Before I start I wish to express my condolence to the families and friends of the victims and the wounded in the attack my heart goes out to you in your time of suffering.

1. Given the magnitude of the massacre, will this have a lasting effect on the United States, or will it vanish into the media after a month?

The media will milk the suffering for as long as it gets them ratings however long it lasts. Given our tendancy towards self pity I fear we will all follow suit so long as it is popular. I fear the only real lasting effects will be seen in the empty chairs at dinner tables, empty places in the hearts of loved ones, the scars the suvivors will carry, and what ever freedoms we sacrifice to try to defend against future occurances.

2. What legislative or policy implications will this tragedy have, will it spur lawmakers into some kind of action? Either on a State or Federal level?

I expect and see it reflected in posts here already that it will once again give cause and purpose to those who would sacrifice our personal freedoms to further render us defenseless from future such attacks by pushing for more restrictions on firearms.

3. How can such massacres be avoided in the future?

There will always be those who seek to take from us that which does not belong to them, our property, freedom, virtue, security, country, and sadly even our lives. They will continue to do so with every means at their disposal whether it is with guns or bombs, or sticks and knives. No amount of laws will keep us safe from such lawless individuals, and we will continue to see such suffering until we learn that lesson - si viz pacem para bellum - if you wish for peace prepare for war. For it is by our choice that we are defenseless prey therfore we shall continue as such until we take up arms to defend our selves against such predators

What constitutes a "reasonable" discussion? One where, aside from some minor quibbling, everybody agrees with you? Because, since you seem to be characterizing this discussion as "unreasonable", when its remarkably mild and, yes, reasoned, I can conclude nothing else.

Vlad:

Did I mention the 2nd amendment? The second amendment merely says that one of the reasons why I have the right to keep and bear arms is so that I might use the same for purposes of defending my government and, if need be, defending myself from my government. For the more general right that you are looking for, there is this notion of "liberty":

"No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."

As you are presumably aware, US S.Ct. jurisprudence has found both procedural and substantive components to the due process clause above and that one found in the 14th amendment. And so "liberty" is usually found when "deeply rooted in this nation's history and tradition." Now simply recall that the men who wrote the document and then amended the same were probably armed when they executed both the original and the amendment.

You are otherwise wrong about the 2nd:

"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them." (Richard Henry Lee, Virginia delegate to the Continental Congress, initiator of the Declaration of Independence, and member of the first Senate, which passed the Bill of Rights.)

"The great object is that every man be armed ... Everyone who is able may have a gun." (Patrick Henry, in the Virginia Convention on the ratification of the Constitution.)

"The advantage of being armed ... the Americans possess over the people of all other nations ... Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several Kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms." (James Madison, author of the Bill of Rights, in his Federalist Paper No. 26.)"

And then there's:

"THE RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS
--------

R E P O R T

OF THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CONSTITUTION

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

UNITED STATES SENATE

NINETY-SEVENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION
****
[Orrin Hatch]: In my studies as an attorney and as a United States Senator, I have constantly been amazed by the indifference or even hostility shown the Second Amendment by courts, legislatures, and commentators. James Madison would be startled to hear that his recognition of a right to keep and bear arms, which passed the House by a voice vote without objection and hardly a debate, has since been construed in but a single, and most ambiguous, Supreme Court decision, whereas his proposals for freedom of religion, which he made reluctantly out of fear that they would be rejected or narrowed beyond use, and those for freedom of assembly, which passed only after a lengthy and bitter debate, are the subject of scores of detailed and favorable decisions. Thomas Jefferson, who kept a veritable armory of pistols, rifles and shotguns at Monticello, and advised his nephew to forsake other sports in favor of hunting, would be astounded to hear supposed civil libertarians claim firearm ownership should be restricted. Samuel Adams, a handgun owner who pressed for an amendment stating that the "Constitution shall never be construed ... to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms," would be shocked to hear that his native state today imposes a year's sentence, without probation or parole, for carrying a firearm without a police permit."
***
[Dennis Deconcini]: The right to bear arms is a tradition with deep roots in American society. Thomas Jefferson proposed that "no free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms," and Samuel Adams called for an amendment banning any law "to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms." The Constitution of the State of Arizona, for example, recognizes the "right of an individual citizen to bear arms in defense of himself or the State."
***
William Rawle's "View of the Constitution" published in Philadelphia in 1825 noted that under the Second Amendment

[']The prohibition is general. No clause in the Constitution could by a rule of construction be conceived to give to Congress a power to disarm the people. Such a flagitious attempt could only be made under some general pretense by a state legislature. But if in blind pursuit of inordinate power, either should attempt it, this amendment may be appealed to as a restraint on both.[']"
***
[and just when you thought that you were exempt from the "draft"]: Subsequent legislation in the Second Congress likewise supports the interpretation of the second amendment that creates an individual right. In the Militia Act of 1792, the second Congress defined "militia of the United States" to include almost every free adult male in the United States. These persons were obliged by law to possess a firearm and a minimum supply of ammunition and military equipment. This statute, incidentally remained in effect into the early years of the present century as a legal requirement of gun ownership for most of the population of the United States. There can be little doubt from this that when the Congress and the people spoke of a "militia", they had reference to the traditional concept of the entire populace capable of bearing arms, and not to any formal group such as what is today called the National Guard. The purpose was to create an armed citizenry, such as the political theorists at the time considered essential to ward off tyranny. From this militia, appropriate measures might create a "well regulated militia" of individuals trained in their duties and responsibilities as citizens and owners of firearms.

Need I go on? The "right of an individual citizen to bear arms in defense of himself or the State" [and if need be, against the State].

Oh, and a shotgun is an ugly weapon. I said aim for the center of your target but am hoping that my aim will be little off and so it won't be a heart shot. Such a mis-aimed shot, though critical, is much easier to repair than the multiple bleeding wounds resulting from that area fire/spray weapon that we call the shotgun. And so the one that I might someday have to put down will have a better chance of survival than the soul who takes the spray from your shotgun. I'll let you decide for yourself what that says.

Sorry, almost forgot, but for my man nighttimer:

"Following the Civil War, the legislative efforts which gave us three amendments to the Constitution and our earliest civil rights acts likewise recognized the right to keep and bear arms as an existing constitutional right of the individual citizen and as a right specifically singled out as one protected by the civil rights acts and by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, against infringement by state authorities. Much of the reconstruction effort in the South had been hinged upon the creation of "black militias" composed of the armed and newly freed blacks, officered largely by black veterans of the Union Army. In the months after the Civil War, the existing southern governments struck at these units with the enactment of "black codes" which either outlawed gun ownership by blacks entirely, or imposed permit systems for them, and permitted the confiscation of firearms owned by blacks. When the Civil Rights Act of 1866 was debated members both of the Senate and the House referred to the disarmament of blacks as a major consideration. Senator Trumbull cited provisions outlawing ownership of arms by blacks as among those which the Civil Rights Act would prevent; Senator Sulsbury complained on the other hand that if the act were to be passed it would prevent his own state from enforcing a law banning gun ownership by individual free blacks. Similar arguments were advanced during the debates over the "anti-KKK act"; its sponsor at one point explained that a section making it a federal crime to deprive a person of "arms or weapons he may have in his house or possession for the defense of his person, family or property" was "intended to enforce the well-known constitutional provisions guaranteeing the right in the citizen to 'keep and bear arms'." Likewise, the debates over the Fourteenth Amendment Congress frequently referred to the Second Amendment as one of the rights which it intended to guarantee against state action."
***
Following adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, however, the Supreme Court held that that Amendment's prohibition against states depriving any persons of their federal "privileges and immunities" was to be given a narrow construction. In particular, the "privileges and immunities" under the Constitution would refer only to those rights which were not felt to exist as a process of natural right, but which were created solely by the Constitution. These might refer to rights such as voting in federal elections and of interstate travel, which would clearly not exist except by virtue of the existence of a federal government and which could not be said to be "natural rights". This paradoxically meant that the rights which most persons would accept as the most important--those flowing from concepts of natural justice--were devalued at the expense of more technical rights. Thus when individuals were charged with having deprived black citizens of their right to freedom of assembly and to keep and bear arms, by violently breaking up a peaceable assembly of black citizens, the Supreme Court in United States v. Cruikshank held that no indictment could be properly brought since the right "of bearing arms for a lawful purpose" is "not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence." Nor, in the view of the Court, was the right to peacefully assemble a right protected by the Fourteenth Amendment: "The right of the people peaceably to assemble for lawful purposes existed long before the adoption of the Constitution of the United States. In fact, it is and has always been one of the attributes of citizenship under a free government.... It was not, therefore, a right granted to the people by the Constitution."

So cracker in the KKK was all for "gun control". Glad to see that you and cracker in the KKK agree on the need for gun control.

Sorry, but for more on the "liberty" deeply rooted:

State v. Kessler, 289 Or. 359, 614 P.2d 94 (1980):

"We are not unmindful that there is current controversy over the wisdom of a right to bear arms, and that the original motivations for such a provision might not seem compelling if debated as a new issue. Our task, however, in construing a constitutional provision is to respect the principles given the status of constitutional guarantees and limitations by the drafters; it is not to abandon these principles when this fits the needs of the moment."

"Therefore, the term 'arms' as used by the drafters of the constitutions probably was intended to include those weapons used by settlers for both personal and military defense. The term 'arms' was not limited to firearms, but included several handcarried weapons commonly used for defense. The term 'arms' would not have included cannon or other heavy ordnance not kept by militia-men or private citizens."

Schubert v. DeBard, 398 N.E.2d 1339 (Ind. App. 1980):

"We think it clear that our constitution provides our citizenry the right to bear arms for their self-defense."

City of Lakewood v. Pillow, 180 Colo. 20, 501 P.2d 744 (1972):

"As an example, we note that this ordinance would prohibit gunsmiths, pawnbrokers and sporting goods stores from carrying on a substantial part of their business. Also, the ordinance appears to prohibit individuals from transporting guns to and from such places of business. Furthermore, it makes it unlawful for a person to possess a firearm in a vehicle or in a place of business for the purpose of self-defense. Several of these activities are constitutionally protected. Colo. Const. art. II, sec 13."

City of Las Vegas v. Moberg, 82 N.M. 626, 485 P.2d 737 (App. 1971):

"It is our opinion that an ordinance may not deny the people the constitutionally guaranteed right to bear arms, and to that extent the ordinance under consideration is void."

State v. Nickerson, 126 Mt. 157, 247 P.2d 188 (1952):

"The law of this jurisdiction accords to the defendant the right to keep and bear arms and to use same in defense of his own home, his person and property."

People v. Nakamura, 99 Colo. 262, 62 P.2d 246 (1936):

"It is equally clear that the act wholly disarms aliens for all purposes. The state ... cannot disarm any class of persons or deprive them of the right guaranteed under section 13, article II of the Constitution, to bear arms in defense of home, person and property. The guaranty thus extended is meaningless if any person is denied the right to posses arms for such protection."

State v. Rosenthal, 75 VT. 295, 55 A. 610 (1903):

"The people of the state have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves and the state. ...The result is that Ordinance No. 10, so far as it relates to the carrying of a pistol, is inconsistent with and repugnant to the Constitution and the laws of the state, and it is therefore to that extent, void."

Wilson v. State, 33 Ark. 557, 34 Am. Rep. 52 (1878).

"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of constitutional privilege."

Jennings v. State, 5 Tex. Crim. App. 298 (1878).

"We believe that portion of the act which provides that, in case of conviction, the defendant shall forfeit to the county the weapon or weapons so found on or about his person is not within the scope of legislative authority. ...One of his most sacred rights is that of having arms for his own defence and that of the State. This right is one of the surest safeguards of liberty and self-preservation."

Simpson v. State, 13 Tenn. 356 (1833).

"But suppose it to be assumed on any ground, that our ancestors adopted and brought over with them this English statute [the statute of Northampton] or portion of the common law, our constitution has completely abrogated it; it says, 'that the freemen of this State have a right to keep and bear arms for their common defence.' Article II, sec. 26. ...By this clause of the constitution, an express power is given and secured to all the free citizens of the State to keep and bear arms for their defence, without any qualification whatever as to their kind or nature; and it is conceived, that it would be going much too far, to impair by construction or abridgement a constitutional privilege, which is so declared; neither, after so solumn an instrument hath said the people may carry arms, can we be permitted to impute to the acts thus licensed, such a necessarily consequent operation as terror to the people to be incurred thereby; we must attribute to the framers of it, the absence of such a view."

Bliss v. Commonwealth, 12 Ky. (2 Litt.) 90, 13 Am. Dec. 251 (1822).

"For, in principle, there is no difference between a law prohibiting the wearing concealed arms, and a law forbidding the wearing such as are exposed; and if the former be unconstitutional, the latter must be so likewise."

So as I said, we might try reversing the culture that devalues life. That way, when he or she is drunk, as you posited, the thought won't be to shoot someone. I mean, the thought has never occurred to me, but then again, I am hoping that my aim is a little off center.

Oh, and Vlad, if you discount the danger from our government and some others, and to ourselves, then consider:

"The rebuttal presented to the Subcommittee by the Bureau was utterly unconvincing. Richard Davis, speaking on behalf of the Treasury Department, asserted vaguely that the Bureau's priorities were aimed at prosecuting willful violators, particularly felons illegally in possession, and at confiscating only guns actually likely to be used in crime. He also asserted that the Bureau has recently made great strides toward achieving these priorities. No documentation was offered for either of these assertions. In hearings before BATF's Appropriations Subcommittee, however, expert evidence was submitted establishing that approximately 75 percent of BATF gun prosecutions were aimed at ordinary citizens who had neither criminal intent nor knowledge, but were enticed by agents into unknowing technical violations. (In one case, in fact, the individual was being prosecuted for an act which the Bureau's acting director had stated was perfectly lawful.) In those hearings, moreover, BATF conceded that in fact (1) only 9.8 percent of their firearm arrests were brought on felons in illicit possession charges; (2) the average value of guns seized was $116, whereas BATF had claimed that "crime guns" were priced at less than half that figure; (3) in the months following the announcement of their new "priorities", the percentage of gun prosecutions aimed at felons had in fact fallen by a third, and the value of confiscated guns had risen. All this indicates that the Bureau's vague claims, both of focus upon gun-using criminals and of recent reforms, are empty words."

I read an interesting blurb in the WSJ Letters To The Editor section that stated plainly:
*paraphrase*
The US citizens have had access to guns for over 400 years yet the gun massacre is a very recent phenomenon.

Just this: let's say a law-abiding Joe Citizen has a gun. He has never committed a crime, lives an average life, is gainfully employed, has a wife and 2 kids, never even cheats on his taxes or beats his dog ; he's a perfect angel. Then one day his wife says she's leaving him. He snaps, goes off the deep end, gets out his gun, barricades his family in the house, and threatens to kill them all. NOW he's a criminal. Law abiding citizens BECOME criminals after using their gun for an unlawful purpose. The term "criminal" implies the person has already committed a crime.

By all accounts, Cho (despite having a run-in with the law on the stalking complaint-charges were dropped), did not have a criminal record, thus he was not a criminal. This meant he, as a law-abiding citizen, was able to walk into a gun store in March, buy a perfectly legal gun, then go to the store again in April and buy another perfectly legal gun. So far, he's still not a criminal. He became a criminal when he took those guns to the campus and started shooting people.

KivrotHaTaavah: Yes, well, on that same basis you are perfectly within your rights to plant, grow and smoke marijuana, or to take cocaine.

DaffyGrl: Indeed. That is the problem with "only criminals kill people" argument. On a formal level, it's a tautology; on a substantive level it conjures up the notion that the only thing standing between us and crimeless society is a class of hardened criminals. Yet many murders, even mass ones, are committed by people with no previous criminal records, or with records that would not lead anyone to call them a hardened criminal.

To eliminate violence by hardened criminals would not really be a very good basis for gun restrictions. As you and others here have observed, it's the random acts of madness such as this one in Virginia, the crimes of passion, the accidents, the suicides, and so forth, and so on, that gun restrictions are most likely to reduce.

Many gun advocates appear to live in a world where there is a narrow and fairly readily identified class of committed criminals, and everyone else is a perfectly rational, cool-headed straight shooter in both the figurative and literal senses. No worry about being acidentally hit when one of these nobel citizens draws his 357 magnum and blasts it out with a robber at your local 7-11. No worry about cutting one of these cool heads off in traffic, either. Heck no. Let a cornucopia of handguns flow forth.



Ridiculous. Try killing 30 people with a Kentucky long rifle, or with a Navy Colt, 1851 Model, for that matter.

Also it is a myth that the populace has been very well armed in the past. Even on the frontier, there was a shortage of guns. For example, written accounts say that in the 1774 western Virginia muster for a large campaign against the Swawnee in Ohio, many men reported with no weapons or with old, inadequate ones. These were frontier dwellers, mind you. As wealth has increased, ownership of guns has increased. The Colt 45 automatic was invented, I believe, about 1910; but not many people could afford to own one.

There was plenty of large-scale killing of innocents in the past, as well. Ever heard of Lawrence, Kansas? Tulsa, Oklahoma? I do concede your point that mass killing out of pure insanity appears to be a modern phenomenon. That doesn't mean that gun restrictions wouldn't help to prevent it, however.

WHUH????

Umm... do you have any idea how many shotguns are used in crimes? How many shotguns, conversely, are used for bird hunting, skeet shooting, etc.? Seriously. This is a weird one.

Consider this. If Americans couldn't get guns in stores, they COULD go to home depot and buy components to make a bomb. Does anyone remember Columbine?

Seriously. The notion that a fruitcake like this would've/could've killed LESS people without guns is only marginally true. A guy so motivated to be a nut job would've found the... well...say, INTERNET and figured out how to make bombs. Come on y'all. Remember the Oklahoma City Bombing? Pretty scary huh.

Ok- so, now we've shown that someone with a few bucks and an internet connection DOES NOT need a gun to murder people. I'd suppose that someone with a gun might find it less labor intensive, but I don't think people that engage in these activities are concerned with a little contemplation.



CAN I GET AN AMEN SISTER??????

The fact is that people carrying weapons at least have the chance of deterring gun related violence. Oddly, I don't carry anymore, even though I have a license (mostly because I'm too lazy to keep the gun clean, etc).

from Vladimir
[quote]
Many gun advocates appear to live in a world where there is a narrow and fairly readily identified class of committed criminals, and everyone else is a perfectly rational, cool-headed straight shooter in both the figurative and literal senses. No worry about being acidentally hit when one of these nobel citizens draws his 357 magnum and blasts it out with a robber at your local 7-11. No worry about cutting one of these cool heads off in traffic, either. Heck no. Let a cornucopia of handguns flow forth.[/b]

Let's be realistic. Guns in the US cannot be controlled by legislation. Sure, some gun crime might be deterred, but what about Ax crime? Chainsaw crime? Let's not even discuss bombings, etc. You have a point about road rage, but it's a dual edged sword in that how much crime is stopped by having a gun? No one knows. It's not a stat that the US Dept of Justice can objectify...

In the US, guns are a part of our culture. It's a part of our "wild west" mentality. The ability to own firearms is entrenched in our culture and values. Legislation would never reach into the homes of Americans and stop guns from flowing freely. It would just force illegal gun purchases and MOST IMPORTANTLY probably put millions of Americans out of work (i.e. the Brady Bill). Frankly, which is worse?

What I'm suggesting is that gun control laws don't stop crime (as this thread has shown time and time again... i.e. Mrs P's post/links). In the US, attempting to stop the flow of guns would create MORE criminals, in that owning a gun/buying one would be a crime.... then it would also create a situation where the hunting industry, the gun industry, and all "cottage" industry related to guns/ammo would put people out of work. Silly man. Just silly.

Thoroughly twisted logic. The fact is the majority of “gun crime” and killings is done by career criminals in the inner cities – many of whom have been arrested numerous times. So for you to ask me to pay for this is so ludicrous as to be not worth talking about.

And if you want to do this – how do you feel about cars? Man/woman gets drunk and kills people with car – (a FAR worse problem than “mass murder” or even total “gun crime”) – to the tune of about 20,000 people a year. Should you pay a surcharge in the cost of your car – which you (hopefully) drive sober? Of course not. We could also go after the “alcohol” product. And beyond the 20,000 car deaths add a few 100,000 people in illness and death. Cost = MANY billions. Shall I go on? The medical profession comes to mind with 90,000 + deaths a year, because of medical errors, which equals about eight 31 person massacres a DAY, every day of the yea!.

Cars are not designed to kill people; they are designed to get people from Point A to Point B. There are risk factors involved in driving, but cars are not designed as people-killers (except maybe the Ford Pinto). Guns are. That is their primary design and purpose - to kill.

Alcohol was also not formulated to kill people. Alcoholic beverages are not arsenic based (at least not as far as I know). Fermentation is a natural occurence, and alcoholic beverages alone are not lethal. Too much is definitely lethal, and too much combined with testosterone and weapons is a lethal mix, but the basic product is not lethal when used as directed.

(oh, and by-the-by, both cars and alcohol are taxed up the wazoo)

Shall I go on?

Again a poor argument – guns are designed to defend, protect, target and sporting shoot etc. And regardless of the fact that they can kill – so can, and DO cars. Etc.

Guns if used properly defend and protect, and allow for sporting enjoyment, hunting etc. Same for cars, alcohol and doctors. The fact that the result of the actions of a few and their effects on us all is what we are speaking of here. Clearly doctors save lives and also, when they make errors, cost lives. Same for cars. Alcohol can be enjoyable but when abused it costs individuals and society.

Same for guns, which protect (without killing) and have other purposes.

Introduction

There are approximately two million defensive gun uses (DGU's) per year by law abiding citizens. That was one of the findings in a national survey conducted by Gary Kleck, a Florida State University criminologist in 1993. Prior to Dr. Kleck's survey, thirteen other surveys indicated a range of between 800,000 to 2.5 million DGU's annually. However these surveys each had their flaws which prompted Dr. Kleck to conduct his own study specifically tailored to estimate the number of DGU's annually.

Subsequent to Kleck's study, the Department of Justice sponsored a survey in 1994 titled, Guns in America: National Survey on Private Ownership and Use of Firearms (text, PDF). Using a smaller sample size than Kleck's, this survey estimated 1.5 million DGU's annually
.
There is one study, the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), which in 1993, estimated 108,000 DGU's annually. Why the huge discrepancy between this survey and fourteen others?
http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcdguse.html

ANNIE GET YOUR GUN


The police don't have to protect you
For those women who think that just because they call 9-11 when a couple of big bruisers break into their home - if they even have the time or opportunity to get to the phone - that the police are obligated to run right over and save their bacon are wrong. Dead wrong. Not here in California and many other states. Anyone can look up these appellate cases and find out that the courts have repeatedly ruled that law enforcement do not have a duty to protect you or your property:
Gun control makes victims of women

"The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes....Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man. Thomas Jefferson's "Commonplace Book," 1774-1776, quoting 18th century criminologist Cesare Beccaria in Chapter 40 of "On Crimes and Punishment", 1764.
http://www.newswithviews.com/Devvy/kidd38.htm

I suppose it would be a waste of time to ask you (again) to support your wild assertions Ted? Sadly in this case that would be impossible, as this is a perfect example of you just making things up again.

As we can see when we actually research issues s opposed to just making things up, 43% of all murders occur in family or close personal relationships, and of the remaining percentage, only a small fraction (about 16% are felony murders, the rest. Gang and juvinile gang killings add up to less than 8% of the total. In fact according to the FBI, very few of the murders in the US are committed by 'career killers', most are committed by otherwise reasonably law abiding people angry due to argument or family circumstance, and having a gun nearby.

http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_04/offenses_re...ime/murder.html

Ted, in all humility, please, PLEASE stop making things up.



Personally I would suggest you have to take an extensive training course, pass a test and have a liscence in order to own a car, as well as having the car registered by the government. Do those sound like reasonable suggestions Ted?

Please, this whole 'cars kill more people' argument is UTTERLY irrelevant. Yes, cars kill more people than guns every year. And smking kills more people than cars, so should we not worry about car deaths? And Heart disease kills more people than smoking, so should we not worry about smoking? The point doesn't even make basic logical sense.



Its funny Ted, I responded to your LAST post by asking you to justify this '90,000 deaths a year because of medicine' comment with some evidence. Of course, you cut-and-run as normal and never responded. Yet here you are repeating the exact same wild assertion. Not only wild assertion, but irrelevant wild assertion.

Tell you what Ted, if you actually believ your own rantings, then may I make a suggestion? next time you get really sick, DON'T go to the hospital or see an evil killing 'doctor', just stay home and cradle your gun. After all, according to you its much safer!

Umm... I assume this is directed at me, BD? I'm not even sure what you mean by "everybody agrees with me". Do you mean everybody agrees that this is a major tragedy committed by a sick person? Or do you mean my non-stated position on gun ownership?

No, this thread has devolved into, sadly, a gun-control debate. Where the usual suspects take an ideologically entrenched position with no acknowledgment that there are merits to each other's arguments.

What else would this be a debate about?

Except for a few really twisted posts at places like DU and dKos - who doesn't agree this is a tragedy? Who doesn't grieve for the victims and families? Who doesn't wish this didn't happen?

And only a fraction are gun – 70%. No doubt you think the murder would not have happened if no gun was available??? Proof???

What is the weapon of choice in city crimes, drug crime? Do you think guns are involved here?? Or harsh language.?

http://www.morganquitno.com/cit05pop.htm#CITIES

Is it your conclusion that the “firearm death rate” of a city like DC is “home violence” – in a city where “home guns” are outlawed (see link) . The key to your error is this phrase - family or close personal relationships.
Yes the drug dealers do know each other and some may even be “close”. You can bet that the check box on the police form reads “did the victim know the assailant” or something to that effect

And again I keep saying and you refuse to reply – SHOW ME correlation between gun ownership in the US and gun crime. There is none – so continue to duck the question.

This is off topic and my last response to you


http://www.statemaster.com/graph/cri_mur_w...ate-per-100-000



.


Half of everything you ever post is undocumented – so please give me a break. You could have looked this up yourself in 1 minuet.
I was wrong - its 98,000

Too often, health care consumers do not receive the recommended basic care, and what they do receive varies widely from standard practices established by national health care experts. But that is just the tip of the iceberg. An Institute of Medicine report has estimated that as many as 98,000 people die each year from medical errors during a hospital stay. Much of this could be avoided if patients had more information about insurer practices and physician and hospital success rates.
Despite its reputation for high quality, the U.S. health care system has no way to systematically assess and reward high quality care.
http://www.dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm?kaid=139&am...;contentid=3600

This debate should be about murder-control, not gun-control. While I do favor gun-control, I don't believe this massacre would have been prevented with tougher gun statutes. Where there is a will, there is a way. This character certainly had his own will, and the Second Amendment gave him his way. I would never be so naive to suggest, however, that had he not had legal access to firearms, he wouldn't have obtained them illegally, and this atrocity would not have been committed. Tougher gun laws might prevent homicides, but I don't believe they would prevent mass murders.

IMO, one does not necessarily need to have a mental-defect (for lack of a better term) to pull the trigger of a firearm aimed at another human being. One does, however, need to have such a defect to pull the trigger of a firearm aimed at another human being, one or more times, and at 32 people, one-by-one.

If your plan is to callously, and not to mention illegally, take the lives of dozens of others, would legality be of any question to you in how you obtain your weapon? Would a denied permit application stop you?

No, THAT's a poor argument. Guns are not designed to do all that. Guns are by design a lethal weapon, designed to propel a lead projectile at extremely high velocity into a body to inflict damage, if not death. If it were designed for nothing more than target practice, what is the point of the myriad of lethal ammunition? Why not blanks? Why not paint guns, for that matter?

Edited to add:

I agree - to a point. I think there are many of these sick individuals who are too cowardly to use other methods when an easy-to-use, more effective method is available, i.e. guns. Guns make cowards feel brave and powerful, and able to do things they normally couldn't do. Add the narcissistic poor-me mentally-ill types, and you have a situation like we saw at Virginia Tech.

Well, yes technically 70 percent is a fraction. a rather large fraction, in fact a large majority.

Proof that the murders would not have happened if not for guns? How about in EVERY other comparable first world country there is NO such easy access to guns, and the murder rate is a THIRD of that of the US?

But there is more. If you look at the methodologies for the murder, the difference is ENTIRELY firearms. The murder by gun rate in the US is 71% of all murders. in Canada, the murder by gun rate is 32% of all murders. That means that the murder rate in Canada and the US for NON-FIREARMS is almost exactly the same. Add guns, and you get triple the murder rate. Those stats are pretty hard to ignore even for you.



Sadly no Ted, this is you making things up again. The FBI webpage I provided actualy breaks the relationship to killer down quite specifically, also circumstances of killing, and in fact narcotics related and gang related form a very small fraction of the total. So much for that assertion.




Firstly, that is you making things up again Ted: I back up the assertions I make.
Secondly, when people CHALLENGE me or ask for evidence I did not provide, I don't cut-and-run, I provide the link, I had to ask you half a dozen times before you decided to provide a link so don't sare sount outraged. I'm STILL waiting for evidence on a dozen more of your inventions, many of which (like 19 Democratic plans or $200 barrel of oil) you have been asked for time and time and time again.

None the less, to be fair, you did provide this one finally, and for that I thank you. So I take it you will be following my suggestion, and playing with you gun instead of visiting your doctor next time you get sick? That was your reason for drawing that bizarre analogy, wasn't it?



Thank you for providing a link though. I'll keep it for next time you go on a tirade about how the US medical system is the best in the world.



By the way, saying guns are designed for target practice is like saying cars are designed to rev their engines.

I read or heard somewhere earlier this week that we have had guns in America for some 400 odd years.....yet the phenomena of the violent massive shootings seems to be more of a recent phenomena. This begs the question...what changed?

Certainly not the availability of guns. Guns have always been available. Even today with all the laws that are in place, there are something on the order of 250 million firearms in this country. Even if more restrictive laws are put into place, i'm not sure of what the effect of this will be. Certainly laws put into place over the last 25 years (including the Brady Bill) wasn't able to stop Columbine, or VA Tech, or Paduchah or the Amish schoolhouse shooting, etc. etc. For that matter, the myriad of gun laws wasn't able to stop the lunatics who caused Oklahoma City or 9/11 or the London Subway bomber or the Tokyo Sarin gas attack.

I am neither a gun owner nor a gun control advocate. I am neutral in the debate. My only concern is that if we are going to try to take steps to stop these terrible events from occuring then the steps we take MUST be effective and not just another feel good measure. Alas, I fear that their really is no law that we can pass to stop a suicidal/homicdal person from finding a way to lash out at the rest of us. But I am open to listening to all.

How about focusing on early intervention of troubled people when there clearly were warning signs? How about better public address systems designed to let students & faculty know about deadly situations earlier? How about information sharing between law enforcement and university affairs so that things like stalking do not go unnoticed? Did the family have indications of his troubles? If so, what could be done to better engage families (and immigrant families in particular) with our public health systems? Would better security have helped? Would the ability to lock doors have helped?

There are many, many, many questions to discuss having little or nothing to do with gun control.


You should ask BD this question as I didn't understand what he was getting at.

Come on read what I post. How is it the city which has the highest gun deaths in the country – DC also have a law against personal firearm possession?? The guns are illegal by DEFINITION and people using them are criminals by definition.

But lets not go on – its off topic and you keep making comparisons to other countries which are not valid. The US is not going to ban guns – will not happen - and since you love to badger me but refuse to respond to my many requests for any – ANY correlation between legal gun ownership and gun deaths I give up. Its one question the ludicrous data you look to falls down.

Guns are in 50% of all households, except in some large cities like DC and NY where they are prohibited – yet gun violence is not evenly distributed is it. In fact it seems to concentrate where guns are not in the hands of citizens – get the paradox.
I don’t expect you to ever respond to this because there is no way you can. So sadly I will wait forever.



You lost me. And another “no response” is the fact that guns defend far more people than they kill. You love to “pass over” points you don’t want to address and then accuse others of “not reaponding”. – ya Riiiiiiigt pal.

No more response here to your off topic posts.

3. How can such massacres be avoided in the future?

This tragedy hopefully will spur schools and police departments to pay more attention to security at campuses and anywhere large numbers of people gather. The technology is out there and needs to be implemented.

Clearly after the first shooting which happened before classes started for the day the school should have been closed. The total incompetence of the police there is shocking. Do we even know if the University President was notified after the first shooting? How could he have decided to allow classes for the day?

OK here we go again. The arguement that if one bans guns then only criminals will have guns is a retorical statement, and I am not going to waste my time on it as it has NOTHING to do with the realities of the issue. The reality of the issue is this so long as we are happy to make ourselves easy prey that is what we shall be. In the case of the crazed husband taking his wife and kids hostage and boarding himself in his house that has nothing to do with a gun. My how the masses are so quickly decieved! 9/11 not one single fire arm was used. A man can just as easily take his family hostage with the steak knife off the dinner table. How quickly the masses forget. It is not the gun, the knife, the arrow, the spear, or the sword that kill it is the man who weilds them, just as it is not the gun, the knife, the arrow, the spear, or the sword that dies it is the victim. Man has been killing man since the dawn of time. It is the nature of such evil that it will prey on the defenseless, for the defenseless are easy prey. How many would a man with a knife kill if all were defenseless. The change must first be in our heart that we will not be be victims. A coward with a gun is a fool or a madman, yet the same is true of us when we lay down our defenses and shout to the hunters come prey on us. I for one will not lay down a sheep before wolves that seek to devour us. Si viz pacem para bellum - if you wish for peace prepare for war, not because we desire to fight, but so we may defend against those who do. How much blood would have been shed on that campus if we were not without tools to defend against such acts? We have become soft. We forget why blood is shed we think that tyrants and oppressors are foreign goverments and madmen are dictators and terrorist, and we forget the ones that live among us as normal men. The travesty is that had an armed individual stoped tuesday's gunman after the gunmans first victim he would be a criminal by law when he should be a hero. The evil we fight against is the coward who preys on us because we choose to be prey. One of the first "rights" set forth in the constitution is life, and our forefathers faught for that right with guns and paid for it in blood, not because they wanted to kill or die but out of the recognition that that was what was what it required. They sought to ensure the continuation of our rights and freedoms by the second amendment. We so easily recognize our enemies abroad that would seek to take our freedom from us, but so quickly we forget the ones that stand on our soil. We must remained armed and vigilant, not because we are muderous barbarians, but because we must defend ourselves against our enemies who would destroy us. Yes the second amendment places guns into the hands of people like Cho Seung Hui, that is no arguement, it also places guns in our hands to defend against such. We as a nation need to take personal responsibility for that. How much blood will it take to awaken us to that fact? The blood of 1 innocent victim is on the hands of a killer the rest is on those who choose not to stop him. How many would have died had it been 2 men as at Columbine? How many if he had not ended his own life? How long will we lie down and not defend against the enemy within our gates

I already addressed this twice Ted, and you ignored it. Then you made the assertion again and I directed you to the post where I addressed it, and you ignored it. Are you even trying?

Putting limits on firearms in a municipality when one can drive 5 minutes to 100 meters outside the city limit and obtain guns is hardly an effective method of gun control Ted, thats just basic logic 101.



Firstly:: Ted... I'm stunned. In my LAST POST I just laid out very clear evience linking guns to gun deaths, complete with argument and sources. You COMPLETELY ignored it and then have the gall to accuse me of not answering your question? Are you for real? Do you actually imagine anyone reading your post does not instantly realise how utterly transparent and shabby a tactic that is?

But hey, I'll play your bizarre little game, and repost exactly what I posted last time in the hopes you won't deliberately cut-and-run this time.

"Proof that the murders would not have happened if not for guns? How about in EVERY other comparable first world country there is NO such easy access to guns, and the murder rate is a THIRD of that of the US?

But there is more. If you look at the methodologies for the murder, the difference is ENTIRELY firearms. The murder by gun rate in the US is 71% of all murders. in Canada, the murder by gun rate is 32% of all murders. That means that the murder rate in Canada and the US for NON-FIREARMS is almost exactly the same. Add guns, and you get triple the murder rate. Those stats are pretty hard to ignore even for you.

Secondly: there you go making things up again. Not only have i NEVER advocated banning guns, I specifically stated banning guns would not happen in the US as it was against the second amendment. Why do you keep making things like that up Ted?



Ah Ted... sadly, this is you making things up again. This isn't the reality, this is just what you WISH the reality would be. I won't keep you waiting at all to show how wrong you are:

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=60641

"In these analyses, states within the highest quartile of firearm prevalence had firearm homicide rates 114% higher than states within the lowest quartile of firearm prevalence. Overall homicide rates were 60% higher. The association between firearm prevalence and homicide was driven by gun-related homicide rates; non-gun-related homicide rates were not significantly associated with rates of firearm ownership."

http://arts.bev.net/roperldavid/politics/GunDeaths.htm

The final two charts show clearly, the states with the laxest gun control laws have the highest gun death and murder rates.

http://www.statemaster.com/graph/cri_mur_w...ate-per-100-000

Same thing here. With the exception of DC, the states line p perfectly, the states with the highest murder rates all have the laxest gun control laws.

http://www.senate.gov/~levin/newsroom/release.cfm?id=209169

"States With More Guns Have More Gun Deaths Among Children "


Sufficient for you? I'm afraid all this proves you were just making things up again Ted...




You need to prove assertions like that Ted, or even demonstrate thay are anything more than more made-up ted-stuff. I am not here to do your work for you. besides, my original responses to you (from which you cut-and-ran, surprise!) was asking why, if it ISN'T guns, Americans murder each other with such gusto, triple the average of your first world peers?

No No no no. Stupid argument with no relation to reality. Yes criminals who get illegal guns and who are fighting over billions in drug money kill each other. Esp. if they are never prosecuted for one crime after another. But I live in a town with THOUSANDS of guns and we have ZERO gun crime. Get it – no correlation. If “guns” caused gun crime then “gun crime” would be distributed as guns are – and this is NOT the case. It seems you apparently know nothing of statistics or you might understand.



As I said foreign date assumes all other things are equal – but I am shocked. In a county that does not citizens to have guns the rate is fully one third of the US rate? I am shocked.



Come on please. This is pure crap. Try Mr. Lott’s study.
http://www.johnrlott.com/
Several states are considering adopting "Vermont-style" concealed carry legislation. Most of the Carry Concealed Weapon (CCW) laws in the country require citizens to first get permits. But in a couple of states, like Vermont, citizens can carry a firearm without getting permission . . . without paying a fee . . . or without going through any kind of government- imposed waiting period. There are many reasons for a state to adopt a genuine right to carry law:
Vermont has a genuine right to carry law (i.e., requires no permits) and yet boasts one of the lowest crime rates in the nation
A. Vermont enjoys the 49th lowest crime rate in the nation, according to the FBI:

Violent Crime (1997)
rate per 100,000 people
Rank State Rate
1st Florida 1023.6
2nd South Carolina 990.3
U.S. average 610.8
49th Vermont 119.7
50th North Dakota 87.2
B. The FBI statistics also show that Vermont boasts the 47th lowest murder rate among the 50 states:

Murder (1997)
rate per 100,000 people
Rank State Rate
1st Louisiana 15.7
2nd Mississippi 13.1
U.S. average 6.8
47th Vermont 1.5 48th New Hampshire 1.4
49th South Dakota 1.4
50th North Dakota .9



This is why I am done with you sir. I POSTED the link to get to the government data – try reading it. Here it is again.
Same for guns, which protect (without killing) and have other purposes.

Introduction

There are approximately two million defensive gun uses (DGU's) per year by law abiding citizens. That was one of the findings in a national survey conducted by Gary Kleck, a Florida State University criminologist in 1993. Prior to Dr. Kleck's survey, thirteen other surveys indicated a range of between 800,000 to 2.5 million DGU's annually. However these surveys each had their flaws which prompted Dr. Kleck to conduct his own study specifically tailored to estimate the number of DGU's annually.

Subsequent to Kleck's study, the Department of Justice sponsored a survey in 1994 titled, Guns in America: National Survey on Private Ownership and Use of Firearms (text, PDF). Using a smaller sample size than Kleck's, this survey estimated 1.5 million DGU's annually
.

http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcdguse.html



Well said and I agree. We live in a country where guns are legal and always will be – and for good reasons. Yet we often fail to do the basics of being prepared for their misuse. The police and school administrators in VA are at fault here. Clear negligence – which has cost us some fine citizens and will cost this school and town millions.

Crimes of passion where guns are used on family members and people the agressor already know are usually commited with the closest available weapon take the guns away and you still have fire pokers, baseball bats, tire irons, golf clubs, kitchen knives, and let's not forget the number of people who are strangled or beaten to death with some one's bare hands, and the list goes on. Cho could have in fact killed more people if he had done so one at a time with such a silent weapon as a knife and the only sign would have been missing students or a body if it were done and left in the open. A gun has a very distinct and LOUD sound leaving no one to doubt what is going on.
"Let the police handle it" 2 hours people and 32 dead and nearly just as many wounded before he turned the gun on himself. What did the police do to stop him? Who was there to protect over 50 innocent and unarmed victims against 1 lone gunman? The course of present events is screaming in our face. We are loosing a war on our own soil. A war not fought by foreign armies or powers, but by our neighbors, our co-workers, and sadly our young. The soldiers sent against us have been high school students, milkmen, college students, husbands, fathers, wives, gang members, pimps, drug dealers, mailmen, terrorist, and serial killers. Make no mistake, however, it is a war. It is a war against those who would threaten our security, freedom, and our very lives. The attacks are increasing in number and in magnitude. Still we sit and believe it won't happen to us. The students on Tuesday went to class as usual thinking they were safe. How many attacks will it take? How many VA Techs? How many Columbines? How many amish schoolhouses? How many World Trade centers? How many Oklahoma Cities? How much blood will be shed? How may lives lost? What is the price to finally wake us up to the fact that we are at war! A war against evil that seeks to take our freedom and our lives. "Do not rape, do not kill, these are truths that every man of every faith can apraise..." - Boondock Saints. So let's stop talking about laws for a minute, and answer one question - when it is you who is facing death at the hands of such a person whether it be by gun or not and you are powerless to stop them what will be your thoughts. Yes of course family and friends, but at that one moment what would you want? The power to stop him or to die? "The dead know only one thing it is better to be alive" - from the Stanley Kubric film "Full Metal Jacket".
No longer can we afford to be so foolish to think "it won't happen to me" we must instead make realistic defenses against it.
Si viz pacem para bellum

Well, Krash, this is your second rant about the "enemy within", and a call for devising a "realistic defense" against same. Do you have a solution as well?

Oh, and Krash - just some friendly advice - paragraphs go a long way towards both readability and understanding.

Paragraphs yes noticed that myself when I went back and reread.

Now as to the rest. This time I promise not to "rant" to much about the "enemy within".

Niteguy to answer your question objectively I only see two possible realistic solutions. One is martial law with armed soldiers on every corner enforcing a complete ban on firearms, stoping civillians, conducting searches, etc. The second is that we our selves excercise our constitutional right to keep and BARE arms. Such events are part of why the second amendment exists in the first place "to defend against all enemies foreign and domestic"

First and foremost ,however, we must have a change in our hearts. We must decide to defend ourselves. A gun in the hands of a person who refuses to be willing to use it to defend himself may as well be a paper clip. There are also instances where unarmed people have over powered people with guns.

I myself am just such a suvivor, and not just one occasion but two, where I was attacked by men with guns and I managed to overpower them. The first I was unarmed against a shotgun. The second I was attacked in my home by a man with a rifle and I had a small hand gun which I chose not to use. Both times I was fired upon in close quarters, and both times I was able to disarm and disable my attacker without firing a single shot.

It is not without first hand knowledge that I write on this, and am here to do so because I am not a victim, I am a survivor. I CHOOSE to be a survivor.

The failure lies in our hearts. We are not willing to risk ourselves to save our fellow man, even such that we will turn our heads to ignore a fight or someone being beaten. We don't want the trouble of having to go to court and testify, or risk getting hurt trying to intervene for a stranger. The best the victim can usually hope for is that some passer by might be good enough to call the police.

I personally have seen police response times at over a hour. I also know of times when they didn't show up at all and the victim had to go to the department to file a report several hours and several 911 calls after the incident started. I have also seen people put on hold calling 911 for over 45 mins.

The only realistic solution that doesn't involve throwing the constitution in the rubish can is that we fully excercise our 2nd amendment rights. I am not, however, saying that you personally have to carry a gun, just that those who would justly excercise that right should be able to.

I am more speaking on the apathy that is the root of the problem. We have to be willing to fight for our lives armed or not. Example 15 people in the first classroom. Do you have any idea how long it would take to accuratly target a "kill shot" on 15 different targets? More time than it would have taken to reach the gunman. Maybe the element of suprise can account for the first classroom but there were 19 more killed after that.

We have to be willing to risk everything to stop someone like that. Another example; four airplanes with aproximately 300 people each highjacked by men with weapons such as box cutters. We know what happened there, right? How many lives would have been saved if more people had stood up and fought?

That is what must change, for if it doesn't all the guns in the world will not help us defend our selves, and that is my arguement.

Now there were a few statements that I think needed to be corrected. For one whoever it was that made the statement "guns weren't made to kill". THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT THEY WERE MADE FOR IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!! Whether it man or animal it was made to KILL. Target shooting only became a sport after guns became acurate enough to hit something.

Cars weren't made to kill people. PEOPLE USE CARS AS WEAPONS AND PURPOSEFULLY RUN DOWN AND KILL PEOPLE. Dynamite was discovered as a mining tool look where that went.
Baseball bats
Golf clubs
Claw hammers
Tire irons
Shovels
Pick axes
Chainsaws
Even a harmless pillow

People have, do, and will continue to kill people. They will do so for any number of motives from "he raped my sister" to "the voices in my head said to".

Look at the overall per capita number of homicide victims rates on this chart. With the exception of Hawaii, the lowest ten have liberal gun laws. We’ll use the Brady site to judge, and pick the ten worst states from the list and the ten best at the bottom. They’ve made it easy with a report card score A through F…ranked the strictest gun laws to the most liberal, respectively.

Taking the lowest ten (lowest rates of homicide victims), the grades are
Vermont- D,
Oregon- C,
Utah- D,
Hawaii- A,
Montana-F,
Iowa- C,
S Dakota- D,
Maine- D,
N Hampshire- D
N Dakota- D

Worst homicide rates:
Louisiana- F
Maryland- A
Mississippi- F
N Mexico- F
Nevada- F
Illinois- A
Tennessee- D
South Carolina- D

So...of the ten safest states one has an A, one a C and the rest Ds and Fs. Of the ten most likely to kill you, there are two As and the rest Ds and Fs.There isn't much to base a judgement either way. If strict gun laws lowered the homicide rates in the best ten states, then they were twice as likely to increase the rates in others (being twice as often represented). So, although there seems to be a relationship between gun availability and gun crime, there doesn't seem to be a relationship between gun availability and homicide rates....odd though that may seem.

The best way to determine if gun control makes a difference for homicide rates within the CONUS is to look at the impact it has had on each individual state when enforced. New York has experienced a phenomenal drop in rates of homicide, yet even when the rates were off the map, they had the country's strictest gun laws. Their law enforcement changed, not the gun laws. Florida on the other hand, has experienced a large drop since the right to carry laws went into effect. Of course, both of those examples are not enough to "prove" anything either...it could have been any number of reasons. I'd have to do an in- depth breakdown of gun law in America to form a legitimate conclusion and unfortunately I don't have the time.

I don't disagree with this statement at all, for the most part.


Maybe, maybe not. Bear in mind that the students were all in desks at the time. Once Cho walked in and started shooting, they first would have had to have gotten over the initial shock of the action, make a concious decision to do something, and then get up out of those desks, and maneuver around them to get to the door. In each classroom. I noted in several of the interviews that students in the other classrooms, didn't know at first what the sound was they were hearing. And all of this from mostly kids who have probably had no real experience with serious violence.


It's easy to say things like this in hindsight, though Krash. In every single hijacking prior to 9/11, nearly everyone who got on the plane got back off safely by following the demands of the hijackers. Of course there have been a few who died because they were killed by the criminals when a deadline wasn't met, or something similar. But every other death was caused by someone playing hero.

September 11th changed that because, as we now know, the hijackers weren't intent on releasing political prisoners at home or picking up a large sum of cash. I also note that the passengers aboard the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania did attack the hijackers. But only after they found out from talking to loved ones on the ground that the palnes were going to be used as missles, and they were all likely to die anyway. Id didn't matter at that point if the hijackers really had a bomb, as they had advertised (they didn't), or if they took over the plane successfully or not. They realized they were not fighting for just their lives, but for the lives of whomever else might be at their intended target.

People will fight for their lives, given enough information on the situation, and a reasonable opportunity to do so. But I'm not sure the V-Tech incident was one of these, especially since no one on campus was supposed to be armed.

Also, bear in mind one thing. I've seen on other threads people say that this "rampage" by Cho lasted 2 hours. They are incorrect. After the initial shooting, Cho took a self imposed 2 hour time out. Once he started shooting the students in the classroms, it lasted all of about 7 minutes. And by the time the police got into the building and up the stairs, it was all over. Cho had already killed himself by that time.

Now with regards to the V-Tech incident, and living in a university town myself, I think it's rather foolish to call for putting concealed handguns into the possession of students in the classrooms. I've seen first hand the aftermath of poor decision making by a lot of students with regards to alcohol, for instance. I'm sure as hell not comfortable with allowing them all to carry concealed weapons. Professors, teachers and administrators, though, and I would have no argument.

YES. This is the key that the anti-gun crowd loves to ignore and on witch the NRA and gun rights advocated harp (to little result) constantly. Ask any street cop why gun crime drops and he will tell you simply that when the worst criminals are off the street (dead or in jail) the rate drops and visa versa. Yet the press fails to cover the courts where judges and DAs plea bargain and release gun crime criminals again and again.

The NRA formulated Project Exile in PA that sent the message to the streets that if you get caught with a gun in a crime you go to jail for 5 years. Gun crime dropped like a rock and as we can always expect the ACLU and “civil rights groups” protested the hell out of it. No good deed goes un punished.

If you`re a felon out on the streets of Philadelphia today, I dare you to carry a gun," Heston warned. "Because if you do, you will go to prison. No plea bargain, no discussion. Just a cold, hard federal prison cell. So go ahead -- carry a gun on these streets. To quote my good friend Clint Eastwood, `Make My Day`."

http://www.nraila.org/News/Read/Releases.aspx?ID=693


The best study of gun crime reduction based on liberalized “concealed carry” laws was done by economist John Lott. He does it county by county across the US.

See - http://www.johnrlott.com/



Exactly. With no one armed this man knew he owned the place. If he knew that statistically even 1 in 100 had a weapon or that there was armed security throughout the campus he may have not done this – or if he had someone would have put a nice .45 slug into his brain early on.

Mrs. Pigpen, let's add population and largest city to your top and bottom ten.

How can you possibly compare homicide rates in heavily populated states with large, densely-populated urban centers with states like NORTH DAKOTA , whose largest city is Fargo, fercryinoutloud??? (OK, I don’t know what South Carolina’s problem is, but still!) The population in those bottom 10 states is concentrated (and yes, more diverse) in much smaller areas (i.e. cities); thus more factors for violence. It isn't fair to say, look, Vermont has lax gun control and look at how few murders there are! when the entire state of Vermont has a population less than that of most major cities.

I was going to ask Ted for his source, since his observation was quite contrary to my understanding. Thanks for those extremely useful facts.

This facts constitute the main argument for gun control, and against the fantastic notion that the country would be safer if many people went around heavily armed.

krash0123 and many others here, would you please take note of the well-regulated militia proviso before you assert a supposed constitutional general right to keep and bear arms? Otherwise we are simply debating in Cloud-Cuckoo Land, not the United States. Ignorance is no sin, but stubborn ignorance is.



Ted, before demanding proof of some tangential point, you could at least acknowledge that the quoted facts directly contradict your own assertion here -- which you offered without proof.

Further, dear me, only 70% of murders are committed with guns?! Well then, how could anyone think that guns are a problem?

Oh for Pete's Sake Vladimir cut it out!

You don't need a degree in Constitutional law to read this for what it is!

the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed

It's very clear. Quite succinct and easily understood by anyone with a moderate command of the English language.

Since you seem to be having trouble let me write out for you:

You need a well regulated militia to have security in a Free State - to that end the People (of the Free State) have the right to keep and bear arms and that right will not be infringed.

It's really that simple.

Ted, before demanding proof of some tangential point, you could at least acknowledge that the quoted facts directly contradict your own assertion here -- which you offered without proof.

Further, dear me, only 70% of murders are committed with guns?! Well then, how could anyone think that guns are a problem?

So let me get you straight here – you say gun violence depends more on population density and other factors? You know the data is “per capita”. Don’t you.???

So what you are saying is what I have been saying all along – gun violence is not correlated with gun density (for lack of a better term) or with gun laws but somehow with populations – which infers population types, gangs, drugs, and enforcement. Brilliant and a perfect argument for dealing with those issues before we discuss the need for nation wide “gun control” which, as you point out is not correlated with “guns”. Thanks!

Do you have a gun at home in Long Beach?




If you want the data read John Lott (More Guns Less Crime) who spells it out clearly – or its not worth discussing.
http://www.johnrlott.com/

And you don't need a PhD in English to see that you are ignoring a conditional clause, one which, by the way, has been held by the courts as very strongly limiting the "rights" that you allege.

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment02/

The balance of this post is quoted from the Brady Campaign website.

In the early 1980s, the Supreme Court addressed the Second Amendment issue again, after the town of Morton Grove, Illinois, passed an ordinance banning handguns (making certain reasonable exceptions for law enforcement, the military, and collectors). After the town was sued on Second Amendment grounds, the Illinois Supreme Court and the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that not only was the ordinance valid, but there was no individual right to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment (Quillici v. Morton Grove). In October 1983, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of this ruling, allowing the lower court rulings to stand.

In 1991, former Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger referred to the Second Amendment as "the subject of one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word ‘fraud,' on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime...[the NRA] ha(s) misled the American people and they, I regret to say, they have had far too much influence on the Congress of the United States than as a citizen I would like to see - and I am a gun man." Burger also wrote, "The very language of the Second Amendment refutes any argument that it was intended to guarantee every citizen an unfettered right to any kind of weapon...[S]urely the Second Amendment does not remotely guarantee every person the constitutional right to have a ‘Saturday Night Special' or a machine gun without any regulation whatever. There is no support in the Constitution for the argument that federal and state governments are powerless to regulate the purchase of such firearms..."