Virginia Mourns

Unless VMI cadets are allowed to walk about freely under arms (not likely), the events could have occurred there as well. But the outcome would probably have been different with the gunmen being subdued in a far quicker, and aggressive, manner.

Along with the right to bear arms you get the right to occasional tragedy. Pick one, get both. Yes, I have a permit to carry, and a .40 Glock, but it doesn't make me blind to the facts.

Paul, dead on. Cadets don't walk around armed...but, from pretty much anywhere in barracks it's less than a minute run to the M16s and M9s in the armory. Probably less.

Still, not much to argue with there.

You get tragedies without such a right, too, bill. They're not as spectacular. But a study done here (in Australia) recently has shown that there was no noticeable change in the trend of gun crime in the 10 years since gun ownership was almost banned.

My theory is that the reduction in nuts gunning people down is offset by the increased violent deaths that come from the inability of people to defend themselves from armed criminals. I don't have any solid evidence to back that up, other than the aforementioned study and others like it, which suggest that any possible reduction in crime brought by banning guns is offset by something.

What really worries me more than anything else is that somebody would want to do something like this. How could they? An undiagnosed mental illness? It's just sad.

Actually maybe it was no trend in violent crime.. I can't remember.. either way, as far as we can tell, people are no safer than they would be if we could still privately own guns. Banning them may have made some people feel better, but it didn't actually make them demonstrably safer...

I know I am beating a dead horse here...but: if you have gun control laws and enforce them then you are preventing law-abiding citizens from protecting themselves....Criminals DO NOT Follow The Law

No, it doesn't seem classless, just predictable. Those who "live by the sword" frequently use such a senseless act of brutality to promote unbridled access to weaponry among the rest of us who don't. Gun-control laws on college campuses are designed to protect (untrained) youth from allowing new stresses and pressures from connecting with their yet underdeveloped impulse-control. The unfortunate part is not that this legislation exists, but that there's no way to measure if more than 31 are saved by it.

~ hb33 ~

Well, I take it hb33 didn't read what I said.

Think of Australia as an experiment in depriving the population of guns. How do you determine whether the experiment succeeded? By looking at whether it had any impact on the number of people killed each year. If the trend goes down, you succeeded in saving some people. If it went up, you succeeded in killing more people. If it stayed the same, your changes had no effect.

Well, we've had no discernible effect. In the absence of any evidence that banning guns actually reduces violent crime, how do you justify it?

This of course says nothing specifically about colleges.. just society at large. England also has banned most guns. How's their violent crime? These are the things that people who actually care about reducing deaths, rather than just making knee-jerk reactions to horrible events like these, must think about before advocating a course of action.

My real question is: did this guy have issues, and if so, why weren't they being treated? Maybe the real solution to horrible crimes is better mental health treatment. I guess we won't know until we find out if he was disturbed. But, I don't see how you can do such a thing and not be.

Honeybee should really read Robert Averch's "Killing a Terrorist," where an armed Israeli shot and killed a would-be suicide bomber in an Israeli marketplace.

Personally I think she's drinking from the magical kool-aid river that flows through her fantasy world.

Let's not be too hard on her... it's true that gun control (while unconstitutional in the USA - but that hasn't stopped anyone yet) probably could reduce the chance of horrible things like this happening.

The problem is, it increases the chance of other bad things happening. As it turns out, they pretty much balance each other out - as far as we know. That isn't necessarily intuitive or obvious, and if you get your information from the MSM, you'd probably believe otherwise.

I know from experience that when you're young you think that government control is the answer to problems. It's logical. Until you experience the government messing so many things up, that you start to realize that no matter how good your intentions are, you often do more harm than good trying to control peoples' lives.

It's a lesson that takes experience.. so while I don't agree with her logic.. I don't think we should judge too harshly. It's much easier to convince someone if you are nice to them, anyway.

Let's just say, we all want the same thing - less innocent people dieing - we need to discuss how best to go about it.

Also, unless there's something horribly wrong with the concealed carry classes, there's no reason to worry about a bunch of imbeciles shooting their own feet etc. But until someone decides to let us defend ourselves, the best contribution I could make to a similar event at my school would be to pepper the assailant with an automatic barrage of pathetic nerf balls. Even water guns were banned here until last year.

i would be willing to risk a nickle that this/these fellowzzzz have broken at least a dozen firearms laws already

in 1960 i enrolled at Montana State College (Engineering and Ag) as could be imagined each and every student owned 5+ firearms.

they had a total restriction on students possessing firearms at the college because a couple of years earlier one of the lads was cleaning an "unloaded" 1911 .45.

he managed to accomplish an accidental discharge. the bullet parted his hair went through one wall going upwards, the next floor, bounced off of a wall beam, then went through a hallway partition through another floor and solidly lodged in the soft and fleshy part of some fool sitting at his desk "studying". that is two floors up and three rooms over.

the building was a "temporary" construction built in 48 to house GI bill students.

this could be a reason that schools are a bit leery of weapons in student hands as a normal thing.

A Symptom of our "Chain Letter Society"?

Read an analysis of the influences in our "Chain Letter Society" that may be precipitating events like the tragedy at Virginia Tech and how our focus on winning and being number one may be fostering a generation of children with fully inadequate coping skills who have a misguided sense of self-worth...here:

www.thoughttheater.com

There is nothing classless about wishing that someone had been there to stop it. That, John, is all you were saying, and it is surely the heartfelt desire of thousands of people tonight.

Totally if we had looser gun restrictions we could limit the tragedy of free speech and save people from thier opinions.

Grim , I agree, afterall the armed campus police where useless. That makes so much sense, more guns equals less violence. If everyone had a gun we could create a true freedom loving utopia where no one dies by gunfire.

Man, this site is filled with wisdom.

A wise man once wrote, "Police officers cannot be present at all violent crimes, but victims, by definition, always are."

There is no reason, though, that they should have to be defenseless.

I can't help but think there is more to this story. A Chinese national?
Just remember: train your kids to be sheepdogs. One day, could be them. Who is going to stand up? Who will resist?
This whole thing...sad day in the Commonwealth.

It is a sad day for all of us. As a former law enforcement officer with a brother who retired as an O-6 after 30 something years in service our hearts go out to all involved. The loss of loved ones has to leave raw emotions and the feelings of what the true motives of the bad guy/guys have us all on edge. I can't say much about who may have been saved with a well strapped and trained civilian could have done but watch out for the backlash on the 15 round evil mags-I see it coming. NBC/CBS, etc-lots of rounds loaded, massive firepower, and all the stuff from the clinton times. Take care all and GOD bless the survivors and their families.

thanks Grim, as usual, the perspective is appreciated.

A sad reality of this situation is that, after a suitable "mourning" period of a few days, vultures from both sides of the aisle will descend on this tragedy for political gain.

“The police cannot protect the citizen at this stage of our development, and they cannot even protect themselves in many cases. It is up to the private citizen to protect himself and his family, and this is not only acceptable, but mandatory.” -- Jeff Cooper

Look, this is simply a lightning strike. There's no way anyone could have seen this coming and nothing that could have prepared anyone for it.

I'm not for gun control. Neither am I for a classroom full of armed students. Most homicides I've worked tend to be stupid shit that got out of hand... one person says something to someone else... everyone's carrying a gun (or at least one person is) and BANG! Call 911. Another young kid dead from too much testosterone and "bad-asstitude".

Shit like what happened at Tech is a tragedy... but guess what... it happens. Brakes fail on a semi truck that wipes out a family in a mini-van. Tragic... it happens.

The perpetrator turned out to be a South Korean national with no criminal background. He simply snapped. Probably had a bad exam grade or his girlfried told him to take a hike. It happens.

All you can do is offer sympathy and prayers to the victims... and just wait for the next time.

There will be a next time.

I know some may read this message as callous... it's not. What happened was a horrific tragedy. As a parent (and I am a parent), the loss of a child is simply the worst pain imaginable. However, calling for resignations or debating gun control is semantics. It won't make a damn difference and won't bring those kids back. And it won't prevent it from happening again somewhere else.

I don't support the elimination of the right to bear arms, but I question why we can't take a common-sense approach to weapons access and sales. Do we really need to make fast-loading Glocks, assault rifles and other specialized weapons readily available for just anyone? The gun control debate should not be an all-or-nothing proposition. Perhaps we could allow the more basic pistols and rifles to be made available for citizens who have completed a minimum amount of training, while maintaining a strict distribution system to limit the more dangerous weapons to those with proper training and a genuine need. Or am I missing something here?

Well Jim, to be honest, what Cho had on him was really not all that high-tech. He was just really good and methodical in his execution of his mission.

Just as much, if not more, damage could have been done with a shotgun or a hunting rifle as a semi-automatic handgun. By all accounts, at least one man survived due to Cho's bad aim at a distance greater than 15m.

In short, there's no real way to prevent this with a partial ban (i.e. "let's ban this rifle or that pistol", etc). The benefit of such a ban is largely the police, who can easily be outgunned with many of the commercially-available firearms that are out there.

Take, for example, a .50cal. rifle. Commonly used as a military-grade precision marksmanship weapon, it can pretty much kill anything out to a mile and the body armor police use is useless against it. Yes, the rifle can be used to go varmint shooting and target shooting. As a home-defense weapon, not very useful... unless you plan on killing the burglar half a mile away from your home.

This is a complex issue and, like you, I'm in the middle of the road. I don't take an all-or-nothing approach to it on either side of the argument.

he should not have done this but atleast he is dead