...especially the part about the "redneck, Texan ass".

I assume you don't have a torso, then?  

stumbling tiger wrote:
Reluctant as I am to point this out (being a Canadian in Berkeley and all) the choice of instrument  does matter.  It's pretty hard for one guy, no matter how psychotic, to kill 32 people with a knife.

You're probably right.  But what if he'd just built a bomb, and taken out the dorm room with that?  We'd be spared endless liberal goo goo platitudes about how terrible guns are, and we'd be hearing endless liberal/conservative platitudes about how the internet shares too much information like how to build bombs with supplies you can find at your local hardware store...
   I mean, god forbid anyone ever pilots a plane into a office building, we'd have to talk about banning all air travel.....
 BTW, anyone else read the very great non fiction book Freakanomics?  It's written by a genius level economist that applies his gift to all sorts of everyday applications and surprising conclusions.  For example, what kills more kids every year, guns or swimming pools? Yep, you guessed it. We need to ban those damn water filled death traps....

Mike B.

Well please do put into the category of thinking easily accessible guns are good thing.  I mean the gun lobby always likes to say that by restricting access to guns will only prevent honest and law abiding citizens from protecting themselves.  They also love to point to things like Columbine as a classic example of how the law breakers obtaining guns illegally to commit their crimes.  Well guess what NRA, this kid who just killed 32 people and wounded another 25 or so bought his perfectly legally, right out of the store.  Passed his "backround check" with flying colors.

I mean why have any laws restricting anything right, because using the same thought process as the NRA loves to constantly jam down everyones  throat, a law breaker is always going to break the laws no matter what, so why bother making any laws to restrict anyones behavior? What a bunch of crap.

Coincidentally, the US consistantly has one of the highest murder rates of all the Western nations.  

http://www.nationmaster.com/red/graph/c ... ita&int=-1

http://www.nationmaster.com/red/graph/c ... ers&int=-1

http://www.benbest.com/lifeext/murder.html#world

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070418/ap_ ... lWWFBbbBAF

It must be another one of those left wing conspiracies.

jasonw1239 wrote:
If none of that made it to some kind of permanent record used for background checks then what the hell are they checking?

IIRC other than prior felonies already committed and outstanding criminal wrrants, not much else.   As a matter of fact the NRA has been fighting tooth and nail to limit things that can used when conducting these backround checks(i.e Social security Number) for awhile now.  If it was't so tragic, it would almost be comical.  The old NRA adage of "Guns don't kill people, People kill people" seems to know no bounds.

I think that its important to add, that despite the fact some people believe that Virginia Tech needed more guns on campus yesterday, I think that quite the opposite. I beleive that if Virginia Tech had two less guns on campus yesterday, there would be 32 people still alive today.

I just can't for the life of me see how anyone can reason that more weapons is better than less weapons.

jasonw1239 wrote:
Those background checks need some work. I was just watching an interview on CNN with the guy's two room mates and they mentioned the following:

- the shooter had been visited several times in his dorm by police for reports of stalking females on campus
- one of the room mates had reported him for making statements that he was going to kill himself and the guy was picked up and placed under observation for a weekend (I think that might have been within the last year)
- one of his instructors had reported him to student services, campus counsellers and the police for some of his disturbing actions in class and some of the consistent themes of violence in his writings

If none of that made it to some kind of permanent record used for background checks then what the hell are they checking?

Unfortunately background checks have to be for verifiable data, not ephemera.  Wall Street Journal just ran a great article awhile back about how school's refuse to get involved in any student's life for fear of being taken to court...the story involved a student who committed suicide despite over two years of destructive and depressed behavior, including telling his teachers and friends he wanted to die.  If the school itself refuses to get involved (in both this case and the case in the WSJ), then how can anyone know these things, particularly a gun store owner that was going by the law as written?  That kind of stuff will never, ever make it onto any sort of viable background check as long as schools don't press charges or make it necessary for students with behavioral problems to seek medical help.  

Hell, we have pilots flying planes loaded with people RIGHT NOW that are "loaded" themselves on alcohol and pills, or have violent behavioral problems (witness last week's northwest pilot yanked off a flight for screaming at his wife on his cellphone in full view of his passengers and crew, and then threatening crew and passengers who voiced their displeasure.....!)  I wonder how many pilots right now could pass a background check, when they hold far more lives in their hands than the gunman took....it's all perspective. Don't lose sight of the big picture while being led around by the nose by the media (liberal or conservative, they are still the media, and love the smell of blood in the water).  Consider:

If the student had used a bomb to blow up the classroom;

If the student had used an illegal full automatic AK47 to kill the students;

If the student had flown a small passenger plane loaded with gasoline into the building;

If the student did any or all of the above, and had copious amounts of role playing material in his dorm (including select D&D items);

Think about what the "take" would be on the event in ANY of these cases by the media, and their "slant" to play to the cameras (obviously, we would have all sorts of so-called "experts" shoved into our faces who would preach about the "dangers" of losing control with role playing games, or the "dangers" of having bomb making materials available on the internet, or the "dangers" of anyone being able to get a commercial pilot's license, yadda yadda yadda). Now, apply that to the situation that just happened....I'm already tired of so-called "experts" pulling out the same old tired cliches about guns and gun owners that I've been hearing since I was a teenager in the late 70s...

Use your head, don't let your emotions take over, and don't let the fear mongers and mis-information experts trick you into believing what's not true.  Oh, yeh, and read Freakonomics...

Mike B.

bclarkie wrote:
IIRC other than prior felonies already committed and outstanding criminal wrrants, not much else.   As a matter of fact the NRA has been fighting tooth and nail to limit things that can used when conducting these backround checks(i.e Social security Number) for awhile now.  If it was't so tragic, it would almost be comical.  The old NRA adage of "Guns don't kill people, People kill people" seems to know no bounds.

I think that its important to add, that despite the fact some people believe that Virginia Tech needed more guns on campus yesterday, I think that quite the opposite. I beleive that if Virginia Tech had two less guns on campus yesterday, there would be 32 people still alive today.

I just can't for the life of me see how anyone can reason that more weapons is better than less weapons.

As a society, we fail to see that the genie is out of the bottle and never going to go back in.  The president could outlaw all firearms tomorrow, and it could go into effect immediately, and be enforced as draconianly as possible (house to house searches, seizures, etc).  All we would see is another form of Prohibition. You know, the law that was enforced so well that absolutely no one drank any illegal alcohol for the many years it was in effect.  The law that basically turned the city of Chicago and the Northeast into a crime-run gangsterville whose effects are still being felt now almost 100 years later.  The law that turned punks like Al Capone into millionaires and helped them spread their empire farther and faster than anything else possibly could have.  The law that basically gave the Mafia it's foot into the door of running nearly every NE big city for the next 50 years by supplying much needed cash.
 You think crime is bad now?  Ban handguns and it'll probably work just as well as the enormously successful "War on Drugs" (now in it's 26th year?) has in combatting lawlessness.
    Once again, the genie is out of the bottle.  Instead of trying to put it back in, we need to learn how to deal with it...I don't have a solution. I have suggestions, like mandatory armed service or an equivaent for all 18 year olds, but unlike all the experts I am just shooting in the dark...

Mike B.

bclarkie wrote:
There is no fear mongering going on though. The facts of this case clearly state that a 23 year old student who was in the US legally, practced his constitutionally* protected rights of purchsing two hand guns.  Those two handguns that he legally purchased were used to slaughter 32 innocent people.  That isn't fear mongering at all, that is simply the real facts of the case.

Actually, fear mongering is present in the entire presentation of the event, not the facts.  It's because blood and violence are sexy, they sell, and they can stir up emotions enough so that people knee-jerk, or it plays into their already pre-concieved notions one way or another.  Once again, do more kids die from guns or swimming pools?  Do more people die from terrorists or heart disease?  From auto accidents or airplanes?  

Fearmongering sells, and facts get tossed out the door in the landslide of emotional response.  People that are absolutely incensed at gun owners think nothing of swimming pool owners. The writer of Freakonomics makes the point that people are HORRIBLE risk assessors...why?  Because of the media and it's need to get a visual, sexy, and memorable story on the air.

Just to blow your mind:  Your chances of a child drowning to death in a a neighborhood swimming pool is 1 in 11,000 (about 550 each year).  Your chances of a child being shot with a gun is 1 in 1 million (about 175 each year). Both are tragedies, but because pool drowning deaths don't make good coverage on the evening news, we don't hear about them.  Yet when a kid is killed playing with his father's gun, or two kids playing with a gun shoot one or the other, it's plastered all over the news along with dire predictions and finger shaking warnings and solemn faced vultures yakking about the "lawlessness" of society now.  

The media and the government want you to be scared...it's a control mechanism.  That way they can focus you on the issues THEY want and not the important issues (which is why spending on fighting terrorism is millions of times more well funded than fighting heart disease, while terrorism kills an infintesimal amount of people each year versus those of us eating artery clogging fast food...the #1 cause of death in the world, btw)  "Terrorist acts lie beyond our control; french fries do not."  You could change that to "Lunatics with handguns lie beyond our control; fill in the blank does not".  The thought of someone with the power to end our lives in such an arbitray way as that dude Cho did is frightening; meanwhile, I'll pound down another Big Mac and vanilla shake while watching it on the TV....

The point is that when a plane goes down and 136 people die, it's a tragedy. The media pounces on the story ad naseum and subjects the public to story after story about who or what is to blame, was the pilot at fault, etc etc.  Meanwhile, about 800 people EACH WEEK die on our nation's highways, and it's an ignored stat. It's simply not interesting enough for us to focus on.

This week, a lunatic killed 32 people in a short period of time.  I don't feel one iota more unsafe today than I did a week ago. Unfortunately guns are a part of our society as they have been for over 200 years.  It's never going to change. Never.  There will never be a law passed that completely outlaws guns; if it ever did pass, millions would ignore it.  Instead of thinking of unworkable solutions, the American people need to work this out with a solution that makes sense.  Like I said I don't have that solution, but neither does anyone in the "ban guns" crowd, or the "everyone needs six guns plus a machine gun" crowd.  I see lots of rhetoric but no real solutions.  And I see a LOT of fearmongering.....

BTW, I'm also for legalization of drugs...you know, just so we can declare some sort of victory after spending trillions of dollars over the last 30 years with absolutely nothing to show for it....
(and I've never used drugs in my life...never even TRIED them.  Hey, I was too busy experimenting with mixed drinks all those years...)

Mike B.

bclarkie wrote:
I don't want to debate this endlessly, as its pretty likely that you aren't going to convince me and I am not going to convince you, but if what you say is true, then why make any new laws at all?  Why change any existing laws?  I mean people are just going to do what they want anyway, right?  That to me seems very defeatist.

Don't get me wrong I am not naive enough to think that its all going to change overnight, but something has to be done.  The culture of violence in the US is getting worse, its not getting better.   You use the "war on Drugs" as an example and to be honest you are absolutely correct that it hasn't gone as well as we were led to believe that it would, but it's better now than it was back in the 80's don't you agree?  And that despite the fact that the "War on Drugs" has been "fought" only half-assed.  

If we spent as much money, time and effort at home as we did meddling abroad, just imagine how much better it would be.

Actually if we never spend another cent on the so-called "War on Drugs" I would be one happy camper.  I'm an out and out Conservative Republican, and to my eyes drugs are exactly as much available and causing just as much damage as they were 10, 20, 30 years ago.  Look at the rates of meth addiction, heroin deaths, "cheese" deaths just the last year.  It's appaling. Why not legalize drugs, put the south american drug barons out of business, and regulate the hell out of it like the government does to everything?  Plus, think of all the "Highways to Nowhere" they could build with all those wonderful drug taxes.
The "War on Drugs" can only be won by changing the rules and looking at new solutions.  I'm afraid the same geniuses that came up with it are now running the thing in Iraq, with the same results, I only hope it doesn't take them the same amount of time to wake up...

Obviously laws have to be passed and enforced...I just feel that so often they don't fill the will of the people, but the will of a few politicians looking to get elected. In Texas this spring lawmaking session, we are seeing hundreds...yes, hundreds...of bogus laws trying to be passed that somehow regulate the exploding illegal population here in the Lone Star State (because, you know, most illegals aren't voters...).  Hey, I'm all for enforcing the existing laws...I think "illegal" means "illegal".....but why pass a bunch of fearmongering crap that cannot be enforced, and is only proposed to make you look good to the (mostly white) voters back home?  Proposals like round them all up and ship them back (sure, all those millions, right away).  Look at the unfortunate Mike Nifong up in your neck of the woods...was that wastoid enforcing the laws?  Or trying to get re-elected???

Unfortunately I'm going to end my current rant with what I think are some solutions that could be helpful....military service or a "peace corp" equivalent for EVERY kid, one year of his/her life between the ages of 18 and 25; families staying together so that kids have a father and mother (or hell, a father and father or mother and mother, I don't care anymore) as a support system; more emphasis, not less, on religion in lives (btw I'm also for VERY strict seperation of church and state, neither has a thing to do with the other); schools actually TEACHING kids something instead of an over reliance on "testing"  that serves no purpose but to show schools how they rank against each other; our society reinforcing the ideas of personal responsibility and de-emphasizing the "culture of me" that has grown up in the last few years; refusing to support professional sports teams that cater to sullen, destructive, whining "athletes" as well as refusing to support "entertainment" that degrades women, dumbs us down, or preaches the value of violence (this includes music, video games and movies).

BC I think there is hope.  Look at what brought Imus down....the vote of the pocketbook. If people only stopped buying the crap, and put their money where their mouth was, dumbasses wouldn't be crapping up our society.  For every guy screaming that all guns should be destroyed, there is another idiot screaming he needs a full auto M16 for home protection.  Like most things, the truth is in the middle.  As a society, we have to compromise to reach that truth.

Mike B.

Man, now I wish I hadn't gone to bed so early last night.  

I had a feeling this discussion was brewing.  Seems simple enough to me.  Getting rid of handguns can't make it any EASIER to kill people.