In Canada we’ve always gone back to school after the Labour Day weekend. That’s about 9 weeks off for summer.
Another School Tragedy
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Jermo, are you sure you don’t live north of the border?
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Jermo, are you sure you don’t live north of the border?
Which border we be talkin’ 'bout?
Sanity? -
Several people disagree with me so I am just going to address this em mass.
I am NOT saying that having a gun will give you a magical bullet shield. What I am saying is if a would be robber believes that the chances are say 25% that the person he is robbing has a gun will he still follow through? what about 50% or 75%. Do you think this guy in VA may have reconsidered if there was a chance that someone in the building had a gun? Why do you think he chained the doors? Maybe to keep the odds at 0%?
The arms race comment is rediculous. Right now at this very moment there is nothing legal to stop me from carriing my AK47 with me and wearing as much body armor as I want. Why don’t I? because it’s not worth the benefit. My compact .45 is plenty.
I have said this many many times on this forum. My children have fired several of my guns, they have seen the damage that can be done with them and know the consequences of touching them.
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Several people disagree with me so I am just going to address this em mass.
I am NOT saying that having a gun will give you a magical bullet shield. What I am saying is if a would be robber believes that the chances are say 25% that the person he is robbing has a gun will he still follow through? what about 50% or 75%. Do you think this guy in VA may have reconsidered if there was a chance that someone in the building had a gun? Why do you think he chained the doors? Maybe to keep the odds at 0%?
No. He would not have done anything differently because he was crazy. He knew he was going to die. In fact, he set out to die. If everyone was armed, it wouldn’t have made any difference to his intentions. It may have made some difference to his preparations. He probably would have brought more guns, or bombs or worn body armor. Whatever he did, gun possession by everyone in the classrooms he attacked would not have deterred him, because he was crazy.
On the other hand, if it had been impossible for him to legally buy a gun, how many people do you think he would have been able to kill carrying a kitchen knife? You can say that he could have obtained a gun illegally, which is true. However, how much more likely would it be that he would have been stopped before taking his action if owning a hand gun was illegal for him. With his history of mental illness and run ins with the law, I suggest that it would have been more likely that he would have been arrested and his guns taken away long before April 16, 2007. But, as matters stand in the US, he could lawfully own two guns, keep amunition in his dorm room and walk around with it. Until he killed 2 people at 7:15 am, he had done nothing that any law enforcement official could even question him about.
The arms race comment is rediculous. Right now at this very moment there is nothing legal to stop me from carriing my AK47 with me and wearing as much body armor as I want. Why don’t I? because it’s not worth the benefit. My compact .45 is plenty.
You are suggesting that a society is safer when everyone is carrying a gun, when all the evidence is to the contrary. I will not quote a source on this because I know it to be true. You can disagree if you choose. Dezrtfish, I am sure that you are a responsible gun owner and I am sure that your kids will also grow up to be responsible gun owners, but not everyone is and as long as a society accepts gun ownership as a right that can never be taken away, guns will be used for all purposes - good and evil. And since guns are, by design, intended to kill things, people will continue to die as a result of gun ownership.
SS
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From the Economist:
Cho Seung-hui does not stand for America’s students, any more than Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris did when they slaughtered 13 of their fellow high-school students at Columbine in 1999. Such disturbed people exist in every society. The difference, as everyone knows but no one in authority was saying this week, is that in America such individuals have easy access to weapons of terrible destructive power. Cho killed his victims with two guns, one of them a Glock 9mm semi-automatic pistol, a rapid-fire weapon that is available only to police in virtually every other country, but which can legally be bought over the counter in thousands of gun-shops in America. There are estimated to be some 240m guns in America, considerably more than there are adults, and around a third of them are handguns, easy to conceal and use. Had powerful guns not been available to him, the deranged Cho would have killed fewer people, and perhaps none at all.
But the tragedies of Virginia Tech—and Columbine, and Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, where five girls were shot at an Amish school last year—are not the full measure of the curse of guns. More bleakly terrible is America’s annual harvest of gun deaths that are not mass murders: some 14,000 routine killings committed in 2005 with guns, to which must be added 16,000 suicides by firearm and 650 fatal accidents (2004 figures). Many of these, especially the suicides, would have happened anyway: but guns make them much easier. Since the killing of John Kennedy in 1963, more Americans have died by American gunfire than perished on foreign battlefields in the whole of the 20th century. In 2005 more than 400 children were murdered with guns.
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=9040170
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Nice avatar, Mr. Sakai. I think it sums it up right there.
I can understand wanting to own a gun. But how many gun owners do you know that only have one? Sure, it’s your own decision to own firearms, keep up with them, and hopefully handle them appropriately…but I’ve never understood wanting more than you could wield. Anyone here that’s a gun owner have only one? I don’t know of any…
I’m also in the camp that believes gun ownership today is a perversion of the 2nd amendment. It’s a very different world than the 1700’s. Not saying you shouldn’t have a gun, but I don’t think it was intended to allow citizens to arm themselves to the teeth.
Also, I’m glad you take your weapons seriously, dezrt. It’s the only appropriate thing to do if you have them, especially with kids.
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paranoid. tongue what are the chances your giong to get robbed or assualted?
less if i have a gun :-P
seriously though, I’m all about over-preparedness. for something that could literally be life or death, id prefer to err on the side of caution and have a gun that i never need to discharge outside of the range than to not have a gun and end up in a situation where it could have made the difference. besides, i know I’m responsible enough to own and operate one safely, and if/when i have kids i would educate them just as much. if a kid finds your gun and shoots himself, you have no one to blame but yourself.
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if a kid finds your gun and shoots himself, you have no one to blame but yourself.
i actually think its the kids fault unless they’re less than 7 years old.
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There’s a good point made by the Economist in its coverage of this tragedy. It is not so much about guns be available generally, it is the type of guns that matter. Hunting rifles, for example, are less likely to be involved in a murder than hand guns.
If Cho had walked into the post office with a hunting rifle or walked towards a classroom building carrying a rifle, do you think he would have been able to enter and start killing. Maybe, but it also would have been much more difficult to kill so many while reloading a rifle. The 15 round and 10 round clips in his weapons and the semi-automatic rate of fire directly contributed to the number of victims. The Glock is freely available in the US but is a restricted weapon in almost any other country.
SS
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Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want everyone to have a gun because the masses are untrained in how to properly respect a firearm. Does not change the fact that only the victim can PREVENT the crime. Police and Attorneys do a good job of getting the criminals off the street, but they have to actually commit a crime before they can be arrested and what, exactly, are the odds of having a policeman around when the rapist strikes?
I’m not blaming the victims either, as the board’s spinmeisters would have you believe, I’m just stating, for the record, that the victims are best suitted to stopping the crimes in society. Burglar breaks into your house? Well, grandpa, get your cane and beat the snot out of him, then look the judge square in the face and ask if you are REALLY being put on trial for taking your cane and beating up a 20 something year old kid who broke into your house. If that doesn’t work, flash your disabled parking permit.
Man comes to rape you? Grab his jewels and twist. Not practical? Bite his nose and pull. Still not working well? Keys to the ribcage work too.
The point is, while you may not always be able to stop the crime, you are the only person who has the CHANCE.
Same here. The professor stalled the crime by blocking the door so his students could escape. Did the police do squat? The police couldn’t even arrest this insane lunatic! The victims, however, did manage escape at times and heros were present, but the heros themselves were victims.
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@saburo:
No. He would not have done anything differently because he was crazy. He knew he was going to die. In fact, he set out to die. If everyone was armed, it wouldn’t have made any difference to his intentions. It may have made some difference to his preparations. He probably would have brought more guns, or bombs or worn body armor. Whatever he did, gun possession by everyone in the classrooms he attacked would not have deterred him, because he was crazy.
That is your opinion, unless you have some insight into the mind of a crazy person… There are allot of crazy people in this world but very few situations like this one.
@saburo:
On the other hand, if it had been impossible for him to legally buy a gun, how many people do you think he would have been able to kill carrying a kitchen knife? You can say that he could have obtained a gun illegally, which is true. However, how much more likely would it be that he would have been stopped before taking his action if owning a handgun was illegal for him. With his history of mental illness and run ins with the law, I suggest that it would have been more likely that he would have been arrested and his guns taken away long before April 16, 2007. But, as matters stand in the US, he could lawfully own two guns, keep amunition in his dorm room and walk around with it. Until he killed 2 people at 7:15 am, he had done nothing that any law enforcement official could even question him about.
I don’t know, He may have been able to kill more people if he had a Katana and knew how to use it. There would have been less warning anyway.
@saburo:
You are suggesting that a society is safer when everyone is carrying a gun, when all the evidence is to the contrary. I will not quote a source on this because I know it to be true.
I will say this one more time. I never said nor do I believe everyone should have a gun. I believe it should be an option for everyone who has not done something to lose the right. I believe the greater the chance of reprisal the less the chance of commission of the offence. There is no factual source to the contrary because what I am saying makes sense.
@saburo:as long as a society accepts gun ownership as a right that can never be taken away, guns will be used for all purposes - good and evil.
This isn’t the case though; if you are convicted of a felony you loose the right to posses firearms.
@saburo:And since guns are, by design, intended to kill things, people will continue to die as a result of gun ownership.
This is completely wrong. Modern military firearms are designed expressly for the purpose of severely injuring and NOT killing. Target rifles are designed to poke little holes in paper at a precise location. Sporting shotguns are designed to break little clay targets.
You may think these are technicalities, and maybe they are, but generalized statements like yours may some day lead to my rights being taken away. If you don’t think it’s wise to have guns in your house, don’t. If you don’t like guns in your town, work to make a change. But, stay out of my yard.
btw I couldn’t give less of a crap what some fag at the Economist thinks…
Same here. The professor stalled the crime by blocking the door so his students could escape. Did the police do squat? The police couldn’t even arrest this insane lunatic! The victims, however, did manage escape at times and heros were present, but the heros themselves were victims.
Hmmm, just think what would have happened if the professor the ability to end the crime instead of stalling it.
@Janus1:paranoid. what are the chances your giong to get robbed or assualted?
less if i have a gun :-P
At what odds does it become worth it?
I have personally prevented myself from being carjacked once. Good enough for me and I feel 100% justified even if there is never another incident. -
I couldn’t give less of a crap what some fag at the Economist thinks…
So, if you don’t like the message, call the messenger a “fag”. Is that the kind of behavior we should expect from moderators on this board? Disappointing, really.
SS
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@saburo:
I couldn’t give less of a crap what some fag at the Economist thinks…
So, if you don’t like the message, call the messenger a “fag”. Is that the kind of behavior we should expect from moderators on this board? Disappointing, really.
SS
Oppinions are like asses, everyones got one and thats mine. Personaly I don’t give a damn what you expect.
On a related note, I don’t moderate discussions I am involved in.
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So you only act like a moderator when it suits you. Ok, just so I understand.
SS
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@saburo:
So you only act like a moderator when it suits you. Ok, just so I understand.
SS
LOL… I’m a moderator on a board game related message board, not a bishop…
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