Lifestyle > Train of Thought
Virginia: 32 Shot Dead In School Shootout
virtuoso:
Exactly the fear factor is hyped up to manipulate the populous into clamouring for some kind of protection. When the government grants this protect it only gives the illusion of protection which is reinforced by self congratulatory reminders that since this legislation has come in there have been no more cases so look once again we have kept you safe. This then acts as a spur for people to be even more accepting to sacrifice yet more of their rights all in the name of protection. It is a conspiracy theory to suggest that surrendering your rights keep you safe and yet unfortunately people will accept this notion whole heartedly and yet will attack anything other than this as a conspiracy theorist. I am sure there are those who genuinely believe they are doing the right thing and are just misguided (anti gun lobbying groups) parents etc but as far as the fear rampers are concerned, they know exactly what they are doing.
The australian is the most ridiculous example of them all I agree and Dunblane for that matter
Mr. O:
This campus shooting events are getting lot more ridiculus than before. It's like they do it every 3 to 5 years. Is it me or is it that people don't know how to fuckin' deal with their sorry ass problems. I pretty much had it with these dumb ass kids doing dumb shit for the the wrong reasons.
Narrator:
Actually, I don't agree with the idea that all guns should be banned because of a spree killing like this. Obviously, spree killings are bad, but the problem is that (1.) They are generally not very common and account for a nearly invisible fraction of homicides, and (2.) I think spree killers are more likely to pursue other methods of killing lots of people if guns aren't available. Pipe bombs and other improvised explosive devices have been used in a large number of mass killings, so I don't think it's unlikely somebody who has a personal vendetta against the world would use those if they had to. It's a knee-jerk reaction to ban ALL guns because of one isolated incident, and the British situation is a good example of this. Thomas Hamilton, the guy responsible for Dunblane, killed 16 kids with a pair of (I think) Browning 9-mm pistols. What if he'd instead loaded his car with gasoline and drove it into a school bus, which would cause the bus to blow up and probably kill all the dozens of kids on board? You wouldn't ban cars and gasoline in that case, would you? Furthermore, some of Hamilton's neighbors had warned the police he was mentally unstable (he was apparently a paedophile) and should have his firearms license revoked, but those claims were dismissed.
The problem I have with the United States is the fact that the availability of guns is having a significant effect on total violent crime and facilitating the deaths of 30,000 people a year. If the 30,000 gun deaths in the U.S. were reduced to European levels and incidents like the Virginia Tech massacre were the rare exceptions, I would oppose somebody wanting to ban guns because of incidents like that. But in 2 years in the U.S., the same number of Americans die as died during the entire Vietnam War, and that's not acceptable. Most types of criminals would not be able to carry out their usual crimes without guns. A mugger with a knife isn't going to be as effective as one with a pistol, for example. The number of people who die in America because of guns can and SHOULD be reduced simply because it doesn't make sense to allow such easy access to weapons.
--- Quote from: Shallow on April 18, 2007, 08:35:47 PM ---If no gun was available to buy legally, he'd buy it illegally.
--- End quote ---
But that is not true. You have yet to tell me...where would the illegal gun come from? I suppose there's black market arms dealers who import stolen Soviet-era Kalashnikov rifles and RPGs into the United States the way they do in Africa and South America and the Middle East? I sure haven't heard of that. This dude was some fucking nerd with a small dick, not a terrorist or a mafioso. When guns are very hard to get legally, the only criminals that can get them are the ones who are extremely well connected. I say this after months running guns for the Real IRA in Belfast.
Also, I'm sure you've heard of the National Firearms Act, the one which places very severe restrictions on machine gun ownership in the United States. In order to buy a machine gun (or any other "Class III" weapon) in the United States, you have to be investigated throughly by the ATF. It takes months to do the background checks and have the gun sent to the buyer, plus it's registered with the ATF and owners are required to notify them if the weapon gets lost or stolen. And guess what? Since 1934 (when the NFA was first enacted), not a single legally-owned machine gun has been used to commit a crime in the U.S., and (despite what you see in movies) even the illegal use of machine guns by gangstas here is extremely rare. Doesn't that prove that gun control DOES work? If ALL firearms (or at least, handguns and the semi-automatic assault rifles) in the U.S. were subject to something like the NFA, isn't it a safe bet that the same thing would happen?
LyRiCaL_G:
--- Quote from: The Watcher on April 19, 2007, 12:29:36 AM ---wow
on CNN there are people saying 'if america has less strenuous gun laws, and everyone carried a gun, this may have never happened'
americans are fuckin retarded, you guys really think like that?
we had a massacre here in 1996, 35 dead, the guy had a 98% hit accuracy on head shots. we had a gun amnesty and people had to hand in all their guns (except for ones being left at a shooting range) and now we haven't had a massacre since
--- End quote ---
haha
Shallow:
--- Quote from: Guerilla_From_Tha_Mist on April 19, 2007, 02:44:06 PM ---Actually, I don't agree with the idea that all guns should be banned because of a spree killing like this. Obviously, spree killings are bad, but the problem is that (1.) They are generally not very common and account for a nearly invisible fraction of homicides, and (2.) I think spree killers are more likely to pursue other methods of killing lots of people if guns aren't available. Pipe bombs and other improvised explosive devices have been used in a large number of mass killings, so I don't think it's unlikely somebody who has a personal vendetta against the world would use those if they had to. It's a knee-jerk reaction to ban ALL guns because of one isolated incident, and the British situation is a good example of this. Thomas Hamilton, the guy responsible for Dunblane, killed 16 kids with a pair of (I think) Browning 9-mm pistols. What if he'd instead loaded his car with gasoline and drove it into a school bus, which would cause the bus to blow up and probably kill all the dozens of kids on board? You wouldn't ban cars and gasoline in that case, would you? Furthermore, some of Hamilton's neighbors had warned the police he was mentally unstable (he was apparently a paedophile) and should have his firearms license revoked, but those claims were dismissed.
The problem I have with the United States is the fact that the availability of guns is having a significant effect on total violent crime and facilitating the deaths of 30,000 people a year. If the 30,000 gun deaths in the U.S. were reduced to European levels and incidents like the Virginia Tech massacre were the rare exceptions, I would oppose somebody wanting to ban guns because of incidents like that. But in 2 years in the U.S., the same number of Americans die as died during the entire Vietnam War, and that's not acceptable. Most types of criminals would not be able to carry out their usual crimes without guns. A mugger with a knife isn't going to be as effective as one with a pistol, for example. The number of people who die in America because of guns can and SHOULD be reduced simply because it doesn't make sense to allow such easy access to weapons.
--- Quote from: Shallow on April 18, 2007, 08:35:47 PM ---If no gun was available to buy legally, he'd buy it illegally.
--- End quote ---
But that is not true. You have yet to tell me...where would the illegal gun come from? I suppose there's black market arms dealers who import stolen Soviet-era Kalashnikov rifles and RPGs into the United States the way they do in Africa and South America and the Middle East? I sure haven't heard of that. This dude was some fucking nerd with a small dick, not a terrorist or a mafioso. When guns are very hard to get legally, the only criminals that can get them are the ones who are extremely well connected. I say this after months running guns for the Real IRA in Belfast.
Also, I'm sure you've heard of the National Firearms Act, the one which places very severe restrictions on machine gun ownership in the United States. In order to buy a machine gun (or any other "Class III" weapon) in the United States, you have to be investigated throughly by the ATF. It takes months to do the background checks and have the gun sent to the buyer, plus it's registered with the ATF and owners are required to notify them if the weapon gets lost or stolen. And guess what? Since 1934 (when the NFA was first enacted), not a single legally-owned machine gun has been used to commit a crime in the U.S., and (despite what you see in movies) even the illegal use of machine guns by gangstas here is extremely rare. Doesn't that prove that gun control DOES work? If ALL firearms (or at least, handguns and the semi-automatic assault rifles) in the U.S. were subject to something like the NFA, isn't it a safe bet that the same thing would happen?
--- End quote ---
Your first half of this post pretty much said exactly what I said about people like this guy finding other, potentially more dangerous methods to hurt people, so we don't really disagree on all that much. But as for your machine gun comparison, here is what I think is the difference; Americans has such a tradition when it comes to guns, whether it be collecting, hunting, or home safety. The market is just too strong and too willing to pay for organized crime smugglers to ignore. It's fine now because most of it is legal. Machine guns aren't used for anything historically but combat. They were never part of the culture, so the market isn't there for them. How many people ever really kept machine guns around the house? Too Americans would go crazy if you just took away all the guns.
The same people that bring in the cocaine and heroin would bring in guns and the same people that sell the coke and heroin would sell the guns, so if this kid Cho could find a coke dealer he'd be able to find a gun link.
All that being said, whether you are right or I am right. We both agree that it would not have prevented a mass murder at Virginia.
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