Virginia Tech school shooting

[azza]

You can't stop this sort of thing from happening because there's two parts to the problem.

1. Crazy people.
2. Guns.

Sooner or later crazy people + guns = mass killing.

We could try and remove crazy people from the equation but apart from locking up anyone caught wearing a trench coat or listening to Marilyn Manson thats not gonna work. I'm pretty sure these recent shooters weren't on the run from a mental institution at the time.
Getting rid of guns would solve the problem too but realistically how would you do that? You would have to first stop the manufacture/supply of guns except for law enforcement/military. Then politely ask everyone to please hand in all their current firearms. That would be the easy part. But then you would either have to do a house by house search (not gonna happen) or more realistically the cops would just get weapons off the streets as they are confiscated through the usual day to day policing which would basically take from now til eternity and by then we probably would've nuked ourselves into non existence anyway.

 

[standing_alone]

But not to take this too far off the subject -- I'm still at a loss to figure any legitimate reason why a student on a campus would need to have a gun. And, as it's been pointed out, having armed students in the presence of too much drink would likely cause more problems than it solves.

Oh yeah, I pretty much agree with you there. I believe that campus should do more in way of armed, adequately-trained security personnel. To basically answer your question about campus guards and police in your previous post, I go to a small University of Wisconsin campus. I seldom ever see the campus police around, and when I do, it's usually the same two officers, shooting the breeze with whatever resident advisor is at the front desk at the resident's life office--and it's very rare that I see them, probably only when they are called there (I think their station is a little down the road and across the street from dorms and the main part of campus). Granted, I wouldn't expect anything like what happened yesterday to happen on my campus, but if it did, I doubt that the campus police would be well-prepared (and since I seem to only ever see the same two cops, under-manned). Funny thing is, this campus is right outside a city with one of the highest crime rates (if not the highest) in the state of Wisconsin.

In addition to your remarks about guns being in the hands of drunk college students, I'm also inclined to agree. One student living in an apartment down the road from campus (while drunk, I believe) was playing around with a gun and shot and killed her sister. Some hands are just not fit to hold guns, which is why I think gun safety courses must be mandatory for gun ownership, or at least for anyone seeking certification for concealed-carry (if the particular state permits).

While security is obviously something to consider, as are more workable ways to warn those on campus that there's a dangerous situation, I still believe the long term solution lies in finding out why people do these things, and finding ways to prevent them going off in the first place.

Yes, totally! I agree 100%. Always when these situations arise, I find it more important to know what is contributing to the poor mental state of the responsible individual, rather than to scapegoat guns.

 

[UnityNow101]

http://www.infowars.com/articles/2n...ooting_guns_bans_are_problem_not_solution.htm

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/april2007/170407helpedkiller.htm

~~Two more good articles on the subject at hand.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

Guns were removed from the large part of the British population in easy stages.
"Gentlemen" -Bankers Jewellers etc.. were able to keep arms till comparatively recently.
Now if any one has a gun you can be pretty sure they are a criminal. Unfortunately there is a growing young black gun culture, that the government is trying to crack down on. There have been four or five killings in their gangs in the last year.

The British like Americans once had a gun culture. we have been reasonably successful in suppressing it.
Less than three hundred years ago Gentlemen in troublesome areas were encouraged to raise their own regiments to keep local order. (my family Raised one).
Guns then were the norm.

The gun culture in the US is constantly being reinforced by the arms industry propaganda, that reminds people of their constitutional rights.


I think we might now see a sea change. It will not be caused directly by this recent shooting; any more than it was by the many previous ones.

It will come about because terrorists have been given an outstanding example of effective killing.

It is evident that many places in the USA are relatively gun free areas... colleges... universities...religious establishments... hospitals... community centres.

Bombs are easily detected these days and they are not very effective in most instances... a person armed with a rapid fire 9mm gun... say, a last war British fold up sten gun, carried in a lap top bag, can cause instant carnage in a crowded area. ( it is what they were designed for.. and they cost less than £1 to make.)

I hope I am wrong in this prediction but I suspect I will be too right.

 

[Booko]

OSU is the second largest Uni here, but they've made plans in case of an attack like this. Our dorms are also on 24-7 lockdown- you have to have your ID key to get into your dorm- and only your dorm. Just because of the program I live in I have access to two other houses/dorms that are in our program and can get into another dorm that's in charge of our program- but those are all places I need to be. Most only have access to their dorm. At VT they only had lockdown at night.

We had keys (this was before the days of ID keys), and we only had a key to the dorm we lived in, but it was a simple thing to just follow someone in who opened the door to a dorm. But it was a small college and we all knew who was who.

But we did have problems because of that laxity. The Jr. National Tennis Championships are held at that college every summer, and I think it was in my Junior year one of the so-called "tennis brats" was let into our dorm, made it up to the top floor where our room was, and went into our unlocked dorm room and proceeded to molest my roommate. My boyfriend (the guy who's mother was an ex-nun and father a mercenary) walked in and caught him at it, and quite unceremoniously tossed him down 4 flights of stairs and told him not to come back if he wanted to live. The next day the kid came to our room AGAIN but the door was locked and I answered it. When I saw it was him, I asked him if had a death wish and slammed the door on him. As it happens, my boyfriend was coming back up the stairs AGAIN just as this out-of-control kid was coming back down. That time he was only tossed down two flights of stairs, but I think he ended up with a couple of broken arms as his reward. He was lucky he wasn't swimming with the fishes, quite frankly. It's how some of my boyfriend's "business associates" work, after all.

So you see, having things on lock down is not something I would assume would make me secure.

Even in corporate office buildings, where we had ID keys, it was an easy thing to follow someone in. After three years of complaints from women, they finally fired a guy who was indeed a class A kook, and we didn't feel secure, because we knew he could get in easily, and we knew he was off his kilter in a way that was potentially very dangerous. I mean, he walked into my neighbor's cube once while we were hammering out some problem and the first thing out of his mouth was, "What would your husband do if I killed you?" I told him I'd do something...uh...unspeakably rude that would result in a slow painful death. If I sounded convincing, it was because I was deadly serious. He never messed with me, but he sure did with other women.

Oops...I didn't mean to digress like that, but the point is: we *knew* there was a problem. Management was told there was a problem. They didn't take us seriously, and it could've ended up very very badly.

 

[Sunstone]

There were plenty of guns in the small rural community I grew up in. Kids, both boys and girls, were typically taught to shoot by age 8. The community had only one homicide in 125 years -- and that was done by poison. Guns were simply not used against people. They were for hunting and target shooting.

 

[kiwimac]

There seems to be a thought by some that criticism of the US gun culture is an attack on all things American. Bollocks.

An example, here in NZ most folk know how to shoot. We have access to rifles, shotguns etc because people here like to hunt and because farmers, among others, often need to have access to firearms & folk are licensed before they are allowed access to weaponry. Do we have regular massacres at schools across NZ? Nope. Why I wonder (rhetorically)?

Because handgun usage is severely limited here, you must be a licensed handgun owner and be a current member of a handgun club. So before the US members of this forum declare us somehow benighted and incapable of understanding, we do.

 

[azza]

I think we might now see a sea change. It will not be caused directly by this recent shooting; any more than it was by the many previous ones.

It will come about because terrorists have been given an outstanding example of effective killing.

It is evident that many places in the USA are relatively gun free areas... colleges... universities...religious establishments... hospitals... community centres.

Bombs are easily detected these days and they are not very effective in most instances... a person armed with a rapid fire 9mm gun... say, a last war British fold up sten gun, carried in a lap top bag, can cause instant carnage in a crowded area. ( it is what they were designed for.. and they cost less than £1 to make.)

I hope I am wrong in this prediction but I suspect I will be too right.

I'm pretty sure terrorists were well aware of the power of automatic weapons before this. They've used them in many countries before now. I'm also pretty sure that the American authorities are well aware that the terrorists are well aware. So I don't foresee any change in the near future. Banning guns in America because a few people get killed would be like banning soccer in the UK because of hooliganism. How well do you think the UK folks would accept that?

 

[greatcalgarian]

It is not a question of gun control. It is a question of 'gun' culture, or to be more precise, Americans have not grown out of the wild wild west 'cowboy' mentallity, as reflected by her global imperialistic policy, which then reflected in the common behavior of the American citizens who believe in violence is the way to settle a difference or to gain an upper hand, or the survival of the stronger, and no pity on the meek and weak. That is the reason why Christianity prosper in America, because it attracts the meek and weak, while the strong and bully sneer at the Christians, and continue their 'cowboy' behavior.
No legislation on gun is going to resolve this problem. The only way is for American to reflect on their current culture and stop encouraging "If you enter my house, I shall shoot you first to kill you, because I assume that if I do not kill you first, you are going to harm me!"

 

[greatcalgarian]

There were plenty of guns in the small rural community I grew up in. Kids, both boys and girls, were typically taught to shoot by age 8. The community had only one homicide in 125 years -- and that was done by poison. Guns were simply not used against people. They were for hunting and target shooting.

This reminds me of nuclear energy. Peaceful people love nuclear technology as it provides cheap and clean power, and is the future route. Whereas the bad guys (those who turned nuclear energy into nuclear weapon, American being number 1) is analogous to the city Gangsters using gun to shoot their way around, instead of like the rural community using gun to protect themselves against animal attack or for hunting animals for food, analogous to peaceful use of nuclear technology as a source of power.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

I'm pretty sure terrorists were well aware of the power of automatic weapons before this. They've used them in many countries before now. I'm also pretty sure that the American authorities are well aware that the terrorists are well aware. So I don't foresee any change in the near future.

It is the relative effectiveness that is noteworthy, not the fact that guns were used. There is also the chance that a suicide killer could escape and do it again. Bombs tend to kill the bomber first time.
The easiest place is to hide a tree is amongst other trees ( guns are less noticeable in the USA because there are so many and they are not unusual.) Bomb jackets tend to stand out.

I am surprised that you have any faith in the authorities ability to do anything, aware or not. They only seem to react after the event in these situations.

Banning guns in America because a few people get killed would be like banning soccer in the UK because of hooliganism. How well do you think the UK folks would accept that?

This could only be said in America... To equate mass killing with hooliganism... demonstrates the value you are putting on life.

If soccer hooliganism resulted in mass killing on more than one occasion, it would be banned, with the support of every sane fan.

 

[darkpenguin]

This could only be said in America... To equate mass killing with hooliganism... demonstrates the value you are putting on life.

If soccer hooliganism resulted in mass killing on more than one occasion, it would be banned, with the support of every sane fan.

Damn right it would but the fact is that it's calmed down alot where as you're lucky if you go a day without hearing about some sort of shooting in the US!

 

[azza]

It is the relative effectiveness that is noteworthy, not the fact that guns were used. There is also the chance that a suicide killer could escape and do it again. Bombs tend to kill the bomber first time.
The easiest place is to hide a tree is amongst other trees ( guns are less noticeable in the USA because there are so many and they are not unusual.) Bomb jackets tend to stand out.

Sorry are you saying a guy walking into a school with a bomb jacket will stand out more than a guy walking into a school with an AK? As for a suicide killer escaping to do it again. Kind of defeats the purpose. The point is they want to die. Not make a career out of mass killing.

This could only be said in America... To equate mass killing with hooliganism... demonstrates the value you are putting on life.

First of all I'm not an American nor am I in America. Secondly the point I was trying (badly) to make is that it will take a lot more than what has happened so far to get the US public to move towards doing something about the current state of affairs. I'll try a different comparison. How many deaths each year are caused as a result of alcohol abuse? Should we ban alcohol? After all it's not like we really NEED it. Things have to get to a certain low point before people get ****** off enough to do something about it. Unfortunately (or fortunately maybe) I think that point is a long way off.

If soccer hooliganism resulted in mass killing on more than one occasion, it would be banned, with the support of every sane fan.

Why on more than one occasion? Why wait for it to happen twice? What's the exact number that would have to be killed before you banned the entire sport forever? And I think you are kidding yourself if you believe the fans would give it up that easily.

 

[Quoth The Raven]

There seems to be a thought by some that criticism of the US gun culture is an attack on all things American. Bollocks.

An example, here in NZ most folk know how to shoot. We have access to rifles, shotguns etc because people here like to hunt and because farmers, among others, often need to have access to firearms & folk are licensed before they are allowed access to weaponry. Do we have regular massacres at schools across NZ? Nope. Why I wonder (rhetorically)?

Because handgun usage is severely limited here, you must be a licensed handgun owner and be a current member of a handgun club. So before the US members of this forum declare us somehow benighted and incapable of understanding, we do.

Do you guys ever have any sort of massacre...other than the mutton chain at the local abbatoir, that is?
Seriously though,in the two events we've had that would qualify as massacres that I can think of, both the nutbags involved had huge arsenals of illegal weapons. We've had a shooting at a university which involved an illegal handgun, but that was only a couple of woundings from memory.It's a terrible thing, 'When Accounting Goes Wrong.':yes:

 

[azza]

Do you guys ever have any sort of massacre...other than the mutton chain at the local abbatoir, that is?

Only one major one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aramoana_massacre

Only other massacres have involved the All Blacks kicking Wallaby butt.:ko:

 

[constantine]

a student walks into his school and blows away fellow students.. that may of shocked me if it didnt happen in the USA... its not gonna stop and it will get worse... and theres nothing you can do about it except be on your gaurd to defend yourself every second of the day....

 

[BFD_Zayl]

You can't stop this sort of thing from happening because there's two parts to the problem.

1. Crazy people.
2. Guns.

Sooner or later crazy people + guns = mass killing.

We could try and remove crazy people from the equation but apart from locking up anyone caught wearing a trench coat or listening to Marilyn Manson thats not gonna work. I'm pretty sure these recent shooters weren't on the run from a mental institution at the time.
Getting rid of guns would solve the problem too but realistically how would you do that? You would have to first stop the manufacture/supply of guns except for law enforcement/military. Then politely ask everyone to please hand in all their current firearms. That would be the easy part. But then you would either have to do a house by house search (not gonna happen) or more realistically the cops would just get weapons off the streets as they are confiscated through the usual day to day policing which would basically take from now til eternity and by then we probably would've nuked ourselves into non existence anyway.

little one, I would love to see the cops around here try to take my guns away, they woulden't even make it down the street...my guns are mine and mine alone, Big Bertha in particular. the rest of them, honestly, I couldn't care less about 'em. its an American citizens right to own a firearm. now, trying to take them away would be unconstitutional, and as soon as a government betrays one of its essential building blocks, all hell will break loose, and then I would be really happy to have my rifle by my side. people thse days are grown up too politically correct, the shooter was INSANE, any glipse at his writings, workings, etc. can tell you that. but noooOOOoooo "oh, he's just unique, i'm sure he will be fi-" *BLAM* if someone is as mentally unsound as he was, for the love of the gods...do something, save a life.

 

[Booko]

I seldom ever see the campus police around, and when I do, it's usually the same two officers, shooting the breeze with whatever resident advisor is at the front desk at the resident's life office--and it's very rare that I see them, probably only when they are called there (I think their station is a little down the road and across the street from dorms and the main part of campus).

That sounds a lot like our campus police from years ago. They had two functions: 1) hand out parking tickets, and 2) keep the drunk from getting too disorderly. They were not trained to handle a shooting.

I hear from my husband that the campus police at the small college our son will be going to this fall are ex-police officers from our county, so they've had some training as police officers, and in my county, I expect they've got some wide experience as well.

Granted, I wouldn't expect anything like what happened yesterday to happen on my campus, but if it did, I doubt that the campus police would be well-prepared (and since I seem to only ever see the same two cops, under-manned).

I never expected to see someone shot in the head in front of me either, but it happened. The sad truth is, it can happen anywhere.

The other occasion was here in Atlanta at Perimeter Mall. My poor boss was terrified when I didn't show up immediately after they evaculated the mall, because he knew the place where the shooter was was the place I *always* ate lunch at exactly that time. I was a whole minute later than usual, so I managed to dive over a counter. Otherwise, I would've been one of the customers standing there.

And just like VT, the shooter was a guy with known mental problems, but he was able to legally buy a gun.

I'm floored to find out that Virginia law depends on the "honor system" to keep people who've been involuntarily committeed from getting guns. THAT is a huge hole we should look to plug.

Funny thing is, this campus is right outside a city with one of the highest crime rates (if not the highest) in the state of Wisconsin.

The highest crime rate in my town wasn't far away, but the campus itself was safe. Some of the kids of Detroit <ahem> families went to school there, so the local criminals knew it was not someplace safe for them to practice their trade.

In addition to your remarks about guns being in the hands of drunk college students, I'm also inclined to agree.

I was taught from a very early age that guns do not mix with booze, and they don't mix with unattended children of ANY age. And that still seems to be true these many years later.

Some hands are just not fit to hold guns, which is why I think gun safety courses must be mandatory for gun ownership, or at least for anyone seeking certification for concealed-carry (if the particular state permits).

I would have no problem with this -- particularly when it comes to concealed permits. People need to know the law about when you can justifiably use a gun, and they need to know the basics of gun safety and how to break the thing down and clean it. I can't imagine any responsible gun owner that wouldn't be willing to demonstrate he/she knows what the heck they're doing. And just like you can get a driver's license even if you can't read, or just can't English, you can still get tested so you can demonstrate you know what you're doing.

It's possible that gun licensing wouldn't pass judicial review in the general case, considering the 2nd amendment, but for concealed permits? You'd think it would do for that at least.

Yes, totally! I agree 100%. Always when these situations arise, I find it more important to know what is contributing to the poor mental state of the responsible individual, rather than to scapegoat guns.

It turns out he had some pretty severe mental problems.

My only question is why was he allowed to remain on campus as a student? The facts are not all in yet, of course, but this was more than writing a couple of scary English assignments and being uncomminicative. He stalked more than one woman student.

I'm at a loss to understand why some guy would be able to remain on campus when he's stalking students. Sure, you have to ensure he's not being set up and that he's actually stalking, but at the moment it seems pretty clear that he was.

At some point the college admin is responsible for the safety of the female students more than they are for the liberty and education of one male student who has a problem on the level that he was committed and declared an "imminent danger to himself."

 

[Booko]

http://www.infowars.com/articles/2n...ooting_guns_bans_are_problem_not_solution.htm

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/april2007/170407helpedkiller.htm

~~Two more good articles on the subject at hand.

I dunno about good, but there is the comment about teachers being allowed to carry guns in Oregon and Utah.

I could see my old ex-Marine history teacher carrying, and that being sensible.

Then again, I can see any teacher being rushed and having his gun taken away and used on the spot.

So thanks, I'd rather give that a bit more thought before deciding it would actually be a good idea.

 

[Booko]

The British like Americans once had a gun culture. we have been reasonably successful in suppressing it.

Britain, unlike the U.S., does not have a huge porous border. As a practical matter, you can accomplish this a lot easier than we could hope to. We can't even keep millions of people out, and guns are smaller.

I know the Australians have taken some actions to back off having so many guns about, but again, they have this nifty ocean all about, which I expect helps at least a bit.

That doesn't mean we wouldn't be wise to make an effort, of course.

What I find most interesting is that Canada's border is not a whole lot more defensible than ours, and yet they don't seem to suffer from the problems we have.

They are not a particularly militaristic people either.

Just something to wonder about.

The gun culture in the US is constantly being reinforced by the arms industry propaganda, that reminds people of their constitutional rights.

"Gun culture" is a phrase typically used by non-Yanks to refer to our society.

The truth is, the vast majority of Americans don't own guns, don't want to own guns, and (unless they did a stint in the military) don't know how to use guns and don't care.

That's not much of a "gun culture."

There are some places (where I grew up, where Standing_Alone lives) where guns are more frequent, but hunting is a pastime, the guns are hunting rifles and shotguns, and they are very rarely aimed at people, despite the greater numbers per capita.

Much hunting left in the UK these days? Hm...didn't think so. Well then, you don't need guns for that.

As for *handguns* -- those are most often what gets used in the other segment of "gun culture" -- which is urban, often connected with illegal activities like the drug trade, and which is regrettably glorified in certain art forms here.

*That* I would love to see us find a way to get rid of. There are way too many handguns available. I wish I had some stats, but I wouldn't be surprised if I found out that the majority of handguns are not held for any legitimate reason.

But we keep locking up more of our population in prison, and we keep having more drugs and more guns.

What we're doing doesn't appear to be having any useful effect.

I think we might now see a sea change. It will not be caused directly by this recent shooting; any more than it was by the many previous ones.

Why will this be a sea change? It's been 10 years since Columbine. Nothing meaningful happened on account of that either.

It is evident that many places in the USA are relatively gun free areas... colleges... universities...religious establishments... hospitals... community centres.

Yeah, our mostly gun-free gun culture.

Bombs are easily detected these days and they are not very effective in most instances...

They're not easily detected if they're domestically made, and they are very effective, as anyone from Oklahoma City can tell you.

I hope I am wrong in this prediction but I suspect I will be too right.

I think we will eventually get it, as we will in other areas where we need to mend our ways as a culture, but it's going to take a LOT of head whacking to wake us up to the need for change. We can be pretty dense that way.

You could say I'm a pessimist in the short run, but an optimist in the long run.