School shooting "phenomenom"

[Zorbtek 0]

What the gun ban at Virginia Tech has effectively done is clustered thousands of students together like cattle, waiting to be slaughtered by some crazed maniac and leaving them without any self-defense against an immediate threat.

The police, as always, did such a wonderful job acting quickly upon the situation. Eyewitness accounts describe police hiding behind trees and failing to pursue the killer, while ordering the school to be placed on lockdown so nobody could escape the carnage as the killer picked off his targets with seemingly little interruption from the police.

Yes police, let's wait until he runs out of ammo and then we'll move in. I want to know what moron gave the order to stand down, someone is going to be in deep deep trouble for not effectively handling this situation. When someone was shot at 7 A.M, an E-Mail was sent out to students 2 hours later about a shooting investigation, meanwhile 20 other people are getting shot at.

This is not only the worst school shooting in history, but the most ineffective police responce in history.

[Espectro (DayZ) 0]

I don't know where to start really. But first of all, of course gun laws will be a part of this discussion - it is an obvious theme of this problem. Discussing this without gunlaws would be like discussing polution but not allowed to include the use of cars in the discussion.

Anyway, as more people have stated the problem isn't solely because of the gun laws. If people where 100% satisfied with their lives, and thought they were threated fair in their community. They would never have done the things that we sadly see sometimes over the entire world - no matter how many guns that were available for them.

This doesn't, however, mean that the very liberal weapon culture seen in places such as the US and many non-western countries, aren't responsible for the shootings.

Of course, people can aquire a pistol in places such as Denmark on the black market, but you got to be damn motivated for it, and a massacre like this isn't something you could arrange in a few days and it would never be something impulsive. I suspect some (not all) of the incidents seen in the US lately are teenagers which is pretty confused and perhaps alot of anger in their chest going wild. These teens mixed with an easy access to weapons is deadly, and we see these tragic incidents.

Stopping the easy access to weapons will stop many of these incidents, but obviously not all of them. There must be something terrible wrong the that country as it is.

Messiah - you bring in the scandinavian home guard as an example that not all people kill just because they have guns. Well, i'm pretty sure everyone inhere never believed that was the case - but nonetheless you forget to mention that even though they have their weapons in their houses, both the lock (is that what it's called in English?) and the ammonition is stored by the military, which means that the weapons outside military base is useless and you paintball gun would be able to do more damage than his g3 / can m16.

Someone pro-gun mentioned the French revolution and the us civil war as an example that everyone should have guns.

I must admit, I did laugh a little to myself when I read that. You cannot truly be serious, mate? You do not believe things change after time, and perhaps it is time for some new thinking?

In your way of thinking, every country should have nuclear bombs simply because they ALWAYS stop wars, such as wwii.

Also, as someone on the first page mentioned. The country that have guns to prevent violence must be pretty sick, and to expect civilians to gun down other civilians for protection is insane!

[Espectro (DayZ) 0]

What the gun ban at Virginia Tech has effectively done is clustered thousands of students together like cattle, waiting to be slaughtered by some crazed maniac and leaving them without any self-defense against an immediate threat.

The police, as always, did such a wonderful job acting quickly upon the situation. Eyewitness accounts describe police hiding behind trees and failing to pursue the killer, while ordering the school to be placed on lockdown so nobody could escape the carnage as the killer picked off his targets with seemingly little interruption from the police.

Yes police, let's wait until he runs out of ammo and then we'll move in. I want to know what moron gave the order to stand down, someone is going to be in deep deep trouble for not effectively handling this situation. When someone was shot at 7 A.M, an E-Mail was sent out to students 2 hours later about a shooting investigation, meanwhile 20 other people are getting shot at.

This is not only the worst school shooting in history, but the most ineffective police responce in history.

Just had to reply to this.

Are you utterly mad!?

Ask yourself this question instead:

What is wrong with you culture since you actually is afraid of this!?

It is not the gun-ban that is the problem... What kinda civilian shootout would you expect if they all had carried guns? Do you really think civilian students is capable on identifiyng does from friends in such a stressfull situation? I cannot stress how awfull a situation you would bring people in. It would become a warzone, just like you had in new orleens after katrina.

//Edit - LOL, what in the world happend to my sig!?

[Messiah 2]

Quote[/b] ]Messiah - you bring in the scandinavian home guard as an example that not all people kill just because they have guns. Well, i'm pretty sure everyone inhere never believed that was the case - but nonetheless you forget to mention that even though they have their weapons in their houses, both the lock (is that what it's called in English?) and the ammonition is stored by the military, which means that the weapons outside military base is useless and you paintball gun would be able to do more damage than his g3 / can m16.

that wasn't the case with my Uncle - he had both his service handgun and ammunition at home. This was about 5 or so years ago now since he was in, so it obviously could have changed since then. I just recall spending my summer outside of Bronderslev, having a few goes on a home made range - he had the firing pin locked away elsewhere to ensure it was safer, but he had ammo and key to everything.

[shinRaiden 0]

You all are proving my point made previously, that the discussion is increasingly not about why the gunman chose to impose his irrational emotional rage on others, the 'real issue' is why weren't his liberties managed for him.

Oh, and the University of Utah was mentioned previously. It's news connection is that Utah has quite lenient concealed carry-laws, and the administration policies were in violation of state law. Federal and state laws normally only extend to K-12, so there was no local legal standing for the administrative policy. It had nothing to do with the morality, it was strictly a legality issue. Rectification is a matter for the people or the legislature.

And the trolley square shooting there was stopped largely due to the intervention of an armed off-duty cop at dinner. You can slap all sorts of stereotypes there - isolated immigrant, angsty teen, school problems, impoverished family, Balkans PTSD, drugs, gang culture, girlfriend problems, etc. Doesn't matter in the end, because he still flipped out and chose to vent his rage on others and refused to deal with himself himself.

[Espectro (DayZ) 0]

Yea, but some should stop blaiming these stereo-types and start blaiming their society and the culture instead.

[CameronMcDonald 146]

But, speaking in horrible emotionless black and white - would the body count have been as high if the perp couldn't gain access to a firearm?

I think not. Human beings are human beings, and you will always have the occasional bloke who flips out and looks to take it out on others. Having weapons which can deal death easily and efficiently within public reach only means more bystanders will be dead at the end of the day.

EDIT - Unless the guy is a ninja.

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

Are these shootings really a phenomenon per-say,

eeeek, dont do that!

[fardwark 0]

I don't see why this automatically turns into a gun-control debate, availability of guns don't increase the probability of an incident like this. School shootings are the symptom, not the issue. That they turn out to be school shootings is of course subject to gun availability, but the people who snapped would have snapped no matter if they could get their hands on guns or not.

If you want to debate gun-control (or weapon-control more like it) you should start another thread discussing gang violence, since that's a subject that is largely dependent on weapon-availability.

[CameronMcDonald 146]

...but the people who snapped would have snapped no matter if they could get their hands on guns or not.

...but would they have killed 30 people?

[Espectro (DayZ) 0]

I don't see why this automatically turns into a gun-control debate, availability of guns don't increase the probability of an incident like this. School shootings are the symptom, not the issue. That they turn out to be school shootings is of course subject to gun availability, but the people who snapped would have snapped no matter if they could get their hands on guns or not.

If you want to debate gun-control (or weapon-control more like it) you should start another thread discussing gang violence, since that's a subject that is largely dependent on weapon-availability.

Of course they would have snapped. But instead of killing 30 people, they would have knocked down a couple instead.

Do you think that is a 'small detail?'

[SlipperyJim 0]

Thank god I live in Canada. When I send my kids off to school I don't worry about them getting shot. Sure it could happen because of smuggled American guns but it is a heckova lot less likely!

You can keep your guns and your illusion of "protection".

That little animated film in Bowling For Columbine I think speaks volumes.

[USSRsniper 0]

I dont get why kill others? If you cant manage your imotions its your fault, so just kill yourself leaving everyone safe.... Problem is larger then gun control, students in US are under alot of problems, probably even more problems then most students in Europe. If crimes keep increasing with teenagers, especially females. No wonder it will cause more problems. GUn control not going to fix anything, there are more things to fix. Probably half of the society has to be changed. Come on, as alot of peopel say "US richest country" and they cant fix problems with teenage crime?

because this is very scary, if my country as you call "third world" problems like this never happend in schools/universities

[baddo 0]

I am blaming their society, culture and national heritage.

Let’s take the high number of handguns possessed by the citizens of the U.S. as an example. As we all know by now, in the U.S. people have a lot of guns. Why?

Let's take the U.S. police forces as an example. There have been many cases where the police officers have really gone over the top with their gun usage, resulting in death of suspects who did not have guns and did not threaten to kill anyone. Why do the U.S. police officers so eagerly use their weapons?

Let’s take the political leaders of the U.S. as an example. I am sure I do not have to mention which conflicts are perfect examples of the political leaders of the U.S. ordering their military to start an attack on foreign soil for very questionable reasons. The U.S. military is a very dangerous weapon and as such, should only be put into use if there is absolutely no doubt that it is needed to defend the U.S. It is very irresponsible from the political leaders of the U.S. to use such a weapon against people who do not pose a real threat to the U.S. Real threat as in, must be able to prove the threat with facts and not with lies or assumptions. Why do the political leaders of the U.S. so eagerly use their military?

Let’s take the people who vote the political leaders of the U.S. into power as an example. Why do they vote people into power who like to use their military so eagerly? Why do they allow their political leaders to spend huge amounts of money into attacking a foreign nation instead of using all that money into healthcare? Why do they vote such people into power who do not direct more of their huge resources into making their own neighbourhood, workplace and school a better place to be in?

The answer to all of the above questions is: because they want to do so.

[crashdome 3]

Using the fact that a "high number of US citizens own firearms" as any sort of argument is retarded. We have a "high number of citizens who own firearms" because we can. Assuming for a second that every other nation did not have gun laws, your "civil societies" would probably have just as big a percentage of gun owners.

The only argument that makes is that banning guns makes less gun owners.

I have been actively involved in some statistic finding this semester and while I cannot produce for you the exact data (it is stored somewhere I no longer have access to). I can tell you that I have seen that a sampling of 150+ cities yielded that the dependant variable of crime rate does not relate significantly (alpha=0.05) to the independant variable of number of licensed gun holders (Based on 2002 data). Note: This does not prove that NOT banning guns doesn't save lives. In fact it only disproves one of the arguments.

I have no real opinion on the whole of this, I am somewhere where shinRaiden sits on all of this, but I think people should recheck there facts with some real data instead of shouting out their sources as news articles, movies, or history.

Quote[/b] ]Because they want to do so.

I am curious? What drugs are you on?

[baddo 0]

CrashDome.

Even if I were allowed to own any kind of gun here in Finland.

I wouldn't want to.

Do you want to know why?

Because I know that I would only put myself into danger if I carried a weapon. As I am very reluctant to harm other people, the weapon could serve no purpose for me, other than making myself a target. That is the reason I will never carry a gun with me.

War would be an exception, I am trained to use an assault rifle and for sure I could use it against someone who is directly threatening our nation. But in this civilian life, no way.

No guns in my life, no matter how freely we are allowed to have guns.

That is what I mean. In general, the people in the U.S. want to have guns. I don't. We have the police, we have the Defence Forces, that is all we need to protect ourselves. So, in general the people in Finland do not want guns into their lifes.

It is also question of mentality. Are you an attacker or a defender? Judging the U.S. and its citizens from the factual news I have read during my life (violently conquer large part of North America, kill native inhabitants etc...), I can only say that the U.S. and its citizens are more attackers than defenders.

What drugs are you on?

CrashDome. Please do not go down to personal attacks. My opinions have formed during a long time and I assure you I don't make hasty judgements, quite the opposite. Do not see my words as an insult towards U.S. or any of its citizens as that is certainly not my intention.

[Ironsight 1]

What drugs are you on?

CrashDome. Please do not go down to personal attacks. My opinions have formed during a long time and I assure you I don't make hasty judgements, quite the opposite. Do not see my words as an insult towards U.S. or any of its citizens as that is certainly not my intention.

Maybe you instead shouldn't bring the Iraq war to this topic. Really this is an ignorant and rather dumb assumption.

Quote[/b] ]Let’s take the people who vote the political leaders of the U.S. into power as an example. Why do they vote people into power who like to use their military so eagerly? Why do they allow their political leaders to spend huge amounts of money into attacking a foreign nation instead of using all that money into healthcare? Why do they vote such people into power who do not direct more of their huge resources into making their own neighbourhood, workplace and school a better place to be in?

[baddo 0]

Hmmm... ignorant and dumb? I was talking about how resources are directed. U.S. targets a lot of their resources into something else than to the well-being of their own citizens inside the borders of their own country.

Wouldn't directing more resources into issues inside the U.S. make it less likely that the people in U.S. go mad and kill others? I am sorry if that sounds ignorant and dumb to you.

If a war in a far-away land is sucking resources away from healthcare, education etc. then I can't change that fact or can I? Again, sorry if this sounds ignorant and dumb to you. Somehow I just see that the huge amounts of resources thrown into wars could instead be directed to make the U.S. a better place to live in. Fighting a meaningless battle in the other side of the World is something I do not see as making these gun attacks inside U.S. reduce... quite the opposite I think.

[ralphwiggum 6]

I am curious? What drugs are you on?

Watch it.

Really this is an ignorant and rather dumb assumption

Tread carefully.

[Espectro (DayZ) 0]

We have a "high number of citizens who own firearms" because we can.

This is probably the difference between the Western world and the US. (Yes, I divided that on purpose).

Your culture reminds me more and more of a third world country.

[Ironsight 1]

I am blaming their society, culture and national heritage.

Let’s take the high number of handguns possessed by the citizens of the U.S. as an example. As we all know by now, in the U.S. people have a lot of guns. Why?

Let's take the U.S. police forces as an example. There have been many cases where the police officers have really gone over the top with their gun usage, resulting in death of suspects who did not have guns and did not threaten to kill anyone. Why do the U.S. police officers so eagerly use their weapons?

Let’s take the political leaders of the U.S. as an example. I am sure I do not have to mention which conflicts are perfect examples of the political leaders of the U.S. ordering their military to start an attack on foreign soil for very questionable reasons. The U.S. military is a very dangerous weapon and as such, should only be put into use if there is absolutely no doubt that it is needed to defend the U.S. It is very irresponsible from the political leaders of the U.S. to use such a weapon against people who do not pose a real threat to the U.S. Real threat as in, must be able to prove the threat with facts and not with lies or assumptions. Why do the political leaders of the U.S. so eagerly use their military?

Let’s take the people who vote the political leaders of the U.S. into power as an example. Why do they vote people into power who like to use their military so eagerly? Why do they allow their political leaders to spend huge amounts of money into attacking a foreign nation instead of using all that money into healthcare? Why do they vote such people into power who do not direct more of their huge resources into making their own neighbourhood, workplace and school a better place to be in?

The answer to all of the above questions is: because they want to do so.

Gunman was identified as a South Korean, so that balloon doesn't fly anymore:

Quote[/b] ]Law enforcement authorities said the name of the gunman was Cho Seung-Hui, 23, a South Korean who was a resident alien in the United States. He was described as an English major in his senior year at Virginia Tech.

[ebud 18]

Yep, the typical crazy redneck gun owner stereotype just doesn't apply in most cases of gun-related deaths. This seems to be the stereotypical "loner gone insane" scenario. It won't be long before he's found out he was into FPS.

[Messiah 2]

It won't be long before he's found out he was into FPS.

but of course... then those mothers of America can have some more tosh to moan about in their free time.

[karantan 0]

About that (private) gun ownership; sometimes last year I've readed or seen somwhere (can't remember anymore where) some research that in Canada is almost the same amount of firearms in the private possession, but the overall crime rate, not to mention these famous school massacres, is way way way bellow that in US. And they're the clostest neugbours, and to some extent similar in their lifely values.

We the Europeans (and the other nations) will never quite understand the US mentality (I don't even trying to, it's way too neurotic by my standards), they're,,,well,,,different. And that's ok and their problem. Till they pesting someone else with it ...

And it doesen't prooves much, if the shooter is a South Corean; the exeption, which confirms the rule. If I'm a bit sarcastic, it can be said that he has just quickly and very well adopt, and embraced the 'american way of life'.

[fardwark 0]

Of course they would have snapped. But instead of killing 30 people, they would have knocked down a couple instead.

Do you think that is a 'small detail?'

Or they would have built a bomb, and blown up 129 people like someone did in Iraq with a suicide bomb recently.