The only situation most likely is a burglary when you would have time to react, but still I doubt it would make any difference, because the burglar still can hear you coming (especially if you're living in a wooden home).
The idea is to keep the guns out of the hands of the normal non criminal people, who for whatever reason turn into a killer or other type of lone criminal.
Main problem for the US is that a gun enforcement would be hard to execute at the current state. Guns are too wide spread atm and I don't see most people turning in their gun. In other words, you created a very akward situation. If the enforcement would be enacted a lot of shortsighted people would shout that it isn't working and the law would be repealed within several years. It would take a few decades before the desired effects would surface though. Luckily it's not my problem since gun enforcement here works very well.

thank you.

To be honest, I'm not for taking everyone's guns away yet.

But I have a fucking bone to pick with these NRA assholes who think they should be able to go into a store, buy a fucking arsenal like they are preparing for world war 3, and then go home with it immediately.

And there IS a line to be drawn (the patriot act is something that crosses that line). Either extreme is undesirable, there needs to be a middle ground to 1) prevent the ease of obtaining a weapon, to keep the body count down (and the easier it is, the higher it climbs), and 2) To enable enough civilians, should they wish, to have the means to protect themselves (which can act as a deterrent to would-be criminals fearing retaliation).

Making guns easy to obtain or impossible to obtain doesn't solve anything. A balance needs to be found, it needs to evolve as the social order progresses, and it needs to be adaptable to the environment and culture of the region in question. The factors involved are not obvious, and research on trends would be difficult. The world isn't perfect, so "perfect" solutions only exist in the minds of the ignorant and the short-sighted. This is not a black and white issue.

When I say "more restrictions" i mean more than we currently have in the US, which is not enough. There is such a thing as too much, though. We are not at that point.

NRA thinks so, but they are selfish gits who could care less that more people die so they don't have to feel that the act of buying a gun is akin to the DMV on steroids (which isn't asking that much, because it really isn't something that should be easy in the first place, buying something which kills a human with literally no effort). The point is, is that the US is not in a position internally where it can legislate full control of deadly projectile and bladed weapons without it blowing up in their faces. There needs to be a gradient.

Though, lazyboy, I'm with you on the drugs.

Ok, can I say something?

You're all missing the FUCKING POINT.

Gun control is irrelevant. As are tighter controls and censorship in the media, video, and games industries. These are not the issues at the heart of this shooting.

Those are surface effects. The true problem here is isolation. It's pretty simple, really. Isolation leads to paranoia. Paranoia leads to sociopathy. A sociopath is pretty much the only one who can do something like this. This is a pattern repeated through nearly every school shooting in the US.

Cho Seung-Hui was insane. He was driven insane by his isolation. This probably happened long before he even got to Tech.

You want to prevent this from happening again? Get to the source of the problem. Attacking gun control is like putting a BandAid on a bullet wound.

-ACE

^ THANK YOU.

I agree.

ACEfanatic02 wins at this topic.

Attacking gun control is like putting a BandAid on a bullet wound.

-ACE

...Actually, it's attacking the gun owner who made the bullet wound in question.

Ok, can I say something?

You're all missing the FUCKING POINT.

Gun control is irrelevant. As are tighter controls and censorship in the media, video, and games industries. These are not the issues at the heart of this shooting.

Those are surface effects. The true problem here is isolation. It's pretty simple, really. Isolation leads to paranoia. Paranoia leads to sociopathy. A sociopath is pretty much the only one who can do something like this. This is a pattern repeated through nearly every school shooting in the US.

Cho Seung-Hui was insane. He was driven insane by his isolation. This probably happened long before he even got to Tech.

You want to prevent this from happening again? Get to the source of the problem. Attacking gun control is like putting a BandAid on a bullet wound.

-ACE

Yeah, pretty much.

Just so you know, I only came into the topic to be belligerant towards the NRA flunkies. And yes, the guns issue is seperate from the virginia tech issue.

Yeah, this issue is one big mess. For starters, the Supreme Court won't touch Amendment 2 with a ten foot pole and can you really blame it? It's just impossible to be defined some 200 years later. You have to remember, this was written just after a time when every farmer and his flintlock was called out to fight for independace. An 'orderly militia' was simply an organized army of the people (that's how I take it at least).

Another thing is that in many crimes involving a gun... that gun can be traced to a completely legal purchase by a law abiding citizen and either has been sold directly for cash or stolen. Now how in the world can these perfectly legal transactions or the stealing of weapons be regulated? The U.S. has certainly dug itself into a hole for any new gun regulations...

I live in a rural area and never lock my door. Why? No need. People couldn't find my house with directions, so I'm sure as fuck not worried about the terrorists coming to bomb my house or a robber looking to steal all of my belongings. Yuo only need to protect yourself from guns if everyone has guns. If nobody has guns, you dont need to protect yourself from guns. It's not that hard to fucking figure out...

No, maybe it's not hard to figure out. But please do tell me how you're going to get rid of all the guns.

But fewer people would. There would be fewer gun-related crimes.

There's no concrete data to back that up. There have been many places where gun violence increased after tighter gun control legislation took effect (New Jersey, Hawaii, UK, Jamaica). Other places there seems to be no change (Chicago). Then there is Atlanta, seventh most violent city in the country.

My problem is that the gun is supposed to protect you. Most of the time someone bursts into your house you probably don't even have time to react to get your gun unless you always carry it with you which again in most cases isn't very likely, since most people probably have it stored somewhere in their house (which btw means people can steal guns from someone else to commit their crimes). The only situation most likely is a burglary when you would have time to react, but still I doubt it would make any difference, because the burglar still can hear you coming (especially if you're living in a wooden home).
The idea is to keep the guns out of the hands of the normal non criminal people, who for whatever reason turn into a killer or other type of lone criminal.

A gun is not locked in a safe. They are kept neaby, but locked themselves. There are many reported incidents of roberies being stopped by armed citizens. I remember one such incident at a gas station, a 80+ year old man with a walker stopped two men from robbing his store.

So one exception means the country is going to hell? Sucks for the old lady, but it's not the norm.

Yes it is the norm. The drug enforcement has created a highly armed black market.

I see no connection between this kid and the Patriot Act. Invoking terrorism or communism is just bad form, dude, and strait up shitty manipulation.

It is giving up rights in return for safety. Where is that line drawn? Which politicians do we trust when they say they are making us safer?

Either way, the kid wasn't normal, but who's to say he wasn't mentally healthy [before this happened]? Mental health is a real touchy subject, and I invite you to read up on it before you round up and fence off all the Jews Blacks Japanese Commies Mentally unstable out of fear and panic.

There is evidence that this guy was deemed, by doctors, to be a threat to himself and others. I haven't had a chance to read up on the latest evidence, and that story may have changed. If this is the case then there needs to be some serious thought about how such situations are handled. Involuntary commital is also a slipperly slope. It could very well become a political tool.

No evidence? Gun crime + gun control = less crime.

Want me to prove it? here:

Guns-guns= no guns.

Q.E.D.

No. New Jersey. Washington DC. Hawaii. UK. Jamaica.
Gun = Legal Guns + Illegal Guns
Guns - Legal Guns = Illegal Guns

But I have a fucking bone to pick with these NRA assholes who think they should be able to go into a store, buy a fucking arsenal like they are preparing for world war 3, and then go home with it immediately.

There is no need for gun sales on every street corner. The NRA really needs to learn when to speak.

Making guns easy to obtain or impossible to obtain doesn't solve anything. A balance needs to be found, it needs to evolve as the social order progresses, and it needs to be adaptable to the environment and culture of the region in question. The factors involved are not obvious, and research on trends would be difficult. The world isn't perfect, so "perfect" solutions only exist in the minds of the ignorant and the short-sighted. This is not a black and white issue.

Exactly!

When I say "more restrictions" i mean more than we currently have in the US, which is not enough. There is such a thing as too much, though. We are not at that point.

I have a problem with looking at this as a US-wide issue. The United States is the third most populous country on Earth. California is not Wyoming which not Arkansas. The states are better enabled to handle the vast differences that exist across the country.

Edited by lazyboy97O, 24 April 2007 - 09:13 PM.

Yeah, this issue is one big mess. For starters, the Supreme Court won't touch Amendment 2 with a ten foot pole and can you really blame it? It's just impossible to be defined some 200 years later. You have to remember, this was written just after a time when every farmer and his flintlock was called out to fight for independace. An 'orderly militia' was simply an organized army of the people (that's how I take it at least).

Yes sir. They gave us the right to bear arms to protect our freedoms against invading countries, not to protect your Nikes and TV from being sold to a pawn shop.

It's not like we actually need an army of the people since the military industrial complex kicked in. If there's a force big enough to fuck up our military, your shotgun isn't going to do shit.



@Lazyboy: the norm is people making up drug charges to kill old ladies? Links, please. I understand where you're going with this, man, and I agree that drugs aren't all bad, but freeing the chains on that shit would be as complicated as taking away all the guns.

[off topic, how the fuck did we start talking about drug laws in a VT topic?]

@gir: So, your response is "Touche. But please come up with a solution that society hasn't come up with since the invention of the gun. I win."? Just checking.

Way to miss the point. What I was saying was that Amendment 2 was written at a time not applicable to current times. So thank you for restating what was already said. I was not talking about self defense at all. And here are you and tracid 200 years later, trying to use a contradictory and outdated Amendment written at the time of a revolution to justify your beliefs by bolding the parts you believe .

Cho Seung-Hui was insane. He was driven insane by his isolation. This probably happened long before he even got to Tech.

Bullshit on the "driven" part. He wasn't driven. That suggests that someone else did this to him. He drove HIMSELF to insanity. He never learned to socialize with new schoolmates, allowed himself to become super introverted, fed himself the belief that everyone was against him, and effectively isolated HIMSELF. In college, he refused social contact. He convinced himself that he was some woefully pathetic victim no one wanted, and hence, he wanted no part of the outside world.

You're right in assuming this happened before VT. I believe that too. But to say he was driven implies that he was a victim.

The only fault you can place on others is not reaching out and forcing him out of his funk. But that's a minority blame. Ultimately, Mr. Cho was an emo kid to the extreme--a murderous extreme--who did this himself.

anyway, basically what i am trying to say is that stricter gun laws aren't really going to do anything. if a person is as hell-bent on killing people as that kid was, he's going to get a gun, or something else. i mean hell, he could use a kitchen knife and stab a few bitches before he was taken out.

Here's the thing.. people assume that "oh, even if there are laws, a serial killer will get a gun anyway."

Okay, how about the dozens/hundreds/thousands (I really have no concrete statistic on this, but I would say hundreds at least) of lives that can be saved by people who are deterred from killing due to the absence of a gun? What about road rage gun deaths? What about domestic abuse? What about school shootings? What about accidental shootings? What about the petty thieves who rob or mug people with guns they acquire legally--people who aren't murderers, but commit crime with guns because they are empowered by firearms?

That's still a reduction, isn't it? That's still better than the current situation, isn't it?



Now, gun advocates do have a point with the implications of Tracid's argument. What I think must come with any gun control law is:
(1) Rigid control and reduction of guns
(2) Very strict penalties with all future gun crimes.

Let me explain.

Rigid Control:
You pass a law banning guns, then that means all civilians turn their guns in and the supply of guns is controlled. Any non-officer caught with possession of a firearm faces a stiff prison term. My logic is this: you don't see random people able to walk around with grenades, right? Because grenades are army weapons. They're strictly controlled for use within the military, and only approved officers (soldiers, etc...) are allowed to have possession of them. So if you're gonna crack down on guns, you must adopt the same sort of measures.

Lets face it: not anyone can just make a gun. This isn't like making drugs illegal, where anyone with the knowledge can just grow drugs (farming being a skill that all human beings possess, seeing as how agriculture has existed for thousands of years). A gun? More complicated. Even if you know HOW to make a gun, you'd still have to go through the process of manufacturing one. It's not as easy as growing weed; hence there's a lot less likelihood that an illegal manufacturer of guns would pop up (although I'll admit, it's certainly POSSIBLE, just not plausible). Anyway, we can pretty much assume that any gun in existence was made by a certifiable company. It's just that through whatever circumstances, a lot of them have ended up on the black market.

However, again, controlling the supply of "legal" guns improves the general situation. Murderers and thugs ("evil people") aren't the only people who commit crimes. "Normal" people can commit murder too. People who do not spend a career in crime also kill people. Gun control would at least stem that side of the equation.

But what to do with the "bad guys?"

Strict Penalties:
Any crime committed with a gun (robbery/larceny, assault, rape, murder...) carries an automatic minimum 25 year sentence REGARDLESS OF THE AGE OF THE PERSON WHO COMMITTED THE CRIME.

A lot of people will say that's too extreme, or totally undemocratic, or even totalitarian. I say that if you are extreme enough with your punishment, it WILL be an effective deterrent with most of the population. And you might bring up how harsh penalties are flawed (i.e. Three Strikes Law sending a petty thief to a life sentence even though a rapist might get less time), but here's my counter. If you're waving a gun around, you SHOULD possess the responsibility and maturity to make good decisions with that gun. And obviously, committing a crime with it is not a smart decision. But if a person knows that there'll be a really stiff penalty for the simple use of a gun in a crime, even if no one gets hurt, it at least forces that person to stop and ponder whether the crime is really worth it. And if it is, then there's no argument over the [over]harshness of the penalty if/when that person gets caught.


Will this eliminate all crime? NO. But will it reduce it? I believe so.

If you can prosecute a person for possessing drugs, even though he's harming no one but himself, then you should logically be able to prosecute a person for even possessing a firearm, which can hurt others in the blink of an eye. I'm playing devil's advocate here (I happen to think that all this strict prosecution on drug crimes is pretty misguided when rapists and murders can sometimes get more lenient sentences vs drug criminals). But if we made guns illegal, I can't see any argument against the prosecution of even owning a gun.



What this all comes down to is making sweeping change and strictly enforcing the change if we decide to go through. No half-assing it. Doing that gets you Iraq (this comment meant as a clever quip; not as a tangent). If you're gonna pass gun control laws, you cannot try to appease both sides. You're gonna have critics one way or the other, so you might as well go all out so that you only have one side ragging you for your extremity, rather than both sides ragging you because different parts of the plan alienate different parts of each side.

This will not make crime nonexistent. I know this. But it will put a nice dent in violent crime.

And so what if people resort to knives to commit crime instead of guns. Wouldn't you rather have a world where that was the predominant threat, versus the current reality?

Like it said. I argue for improvement, not cure-alls.

Oh, by the way, America's whole 2nd Amendment was made so that citizens could protect themselves from their OWN country. Meaning if our government turned against us and became a dictatorship, we could raise hell.

Most people would say that's no longer a valid concern today. Unless you happen to read this article and argue that point.