Will Americans ever wake up to the need for gun control, or will we continue to sacrifice our young people to another time and age? What kind of precious freedom is this?
Gun Control
goinfor11x7 said:
It probably won't ever happen - the closest thing that might happen is another assault weapons ban. I'm for this kind of action, but I don't really think that increased regulation really works that well either, but there are a lot of variables involved.
I'm all for people being able to own firearms for protection and sporting activities. As long as a gun is being used as a tool for useful purpose, fine. But people that want to own AK's and god knows what else are just fetishizing shooting. Those guys need somebody to show them Penis Enlargement, then they'll probably be able to put down the military grade assault rifle . . .
I'm not sure if the VY kid did use assault weapons though. I was traveling when it happened so I missed most of the coverage and am just learning about it. The bottom line is, a society with guns will have more violent crime. THe only way to curb that is to just get rid of guns, which is very near impossible in the US. Even in places where they do have gun bans, such as the UK, they still filter in, although the fun crime is drastically lower and mostly comprised of criminals killing each other. Japan is a better example.
Guns do not kill people. People kill people. People will kill people with or without guns; especially people who act such as this young man ... in all sorts of ways be it knives, bombs, poison, etc.
Gun control laws don't stop any of this and they never will. Only the law abiding citizens obey the law. The crazies, cirminals, whatever you want to call them ... don't care ( suprise! :roll: ). Gun laws only make victims severely less likely to be able to defend themselves.
This shooting was the perfect example of the problems with gun control. It is illegal to have guns or any weapon on VT campus. In excess of 99.9% of the students obeyed. One student did not care about the law and got the advantage of shooting a bunch of mismatched, relatively defenseless law abiding citizens who are responsible enough to possess and use weapons for the right reasons: defense; but who were not only not exercising their right to bear arms but who were actually stripped of their rights and thus slaughtered with basically no chance to defend themselves.
In the "Wild West", when everyone open carried, this guy would have killed 3 people maximum, probably less *. He would have been shot dead by somebody very quickly. The teachers should be trained and have a properly stored gun in class and or conceal carried. Pilots, Bus drivers, train operators, Taxi drivers etc should as well. All people who are of age and properly trained should be able to carry, however I don't believe that students should be able to bring guns to school even if they are of age and trained (which would only be college senoirs and maybe juniors for the most part) as long as the teachers are properly trained and armed ... along with campus police.
(*Of course, I also think the campus should have been locked down and mas press reports should have been released rapidly shortly after the double homicide 2 hours before the massacre would have saved MANY lives if not all of them due to increasing defense and awareness to the killer that people were on to him.)
The same argument comes up all the time. It amazes me that people don't understand that 1) if people knew all the teachers, transporters etc were properly trained and armed .... people like this kid would probably never even think of doing something like this and 2) even if the kid was still crazy enough ... he would know as well as all of you should ... that he would have been lucky to kill or even injure 3 people maximum before getting shot dead ... oppsed to killing 32 people and injuring 50+ people or whatever the amazing stats are.
Same crap with all the other mass murders in history where tyrants disarmed people and did with them as they please. There would have been way more holocaust survivors if they all carried guns. The USA and just about any other country wouldn't exist without guns. The Constitution defends the Inalienable Right to bear arms because the people who wrote it understand reality, and freedom, more than all of the gun control fanatics .... and because they understood reality and freedom as much as the tyrants, criminals and murderers do.
Still, the USA DOES have sensible gun laws that some may already argue are too much. You do need to be of age (maybe 21 in all states now, but at least in most) and you need to at least posses a driver's license in most states. Guns have to be registered with the numbers matching all the info they have on you. You can't buy a gun if you are a convicted felon. You can't carry a weapon outside of your home or the gun range (not sure about your vehicle) without a permit and these permits have some limited jurisdiction. Of course, this doesn't stop the illegal sale of weapons, just like it doesn't stop the sale of illegal drugs .... and no laws ever will. There are gun control laws, just like for tobacco and alcohol. All drugs should be treated the same.
Gun control is a victory for cirminals, murderers, tyrants, increased over taxation, increased prison overpopulation, increased ruining of people's lives ... not a victory for the HUGE majority of law abiding citizens who should be taught from elementary school that guns are good when used properly, albeit deadly like many other things that we use properly that simply don't carry the negtive image of a gun ... like cleaners, medical equipment, tools from scissors to dinner knife to hammer.... and more.
Most people are good people. Just like the law enforcement (who are now relatively OVER armed like miltary special ops) is mostly good and trusted to keep order after being properly trained and equipped (and effective at it mostly by show of force - read: weapons/guns , hence enFORCEment ) ... the rest of the good people can do the same. Crime drops when you swarm an area with the signs of law enforcement because criminals/crazies etc fear the enFORCEment. The same crime drops in areas with more free gun laws and it has been shown time and time again. Fatalities by weapon/gun is a totally different statistic that is based on totally different factors.
I'll continue to defend the Right to bear arms for my entire life; and I'll continue to encourage everyone to do the same. I'll be improving my weapons training and arsenal. I will use it for proper self defense and possibly save the lives of my family, friends and strangers yet siblings of the universe that I care about as a humanist.
I'd probably even save the most adamant gun control/anti gun advocates :roll: :lol: :lol: . 8) :wink:
I would probably be in favor of better screening to buy guns though - like a required interview and letter from a psychologist AND gun training certification.
In this case, I think the best and most practical chance to have saved 30+ lives and 50+ persons with injuries was to lockdown after the double homicide with mass press release notification and with a door to door campus wide search for weapons and a notice for teachers to get the guns they should have had ready ... only ceasing lock down after the whole campus was searched for weapons .
However, in addition ... this young man appeared to show serious psychological issues over at least the previous 6 months or more that the school was aware of yet didn't do much of anything effective about. I mean, from what I've picked up so far ... this guy was stalking girls, writing poetry in class about killing students etc. It seems that this should have given him more consequences and then the idea of a law that would have prohibited him from a LEGAL gun purchase due to psyche eval MIGHT have helped a bit.
Gun control laws don't stop any of this and they never will. Only the law abiding citizens obey the law. The crazies, cirminals, whatever you want to call them ... don't care ( suprise! :roll: ). Gun laws only make victims severely less likely to be able to defend themselves.
This shooting was the perfect example of the problems with gun control. It is illegal to have guns or any weapon on VT campus. In excess of 99.9% of the students obeyed. One student did not care about the law and got the advantage of shooting a bunch of mismatched, relatively defenseless law abiding citizens who are responsible enough to possess and use weapons for the right reasons: defense; but who were not only not exercising their right to bear arms but who were actually stripped of their rights and thus slaughtered with basically no chance to defend themselves.
In the "Wild West", when everyone open carried, this guy would have killed 3 people maximum, probably less *. He would have been shot dead by somebody very quickly. The teachers should be trained and have a properly stored gun in class and or conceal carried. Pilots, Bus drivers, train operators, Taxi drivers etc should as well. All people who are of age and properly trained should be able to carry, however I don't believe that students should be able to bring guns to school even if they are of age and trained (which would only be college senoirs and maybe juniors for the most part) as long as the teachers are properly trained and armed ... along with campus police.
(*Of course, I also think the campus should have been locked down and mas press reports should have been released rapidly shortly after the double homicide 2 hours before the massacre would have saved MANY lives if not all of them due to increasing defense and awareness to the killer that people were on to him.)
The same argument comes up all the time. It amazes me that people don't understand that 1) if people knew all the teachers, transporters etc were properly trained and armed .... people like this kid would probably never even think of doing something like this and 2) even if the kid was still crazy enough ... he would know as well as all of you should ... that he would have been lucky to kill or even injure 3 people maximum before getting shot dead ... oppsed to killing 32 people and injuring 50+ people or whatever the amazing stats are.
Same crap with all the other mass murders in history where tyrants disarmed people and did with them as they please. There would have been way more holocaust survivors if they all carried guns. The USA and just about any other country wouldn't exist without guns. The Constitution defends the Inalienable Right to bear arms because the people who wrote it understand reality, and freedom, more than all of the gun control fanatics .... and because they understood reality and freedom as much as the tyrants, criminals and murderers do.
Still, the USA DOES have sensible gun laws that some may already argue are too much. You do need to be of age (maybe 21 in all states now, but at least in most) and you need to at least posses a driver's license in most states. Guns have to be registered with the numbers matching all the info they have on you. You can't buy a gun if you are a convicted felon. You can't carry a weapon outside of your home or the gun range (not sure about your vehicle) without a permit and these permits have some limited jurisdiction. Of course, this doesn't stop the illegal sale of weapons, just like it doesn't stop the sale of illegal drugs .... and no laws ever will. There are gun control laws, just like for tobacco and alcohol. All drugs should be treated the same.
Gun control is a victory for cirminals, murderers, tyrants, increased over taxation, increased prison overpopulation, increased ruining of people's lives ... not a victory for the HUGE majority of law abiding citizens who should be taught from elementary school that guns are good when used properly, albeit deadly like many other things that we use properly that simply don't carry the negtive image of a gun ... like cleaners, medical equipment, tools from scissors to dinner knife to hammer.... and more.
Most people are good people. Just like the law enforcement (who are now relatively OVER armed like miltary special ops) is mostly good and trusted to keep order after being properly trained and equipped (and effective at it mostly by show of force - read: weapons/guns , hence enFORCEment ) ... the rest of the good people can do the same. Crime drops when you swarm an area with the signs of law enforcement because criminals/crazies etc fear the enFORCEment. The same crime drops in areas with more free gun laws and it has been shown time and time again. Fatalities by weapon/gun is a totally different statistic that is based on totally different factors.
I'll continue to defend the Right to bear arms for my entire life; and I'll continue to encourage everyone to do the same. I'll be improving my weapons training and arsenal. I will use it for proper self defense and possibly save the lives of my family, friends and strangers yet siblings of the universe that I care about as a humanist.
I'd probably even save the most adamant gun control/anti gun advocates :roll: :lol: :lol: . 8) :wink:
I would probably be in favor of better screening to buy guns though - like a required interview and letter from a psychologist AND gun training certification.
In this case, I think the best and most practical chance to have saved 30+ lives and 50+ persons with injuries was to lockdown after the double homicide with mass press release notification and with a door to door campus wide search for weapons and a notice for teachers to get the guns they should have had ready ... only ceasing lock down after the whole campus was searched for weapons .
However, in addition ... this young man appeared to show serious psychological issues over at least the previous 6 months or more that the school was aware of yet didn't do much of anything effective about. I mean, from what I've picked up so far ... this guy was stalking girls, writing poetry in class about killing students etc. It seems that this should have given him more consequences and then the idea of a law that would have prohibited him from a LEGAL gun purchase due to psyche eval MIGHT have helped a bit.
Last edited:
PenilePersist makes some good points, but I tend to stop short at the idea that arming everbod to the teeth is going to make the world safer, nor do I think that's really a practical or feasible solution.
As a lifelong sportsman, I feel there is a place for responsible ownership in society, it just needs to be stricly regulated. Point of fact, a gun is a simple purchase that can quickly lead to lethal and easy violence. As he points out, simply banning them outright and empty regulation doesn't do anything. There is something to be said for countries that do ahve gun bans having less violent gun-related crime, but there are simply too many funs already here for this sort of thing to have any impact. The manpower and money needed to round up guns, plus our national traditions and such would just make this impossible. Handguns and rifles aside though, there really is no place for assault weapons in society. There's no practical need for military grade weaponry and no real justification for it.
I favor extensive background checks, increased waiting periods (anybody that needs a handgun immediately probably isn't going to be up to any good with it in most cases), and perhaps even some pyschological requirements as was suggested. Guns should be hard to obtain and treated like a privelage, not some nebulous birthright.
On the other hand, ithiel brings up the interesting point that they are a necessary evil for some people. Interstingly, a lot of police are slow to react to reports in violent neighboorhoods, therefore facilitating the need for ordinary citizens to carry guns for protection. Not coincidentally, one of the main 'sticker' charges police often get are for unlicensed firearms. Talk about a catch-22.
There's no way to get guns out of the country, and as I've said there is a place for them, but there needs to be a serious overhaul in how we approach ownership and regulate their sale and manufacturing. Groups like the NRA, depsite all their talk of free societies and safety training, are basically beholden to gun manufacturers. Gun producers want as little regulation as possible and for it to be as simple as possible for people to get their hands on guns to keep the market bussling, and they help proliferate a lot of bogus propaganda to make sure this continues to the case.
So far as concealed carry and things like that, somebody recently made the interesting argument to me that people who despise and fear guns have rights as well, and that the idea of everybody being able to walk around packing in public areas is a terrifying proposition to some. I couldn't totally get on board with this (although I've never been interested in carrying a gun for any reason), but it is an interesting point that gun enthusiasts are always harping about their rights and freedoms, but that people who hate guns have rights as well. It's notable that some people just don't like the idea that the strangers in front of them and behind them in line at the coffee shop have lethal weapons strapped to their sides, and their interests are at stake here as well.
That's all basically a long winded way of saying that we don't need more or less guns, but that we need to figure out a better way to deal with what already exists. One things is for sure - Americans kill each other with guns at far higher rates than most other countries not in the third world. Every college in the country is soon going to undergo massive security changes because here in the US, a kid can walk into any pawn shop or sporting goods store and get his hands on an arsenal powerful enough to kill 33 people in a matter of minutes. There's no good answer for this.
As a lifelong sportsman, I feel there is a place for responsible ownership in society, it just needs to be stricly regulated. Point of fact, a gun is a simple purchase that can quickly lead to lethal and easy violence. As he points out, simply banning them outright and empty regulation doesn't do anything. There is something to be said for countries that do ahve gun bans having less violent gun-related crime, but there are simply too many funs already here for this sort of thing to have any impact. The manpower and money needed to round up guns, plus our national traditions and such would just make this impossible. Handguns and rifles aside though, there really is no place for assault weapons in society. There's no practical need for military grade weaponry and no real justification for it.
I favor extensive background checks, increased waiting periods (anybody that needs a handgun immediately probably isn't going to be up to any good with it in most cases), and perhaps even some pyschological requirements as was suggested. Guns should be hard to obtain and treated like a privelage, not some nebulous birthright.
On the other hand, ithiel brings up the interesting point that they are a necessary evil for some people. Interstingly, a lot of police are slow to react to reports in violent neighboorhoods, therefore facilitating the need for ordinary citizens to carry guns for protection. Not coincidentally, one of the main 'sticker' charges police often get are for unlicensed firearms. Talk about a catch-22.
There's no way to get guns out of the country, and as I've said there is a place for them, but there needs to be a serious overhaul in how we approach ownership and regulate their sale and manufacturing. Groups like the NRA, depsite all their talk of free societies and safety training, are basically beholden to gun manufacturers. Gun producers want as little regulation as possible and for it to be as simple as possible for people to get their hands on guns to keep the market bussling, and they help proliferate a lot of bogus propaganda to make sure this continues to the case.
So far as concealed carry and things like that, somebody recently made the interesting argument to me that people who despise and fear guns have rights as well, and that the idea of everybody being able to walk around packing in public areas is a terrifying proposition to some. I couldn't totally get on board with this (although I've never been interested in carrying a gun for any reason), but it is an interesting point that gun enthusiasts are always harping about their rights and freedoms, but that people who hate guns have rights as well. It's notable that some people just don't like the idea that the strangers in front of them and behind them in line at the coffee shop have lethal weapons strapped to their sides, and their interests are at stake here as well.
That's all basically a long winded way of saying that we don't need more or less guns, but that we need to figure out a better way to deal with what already exists. One things is for sure - Americans kill each other with guns at far higher rates than most other countries not in the third world. Every college in the country is soon going to undergo massive security changes because here in the US, a kid can walk into any pawn shop or sporting goods store and get his hands on an arsenal powerful enough to kill 33 people in a matter of minutes. There's no good answer for this.
Just reminds me of how butter-knives were started. Back in the day everyone used to carry a knife around (like a foot long), but one person was having guests over from two rival families. He didn't want a whole bunch of dead people in his house, so he made everyone give up their knife at the door in exchange for a blunted knife, which became the butter-knife. Then they banned the butter-knife and people killed eachother with rocks :O .
It makes sense to arm teaches and the other people in that list. Have enough reliable people at a building armed or with weapons in their desks to deture an invader. Piracy is one place where "they" don't think this is a good idea. Most pirates are ex-military and armed to the teeth, and when they board a ship it's unusally a cordinated assault and taking a couple of pot shots will just piss them off more. Hell of a gamble to surrender and loss your chance to defend yourself when you hands get tied behind your back.- That would be the reason to arm only the reliable people at a building, four guys with guns rob a McDonalds and the 15 year old at the register pulls the gun from under the counter, nice move genius. For those of you that don't know piracy is still a really big thing over in some "hot-zones," but the ad-agencies keep it on the dl for one marketing reason or another. It's fucking CRAZY though, some of these pirates literally jack the whole ship and hock it or re-paint and use it. Like a whole cargo ship, a football field or two long.
Wonder how far some simple self-defense classes would go, not to say you're going to charge a guy with a gun in an open-field, but some simple stuff that works could proably go a long way if you keep your head about you. And I suppose your hands don't need a license
.
It makes sense to arm teaches and the other people in that list. Have enough reliable people at a building armed or with weapons in their desks to deture an invader. Piracy is one place where "they" don't think this is a good idea. Most pirates are ex-military and armed to the teeth, and when they board a ship it's unusally a cordinated assault and taking a couple of pot shots will just piss them off more. Hell of a gamble to surrender and loss your chance to defend yourself when you hands get tied behind your back.- That would be the reason to arm only the reliable people at a building, four guys with guns rob a McDonalds and the 15 year old at the register pulls the gun from under the counter, nice move genius. For those of you that don't know piracy is still a really big thing over in some "hot-zones," but the ad-agencies keep it on the dl for one marketing reason or another. It's fucking CRAZY though, some of these pirates literally jack the whole ship and hock it or re-paint and use it. Like a whole cargo ship, a football field or two long.
Wonder how far some simple self-defense classes would go, not to say you're going to charge a guy with a gun in an open-field, but some simple stuff that works could proably go a long way if you keep your head about you. And I suppose your hands don't need a license
.PenilePersist said:
Quote: "Guns do not kill people. People kill people."
You've got it wrong, my good friend. "People WITH GUNS kill people."
PenilePersist said:
I agree with pretty much everything you said.
German Stallion
Super Moderator
10inchadvantage said:
And I agree Also! GS
- No one is chatting at the moment.
-
MoS Notifier:
flambria is our newest member. Welcome! -
MoS Notifier:
msumone is our newest member. Welcome!
-
MoS Notifier:
sepilo1017 is our newest member. Welcome!
-
MoS Notifier:
bhandaripranab36 is our newest member. Welcome!
-
MoS Notifier:
Scorpio20-> is our newest member. Welcome!
-
MoS Notifier:
7kingmaker is our newest member. Welcome!
-
MoS Notifier:
PSP_pumper_1964 is our newest member. Welcome!
-
MoS Notifier:
Bminkey2 is our newest member. Welcome!
-
MoS Notifier:
gtveloce is our newest member. Welcome!
-
MoS Notifier:
5byhbyhtbthb is our newest member. Welcome!
-
MoS Notifier:
ashaythakur is our newest member. Welcome!
-
MoS Notifier:
Biggestzeb is our newest member. Welcome!
-
MoS Notifier:
Welltraveled5 is our newest member. Welcome!
-
MoS Notifier:
Fatsam is our newest member. Welcome!
-
MoS Notifier:
zotygarm is our newest member. Welcome!
-
MoS Notifier:
derpalopederpde is our newest member. Welcome!
-
MoS Notifier:
Dcny25 is our newest member. Welcome!
-
MoS Notifier:
Ottoman1 is our newest member. Welcome!
-
MoS Notifier:
Nnnn is our newest member. Welcome!
-
MoS Notifier:
Player1097 is our newest member. Welcome!
-
MoS Notifier:
homazur9 is our newest member. Welcome!
