One reported dead, several injured in Virginia Tech shootings

Aubrie said:
That would be Charles Whitman, ex-marine that did the UT Tower shootings in Austin, Tx 1966.
Click to expand...
\

An asshole of the sort doesn't deserve to be remembered as a Marine. No person that can bring discredit and dishonor of such magnitude to our organization deserves our title.
 
Skaw said:
Anyone who argues that guns are the issue is a big sack of dumb. You can just as easily go on a spree with a knife, sword/machete, tire iron, golf club, baseball bat, can of aerosol and a lighter. You name it, it can be used for a violent crime, mass murder, or petty theft. Shit, you can make chemical weapons with household items, chlorine gas being one of the easiest.
Click to expand...

Bullshit. For the most part.

You will not manage to kill 30 people with a knife.
You will not manage to kill 30 people with a sword.
You will not manage to kill 30 people with a tire iron.
You will not manage to kill 30 people with a golf club.
You will not manage to kill 30 people with a basebal bat.

Unless you were a trained killer and you did it in stealth.

Show me the last school stabbing where 30 people were killed. With guns, you have range. Unless you're V, you're not going to take down 30 people by throwing knives around.

Bullets and bombs and chemicals are where it's at.
 
pakomen said:
Bullshit. For the most part.

You will not manage to kill 30 people with a knife.
You will not manage to kill 30 people with a sword.
You will not manage to kill 30 people with a tire iron.
You will not manage to kill 30 people with a golf club.
You will not manage to kill 30 people with a basebal bat.

Unless you were a trained killer and you did it in stealth.

Show me the last school stabbing where 30 people were killed. With guns, you have range. Unless you're V, you're not going to take down 30 people by throwing knives around.

Bullets and bombs and chemicals are where it's at.
Click to expand...

If this kid couldn't get guns he probably would have used poison, a homemade bomb, or something else equally effective. If you're determined enough, you can accomplish just about anything and this doesn't look like a crime of passion, seems like he was planning it for a long time. Unfortunately this freak was determined to kill as many people as he could. If it hadn't been a gun it would have been something else.
 
Kerowynn said:
If this kid couldn't get guns he probably would have used poison, a homemade bomb, or something else equally effective. If you're determined enough, you can accomplish just about anything and this doesn't look like a crime of passion, seems like he was planning it for a long time. Unfortunately this freak was determined to kill as many people as he could. If it hadn't been a gun it would have been something else.
Click to expand...

I agree completely. As I said, bullets, bombs, and chemicals are the way to go.
 
pakomen said:
Bullshit. For the most part.

You will not manage to kill 30 people with a knife.
You will not manage to kill 30 people with a sword.
You will not manage to kill 30 people with a tire iron.
You will not manage to kill 30 people with a golf club.
You will not manage to kill 30 people with a basebal bat.

Unless you were a trained killer and you did it in stealth.

Show me the last school stabbing where 30 people were killed. With guns, you have range. Unless you're V, you're not going to take down 30 people by throwing knives around.

Bullets and bombs and chemicals are where it's at.
Click to expand...

How can an inanimate object kill a person? There has to be a force acting on it in order for something to happen. Guns don't kill people it is the people who use guns that do.
 
romperstomper said:
How can an inanimate object kill a person? There has to be a force acting on it in order for something to happen. Guns don't kill people it is the people who use guns that do.
Click to expand...

Way to go captain obvious. lol.
 
This debate has been so terribly unresponsive, I feel most the time both sides could just cut and paste over and over.

I mean like ten pages ago I brought a simple logical fallacy that hasn't even been discussed since; which gives credance to why pointing the finger at guns is so shortsighted.

I think gun control is applicable to cases where there is no premeditation and their emotions + a firearm leads to a preventable death. If someone is making a premeditated choice to commit a terribly heinous violent action they will get their hands on a gun somehow, because they have time and patience.

As far as the constitution goes...yes its meaning really does not hold the same kind of weight as it used to, and if it were to be taken to that type of degree we should be arming ourselves with smart bombs. Yet, the right to bear arms does have its reasonable purposes: hunting, defense of your home from intruders, recreation/sport shooting, and probably most pertinent securing your place of business if you work at a place that is often the target of robberies.
One can make the argument that even these things leads to a greater culture of violence and I would not disagree it does have an effect, but if you really want to spend your efforts proactively mitigating this type of thing your efforts are much better placed in the areas of boosting the development of poorer/urban areas, education, welfare (not welfare checks....like mental and physical well-being), and as I keep saying you have to make an effort to not produce an environment that produce/encourages repression and violence for children. Do you think the bloods and the crypts are involved in shootings because they just like guns so darn much; or the Pakistani Kalishnikov culture is fueled by their aesthetic enjoyment of AKs and having a good ol' sporting time; do you think the VT killer decided to murder people because of guns or because he was seriously disturbed?
I'm going to go out here on a limb and say the crypts and bloods are involved in shootings because of the power vacuum created by the end of the civil rights movements, fractioning of legitimate african-american interest groups and then propelled by unemployment in LA. I'm going to make a stretch that Pakistanis are obsessed with the Kalishnikov because they might as well be a failed state with completely splintered centers of power. And the VT killer decided to use handguns to go on a killing spree because he could no longer deal with what he saw as a meaningless existence he was too weak to face.

In a world where it is difficult to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons to unknown groups, how and the hell do you think gun control is going to stop people from getting guns for premeditated acts of violence.
 
pakomen said:
Bullshit. For the most part.

You will not manage to kill 30 people with a knife.
You will not manage to kill 30 people with a sword.
You will not manage to kill 30 people with a tire iron.
You will not manage to kill 30 people with a golf club.
You will not manage to kill 30 people with a basebal bat.

Unless you were a trained killer and you did it in stealth.

Show me the last school stabbing where 30 people were killed. With guns, you have range. Unless you're V, you're not going to take down 30 people by throwing knives around.

Bullets and bombs and chemicals are where it's at.
Click to expand...


I said spree, you said 30. They're not exactly the same. Do you not believe a man can cut down 5 people in rapid succession with a machete or a sword? How about slashing a few throats with a knife?

Ballistics, Chemical, or Explosives are easier and less risky to use, but it's not impossible to kill more than one person in a short amount of time with any of the items I've listed if someone knows how to do so.

edit: by "knows how to" I'm referring to "take down the person(s) more likely to attack you while you're busy first," not actual training.
 
Last edited:
Skaw said:
I said spree, you said 30. They're not exactly the same. Do you not believe a man can cut down 5 people in rapid succession with a machete or a sword? How about slashing a few throats with a knife?
Click to expand...

No. You could get one guy then people can RUN from you. You dont outrun bullets. You could get maybe two people before the football player punches you in the back of the head.

And any knife big enough to kill someone quickly without the element of surprise is too big to hide to any real degree.
 
Maybe but once again any weapon outside of a gun can be stiffled a lot easier.

A) people will run from you
B) people can rush you
 
decidence said:
Maybe but once again any weapon outside of a gun can be stiffled a lot easier.

A) people will run from you
B) people can rush you
Click to expand...

And whats stopping people from rushing a guy with a gun, when he's shooting people at random in the first place?
 
Skaw said:
And whats stopping people from rushing a guy with a gun, when he's shooting people at random in the first place?
Click to expand...

Like I said, I gun has range. If a shooter sees you rushing him from 10 feet away, it's much more likely he'll kill you than if he were holding a knife. This puts the fear to not rush the attacker in the victim's minds. If someone with a gun says "stay down", you stay down. If someone with a knife says "stay down", I guarantee someone in the room would be thinking twice.

You must be kidding though. You really actually believe a knife is every bit as lethal as a gun in the hands of an attacker? There is a reason wars are fought with guns these days and not swords.
 
pakomen said:
You must be kidding though. You really actually believe a knife is every bit as lethal as a gun in the hands of an attacker? There is a reason wars are fought with guns these days and not swords.
Click to expand...

No, what I'm saying is that if someone wants to kill someone or a group of people, they're going to do it regardless of what weapons are available or not. You know, something the Canadians never understand when they start running their mouths about how the US should disarm citizens. I don't even own a gun, but I can tell you that if the desire to kill someone ever entered my mind, that wouldn't stop me.

As far as the whole command thing, if I were there, the moment he told everyone to stay down, then randomly started killing for no reason, I'd rather risk my life running for him than risk my life staring at the floor doing nothing.
 
Last edited:
Skaw said:
No, what I'm saying is that if someone wants to kill someone or a group of people, they're going to do it regardless of what weapons are available or not. You know, something the Canadians never understand when they start running their mouths about how the US should disarm citizens. I don't even own a gun, but I can tell you that if the desire to kill someone ever entered my mind, that wouldn't stop me.
Click to expand...

I agree with you there. If I really wanted to kill someone, and the only thing I had available was a screwdriver, I'm pretty sure I could get the task accomplished. However, we're talking about a killing spree. I'm pretty sure I could take down one person with a screwdriver and probably injure a few more, but I highly doubt I'd be able to inflict mass casualties using anything other than bombs, bullets, or chemicals.

Skaw said:
As far as the whole command thing, if I were there, the moment he told everyone to stay down, then randomly started killing for no reason, I'd rather risk my life running for him than risk my life staring at the floor doing nothing.
Click to expand...

Running for him? Or running away from him? I guess it depends. I'm not that big of a guy. But neither was he. Anyway, none of us can really say what we'd do unless we were actually put in the position. I'd like to think I'd resist and try to take him down. But then again, flight is a solid survival tactic as well.

Anyway, yes, If anyone wanted to kill people, there's no doubt he/she could do it with just about anything. I was arguing effectiveness. I guess you're arguing whether it can/can't be done whatsoever anyway.
 
pakomen said:
I agree with you there. If I really wanted to kill someone, and the only thing I had available was a screwdriver, I'm pretty sure I could get the task accomplished. However, we're talking about a killing spree. I'm pretty sure I could take down one person with a screwdriver and probably injure a few more, but I highly doubt I'd be able to inflict mass casualties using anything other than bombs, bullets, or chemicals.
Click to expand...

This is the point I'm trying to argue. I'm well aware that when someone wants to kill someone else they're going to do it, however it's a lot easier/efficient to do it with a gun. I'm not arguing for an all out ban on firearms as I realize that people like to hunt and skeet shoot and all that jazz, I'm arguing for stricter laws against guns who's only purpose is to kill people - not deer. Stuff like quick loading semi-automatic/automatic weapons. This guy was able to pump 3 or more shots into almost every single one of his victims. Even if it wasn't a knife or something but a shotgun or a rifle you wouldn't of seen such a high amount of casualties.
 
Also I just wanted to say. If I lived in a place that I was sooooo scared that someone was going to break into my house and rape/kill my family, assault me in the street, kill me at school, or in fact, that everyone was out to get me, I wouldn't go out and buy a gun - I'd move.

Paranoia, oy!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top