One reported dead, several injured in Virginia Tech shootings

Don't look at me man, my dogsled husky did it while I was patching a hole in my igloo's roof during the 2 month break where the temperature rose above -20° c. Been saving up my furs though, I think I can trade in for a musket after a couple more bears.

RoM said:
Now that that's out of the way i've gotta wonder if those fundamentalist fuckbags from the link quoted a couple posts back would see it as divine providence were i to rig their offices with pipe-bombs and go about making swiss cheese of the congregation -.-
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They'd probably be back the next day, "Americans retaliate against the righteous yet again!"
 
This is a lengthly read but a good insight of the founder of that godhatesamerica site Fred Phelps.

http://blank.org/addict/chapter4.html

Pivotal points from the chapter.

"My mom once told me-proudly, as if she'd effected a big change in his behavior-that my father had beaten my older brother when he was only five months old. She said she'd argued with him about it and he'd agreed to hold off beating the kids till they were a year old."

When a man in Fred's new congregation came to him for marital counseling, the pastor recommended a good beating for the wife.

Phelps was convinced he was alone in his church with only his children to listen because those who'd opened Westboro were too weak for the harsh truth of God: that He hated sinners as well as the sin; and therefore His elect must also hate the sinners-even those who might be assembled with them.

In fact, Phelps began to spend more and more time in his bedroom, cut off from his family except when they were needed to run errands for him; cut off except for his wife, whom he forced to remain with him in his bedroom for days at a time. Apparently the pastor's sexual appetites were voracious, and his emotional dependency even greater: Says Mark, "Mom had to spend the major portion of her day sitting next to him in bed, trying to say the right things to keep him calm, while he *****ed and moaned and complained and railed and carried on. "He left the older children to take care of the younger ones while he monopolized our mother's time and attention. We were literally left on our own for the major portion of our childhoods." While the pastor lolled now grossly overweight in his bed like some Ottoman pasha, rolling in his law books and 100 pounds of excess blubber, lecturing the wife and walls on the evils of the reprobate, wallowing in gluttony and goat-like sexual appetites, he resembled, not so much the John Brown of his earlier ambitions, as he did an esquired Jabba the Hut.
"The kids would sit in grime and scum and filth for hours at a time," says Mark, "tied into their high chairs or strollers by mom, for their safety, until she could sneak away from him to give them a diaper change, redo their ties, and set it up for the older kids to feed them, so she could get back to him.
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My condolences to the families/friends of those lost in this absolutely horrific event.

But I do have to say tougher gun laws may not of stopped/will not stop this from happening but I can almost guarantee the carnage wouldn't of been as great. There's no need to have access to fast loading semi-automatic weapons in this day and age. The only purpose these types of guns have is to kill people, I'm not talking about hunting rifles and such - where yes these could do serious damage to a human - they're not going to do it nearly as fast or efficiently. The united states right to bare arms was written in a different time and a different type of life where you had to protect yourself and your land from intruders that would of gladly dispatched of you. After this latest string of gun violence on a large scale over the last 10 years *schools, work, home, etc* I think it's time for Americans to look at their constitution and update it for the safety of themselves and their children.

I know it's wishful thinking but I hope this never happens again :(
 
The 2nd amendment was not written so we could protect our land from intruders or prowlers. It was so the government wasn't the only one with weapons. The power from the Constitution was for the people of the land with limited powers to the government. Different time or not the founders never wanted the government to be the only ones with weapons in case the government got too big for its own britches so the people could storm Washington and take back what is ours from the government.
 
So if I'm understanding that correctly, the Second Amendment was designed to make it easier for a revolution to occur? The ends don't seem to justify the means to me.
 
The reason we went to war with Britain in the first place was to get away from too much government intrusion and taxation without representation. The 2nd amendment isn't nesecarily there to make it easier to have a revolution occur but to prevent the government from getting to big if it know a revolution can occur.
 
I disagree. Stricter gun laws only keep law abiding citizens from getting them. The criminals will get them no matter what. Even if guns are erased from existance, disturbed individuals like this are still going to find a way to kill. Knives, Homemade Bombs, arson, etc. Think of it this way, if CC licenses extended to and were not illegal on college campuses, perhaps one of the professors would have been armed and been able to cut the massacre short.

Either way, I think using this as a spring board for gun control, anti-video games, stronger security, or any type of legislation is a mistake. I also think it's a mistake to place blame on ANYONE or ANYTHING short of the shooter himself. This was a tragedy that was unavoidable, short of sheer dumb luck. You may as well legislate against hurricanes.
 
I think there is some just obvious gun control laws, but for the most part they can not stop people who are obsessed with a maniacal fantasy from obtaining them.

If you want to mitigate senseless carnage you have to do it on a personal psychological level. You can't legislate and enforce normal healthy upbringing, only the extremes (child abuse, mental and physical). So people have to take it upon themselves to do their best to raise mentally healthy individuals who can take out their anger and other emotions constructively or at least recognize they are having a problem. It is inevitable this will not happen with everyone and trying to do something about it on a level of say gun control is wasted effort. It is simply making the assumption you can control something that is to a degree out of your and our control. Which is scary, but you have to accept it for what it is and stop pointing the finger into absurdity. Which is exactly what this is: pointless, meaningless, senseless, absurd violence which we can determine possible influences but in the end how can you unwarp what is warped other than determining it is warped.
 
Jereme said:
The 2nd amendment was not written so we could protect our land from intruders or prowlers. It was so the government wasn't the only one with weapons. The power from the Constitution was for the people of the land with limited powers to the government. Different time or not the founders never wanted the government to be the only ones with weapons in case the government got too big for its own britches so the people could storm Washington and take back what is ours from the government.
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It was also drafted to protect the united states from foreign invaders - protect their land. Either way it's completely out of date and I don't think your founding fathers had incidents like yesterday's shooting in mind when they penned in that American's have the right to bear arms.

Like I mentioned in my previous post - tougher gun laws won't stop incidents like this from happening but they will prevent so many from ending up dead. There is no purpose in owning a semi automatic weapon, the only thing they're good for is harming people. I know, personally, of three incidents where there was a death due to school violence. One kid was in a fight and was punched the wrong way and died at my sister's school, one kid was stabbed to death in the stairwell at my other sister's school and two were shot in a school just north of my city - all really violent but on a smaller scale. Not turning this into a platform for gun control - I just think that easy access to such devastating weapons are not to blame for the incident but can definitely be linked back to the scale of carnage that occurred.

I hope this never ever happens again, it's absolutely heartbreaking.
 
alanon said:
I disagree. Stricter gun laws only keep law abiding citizens from getting them. The criminals will get them no matter what. Even if guns are erased from existance, disturbed individuals like this are still going to find a way to kill. Knives, Homemade Bombs, arson, etc. Think of it this way, if CC licenses extended to and were not illegal on college campuses, perhaps one of the professors would have been armed and been able to cut the massacre short.

Either way, I think using this as a spring board for gun control, anti-video games, stronger security, or any type of legislation is a mistake. I also think it's a mistake to place blame on ANYONE or ANYTHING short of the shooter himself. This was a tragedy that was unavoidable, short of sheer dumb luck. You may as well legislate against hurricanes.
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Bravo.
 
I seriously doubt this is will lead to any changes in our nation's gun laws. I predict days -- if not weeks -- of angsty handwringing overreaction about campus security as though this kind of thing happens every day and then we'll move on.
 
Sabia said:
It was also drafted to protect the united states from foreign invaders - protect their land. Either way it's completely out of date and I don't think your founding fathers had incidents like yesterday's shooting in mind when they penned in that American's have the right to bear arms.

Like I mentioned in my previous post - tougher gun laws won't stop incidents like this from happening but they will prevent so many from ending up dead. There is no purpose in owning a semi automatic weapon, the only thing they're good for is harming people. I know, personally, of three incidents where there was a death due to school violence. One kid was in a fight and was punched the wrong way and died at my sister's school, one kid was stabbed to death in the stairwell at my other sister's school and two were shot in a school just north of my city - all really violent but on a smaller scale. Not turning this into a platform for gun control - I just think that easy access to such devastating weapons are not to blame for the incident but can definitely be linked back to the scale of carnage that occurred.

I hope this never ever happens again, it's absolutely heartbreaking.
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Sup-Ialmostgotrobbedatworklastnight.

No seriously, i almost did. I think, dunno what was in the guy's pocket, he chickened out before i did.

Gun control law is smoke and mirrors. If people want guns, people get guns. It's 2007, if you want something you can have it. It's your choice about the consequences.

The language of the 2nd ammendment has been questioned forever by gun nuts using your same line of thought. The truth, however, is that citizens had the right to rise up against a corrupt government. Personally i'm of the opinion it's a moot point, if we were going to we would have.

I'm also of the opinion there should be a psych evaluation before purchasing any kind of fire arm. But it doesn't change the fact that the oldest practice in human history is that of murder.

I propose anti-pointy-object legislature if you're willing to go that far. Certainly the system needs improvement but these things happen, people snap.

Unfortunately; Shit happens. I really don't mean to sound so desensitized but i mean, that's how it is.
 
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Jereme said:
The reason we went to war with Britain in the first place was to get away from too much government intrusion and taxation without representation.
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Doesn't a Democracy in itself resolve this, rather than Britain's Monarchy? With a country the size of the USA, a large government is needed but a Democratic architecture (different MLAs for regions etc) provides enough people within the government watching other people within the government that it could never become an omnipotent, too-powerful-for-comfort lifeform.

I'm not trying to poke soft spots or anything, I've never been too informed on the gun control debate so this is all informative to me.

alanon said:
Either way, I think using this as a spring board for gun control, anti-video games, stronger security, or any type of legislation is a mistake. I also think it's a mistake to place blame on ANYONE or ANYTHING short of the shooter himself. This was a tragedy that was unavoidable, short of sheer dumb luck. You may as well legislate against hurricanes.
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Sure it's a mistake, one the public protesters will indubitably make. Jack Thompson is already all over this, it will absolutely be used as an example for thousands of protests whether we want it to or not.

I agree that, if someone wants to kill, they will. Much like hackers - if they want into your systems, they will get into them regardless of the infinite blocks you may put in place.

You simply cannot, using laws / weapons / anything, stop a dedicated individual from doing anything they want to if they have the patience and a plan. You can only deter them from doing it again if you manage to catch them after the first offense. It's a byproduct of freedom / "guilty before proven innocent". They can proactively monitor but can't do much to stop until you've committed the crime.
 
RoM said:
Unfortunately; Shit happens. I really don't mean to sound so desensitized but i mean, that's how it is.
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That's kinda how I see it. I do feel for the victims of this tragedy but, as Mattaru and Al said, it was going to happen no matter what the laws did or didn't have in place to stop him.

From the sounds of it, the kid wasn't stupid. He had a strategy and knew roughly what to do during each minute of it. When people like that (I guess perfectionists, for lack of a better word) lose their mind, the only thing that can stop them is a 20-roll on the luck die for a security guard that just happens to pat down the right guy at the right time.

Otherwise, it's a freight train through a white picket fence.
 
i blame video games and godless households
 
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