FFOF Closed!

i'm sure you've all heard about that virginia uni shooting incident. surely it's about time that our yankee friends woke up and smelt the gun threat. yeah, its an amendment to be able to protect your home, but repeatedly guns are falling into the hands of unstable individuals who climb a clock tower or run into their school and gun others down.

now, it's not possible to prevent unstable people, but it IS possible to prevent unstable people from getting their hands on guns. it seems common sense in the modern world.

in the UK, we had ONE school shooting incident in the scottish town of Dunblane where an unstable individual killed children and we made them illegal. surely it's time for america to tighten the gun laws or maybe even prevent their distibution at Wal-Marts.

opinions?

Jack Thompson will soon find a copy of CSS or whatnot with a map of the school at the shooter's house.

As for guns and shit, Dutchieland can do without and we don't get (that much) shooting incidents, except for in the criminal circuit (i.e. the mob etc). It's mainly knives and shit over here, .

But yeh. We don't have an Xth amandement giving us the right to own guns, and we don't get near as many shooting incidents around here. In fact, whenever we get one it's big news all over the country. As opposed to the 20 or so murders a day in Detroit, which are hardly given a small paragraph somewhere in the back of a 2 dollar newspaper. Just 'cause they've become so common over there.

Now true, if people want guns, whether legal or not, they can usually get them. But legalizing them helps a lot. Sure, you can't legally get a gun as a minor, but it only takes the stealing of a key and opening daddy's gun locker in order to get one most of the time. Or having some connections.

But the problem is that now because it is legal to own a gun you are probably having to defend it from a guy with a gun as well. Instead of just a guy.
What purpose do they really serve?

I agree that America needs to take another look at it's policy of who they sell guns to... But gun ownership itself isn't bad. I mean, look at Switzerland. Highest gun to population ratio in the world, but the lowest gun crime rate.

http://chickasawpicklesmell.blogspot.com/2...-shootings.html

imho

Unfortunately yeah, there was another shooting and it was very tragic, the worse one we've had... It should have been more secure after Columbine, but it wasn't... Our government fails yet again, and at what? Nothing but the expense of 33 dead students, 22 injured students, and a heap load of students that will need counseling...

I wrote this for LJ:

It kind of repeats the piece I linked to in some ways, but I like to think I put my own spin on it as well

One simply cannot prevent events like this, not when (finally) banning guns, not by having more security at school, not by banning video games. Nutcases will always exist, and so will guns or other weapons like it; video games, movies, etcetera won't influence that.

i don't have a strong opinion on this but, this guy was clearly disturbed; he'd been submittied to a mental institution. why are gun enthusiasts fighting to make sure that people like this can get gun as long as they don't have a criminal record?

...not to mention they that this guy was an illegal immigrant.

uh no, he had a green card. Very much a legal immigrant.

And this could definitely have been prevented; a Virginia court ruled the kid unstable and dangerous but nothing was done about it, really. Of course, one could rightly point out that doing this to everyone declared "unstable and dangerous" would be a stepping stone towards creating a police state, as courts could well hand out decisions like that for political reasons, but saying this couldn't have been predicted or prevented is ridiculous. Plenty of people did predict that he was going to snap.

That said, I agree that gun control/extra security/whatnot aren't going to help. It's worth pointing out that Dylan Harris and Eric Kleibold actually tried to use bombs at Columbine first, but failed; however, had guns been banned they'd probably have just kept trying with bombs until they succeeded, and that would've been far deadlier than any gun massacre would've been. If you add security to school campuses, all that'll happen is that nutcases will shoot people at the checkpoints, or use SUVs to run people over, or who knows what. No amount of security short of making America into a police state is actually going to stop events like this, which is why the changes must not be security-related but culture-related. Any society where the individual is so emasculated that he is not even noticed when he displays warning signs as severe as those Cho displayed is simply asking for events like this to occur.

yeah, but give the man the ability to buy guns and ammo and you turn the guy into some kind of walking psychologically unstable time bomb of violence. yeah, if guns were made illegal then he would've used other means but at least the toll wouldn't have been as high as it was.

bush's comments about the VT students being in the "wrong place at the wrong time" are short sighted and ignorant of the cause of this problem. if america is a guiding light of peace and freedom then it's time to remove the threat of guns from the streets of this "modern utopia". until that happens america should not preach greater knowledge or fight terror abroad until it's combatted it at home. to do that you need to get rid of the gun threat.

You're right that the toll wouldn't have been as high if he'd been forced to resort to explosives; it probably would have been much higher. To quote an LJ entry which you should read in full (note the link):

that's total and utter bullshit.

why won't america stop making up silver linings to major issues in an effort to keep the system the way it is and not force some kind of positive change.

Because when criminals are drawn towards using weapons far more potent than guns, it can hardly be counted as a positive change. Did you read the excerpt I posted above?

yes, but the VT shooting wasn't the worst car crash of all time either. it's not particularly relative imo.

Just saying, banning handguns won't stop massacres as large as this from happening. You'd also have to ban fertilizer, gasoline, and pretty much any other flammable or explosive substance. Let's face it, homemade bombs are ridiculously easy to make, and can kill a lot more people a lot more efficiently than guns can. It's a lot less conscience-draining to kill them all, too, since they all die at once.

I agree completely that the U.S. gun culture is ridiculous and needs to be changed drastically. But it's the U.S.'s attitude towards guns that needs to be changed, not the guns themselves. Banning guns won't eliminate guns; it will just lead to a world in which only criminals have them. (Well, criminals, the military, and cops - and honestly, none of them are particularly trustworthy if you ask me)

maybe he did it just to get evveryone to shut up about anna nicole.

Word.


But yarly, if you want to kill and shit, bombs are better. In fact, the medium doesn't matter, any pointy or blunt object, or no object at all, is able to kill a person. On larger scales, you're better off with car bombs (you can stash a shitload of those in a van or, even better, a truck), or even nerve gas or something.

I guess the school gun shootings are just more interesting then Iraqi bombings (i.e. one a while back with 130~ ish deaths in one blow) because killing someone is more personal and shiz.

But rly, the bombings with a lot more deaths then this shooting don't get more then half a paragraph in the newspapers anymore, whereas stuff like this is in newspapers for a week, with multiple pages each time. Bah.

yeah, if you want to kill you can buy the death star too. the fact is guns are a major and easily obtainable risk to life, especially in a country that allows gun ownership to virtually anyone.

how many more deaths until america wakes up and realises that they need to remove the temptation to use guns from sickos? 1000, 2000?

america needs to fight terror at home before taking it elsewhere.

i've been saying that for months

And fertilizer, gasoline, and other explosives aren't easily obtainable? Most explosives have legitimate uses other than being explosives, so if you're going to ban those completely you're going to be getting rid of a lot more than potential weapons.

I agree that more needs to be done to keep guns out of the hands of wackos. But firstly there are already too many guns in circulation to effectively ban them now. And secondly if you ban guns completely, then the only people who will have guns will be criminals. Frankly, that possibility scares me.

Yes it is true, there will always be nutcases in the world who want to go around shooting people like there is no tomorrow. However it would be a lot easier for someone to go about doing this in the states as they would have an easier job of finding a gun. Where as here in the UK not only would you have to find one in the UK (or smuggle one in) but you'd have to conciel it until your moment of bang bang.

On the whole if they wanted to do that much then I'm sure they would find a way of doing it, but if they wanted to do it but couldn't be assed to go into so much hassle to find a gun etc then they might decide to stay home instead and watch some TV.

Thus less shooting

Tabs, I think you're being very naive about how easy it is to get a gun in this country.

i got offered a gun for £250 while i lived in swansea, that was from a blacker mind.

That sounds about right. Right this second, I can think of six places just in this town that I could go to to get a gun if I had £100 to spare. And even more outside of this town.

wow.

well here in canada, i can only think of one place, but it would take months for me to actually get it, plus i'd need a gun licence.

It would always be easier to get one in America than it is to get one here.

And if you walked around a street in England with a gun someone is surely to notice something

Dargarius - I was talking illegally. Legally, I know even more.

Daisy - Yes, of course, somebody would notice if you're carrying it in yuor hand out on the street. But it's very easy to conceal a handgun.

true.

most weapons can be easily concealed, so in that respect a gun and a knife are similar. hell, anything can be used as a means to end a life, i think america needs to remove the temptation to use, and the easy availability of, guns.

I think it's all down to the attitude towards firearms rather than the availability.

In Switzerland they have compulsary military service at a young age, where young people are trained in the use of firearms and taught to give them the right attitude. After their period in the military, they are given the option to keep their gun.

As a result, Switzerland has the highest gun:people ratio in the world, but the lowest gun crime activity.
It's a damned good policy.