One reported dead, several injured in Virginia Tech shootings

Holy christ, Jack Thompson jumped on this one fast o.o
 
Xalioniaf said:
Holy christ, Jack Thompson jumped on this one fast o.o
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Like any good ambulance chaser, he jumps into action once he hears the sirens wail.
 
Firestreak said:
Unfortunately guns are a symptom and not a disease. If we are to lower violence we need to get at the causes behind them.
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Like inherent human nature?

I mean like .. don't get me wrong mental illness happens and whatnot but you're not going to stamp out violence.

Ever.

The reptilian center of our brains wants every irritant and threat neutralized in no uncertain terms. It's what leads us to violence that propigated the evolution of the species.

The faster the world gets the less people who can handle it. It's sad stuff, really. Kid probably just needed a vacation.
 
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They locked down our campus for 15 minutes today (U. of Oklahoma) because some paranoid girl saw someone carrying an umbrella (it rained pretty much all day here today) and thought it was, "a rifle in a bag." Much like VT, OU has one of those e-mail warning systems...problem is, when you're sending e-mails to 40,000+ e-mail accounts (faculty, students, and staff) it clogs up the server. The e-mails were time-stamped about 9:45 am but some people didn't receive the messages until well after 1pm. Go go paranoia!
 
Five bucks to many hours of World of Warcraft and some terrible techno/rock band is clearly behind all of this, any takers?
 
video games are very popular with South Koreans, thats a ton of ammo for Jackoff right there
 
Most sad.

The talking heads in the media can blame video games, violence in movies, the "torn moral fabric of society", American Gun Laws or whatever. Unfortunately, they all miss the mark. The fact is that there was one person, who decided to do a very horrible thing. I'm pleased that as Americans we treat each other as though we are generally honest, good people. We're an automatic rifle possessing, video game playing, violent movie watching culture.. and I still goto my Wife's campus (also in Virginia) or to the post office without even the thought of getting gunned down. Let's not let the siren song of the media or some wacko (Jack Thompson, certain politicians) deride the fact that we are sensible people and we operate in that fashion day in and day out.
 
decidence said:
So we have had about 25 people killed in school shootings over the past 30 years and you had that many in 1hr. The reason I brought up the re-visiting of gun laws is because it was debated in the news literally hours after the killings.
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And I'm sure it is indelibaly tied to our gun control laws. Non sequitur isn't just a comic strip.

The reason we jumped on it because you always bring it up when talking about America and violence. Throw the record away its broken. The news just asks questions because it is their job so naturally a major crime happens with a gun they are going to talk about it and we will talk about; I think most people think you bring this up as an "I told you so" more than a "hey everybody what impact will this have on gun control?".
 
It's like saying that if you eliminate sneezing you kill colds. Sneezing is part of the reaction the body makes during the process of fighting the cold, much like guns are part of the process of a population trying to fight violence.

Crime is a problem? Buy guns. There's a potential war? Build up your military. This is natural and is simply a historical pattern.

It seems like a simple solution to just get rid of all the guns to stop the gun violence, but the reality is that it's a small percentage of guns being used for crime that are actually legally owned and most are illegal in the first place.

Countries with less crime are going to place less importance in their right to defend themselves with guns. Like I said before, guns are a symptom, they aren't the cause. An armed population is a safer population but a population that doesn't have the need for weapons in the first place is the safest.

Yes, some areas of America has a large crime problem, but I can assure you, guns are not the problem.
 
I'd like to see a report of the rate of criminal violence in civilized countries with strict gun control laws vs civilized countries without gun control laws. For instance, Canada vs USA. Japan vs USA. I'm convinced (my opinion) America is just downright violent. It's not the video games or the movies to blame. We get those same movies in Japan.

I don't have the answer. I'd just like to see that report. Japan has very strict gun control laws. About the only people here who have a gun are the yakuza (gangsters) and the police. And this country has a MUCH lower rate of criminal violence. Either that, or it just doesn't hit the news as much over here, which I doubt is true.

Canada, on the other hand, has very lax gun control laws. Or so I hear, yet has a much lower rate of violent crimes.

So what is it about the United States. It's not the video games. It's not the movies. It's not the TV.

As for the shootings, this kid was a monster. There is no justifying his actions. Sure, he might have had a cause. Everyone has a cause. I think what separates man from animals sometimes is our restraint. My condolences to all who lost loved ones in this terrible tragedy.
 
We all know the killer would have probably found a way to do some sort of mass killing weather he bought the guns at a gun shop or not. You realise this incident happened at a school where guns are prohibited by law in the first place. It would be easy for anyone to go into a school with guns and kill many. Noone else is armed there. What if just one teacher in that building had a concealed weapons permit? Could he have end the whole thing much sooner? We will never know.
 
Personally, I'd like to find out the guy was heavily into video games. Then, just when Jack Thompson and Dr. Phil are on their absolutely hottest rant about the dangers of Grand Theft Auto, Postal and Doom, we discover the guy played Tetris and Animal Crossing.
 
Valandil said:
Much like VT, OU has one of those e-mail warning systems...problem is, when you're sending e-mails to 40,000+ e-mail accounts (faculty, students, and staff) it clogs up the server. The e-mails were time-stamped about 9:45 am but some people didn't receive the messages until well after 1pm. Go go paranoia!
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That's... not normal. When we broadcast emails to our users globally (45,000 people in I think ~30 countries), it lands in all the major centres within 10 minutes. We only have one email server in the southern USA.

pakomen said:
Canada, on the other hand, has very lax gun control laws. Or so I hear, yet has a much lower rate of violent crimes.
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It's gotten tighter. A year or two ago we just wrapped up a concealed weapons campaign, where anyone could bring in their unregistered or illegal firearms to officials and turn it in without suffering any consequences. This was followed by stricter registration laws, I don't have the details but it is not as easy to hold a weapon at home as it used to be.

The USA is considerably more relaxed with gun control laws. You can't even legally shoot people here unless they attack you first.
 
decidence said:
So we have had about 25 people killed in school shootings over the past 30 years and you had that many in 1hr. The reason I brought up the re-visiting of gun laws is because it was debated in the news literally hours after the killings.
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And we know that panicked, immediate news coverage is always the most relevant, right?

You bringing up revisiting gun laws isn't what caused the spark.
See reasoning, courtesy of:
Mattaru said:
I think most people think you bring this up as an "I told you so" more than a "hey everybody what impact will this have on gun control?".
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Any single incident could take a turn for the worse. The guy killed a couple people...Then killed many more. In any of the Canadian incidents something similar could easily have happened. The fact is that Canada has had MANY school shooting incidents, yet you feel justified in your statement because this Korean kid managed to take out more people in a single incident. Did you even see the discussion that talked about the lack of security on campus after the initial shooting?
 
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I thought there was a bombing in Toronto or Quebec a few years ago.
 
You know? I have to say that with all the speculation I'm hearing about what the police should have done, what the college should have done, what the legislators should have done (or should be doing in the near future), there's one question I've yet to hear:

What should his parents have done?

Now please don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying they didn't do their respective jobs as parents/authority figures. I'm simply asking why that is not a point of interest to politicians and media outlets. Why is it that the people who should have been most influential on this guy aren't being called onto the carpet and probably never will be?

Here, I believe, lurks the dark heart of the problem - it's always about the quick fix, never about responsibility; always about "the system," never about the family.

This tragedy is merely the most recent case in point. I've asked the same question in the aftermath of Jeffrey Dahmer, the Trench Coat Mafia, and other fantastically broken bogeymen of American society.
 
How bout instead of buying guns to protect yourself that you have faith in your police force. The university security and private police forces on US campuses amaze me compared to what Canadian campuses settle for. The largest university in BC (UBC @ 30,000 students) only have something called "Campus Cowboys" which I guess are like rent-a-cops?

You people need to stop living in fear and paranoia and just let law enforcement do its job and keep bugging your government to improve conditions in which you live. And if you say that you don't live in fear or paranoia then I ask, how? Because most of you don't even know what its like to not live in fear or paranoia and therefore probably have no clue that it's how your probably living. And really this is not a diss against the people of america because it's not your own fault, the government at a federal and municipal level need to step it up.

And why is it that everytime someone critisizes the american government that you people get so defensive? Do you guys think that we are trying to say "Ha ha, you should of never seperated from Britian" or something? Grow up, everyone should be able to admit the problems of your own government. Not only that but everyone keeps defending gun laws saying that people should be able to own a gun, but no one is suggesting plausible ways to prevent these types of tradgedies in the future.

PS: BTW I just read today that much of Europe have publically blamed gun-control in the US for this, and that everytime something on this scale happens that it's scarring the interpretation of the "American Dream". So yea, my OP still stands, and I guarantee there will be a re-visiting of stricter gun laws soon.
 
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pakomen said:
I'd like to see a report of the rate of criminal violence in civilized countries with strict gun control laws vs civilized countries without gun control laws. For instance, Canada vs USA. Japan vs USA. I'm convinced (my opinion) America is just downright violent.
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(emphasis added by me)

Not sure if you meant to write "without" or not, but there are numerous laws in the US relating to guns. I think the report you look for isn't going to shed much light for you due to a couple of factors. First of all, culture plays a huge part in gun use. A 15 year old's attitude towards guns is going to be quite different if you take one child from say, inner city <insert mega-city here>, or rural <insert timbucktu town here>. Secondly, gun laws are largely controlled at the state level. Buying a handgun in Connecticut is vastly different than buying one in North Carolina.

A state by state comparison may get you closer to what you're looking for, but the 'culture' issue, while largely mitigated, remains.

decidence said:
How bout instead of buying guns to protect yourself that you have faith in your police force. The university security and private police forces on US campuses amaze me compared to what Canadian campuses settle for. The largest university in BC (UBC @ 30,000 students) only have something called "Campus Cowboys" which I guess are like rent-a-cops?
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Where was the police force for the VT students? Did the police save any lives? No. By the time they got on the scene, the killer was already dead. Self defense is a personal responsibility unless you hire a body guard to do it for you.
 
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