Virginia Tech shooting

[vbloke]

Now, I know this is going to be a highly charged and emotive topic, but I am saddened by some of the news I see filtering out of the US in response to this latest incident.

"I think the middle ground is to allow concealed handgun permit holders to carry just like they can anywhere else in Virginia," he said. "You provide extra safety to the student body that way."

"I am a firm believer that if Virginia Tech students were allowed to conceal carry, this situation could have ended sooner."

I also heard an interview on the BBC Breakfast show with an American radio pundit who as much as said that if the students were allowed to carry guns, then this tragedy could have been avoided.

Now, I grew up around guns - my father had lots of guns, from heavy duty shotguns to air pistols and I grew up learning to fire them all. However, I have never been comfortable around guns and the power they wield. I disagree with the right for citizens to carry weapons freely on display or concealed. The more people carry guns, the more chances you have of situations like this occurring, it's simple statistics.

Can you imagine what may have happened if the student body was armed? The moment word got out that there was a gunman on the campus, several armed students would more than likely have drawn their weapons and gone hunting for the gunman, leading to the possibility of more loss of innocent life, both in the police not knowing who the true gunman is and the possibility of the students shooting each other believing they were "taking out the gunman".

The answer here, in my opinion, is greater gun control, not less. If people want to be able to own weapons, they should be licensed, vetted and locked away, not carried concealed on your person.

So far, 33 people have been killed in this incident. How many is too many before the legislators begin to tighten up on gun ownership? Semi-automatic weaponry is simply not needed in a legitimate family home.

[chillzero]

I completely agree. The thought of arming people in a manner like this, and for such an emotive reason is appalling.

I loathe all weaponry (apart from for decorative use), and would not feel safe if I knew the general populace around me was armed.

I also feel, having grown up in Ulster, that situations like this would not only result in the chaos you describe, but additionally the settling of some personal vendettas while that chaos exists.

[Araneus]

The discussion on Slashdot was full of these arguments going backwards and forwards, neither of which I find particularly convincing.

"More gun-carriers could have ended the shooting spree quickly" -- as you point out, it would just create chaos where everybody is shooting everybody else who has a gun, with no idea who the original "bad guy" actually was.

"More gun-control would have prevented it" -- no, it wouldn't. It only take one nutcase with a gun to go on a shooting rampage and no amount of gun-control is going to stop that one nutcase from getting his hands on a firearm.

Both of these arguments are attacking the symptoms not the cause, whereas a rational response would be to look at the social factors which cause young American men to feel that they have no choice but to do something like this.

[Cuddles]

Giving everyone a gun will somehow reduce the number of shootings? I have to say I just don't get the logic involved there.

Araneus makes a good point. If someone really wants to get hold of a gun and shoot a load of people, they can and will. Whether the general populace own guns or not will make very little difference. Gun control will reduce the number of accidental shootings. It will almost certainly reduce the amount of shootings in general, since petty criminals will find it harder to get guns and "defensive" shootings will be less likely. However, as long as guns exist it will be possible for people who really want to to get hold of them.

Depressing though it may be, I think there probably isn't a solution to this. Although it is popular nowadays to label people with different disorders and criminal types, the fact is that some people are just crazy. We can't just blame everything on society or parents or the government or whatever. If someone is capable of just picking up a gun and shooting lots of people, whatever the actual trigger that makes them do so, then they are capable of doing so. No matter what society you have, there will always be some people who disagree with it, and human nature being what it is, some of those people will have violent tendancies. Short of a Minority Report style policing, I think that crimes like this will never be preventable.

[Araneus]

Depressing though it may be, I think there probably isn't a solution to this. Although it is popular nowadays to label people with different disorders and criminal types, the fact is that some people are just crazy.

I do not recognise the concept of "crazy", it is just a word applied by the majority to those who don't think like they do. There are people who might call us "crazy" because the skeptical worldview is so different from the mainstream, but that does not mean we are wrong or dangerous.

We can't just blame everything on society or parents or the government or whatever. If someone is capable of just picking up a gun and shooting lots of people, whatever the actual trigger that makes them do so, then they are capable of doing so.

We can't blame everything on society, but we can blame quite a lot. I suspect that the delusional psychotic who sees hallucinations from God is a much rarer candidate for a mass killing than an ordinary person who has been reduced to such a state through life events.

I don't know much about American society but from what I read it seems like citizens are little more than property; you have schools run like prisons, employers who own you like a slave, little or no welfare or support from the state, law enforcement acting like armed thugs, etc. It's no wonder that people snap under these conditions.

Short of a Minority Report style policing, I think that crimes like this will never be preventable.

Sure, they will never be preventable, but that doesn't mean the realistic and valuable steps can be taken to reduce their occurence. The fact that such events seem to be rare in Europe or Canada should indicate that this is a possible goal.

[Cuddles]

http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php...&postcount=269

I think This sums up what I was trying to say very well. For some reason I can't get at the original post, only another post where it was quoted.

[chillzero]

http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php...&postcount=269

I think This sums up what I was trying to say very well. For some reason I can't get at the original post, only another post where it was quoted.

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.p...65#post2527465