Its happening again!!! A shooting at Virginia Tech

PRDUBI · Post by **PRDUBI** » Apr 17, 2007 11:25 AM

Matt Lauer couldn't punch his way out of a dirt bag full of crap if he tried with one hand, and he was a tree cutter during his unemployment days.

He said the guns were a 22 MM pistol.

Yeah right......that would be a cannon and currently anything with a bore over 50 caliber is considered a destructive device by ATF and it needs to be registered or face a 10 year sentence and 150k fine.
I will give him leeway and say that he meant 22 caliber.

Look at the news dude.

For a half hour show you get 10 minutes of commercials.

20 minutes devoted to the news now.
5 minutes on weather, 5 minutes on sports, and then 10 minutes on various events.

Thats your news for you in heart beat for local yocal.

BDK · Post by **BDK** » Apr 17, 2007 11:29 AM

This has been very, very sad.....
and what scares me even more is that chances are some twisted dumbass out there will see all the press about
"Worse Mass Shooting in U.S. History"
and feel that he needs to be
the new "Number 1" and try to top it.

I called both of my daughters and told them to keep their eyes and ears open for just that...

As far as gun control goes,
this could have been done with a knife too, or a machete' (sp), baseball bat,arson fire etc...
remember UF?
The UK has had their share of Mass Knife Murderers,
Death is Death,
Mass Murder is Mass Murder
no matter what instrument is used...
If someone decides he is going to take out someone or a bunch of people he will.....sadly...

I just wish they would stop blaming VATech,
they did what they thought was right at the moment....

Duke · Post by **Duke** » Apr 17, 2007 11:34 AM

BNC wrote: I just wish they would stop blaming VATech,
they did what they thought was right at the moment....

Right on Brother, hind sight is 20/20.

How many millions of people were killed in Africa with machetes?

legolas120 · Post by **legolas120** » Apr 17, 2007 12:48 PM

Duke M535ti wrote:
legolas120 wrote: That's fine. After having worked in news media for 16 years I get used to tuning out what the media tells us. This story has been big enough for me to care to listen. It is a fact that Matt Lauer and the NBC reporters reported what I said above though. Whether they got it wrong or not I don't know. Again, I have learned that news people cannot be trusted. Just thought I would share what I heard, for what that is worth. CNN probably has it right IMO.
No problemo - in the military we know that the first report is ALWAYS wrong.

I can't tell you how many times our newsroom has gotten a story wrong just to get it on the air first. All I can do is sit back and put it on the air for them and shake my head.

This is from a recent AP report:
"Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old senior, arrived in the United States as boy from South Korea in 1992 and was raised in suburban Washington, D.C., officials said."

He had at least been in the States longer that a few weeks or months. Think he might have been a legal citizen after that amount of time. Whatever...

PRDUBI · Post by **PRDUBI** » Apr 17, 2007 2:11 PM

heres a nice story for anyone thinking gun control works.

Australia spent well over half a billion dollars confistating EVERY single firearm from legitimate users and yet it didnt take a dent on their crime figures. In fact its worst.
The only people turning them in were registered gun owners.
Nobody else.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/buy ... 65717.html

Britain spent well over 250 million dollars in fees and compensation for their citizens firearms and yet it didn't bring a dent either.

Pretty strange.

Rich in WI · Post by **Rich in WI** » Apr 17, 2007 2:17 PM

Whats going on with Koreans???? or am I being stereotyped. Jeez..we in Oregon had to suffer from some deranged Korean that stole womans underwear's at various universities across Oregon. He was being accused of a killing but turns out he just stole underwear's. Was a loner also.

How many white people commit crimes but never have their race identified? What's the relevance of his race, or even his nationality?

Rich in WI

C.R. Krieger · Post by **C.R. Krieger** » Apr 17, 2007 2:29 PM

Duke M535ti wrote:Well, it was not an American that did this so you can all stick your gun control babble.

The shooter was a South Korean resident alien. Nice huh.

I did not know that a non US citizen could get a gun legally.

EDIT - looks like resident aliens can purchase weapons and even have a concealed license.................again, nice. That may change.

Duke, the Second Amendment, like most of the Bill of Rights, applies to persons, not just citizens. Of course, our current president is trying to change all that with his continuous assaults on the Constitution, but this one will no doubt get a nice boost as a result. Of course, the strict langauge says "Congress shall make no laws ..." and the NRA has been hanging its hat on that for decades. So how do you propose we get around that little obstacle?

Don't misunderstand me. I am not a gun-hating liberal asshole. I'm a liberal asshole who owns and shoots guns and who expects to continue to do so. But that doesn't mean I don't see the problems we've allowed to inflict our country as a result of our loose regulation of them.

Tyler thought it would be a good idea to have "responsible people" armed on campus to thwart such things. Let me ask you these questions:

When Ronald Reagan was shot, he was surrounded by armed trained professionals. Did it keep him from getting shot? Did John Hinckley get shot?

When Jack Kennedy was in Dallas, he, too, was surrounded by armed trained professionals. Did it keep him from getting shot? Did Lee Harvey Oswald get shot?

When Lee Harvey Oswald was being walked out of the Dallas jail surrounded by armed trained professionals, did it keep him from getting shot? Did Jack Ruby get shot?

When Bobby Kennedy was shot in LA, he was surrounded by armed trained professionals. You know the rest.

Do you think it's reasonable to expect that Amish school teachers will carry a gun?

Do you think high school teachers throughout the country should be expected to carry guns? Even if they do, how many will you really trust to know how to fire across a classroom full of kids without doing some 'collateral damage'?

Do you think "responsible" high school students should carry guns? Repeat the second question from the paragraph above.

The problem we're dealing with is that an irrational killer will not be deterred by a reasonable fear that he will get shot. In almost every instance like this one, the killer has almost no expectation of surviving. The only expectation is that he will be able to take a few others out with him. So, your only chance of survival even if you have a gun is to be quicker and better than he is. But that didn't help Reagan, either of the Kennedys, or Oswald. Maybe making it somewhat more difficult to mail order a Mannlicher Carcano or using a student visa to identify yourself when buying a 9mm semiautomatic pistol might. Desperate and irrational individuals will always be with us. Hopefully, one day they will only be armed with Big Damn knives instead of 15-shot clips that can be emptied in 5 seconds ...

doug · Post by **doug** » Apr 17, 2007 3:48 PM

As far as gun control goes,
this could have been done with a knife too, or a machete

Ummm...would you rather face a raving maniac with a machete or one armed to the gills with pistols and a pocketful of clips? As for me, I'll take the machete guy any day. But then, I can run pretty damn fast when I need to.

It has been established that the killer purchased the murder weapons legally. Does that say something about the laws controlling gun purchases? Does it make sense that gun purchasing restrictions vary from state to state?

"The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed..." What precisely does that mean? Or, to put it another way, given that the world has changed to such a drastic degree over the last 215 or so years, is it even relevant any more? Taken to irrational extremes, one could argue that the 2nd amendment gives me license to own a 1 Mt thermonuclear device, if I wanted to. Obviously I can't own one (nor do I want to), so in many specific ways my right to bear arms has already been infringed. Would it be unreasonable to suggest that it might make sense to infringe a bit more by making gun purchasing restrictions uniform across the country, using a national database to weed out the bad apples, requiring that prospective gun owners complete some kind of meaningful training and be assessed for mental/emotional health? I'm not sure exactly how the details of such a process would work, but if someone could come up with a reasonable plan, I would be more than willing to submit to such infringements. Would it be such a bad thing if some people had to find a new hobby?

Some have suggested that strict handgun laws in Great Britain and Australia have exacerbated gun violence in those countries. This may be true, but to me the argument seems specious. Can somebody point to a country where handgun ownership is strictly regulated that has a gun-related homicide rate anywhere near that in the US? If it's not the lax gun ownership laws that leads to our relatively higher murder rates, then what does? If somehow it were possible to make guns less accessible would we then all be murdering each other in the same numbers, but with toothpicks as the murder weapon? Or is the real reason for the gun violence that we are a violent society, more violent than societies in other developed countries? I'm not ready to accept that yet, though I suppose it may in fact be true.

That said, I've been kicking around the idea of getting a CC permit for a couple of years since it's not impossible to do in my neck of the woods. If there had been a responsible armed citizen in the area, we'd all be reading about this on page 2.

Post by **Shawn D.** » Apr 17, 2007 3:58 PM

C.R. Krieger wrote:Tyler thought it would be a good idea to have "responsible people" armed on campus to thwart such things. Let me ask you these questions:

(list of famous shooting incidents)

The problem with your list of incidents, C.R., is that they were all over nearly instantaneously, without continued shooting over dozens of minutes or over hours. Without a doubt, if the perpetrators in those incidents had attempted to continue for a long duration, those armed trained professionals would have stopped it. That's the point, not preventing it from starting in the first place. Luby's probably would have still started, but it would have ended much more quickly if those with concealed-carry permits had been allowed to bring their guns with them instead of having to leave them in their cars.

rlomba8204 · Post by **rlomba8204** » Apr 17, 2007 4:14 PM

C.R. Krieger wrote:
Tyler thought it would be a good idea to have "responsible people" armed on campus to thwart such things. Let me ask you these questions:

When Ronald Reagan was shot, he was surrounded by armed trained professionals. Did it keep him from getting shot? Did John Hinckley get shot?

When Jack Kennedy was in Dallas, he, too, was surrounded by armed trained professionals. Did it keep him from getting shot? Did Lee Harvey Oswald get shot?

When Lee Harvey Oswald was being walked out of the Dallas jail surrounded by armed trained professionals, did it keep him from getting shot? Did Jack Ruby get shot?

When Bobby Kennedy was shot in LA, he was surrounded by armed trained professionals. You know the rest.

Do you think it's reasonable to expect that Amish school teachers will carry a gun?

Do you think high school teachers throughout the country should be expected to carry guns? Even if they do, how many will you really trust to know how to fire across a classroom full of kids without doing some 'collateral damage'?

Do you think "responsible" high school students should carry guns? Repeat the second question from the paragraph above.

CR
Nice questions, but they really don't illuminate the issue all that much. Let me answer them.

1. No he was shot. But if Hinckley were a mass murderer instead of an assassin, those well armed, well trained people would have shot him before he could simply empty his clips.

2. See #1.

3. See #1.

4. See #1.

5. I wouldn't expect Amish school teachers to carry a gun. But that doesn't answer the question of whether, in a situation such as this, had there been a rational, armed person nearby, that person could have ended the bloodshed much earlier.

6. Probably not, but this is a moot point. In many dangerous schools, armed guards / police are already present for this very reason. So in many cities society has already deemed it necessary to introduce guns into schools for protection. The only real issue is who should carry them. I don't have a problem with the police carrying them.

7. No. High school students, almost by definition, are not responsible because they are still mostly minors. If there is to be legal gun ownership, there is not much of a case to be made that the restrictions on having a gun should be less than those placed on driving an automobile.

I am not against fairly strong gun control measures -- licensing, background checks, limiting the availability of certain types of assault weapons. But bear in mind that some of the most horrible episodes of violence have been committed without guns. Do you know of the HappyLand Social Club fire in NY? Many years ago, an irate guy burned down a social club because he saw a girl he liked dancing with someone else. He killed 87 people. If someone is sufficiently insane, as you say, they will find a way. I can drive my car up on the sidewalks near Union Station here in DC any day of the week and kill dozens of people, any time I want to. Who would stop me before I killed and maimed dozens?

The reality is, and it is very scary, that if there is someone sufficiently deranged, they can find a way to inflict horrendous violence on people in a very short period of time. I believe that designing policies that try to prevent such instances of insanity and violence is pretty much impossible, and difficult to justify when it all it really serves to do is to limit the freedoms of law-abiding citizens.

Post by **tsmall07** » Apr 17, 2007 4:26 PM

C.R. Krieger wrote: Tyler thought it would be a good idea to have "responsible people" armed on campus to thwart such things. Let me ask you these questions:

When Ronald Reagan was shot, he was surrounded by armed trained professionals. Did it keep him from getting shot? Did John Hinckley get shot?

When Jack Kennedy was in Dallas, he, too, was surrounded by armed trained professionals. Did it keep him from getting shot? Did Lee Harvey Oswald get shot?

When Lee Harvey Oswald was being walked out of the Dallas jail surrounded by armed trained professionals, did it keep him from getting shot? Did Jack Ruby get shot?

When Bobby Kennedy was shot in LA, he was surrounded by armed trained professionals. You know the rest.

Do you think it's reasonable to expect that Amish school teachers will carry a gun?

Do you think high school teachers throughout the country should be expected to carry guns? Even if they do, how many will you really trust to know how to fire across a classroom full of kids without doing some 'collateral damage'?

Do you think "responsible" high school students should carry guns? Repeat the second question from the paragraph above.

The problem we're dealing with is that an irrational killer will not be deterred by a reasonable fear that he will get shot. In almost every instance like this one, the killer has almost no expectation of surviving. The only expectation is that he will be able to take a few others out with him. So, your only chance of survival even if you have a gun is to be quicker and better than he is. But that didn't help Reagan, either of the Kennedys, or Oswald. Maybe making it somewhat more difficult to mail order a Mannlicher Carcano or using a student visa to identify yourself when buying a 9mm semiautomatic pistol might. Desperate and irrational individuals will always be with us. Hopefully, one day they will only be armed with Big Damn knives instead of 15-shot clips that can be emptied in 5 seconds ...

The comments you make are ridiculous. None of the events you mentioned are in any way similar to what happened yesterday on this campus. It would be smart for you to think before you write something that is so obviously inapplicable.

I believe it should be harder to get a gun and more training should be required for people that want to own one.

Duke · Post by **Duke** » Apr 17, 2007 4:36 PM

Nice arguments about the surrounding of "Armed professionals". This is because there was a single man target. A terrorist once stated about tying to kill Margaret Thatcher. "We only have to get lucky once, she has to be lucky all the time".

A single person target marked for assassination is a complete different story that a dumb ass student killing 32 people with hand guns.

At PT this morning a group of officers in my unit talked shortly about this. On a military installation this would never have happen. The body count would have been dramatically lower because we would have jumped his ass.

Do you remember the killings at Fort Bragg several years ago by a digruntaled soldier? The shooter was in the woods with a rifle and shot and killed three soldiers who were in formation for PT. A small group of soldiers that heard and saw what was happening maneuvered into the woods, flanked and then disarmed the shooter. These soldiers were unarmed.

tsmall07 wrote: I believe it should be harder to get a gun and more training should be required for people that want to own one.

That won't matter. This how hard it is to get and fly a jumbo jet? Yet multi terrorist got hold of four and then indeed did fly them. You can make getting hand guns as hard as you want, the bad people will still have them.

Post by **tsmall07** » Apr 17, 2007 5:25 PM

Duke M535ti wrote:
tsmall07 wrote: I believe it should be harder to get a gun and more training should be required for people that want to own one.
That won't matter. This how hard it is to get and fly a jumbo jet? Yet multi terrorist got hold of four and then indeed did fly them. You can make getting hand guns as hard as you want, the bad people will still have them.

I know that it won't keep guns out of criminals' hands. It would however make responsible owners more able to use the guns effectively.

Duke · Post by **Duke** » Apr 17, 2007 5:47 PM

tsmall07 wrote: I know that it won't keep guns out of criminals' hands. It would however make responsible owners more able to use the guns effectively.

I am sorry but "responsible owners" get the proper training and don't need Big Brother to make them.

C.R. Krieger · Post by **C.R. Krieger** » Apr 17, 2007 6:05 PM

tsmall07 wrote:
C.R. Krieger wrote: The problem we're dealing with is that an irrational killer will not be deterred by a reasonable fear that he will get shot. In almost every instance like this one, the killer has almost no expectation of surviving. The only expectation is that he will be able to take a few others out with him. ... Desperate and irrational individuals will always be with us. Hopefully, one day they will only be armed with Big Damn knives instead of 15-shot clips that can be emptied in 5 seconds ...
The comments you make are ridiculous. None of the events you mentioned are in any way similar to what happened yesterday on this campus. It would be smart for you to think before you write something that is so obviously inapplicable.

Oh, really! You think that every one of those assassins was somehow more rational than this one? You think that (aside from Oswald, who came close) any of them actually expected to get away with it without getting shot themselves? Tell me how these recklessly irrational killers were so different. They may have each had a single intended target, but that didn't help James Baker or John Connally, did it?

I believe it should be harder to get a gun and more training should be required for people that want to own one.

OK; let's remove the hyperbole (I thought the shock value might be interesting) and you reread the last paragraph. Then, tell me how your viewpoint expressed above is at all different than mine. We can deal later with how you want to screen out those such as the killer in this case from buying and having guns. I won't be surprised if he turns out to be at least as qualified as you are. So, do you carry a gun to class? Do you plan to in the future?

Rich Euro M5 · Post by **Rich Euro M5** » Apr 17, 2007 6:10 PM

limiting the availability of certain types of assault weapons.

There's no such thing as an Assault Weapon, it's a term manufactured by the anti-gun lobby to describe semi-automatic civilian versions of military Assault Rifles which are selective fire "Full Automatic". I will acknowledge there isn't much use for the scary looking firearm referred to as an Assualt Weapon. However for afficiandos of militray firearms, the cost and procurement of the real deal "Assault Rifles" is financially restrictive. Also there have been very few instances of sacry looking guns used in the commission of crimes. Most assaults in which firearms are used are committed with a handgun. It's kind of tough to conceal an AK-47 lookalike, but a Glock is very easy to hide in a youth's gang banger baggies. The place you predominately see the use of the scary looking firearms is in Hollywood action films. BUt then they tend to emulate the real deal and make them full auto.

FWIW: PRUDI mentioned that in Switzerland every male from 18 - 65 has to maintain a SIG 550, 551,552 along with the ammunition.

Here's a SIG 550:

This is a military Assault Rifle capable of selective fire at a rate of 700 - 780 rounds/minute.

If the Swiss gov't requires all males to have one of these in their households, why don't we see mass executions in Switzerland, thay have machine guns everywhere. Maybe it has something to do with their culture and society as a whole. Respecting others and their property, not envying what others have and trying to steal what isn't yours. Maybe it's because they have very liberal drug laws, which has taken the profit incentive away from organized crime. I do know it's a relatively homogeneous society, and if you step over the line the Swiss police will beat the living shit out of you before they haul your butt to jail. Germany is the same way, talk back to a cop, and they'll wack you with a nightstick. They don't worry about being sued by the societies miscreats and criminals.

Contrast that with whats going on in the US legal system today. When Military members and Law Enforcement Officers have to worry about being sent to prison for trying to honestly do their job, there's something seriously wrong with were our society is headed.

Rich

Post by **tsmall07** » Apr 17, 2007 7:18 PM

C.R. Krieger wrote:
tsmall07 wrote:
C.R. Krieger wrote: The problem we're dealing with is that an irrational killer will not be deterred by a reasonable fear that he will get shot. In almost every instance like this one, the killer has almost no expectation of surviving. The only expectation is that he will be able to take a few others out with him. ... Desperate and irrational individuals will always be with us. Hopefully, one day they will only be armed with Big Damn knives instead of 15-shot clips that can be emptied in 5 seconds ...
The comments you make are ridiculous. None of the events you mentioned are in any way similar to what happened yesterday on this campus. It would be smart for you to think before you write something that is so obviously inapplicable.
Oh, really! You think that every one of those assassins was somehow more rational than this one? You think that (aside from Oswald, who came close) any of them actually expected to get away with it without getting shot themselves? Tell me how these recklessly irrational killers were so different. They may have each had a single intended target, but that didn't help James Baker or John Connally, did it?
I believe it should be harder to get a gun and more training should be required for people that want to own one.
OK; let's remove the hyperbole (I thought the shock value might be interesting) and you reread the last paragraph. Then, tell me how your viewpoint expressed above is at all different than mine. We can deal later with how you want to screen out those such as the killer in this case from buying and having guns. I won't be surprised if he turns out to be at least as qualified as you are. So, do you carry a gun to class? Do you plan to in the future?

I'm not even going to respond to this. You are obviously blinded by the arguement

E28makaveli · Post by **E28makaveli** » Apr 17, 2007 8:02 PM

I am suprised folks have the guts to advocate for a pro-gun society despite all these issues. Where is the common sense?

Why anyone will need a gun, I do not know.

cpannarbor · Post by **cpannarbor** » Apr 17, 2007 8:24 PM

My first post btw.

The day I moved in to my new house, Sunday, August 6th, 2006 at 9:25 pm, my wife & I pulled into the driveway after moving boxes in all day. We'd ran out quickly to get a much needed bottle of wine. When I went to open my car door someone opened it the rest of the way and stuck a gun in the car and asked for all our money.

(btw, no, this was not a bad neighborhood. 2 yr old house, front porches & good neighbors. I am a "tie-wearing" professional & have never owned a piece of camo clothing.)

Short story, we were robbed, I was shot, put my hand up (which took the round) and drew my gun and fired while we were literally toe-to-toe outside the car, my back to the cardoor. He ran away (apparently injured) and I am here alive....Because I carry a gun.

I've never hunted nor hand guns in my house growing up. But with a now 3 yr old little boy, I realized I did not want to find my self helpless should, God forbid, anything like this ever happen.

It was sudden, unexpected and everybody feels safe until something happens. I am glad that I had and have the sense to go about my world not fearful, but aware and with the ability to protect myself, my loved ones, & anyone around me.

cpannarbor · Post by **cpannarbor** » Apr 17, 2007 8:26 PM

Oh, and if we can "un-invent" the gun, I am all for it. Until then, my Kimber 1911 .45 will be on my hip.

Mark 88/M5 Houston · Post by **Mark 88/M5 Houston** » Apr 17, 2007 8:35 PM

cpannarbor wrote:

The day I moved in to my new house, Sunday, August 6th, 2006 at 9:25 pm, my wife & I pulled into the driveway after moving boxes in all day. We'd ran out quickly to get a much needed bottle of wine. When I went to open my car door someone opened it the rest of the way and stuck a gun in the car and asked for all our money.

(btw, no, this was not a bad neighborhood. 2 yr old house, front porches & good neighbors. I am a "tie-wearing" professional & have never owned a piece of camo clothing.)

Short story, we were robbed, I was shot, put my hand up (which took the round) and drew my gun and fired while we were literally toe-to-toe outside the car, my back to the cardoor. He ran away (apparently injured) and I am here alive....Because I carry a gun.

I've never hunted nor hand guns in my house growing up. But with a now 3 yr old little boy, I realized I did not want to find my self helpless should, God forbid, anything like this ever happen.

It was sudden, unexpected and everybody feels safe until something happens. I am glad that I had and have the sense to go about my world not fearful, but aware and with the ability to protect myself, my loved ones, & anyone around me.

One hell of a first post and a very well stated case for law abiding citizens arming themselves.

DRP535 · Post by **DRP535** » Apr 17, 2007 9:26 PM

DMNaskale wrote:Now this thread has become a gun control thread.

I think that's inevitable to a certain extent. To outsiders like me who live in countries where guns are not a part of the normal popular culture, the prevalence of guns in the USA really stands out as a defining character trait of the country. That's for sure very unfair because there is no doubt a helluva lot more to the US than simply the ease with which you can obtain a gun, yet when we compare the country of our residence with the US, this is one of the major differences and as such we tend to focus on it. Just as we unfairly focus on the bad food, warm beer and bad weather of the UK for example. Australia probably has just as equally annoying clichés that get applied to it as well.

How many times have you heard a story of kids playing with a gun, and they did not understand how to clear the chamber and thus assumed a gun was unloaded when they removed the magazine?

I can honestly say I've never heard a story of that nature or anything like it, but then I wouldn't expect to. Kids simply don't play with guns in Australia. The guns simply aren't there to play with and even when they are like on farms etc. they are treated extremely seriously. As in, they are not something to be played with, just like gelignite or TNT or gasoline and matches.

I genuinely hope you enjoy your trip, and I don't think you have anything to worry about. We are not a nation of gunslingers. I am a gun owner and it is a rare day that the subject even comes up. I will be very interested to hear about your perceptions of the USA after your visit, and how they have changed from you current perceptions. If you make it near Tampa I would like to buy you a beer.

Thanks, I will be travelling through Tampa and as it stands at the moment I have nobody to call upon or make contact with in the sunny state at all. I have tried to contact some people but had no replies as yet so it's looking like a lonely old time for me in Florida. Georgia will be cool though, heaps of good guys up there willing to show a bloke around. So yeah, if you're willing to share some contact details with me via PM I'll be sure to try to look you up as I'm passing through.

I too will be very interested in my perceptions of the US after being there, and so will my friends back here. I have received so far all sorts of funny advice from people who have been before which is probably all wrong. Things like... don't make hand gestures in traffic at intersections like to be polite by letting someone in a queue of cars because it might be misconstrued as being offensive and you'll get a gun waved back at you! I really hope it's not quite as bad as that!

For example, just showing a gun in public so that it's visible in Australia like that would set off a mild panic and have you swamped under a pile of TRG (SWAT) officers in no time at all, but I guess it would be okay in the US.

Duke · Post by **Duke** » Apr 17, 2007 9:33 PM

DRP535 wrote:Things like... don't make hand gestures in traffic at intersections like to be polite by letting someone in a queue of cars because it might be misconstrued as being offensive and you'll get a gun waved back at you! I really hope it's not quite as bad as that!

For example, just showing a gun in public so that it's visible in Australia like that would set off a mild panic and have you swamped under a pile of TRG (SWAT) officers in no time at all, but I guess it would be okay in the US.

Just like Australia here, you wave a gun around and the police will be on you like stink on....you know. Try that in a car and there will be 10 cell phone calls to the police with you car license number and location so the PO PO will be down on you in a heart-beat too.

I probably have more training than most on various weapons systems from a 9mm hand gun to the 30mm cannon and Hellfire missile system in the Apache, and I don't own a personal weapon. No need too, Uncle Sam lets me play with his.

Don't be afraid my friend, come to the US and have fun.

rlomba8204 · Post by **rlomba8204** » Apr 17, 2007 9:38 PM

I agree with most of what's been said, but can I play devil's advocate for a minute?

I was reading the news this evening, and Drudge Report links to a bunch of European news editorials condemning us for our relatively liberal gun laws, at least by these standards.

Now, if you look at the relevant figures, we do have higher gun related fatalities in this country as compared to other western countries. Isn't it reasonable to assume that there is some causal relationship between the number of guns available here and the incidence of gun-related crime? Maybe it would take time, but a gun ban would eventually lower the incidence of such violence? Or is this not right? Why? Is our society different in some way in that perhaps there are reasons for this unrelated to gun ownership? While I am a supporter of the Second Amendment, I also think that at times such as this some introspection can't hurt.

Putting down the devil's advocate "hat", my first instinct is to brush off all this criticism from abroad because, with all due respect to anyone reading this from over there, I think Europe is seriously screwed up right now. I am seriously pissed off, and outraged that Italy, for example, is prosecuting an American soldier who, even if he made a mistake (and that is not clear) should be given some "slack" given the incidence of car bombs (you would think, given the news coverage, that the only thing that happens in Iraq every day are car bombs) and the fact he is in the middle of a war zone. The expletives just flow freely from my mouth when I think of it. And this is an "ally."

All that being said, I think that times like this can provide an opportunity to examine any opportunities we might have to prevent a tragedy like this from happening in the future.

doug · Post by **doug** » Apr 17, 2007 9:39 PM

DRP535 wrote:... don't make hand gestures in traffic at intersections like to be polite by letting someone in a queue of cars because it might be misconstrued as being offensive and you'll get a gun waved back at you!

"An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life." -Robert A. Heinlein

e3mt · Post by **e3mt** » Apr 17, 2007 9:54 PM

How about another thread regarding gun issues.
This one stared at a VT shooting thread and has evolved into something different.

Mark - gun-toting liberal, VT Class of 1991

PHILLY 535IS · Post by **PHILLY 535IS** » Apr 17, 2007 10:03 PM

Personally I think they need to do psychological tests on people trying to obtain a gun. Just because you're a lawful citizen doesn't mean you're sane. My mom had two foster kids that were freakin nut cases but never broke a law, doesn't mean I would put a gun in their hands. This kid at VT didn't seem to have an exstensive police record but got a gun and shot everyone. Not sure if he got it be illegal means or not, correct me if I am wrong. So allowing students to carry concealed guns doesn't necessarily prevent anything. Who's to say someone obtains a gun legally, who is slightly off his/her rocker, conceals a gun and brings it into school. What then? I think a reevaluation of the this countries mental health system needs to be looked into. There have been plenty of cases of known nutballs killing people after hospitals have been warned about releasing them. In my own town a few streets away about two years ago a family pleaded with the hospital not to release their son. They warned them he was dangerous. The day he was released he shot and killed both his parents and went across the street and killed this other woman. Another case that involved parents telling them not to release their daughter days before she went to the Springfield Mall and went on a shooting rampage. Even on Dateline the other night they had another story with a similar plot, 5 people dead. What I am getting at is that the school had warnings from a professor that this kids writings in english class were delusional and sent some of them to the school psychologist. It seems like something is only done about these people once someone is killed or injured. I am not blaming the school in anyway but maybe if there was a better system in place to prevent people like this from slipping over the edge we could possibly avoid future events. Also, what ever happened to a good ol' fashioned fist fight? But seriously this is horrible and this world, not just the U.S. needs to "WAKE UP!" in the words of Rage Against the Machine.

ldsbeaker · Post by **ldsbeaker** » Apr 17, 2007 10:08 PM

I was watching television when the preview for the news came on:
"We will look into the possible reasons that this MAN contributed to the largest massacre in US... etc..."

Man? Are you kidding me? A child. I don't care how old he was, what kind of person he was, what kind of grades he made, or what kind of lame ass excuses the press is going to try to pawn his "rage" on...
This person was a child.

DRP535 · Post by **DRP535** » Apr 17, 2007 10:24 PM

PRDUBI wrote:heres a nice story for anyone thinking gun control works.

Australia spent well over half a billion dollars confistating EVERY single firearm from legitimate users and yet it didnt take a dent on their crime figures. In fact its worst.
The only people turning them in were registered gun owners.
Nobody else.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/buy ... 65717.html

Britain spent well over 250 million dollars in fees and compensation for their citizens firearms and yet it didn't bring a dent either.

Pretty strange.

Just so you know, the Sydney Morning Herald is owned by Rupert Murdoch, a US citizen of Maryland, a rabid republican, a major supporter of George Bush and the owner of your FOX network. He is well known for pushing his personal views in his newspapers and publications with no regard for the actual truth. Let me ask you this. If you had got this information from your FOX News network in the US would you have believed it?

stuartinmn · Post by **stuartinmn** » Apr 17, 2007 11:01 PM

DRP535 wrote:Things like... don't make hand gestures in traffic at intersections like to be polite by letting someone in a queue of cars because it might be misconstrued as being offensive and you'll get a gun waved back at you! I really hope it's not quite as bad as that!

Unless things are a LOT different in Georgia and Florida, I don't think you'll have any problems with that as long as you use all your fingers when gesturing.

MyE28.com

MyE28.com

Its happening again!!! A shooting at Virginia Tech

h

eh

Another Thread?

Re: eh