I have a far greater chance of being struck by lightning than having any of those things happening.

Actually all it means is protecting yourself and your family. As noted guns save 1.5 – 2 million people a year from violence – and mostly without shooting.

Reality check – not all folks are nice people. Too often the rule is protect yourself or die.

Pick one.

Maybe it might be a good idea to go back to the original questions for debate.

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?

Both and neither. It will remain, for many years to come, in the memories of those who have been bereaved because of it. No doubt there will be stories in the media every once in a while for some years. ("Virginia Tech Ten Years Later" or some such. There are still a few articles about the tragedy at Kent State now and then.) However, after several days, the cold hard fact is that this horror is no longer news. It is also a fact that the American culture will not be changed in any lasting way by it.

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?

Little or none. Much talk, little action. This is because the talk will be going in all kinds of directions, much of it opposed to itself. Campuses will not cease being "gun free" zones, and there will not be stronger restrictions on legal ownership of guns. Mandatory prayer will not come back to public schools, and violent video games will not be banned.

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

They cannot be avoided. They will happen.

Sadly you are correct Victoria. I can tell you one thing for sure though – no one of my three boys will ever go to a college or University without a formal written security plan that is one hell of a lot better than the one at this University in VA.

This tragedy might not have been averted but IMO it did not have to be as bad as it turned out to be. We never question the bank having armed guards and all they are protecting is money. How much are or kids worth??

I never said give everyone a gun and teach them to be killers. What I did say in short was that anyone other than convicted violent offenders who is of a responsible enough age and properly trained should be able to purchase and carry a firearm.

By properly trained I mean trained on the acurate and effective use of a firearm. This should include lawful use of force. The same requirements taught to law enforcement officers. The objective of that training is to use the minimum amount of force necessary. That means "shoot to kill" is a last resort. A well placed shot to an assailant's shoulder can leave him unable to aim and fire his weapon, while still leaving him alive to stand trial.

I do not and will not support us becoming a nation of killers trained or otherwise. What I will support is our constitutional rights. The first of which allows us to express our views here.

The second of which allows each and every one of us, if we so choose, to keep and bare arms to defend our homes, our families, our lives, our rights, our country, and our way of life, against all those who would wrongfully take them from us.

That we should win such victories with words should be our greatest hope, but if that is not possible then let those of us willing and who so choose defend those things with our weapons and our lives if necessary.

May I point out that not one person has answered the question I posed: If you were facing an armed attacker, you were completely unarmed, and no one was there to save you which would you wish for, the right to defend yourself, or the right to die?

Yes I have a problem sacrificing my right to keep and bare arms. Do you have a problem sacrificing your right to free speech? Freedom of religion or lack there of? Freedom of assembly? Freedom from wrongful imprisonment? From search and seizure?

You think the moral fortitude of our politicians is such that they will lead us the same way if we sacrifice all our freedoms and give them absolute power? " Absolute power corrupts absolutly" and our politicians are corrupt enough as it is with the power they have. Just look at the white house Bush has lied to us, and Clinton wasn't any better when it came to the truth.

What we have that makes this country what it is isn't what the men we elect now do, but how we stand behind the rights given us by the men who founded this country.

Those kids were stitting ducks, sad to say.
I cant believe how we are being systematically taught to just stand by and be executed, and being led by the nose, in such an obvious move by our government- to do it voluntarily- to stand down and relinquish our only real method of defense against both criminals and totalitarian statehood.
There was a reason we were given by the Constitution the right to bear arms, because the government
has to worry about an armed population. Has anyone read the Patriot Act? Do you understand what 911 brought to the U.S?
Relinquishing arms has always been a harbinger of genocide against the masses, it was the first thing Hitler did, outlaw personal arms.
Its sad when people march voluntarily to their own demise.
The continual brainwashing of the public into apathy and methodical, robotic adhearance to authority, beyond our own instincts for survival-has become truly scary.
The government sets you up, to relinquish your own rights through fear. You give up your freedoms, you pathetically walk, right down the sheep and cow line to the slaughterhouse. Get your mercury infused flu vaccines and call for self induced disarmament. Why not just line up right now for Veri-chips and get this all over with faster?

This incident should call for every person to have a personal defense, as in firearm- available to them, NOT the converse.

No way, will I ever, in light of recent political and real time events call for gun control, and people who do it are severely mistaken, we need to be buying guns, not relinquishing them. Arms are your last line of defense, you have zero recourse when they take the guns away.

And as far as Cho, those kids and staff, who bought the no gun program, died, execution style with no recourse. Va has a conceal and carry law but it was outlawed on this campus. And so, those kids were executed, by fault of the gun ban, plain and simple. Two hours- in which the shooter allegedly ran to the post office to post a big dossier of a manifesto upon which he would go back and kill 30 more? Hahahaha. Wow, what an amazing tale! And all those kids were told to stay on campus, and they did. Dumbing down of a population if ever there was one.

Do the liberals think, defense? No, they call for gun control. Perfect! Fall right into the trap of gun control.
.
It was a 9mm semi automatic and a 22 caliber handgun. Not anything that would EVER fall under gun control regs, even IF any sort of gun control would happen. Unless you want to ban guns outright, and that is political and personal suicide, why do you think Bush came out Day One saying he supported the 2nd amendment?

Talk about derision and division. A polarization set up. Liberals, You are being manipulated! Kucinich just signed his political death warrent.

No, actually, he didn't: that is a bit of NRA fiction/ propaganda, oft repeated, but not true. See post #59 of this thread.




I think this is the single worst logical flaw of the whole 'arm everybody' argument, this illusory division of people into 'good' and 'bad'.

"Arm all the 'good' people so the 'bad' people will have more problems. Except in almost ALL of these cases, all of these school shootings, the people involved WERE the 'good' people you want to arm up until the point they went on a rampage. Few of these mass shooting perpetrators had criminal records, or prior indication they were about to go on a shooting spree. Gun stores can't sell guns only to 'good' people.

So take a step back and think for a moment: Imagine you have a 17 year old or so daughter, and you send her of to university. Do you want:

-Her to be in an academic environment where NOBODY except trained security personal have guns, OR

-Her to be in an environment where SHE has a gun, but so does every single freshman around her, the ones she goes to parties with, drinks with, dates, breaks up with, plays sports with, the good kids, the bad kids, the popular kids, the ostracised kids, the ones who want to sleep with her, the ones who are jealous of her, the top students, the failing students...

While you are thinking on that, keep in mind a few facts:
-The US has triple the homocide rate of the rest of the first world, and when you compare the methodology to Canada, for example it turns out ALL to be guns.
-The US has a higher incident of Deaths by ACCIDENTAL discharge of firearms per capita than the UK has of gun MURDERS per capita.
-The US is the first world nation with the most liberal gun laws, and yet is the scene of over 70% of the mass shootings among ALL its first world peers.

Christ, I remember my first year undergrad... I think back to my peers at the time and cannot fathom you actually want to ARM them all?



Lastly, the gun advocates engage in a bit of petty illusion to frame the debate, they try and pretend the ONLY two options are the status quo or 'gun banning'. This, of course is absurd.

Canada has almsot as many guns per capita as the US (though only longarms), Switzerland has MORE per capita than the US. Yet both have extensive gun legislation requiring permits which can only be obtained through passing a gun safety course and test, gun registration, safe storage laws, and requiring permits and ID to purchase ammunition.

As a result both have enormously lower rates of gun deaths.


In the rest of the first world, an angry and vindictive Cho could not have walked into a store and bought a handgun, period. Yet in Canada for example, hunters can hunt as much as they want, and incidents of accidental gun deaths are less than a TENTH per capita what they are in the US. Think on that.

Regulations Against Jews' Possession of Weapons
11 November 1938
With a basis in §31 of the Weapons Law of 18 March 1938 (Reichsgesetzblatt I, p.265), Article III of the Law on the Reunification of Austria with Germany of 13 March 1938 (Reichsgesetzblatt I, p. 237), and §9 of the Führer and Chancellor's decree on the administration of the Sudeten-German districts of 1 October 1938 (Reichsgesetzblatt I, p 1331) are the following ordered:
§1
Jews (§5 of the First Regulations of the German Citizenship Law of 14 November 1935, Reichsgesetzblatt I, p. 1333) are prohibited from acquiring, possessing, and carrying firearms and ammunition, as well as truncheons or stabbing weapons. Those now possessing weapons and ammunition are at once to turn them over to the local police authority.

§2
Firearms and ammunition found in a Jew's possession will be forfeited to the government without compensation.

§3
The Minister of the Interior may make exceptions to the Prohibition in §1 for Jews who are foreign nationals. He can entrust other authorities with this power.

§4
Whoever willfully or negligently violates the provisions of §1 will be punished with imprisonment and a fine. In especially severe cases of deliberate violations, the punishment is imprisonment in a penitentiary for up to five years.

§5
For the implementation of this regulation, the Minister of the Interior waives the necessary legal and administrative provisions.

§6
This regulation is valid in the state of Austria and in the Sudeten-German districts.

Berlin, 11 November 1938
Minister of the Interior
Frick

The Jews only went willingly to the gas chambers after their weapons were seized. Earlier gun registration laws made the seizure of Jewish weapons easy. We could more effectively lower the gun homicide rate by not allowing blacks and hispanics to have guns. If we gonna trash the 2nd Amendment let us go ahead and trash the 14th while we are at it. The equal protection clause nuts will most likely have a fit.

Info from Hispanics: A Statistical Portrait.



It seems when you factor out black and hispanic homicides that the white homicide rate is on par with the homicide rate of the rest of the western world. Yes, that pesky 14th Amendment is making effective actions to lower the homicide rate difficult.

Actually the Jews did not have gun rights removed from them, they had ALL rights removed from them. They were removed from german legal society. In the meantime in 1938 Hitler passed laws LIBERALISING gun rights for german citizens. Of course the NRA never tell you that...

And claiming the holocaust happened because of the removal of gun rights is so downright ignorant of basic history one might presume you are just trolling the board for responses.




So if you eliminate about 35% of the population which happens to contain segments of the poorest parts of American society, the crime rate drops! Thank you for that insight.

Sorry, forgot. Don't feed the trolls.

As all, but the gun control nuts, know Jews did not have all rights removed from them until after thay had their guns confiscated which occurred after they had their guns registered. Our pesky Constitution should prevent such atrocities occurring here. Yes blacks and hispanics get to keep their guns. The whole Constitution should be enforced. Not just pick out the parts you like. It seems like some people on this forum play pretty lose with the facts. To paraphrase Reagan It is some of the things they know that just ain't true that is kind of scary. Groups seldom lose all their rights instantaneously. Even under the Nazi's it took a few years to reduce the Jews to slaves and lampshades. Why don't we not start down that path?

30 odd college students were killed in this incident. Approximately 1500 college kids will die in alcohol related incidents this year. Maybe we should ban alcohol for individuals under 21...er, wait... I think we already do that. The school shooter is the equivalent of being struck by lightening. We really worry about the wrong things.



See, even you recognize there are factors outside of gun ownership effecting homicide rates. Maybe we just need to prevent gun ownership for those below a certain income level. Are the poor protected by the 14th?

Really Deng? You SURE about that? You posted a November 11th 1938 removing gun ownership right from the Jews in Germany. Now you amusingly contend that the Jews didn't have basic rights removed from them until AFTER this law. You also amusingly contend that confiscation occurred after Jewish gun registration.

Are you SURE about that Deng? We wouldn't want to find out you were completely factually wrong on everything you just posted, and were in fact just a troll on the board, now would we? Are you quite SURE the Jews didn't have their rights removed until after November 1938, and that the law you mention was preceeded by Jewish gun registration?


Here is a hint to help you answer that question: No, you aren't sure, because NONE of that is remotely true. Not even close.




And clearly your job here is to act as Exhibit A to this trend...

Would you like examples of further laws passed against the Jews after the confiscation of their weapons?Would the fact that they were sent to the concentration camps after their guns were confiscated interest you at all? I suggest you google "holocaust timeline". You might learn a thing or two.

Our basic rights are listed in the Bill of Rights. The Constitution may well not have been ratified without promises a bill of rights would be added. The 14th Amendement extended these basic rights to blacks originally and eventually all Americans. You don't bastardize the Constitution for some temporary so-called gain. There is sometimes blood shed in an open society. That is part of the price of liberty.

School shootings are abberrations. They are not worth shredding the Constitution to prevent.

My sincere apologies to all, I have propagated this silliness by feeding the well-known troll, something I should have known better then to do, especially when the trolling is so far off the original topic. I shall refrain from making this mistake hereafter.


Suffice to say that by November 1938 the Jews of Greater germany had already been stripped of all their most basic rights in a process started in 1933 with laws banning Jews from all government jobs, but which reached its head in 1935 with the denaturalisation laws, known as the Nuremburg laws of September 1935. At this time they had citizenship removed and all rights associated, and had marital and sexual relations between jews and non-Jews made illegal. In 1936 the law was extended to ban jews from ALL professional jobs in Germany, and Germans could not award contracts to jewish businesses. The following year Jews were prevented from attending german schools, and non-jewish doctors were prevented from treating jewish patients.

By the date you mentioned all rights had been removed from jews, they could not work for or associate with non-Jews, could not atend schools or universities, could not practice as doctors or lawyers (even among other jews) could not vote, had no legal recourse to civil courts and no protection under the law.

The November 1938 Law you cite was part of the final wave of legislation directly following Kristallnacht removing some of the few remaining rights from German jews.

I could lecture you more on your bafflingly ignorant comment regarding the beginning of the Hlocaust, which was in fact directed primarily at Jews of conquered territories (which had not been conquered yet), and the sequential evolution in German policy of forced exclusion, forced expulsion and ghettisation and then finally extermination, but that would be a waste of my time, and frankly I think the point that you have NO IDEA what you are talking about has been amply made.

Please do not try and speak with psudo-authority regarding a subject you know NOTHING about. may I suggest you read a book (ANY book) on the subject?


But then again, what do I know. I'm just an Oxford professor of Modern European History (MA, D.Phil OXON) Specialising in the interwar and beginnings of the second world war.


EDIT to add: Sorry, I forgot to mention that the November 1938 anti-Jewish gun legislation took place 6 months after the May 1938 Nazi law liberalising gun laws for all German citizens.

I also forgot to point out your invention about Jewish gun registration was ALSO completely factually wrong, there was no program to register Jewish guns before OR after 1938. Period. So much of what you said was utterly wrong, it's hard to refute it all at once. My apologies for the omission.

Let me repeat. No long blathering or name calling required. No need to label people trolls or cite academic credentials. No need to call people ignoramouses. The Jews were sent to the concentration camps after their guns were confiscated. A simple fact. Sure made it safer for the authorities when they rounded up the Jews. We still have a constitutional republic. Let us keep it that way.

Registration of guns comes first. In pre WWII Germany it happened in 1928. That existing law allowed Hitler to easily confiscate Jewish weapons which made rounding Jews up much easier. Don't need a Phd to understand that.



I hate to argue with someone with a PHd. I mean wow we know they are infallible but please explain to the common man; if all rights were removed why was legislation needed to remove gun rights? Maybe I, in my ignorance, do not understand the meaning of the word all.



Yes, and your statement that George Washington was of Chinese ancestry was also absurd.

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?

It may well cause a long lasting increase in dollars spent on university security. Mostly wasted dollars. The money spent will mainly only serve to make a higher education even more expensive. However, administrators will be under pressure to show they are doing something to minimize the threat of a mass shooting. It is a CYA world.

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 hope not. I see no action on gun issues. The gun debate is pretty well deadlocked between the lovers of liberty and those who seek to live in a police state. The one area where action may well occur is state or federal requirements to enact various security measures.

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

They can't. There is not a solution to every problem. Increased security needed to make a college campus nut proof would be prohibitively expensive.

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

I have argued that a trained, armed populace would have the best chance of avoiding such massacres in the future, but now I'd like to argue from history that even if gun control successfully disarmed criminals, it would have little effect on massacres. Here are the current top 4 non-military massacres of unarmed civilians by few perpetrators in the U.S. from Wikipedia's list of massacres. Guns were used in only one-- at Virginia Tech.

1. September 11, 2001: 2973 dead (not including 19 terrorists), 24 missing, approx. 4,000-16,000 wounded.
   Weaponry: 19-20 terrorists, 19 blades, 4 jets, 0 guns.
2. Oklahoma City, April 19, 1995: 168 dead, 800 wounded.
   Weaponry: 2 lunatics, 2.5 tons fertilizer and fuel, 1 truck, 0 guns.
3. Bath School, Michigan, May 18, 1927: 45 dead, 58 wounded.
   Weaponry: 1 lunatic, some dynamite, hundreds of pounds of tree stump remover (pyrotol), 0 guns.
4. Virginia Tech, April 16, 2007: 33 dead, 29 wounded.
   Weaponry: 1 lunatic, 2 guns.

I'm not saying that there haven't been far too many other single-perpetrator, dual-handgun, non-military U.S. massacres. After Va. Tech, the next two such crimes are the Luby's Massacre of October 16, 1991 (24 dead, 20 wounded) and the McDonald's Massacre of July 18, 1984 (22 dead, 19 wounded). Several others are listed here. Note that long guns were used about as frequently as handguns in similar massacres, so Canadian-style gun control wouldn't have stopped them all (if any of them).

To fit Va. Tech into the top four required a very narrow definition of similar massacres. The list includes dozens of U.S. massacres claiming more casualties than the one at Virginia Tech. Limiting the list to relatively few perpetrators narrowed results significantly, but even considering a large number of perpetrators would result in the same list. Here are a few notes about the omissions:

• There were many historical massacres involving Native Americans or Europeans, but all of these were considered military by one side or the other (although realistically most would not be considered legitimate military targets today).
• The Tulsa Race Riot of May 30-13, 1921 left 39 to 300 dead, 800 wounded, and 10,000 homeless; but both sides were armed, so it didn't fit my qualifications. Primary weapon was arson, although guns and gun control played significant roles.
• The Colfax Massacre of 1873 left about 105 dead, but one side was a militia and the other was also armed-- guns were the primary weapons.
• The Homestead Labor Union Strike of July 6, 1892 left 35 dead, but both sides were armed and a militia was involved-- canon, dynamite, burning logs, and oil slicks accompanied guns.
• The Jonestown Massacre (913 dead), the Branch Dividian Massacre (89 dead), and the Heaven's Gate Massacre (38 dead) were omitted because they involved cult suicide and/or government seige-- poison was the primary cause of death in these, but explosives, arson, and guns played a role.

Even if guns had never been invented, lunatics and extremists would continue to find ways to kill dozens or hundreds of people at a time, as they have in the past. The idea that gun control would have any effect at all on preventing massacres is ignorant of history, and proof that many of us seem to have already forgotten the most unforgettable recent events.

I agree with many gun control advocates that it should be at least as challenging to get a firearm license as a driver's license, but only from the perspective of public safety-- not the notion that it's a bad idea to defend yourself, nor that fewer people should own guns, nor that requiring a skill-based license to buy weapons would somehow reduce violent crime unless more good people chose to defend themselves. As others have pointed out, reducing gun ownership only results in a marked increase in armed robbery and other gun-related crimes. The goal of firearm education should be to reduce accidents and improve marksmanship, not to reduce ownership.

If single-shooter massacres have increased recently, it is certainly not because guns are any easier to get today than in the past; it has actually been somewhat more difficult to get guns in the U.S. since the Brady Bill and its offspring. The real reason for recent lunatic massacres is that fewer and fewer people value self-reliance, fewer and fewer people still believe they'll burn in Hades for being evil, and the combination encourages psychopaths and sociopaths, whom more and more people are willing to coddle as "victims" of antisocial personality disorder, which they label an unavoidable "disease" to be blamed on "gun culture" and childhood bullies. Many seem to believe that self-defense and marksmanship courses make you more fearful and less respectful instead of less fearful and more respectful. Is common sense completely dead?

As a thorough review shows, the specific weapon a lunatic chooses to commit mass murder is completely irrelevant-- no amount of gun control will ever remotely phase anyone hellbent on mass murder, and no level of police security will ever take the place of self-defense as a crime deterrent, so disarming more of us is exactly the WRONG direction to go. Quite the contrary, some recent gun massacres prove only that Americans are no longer as self-reliant as we used to be. We need to start to "speak softly, but carry a big stick" again. The original point of "you can't legislate morality" was that "laws don't make people good"; in other words, evil sickos will exist no matter how many laws restrict the freedoms of law-abiding citizens. So, in addition to championing education on "the difference between right (morality) and wrong (amorality/immorality)", we clearly need to start encouraging more self-reliance/self-defense again-- both lethal and non-lethal-- unless we'd really rather remain easy targets for lunatics than take personal responsibility for the reasonable protection of ourselves and our families.

Saying we need more guns is like saying booze is the antidote to a hangover. Many (most?) gun owners are not well-trained in the handling and firing of their weapons. More guns would just mean more dead and wounded, and the chances are those who die or are wounded won’t be the ones the gunner is shooting at. I can hear the gun nuts squawking already that they are crack shots, and have ice water in their veins and could outdraw Dirty Harry. But even police officers who, outside the military, are probably the best trained in the use of their handguns will tell you, in the heat of the moment, accuracy suffers. Fear and adrenaline will skew the aim of the best marksman. Unless you’re a Special Forces op (and maybe not even then), there’s a very good chance that the hail of bullets you unleash will a) not hit the intended target, will hit an innocent bystander, or c) make you an excellent target.

The lunatic is prepared, he knows where he’s going and what he’s going to do, and while Joe Gun Owner is surprised by the gun-wielding lunatic, and is fumbling for his weapon, he’s likely to be shot before he can save the day by killing the bad guy.

I'm not sure exactly how being armed would make one a more "excellent target" than not having a weapon would. You have, in your short post up there, misrepresented millions of Americans...unless you think that nearly every current and former soldier could not be trusted with their own firearms? It is, obviously, in their job description to counter enemy fire.

Furthermore, license to carry laws usually do require (at least in my experience, not sure about what states outside of Florida so) marksmenship training and testing. In Florida, I could not carry a gun legally without passing a written test, registering the gun, and proven accuracy at the firing range.

Come to think of it, this incident wouldn't have happened (quite as easy) if visiting aliens were not permitted to own weapons. Of course, I'm not sure even eliminating visiting foreigners from owning weapons would pass the Constitutional sniff test....as when the nation was founded it was comprised largely of foreign born residents. But maybe. Those visiting likely don't count as a part of the overall "militia".

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

Not to deliberately change gears on people, but has nobody considered the possibility that improving both the general social understanding (and subsequently treatment of) mental illness as a viable option? Not everyone who is mentally ill kills people, and not everyone who kills people has a mental illness; but to simply write off these incidents as evil and claim that the motivations behind it are inscrutable is the height of foolishness. This man was clearly mentally ill, and while I'm no psychologist, I'm fairly certain that allowing someone with violent fantasies, paranoid delusions and symptoms of depression to isolate himself in a stressful environment is not the best course of action.

We should treat mental illness sensitively, but Cho probably doesn't really qualify. His autopsy revealed a normal brain. If a neurological illness had been at play, it probably would have been found. He was probably not diagnosed as psychotic, but psychopathic, according to a number of experts paraded on CNN and FNC over the weekend. In other words, he didn't have a break with reality, but he had a firm grasp of reality and hated it. In this case, Cho was allegedly diagnosed with a mental illness only because he had a mindset intent on causing harm, not because his mind was incapable of choosing to do the right thing. In contrast, the 1966 UT sniper had a large brain tumor triggering psychosis.

Cho was probably released from care and returned to school only because he had no physical illness causing him to be a danger to himself or others, he had not (then) been convicted of any crimes, and this is still a free country. I don't know about Virginia, but in Texas psychologists and psychiatrists are compelled to report students they evaluate to be a "danger to themselves or others" (suicidal/homicidal/severe depression), and the student is not permitted to attend college again in the state, although it is possible to get the evaluation expunged or overruled. I suspect Virginia has similar policies, so the fact Cho was released to return to classes is further evidence he probably had no psychosis.

The motivations aren't inscrutable. Cho told NBC exactly why he planned and executed his massacre. Because he's only psychopathic and not psychotic, it's fairly easy to follow his thinking. He hated just about everybody, didn't want to fit in with them, gave up on ever trying to fit in to society, and decided he'd rather "go out in a blaze of glory", or any suicidal sociopath's perverse formulation of it. In other words, he was evil because he chose to be evil. We do no favors for those with real mental illnesses if we get them confused with those as deliberately evil as Cho.

Going along with this line of thinking, I remember reading briefly in the articles that Cho was taking antidepressants. Does anyone know if he had started taking them recently, or if he had been taking them at the time of the shooting? Because there's solid evidence that, for some people, taking antidepressants (especially fluoxetine, which is what is commonly found in Prozac, etc) causes psychotic behavior.


From the BMJ

In many states (like mine) you must belong to a gun club, and take a written and shooting test to get a license to carry. Vermont is an exception and has nearly the lowest gun crime in the nation.

The reality is that most people with “right to carry” permits don’t carry often. The number I have seen is about 10%. No one apparently reads the John Lott study I posted. If you would you would see a county by county study of the result of liberalized gun carry laws. The data shows a consistent drop in violent crime, esp. crimes against women, in counties (and states) where more people have the right to carry firearms.

The reason for this might be as simple as the introduction of uncertainty into the thinking of an attacker. If he/she believes a person “could be” armed (and kill him/her) he is less likely to attack. Lott did note that in some areas property crime rose – perhaps because the folks who would normally just bash a woman in the head and take her money had switched to “safer” property crime. In any case the results indicate that those folks who could care less about having a gun, much less carrying it, benefit form the “gun nuts” who own and carry weapons.

Now we cannot know if the nut in VA would have not gone on the rampage if he knew there were armed men about but it is certainly possible. What we do know is that even someone nervous and shaking had a far better chance of stopping this nut than people running in panic or trapped in rooms. Imagine if the brave man and Holacost survivor who tried to stop this man entering a room had a gun. He would have certainly shot this nut even if it meant his death.

Contrary to some news stories the killer was NOT carrying “high powered” weapons. One was .22 and the other a 9 millimeter. Both can kill you with enough shots. On the other hand one person with a .357 magnum or a .45 could have dropped this man with one shot.

I have worked with the mentally ill for over 20 years now, and unfortunately, have seen this so many, many times- where one of my former patients goes out and either

A) Commits "suicide by cop"
Kills some folks and commits suicide.

I think you are all on the very, very wrong track with the ENTIRE pro-con gun ownership.

It is about making the mentally ill either

A) Take thier damn meds whether they like it or not
Make them legally culpable for thier crimes- even ones they commit while in a mental institution.

This discussion has been all around my worksite many, many times.

I would bet 10,000 dollars that this guy has seriously assaulted at least one mental health worker. IF you work in this field- you wouldn't take that bet.

If you really want t see this kind of thing become very rare (the mass shootings is rare, but killing one or two poeple, or attacking someone, is no so rare)- then we need to start charging mental patients with assault and battery against health care workers while they are institutionalized.

There is this very, very common misperception that "crazy poeple don't know what they are doing and cant help themselves"- it is pure bunk.

I have seen the gravely disableed make good choices, and the high functioning make bad choices.

Believe it or not, yes ,there are "evil" mentally ill patients- and this was one of them.

I have known the sweetest, nicest individuals that have been horribly mentally ill, with over 50 admissions- and then guys like Cho, who have this evil seed inside, and blame it on the illness when they are out of control.

What we need is NOT a dialogue over guns- we need a dialogue over public safety and our treatment of the mentally ill bad guys.

WE don't need to criminalize mental illness, we need to criminalize violent behavior exhibited by SOME mentally ill folks.

I have seen hundreds, if not into the thousands, of assaults by mentally ill patients against staff, some of them we euphemistacally call "sentinal events"- where there was extreme injury to staff, and the DA refuse to press charges, and then, that very same patient going out and murdering children and such.

HAD they simply been charged with felony assault against the health care worker- that person would have had 0 further victims- because they would have thier right to refuse medication taken away, had a probation officer holding thier every move.

So, if we REALLY want to stop things like this by the mentally ill, we REALLY need the following

A) Mandatory minimum felony charges against any assault against health care workers, with mandatory minimum sentences, to ensure they spend At LEAST five years in prison for asault, wtih a criminal record and probation to follow them around and ensure they are following thier conditions of probation to the letter.

The removal of the mentally ill that commit crimes from HIPPA requirements- all confidentiality stripped away, and have to join a "violent offender" registraton list, just like with sex offenders.

Now- this is AFTER they have already commited a crime against health care workers- so we ARE NOT suggesting that we just start rounding up the mentally ill and charge them with crimes- what I am suggesting is that we charge them with crimes when they commit them, instead of letting them go and letting them go until they do something REALLY bad.

Before I went to work at my hospital (I can talk about this specific case, I am not breaking confidentiality, because I never saw his chart, as he had commited his crimes before I went to work at the hospital) -

we had been FORCED by a judge to allow former murderers- declared "not guilty by reason of insanity"- to go on work release- over the objections over nearly everyone in the hospital, despite testimoney that we knew one of these guys would kill someone. The judge was not wrong- the law was. When you put the words "NOT GUILTY" in front of the verdict- they have all the rights of every citizen, no matter what the crime.

Well, we had about 10 time bombs walking the street then- and one of them killed four teenagers in a park while robbing thier car. while on "work release"- his former crime? He had beaten his cousin to death! Yet- here he was, walking the street- with NO direct supervision!

Well, we did change the law to "Guilty but mentally ill"- so now, if you commit the crime while mentally ill, you ge a LONGER sentance, NOT a shorter one, because you have the burden of proof to prove you are no longer mentally ill, before you are released.

We really need to close up the loopholes that allow bad guys and bad females the right to harm poeple, and the poeple that KNOW they are evil, we need to stop muzzling them when we KNOW they are a menace to the innocent, stripping them of any confidentiality of treatment when they commit violence against others.

edited to remove unintentional smilies at innapropriate places

CR
I would bet 10,000 dollars that this guy has seriously assaulted at least one mental health worker. IF you work in this field- you wouldn't take that bet.



I agree and I heard more disturbing info last night from a man who was in grammar school with this nut. He relates that the boy was odd and as a result was verbally picked on occasionally. He also said that he got in some trouble in 8th grade for having a “list” of people he planned to “get”.

Clearly we need to have more of this data, while staying confidential, available to school administrators and police.

And to be clear for all of the civil rights minded folks here- I want to charge them with crimes they have already commited- NOT pre-emptive jailing of folks that have not already exhibited a behavior. I am talking charging them when they commit crimes, not just dropping charges and dropping charges until they do something hienous.

It is only because of bad law as well- I am NOT blaming prosecutors, judges OR defense attorneys, heck, I am not even blaming lawmakers- this is under nearly our entire socioties radar UNTIL something hienous happens.

You should blame prosecutors, judges, and state officials. The reason we have a high rate is we make it clear we will not strictly enforce our own laws and we will not jail (for long periods) people who commit violent crime.

As I am sure you know the “plea bargain” puts far too many crooks back on the street. Same for liberal judges with a social agenda rather than the safety of the public in mind.

How many times do we have to jail the same violent offender or sexual predator before we keep the in jail? “Three strikes” means the guy gets 2 more chances to kill someone.

Gun crime is a perfect example. Wherever the gun laws are even partially “enforced” gun crime drops. Now the excuse for illegal gun carry in the ghetto is “self defense”.


And even when liberals like Feinstein from CA try to pass law to cut gang violence the ACLU objects.

“ACLU Letter to the Senate Urging Opposition to S.1735, the Gang Prevention and Effective Deterrence Act of 2003 (4/21/2004)” – see their site

Ted, we've been over this. You made this assetion, it was proven to be made-up (unsurprisingly), you never responded, and now, a while later, you post it again as if nothing had happened.

The United States prosecutes more people for crimes per capita than anywhere else in the world, 400% or 500% the number in your first world peers.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_adu_...uted-per-capita

In terms of conviction rates, the US is also one of the top in the world. Here is a list of conviction rates per capita:
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_con_...cted-per-capita

That chart doesn't include the US because of the difficulty of merging state and federal rates, but it gives you an idea of the world averages. Yet according to THIS chart, the conviction rates in the US for serious crimes is far higher than the UK. (which is 5th highest in the world on the previous chart)
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/cjusew96.htm

As as result of these very High prosecution rates and very high conviction rates, the US has an absurdly high prison population per capita, 700% to 800% that of its first world peers.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_pri_...ners-per-capita

Not only that, but high average sentence length as well when com[pared to the rest of the first world.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_sen_...sentence-length


And ALL this while having a rate of total crimes per capita only slightly above the rest of the first world.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_tot_...imes-per-capita


So clearly the courts are not the problem, in fact no first world nation in the world can compare to the US court system or prison system. For the same crime rate you charge, convict, and imprison WAY more people than the first world average.



So having proven this latest assertion to be completely wrong, I return to my original question. Many people here have been posting guns are not the problem, guns help curb the problem, and so on.

So why does the US have triple the murder rate of its first world peers? I asked it before as you all know, but would still like an answer. If it ISN'T guns, then what is it that makes Americans murder each other so much more frequently than the first world average?

If we'd all like to blame someone (and not guns) for who is to blame for the state of mental health care in the US today we might want to discuss the likes of R.D. Laing and Thomas Szsaz. These are folks who helped make it difficult to deal with a murderer like Cho.

Looks like this link says others are ahead. Where is US?

Oh I see you interpolated -
)


And even if we are better than UK we are not ahead of Egypt etc. and we have more crime: And it is still not enough – obviously for those of us who live here – esp. people who live in the inner city.
I found this interesting:

INTERESTING FACTS ON AMERICAN CRIME
Russia has almost twice as many judges and magistrates as the United States. Meanwhile, the United States has 8 times as much crime




And regardless of the “high” prosecution rates are “crime” rate is so high because we do not catch enough criminals. Crime “pays” in America – this is clear. Far too many plea bargains and repeat offenders preying on us.

Any time you want to come to the US I can drop you off in areas of Boston or any other city (on foot) where you will not survive – even in a car you could be in trouble. And the poor people who have to live full time there will tell you they hide in their homes at night (and in the day for many) as the drug dealers and gangs run the streets. So please spare us the out of country distorted view.

http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/200...cus/focus2.html



The sad fact is that every American has a 1 in 4 chance of being the victim of violent crime in his lifetime.

All right. I'll bite. How do you propose these people are to blame? What do you mean by "make it difficult to deal with a murderer like Cho"? And what's your notion for early intervention before someone commits a murderous act?

That is so silly. The last thing I wanted when I was in college were a bunch of armed guards walking around. Freedom has risks, people. Living in guarded camps with "written security plans" is NOT being free. There are worse things than death.

The odds of this happening again are low, but even if it does, so what? I do not know anyone who wants to go to class with a bodyguard....

Hey Ted, remember a couple posts ago when you amusingly accused me of not being able to read?

Yes, the US is not ahead of Egypt, but then again I stated FOUR times last post that I was comparing the US to its first world peers, did you somehow miss that? I laid out in great detail how the US has a much higher prosecution rate, a higher conviction rate and a MUCH higher prison population rate per capita than its first world peers, as well as longer average sentences. Did you somehow miss all that?

You also claim the US has more crime: pity you didn't bother to read to the end of the post, where I posted a link to rates of crimes per capita. In fact the US has LESS crime per capita than the UK, and only slightly higher than most of the rest of the first world, so again you are wrong. I'll post the link again here, hoping this time you might notice it...
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_tot_...imes-per-capita



No, actually, I pretty much proved your unsubstantiated assertion to be quite wrong in my last post by laying out actual statistics on prosecution, conviction and prison population as well as average crime. Did you somehow miss all that? I can post the links for you AGAIN if you like... Anything to be helpful...




Ah, thank you Ted. You had not engaged in any deliberate nationality-baiting recently and I was afraid you had stopped using that old chestnut. Sadly Ted, the statistics I used are American from Department of Justice sources. This has nothing to do with my 'distorted out of country' views, and has everything to do with you making-up unfounded assertions, and having them completely disproven by facts and statistics, all linked to and available for your perusal. Sorry Ted.


By the way, why did you link to an off-topic editorial from a jamacan newspaper?




Well no, actually its more like 1 in 5, and its not a victim of VIOLENT crime, its a victim of any felony crime, a list which includes having people threaten you and having you bycicle stolen. (please stop making things up...). Quite different from your claim. And that rate is lower than many other countries in the first world.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_tot_...e-total-victims


So Ted, not to be mean, but seeing as your every assertion here has been substantively proven wrong, did you have anything to evidence your fanciful claims at all APART from steriotypical far-right wing crime-related fearmongering? Anything?

I agree and I am not proposing that. All I am saying is having a few armed guards and a “procedure” that would allow for quick dissemination of information when something like this happens. It seems foolhardy to allow 2 hours to pass before even an email warning went out.

Ted- no, I don't blame them, any of them, for very good reasons-

1) Very difficult to obtain a conviction against someone with multiple hospitializations, due to the way state laws are written, many of them as much as 100 years old, and stuff tacked on later, so the law is a hodge podge of laws, for instance- in our state- we have 13 different degrees and legal definitions of "culpabl and competency"- and three different legal codes dealing with eveything from voluntary commitment to NGI - some of it due to constitutional decisions from judges being TOO quick to hand down sentences and pass judgement without thinking of the appeals process- though, at the time, it seemed correct. The jury, as well, is not educated or can really even know too much of the reality of mental illness and competancy, so they will buy into the line "oh, he didn't know what he was doing".

2) Resources- it costs lots of money to prosecute someone the way the laws are written- as much as you want to vilify prosecutors- they really, really want to do the right thing by society, get the guilty and all that, and take GREAT pride in making the world a better place by putting bad guys away for good. But they have to pic their battle very carefully- they have only "X" amount of hours and man-time/money to utilize- one high profile prosecution can cost a million bucks- dont' forget that- these budgets are NOT infinite.

3) State lawmakers- usually a bit more receptive to costituents, since they live and work around them- well, this stuff stays under the radar until times like Virginia tech- or other high profile cases. Otherwise- they have ALOT of folks demanding thier attention, and with important local issues.

SO, at times like this, constituents like myself, that have expertise and experiance in this field, try to strike while the iron is hot and force the state lawmakers to revisit these laws- but our nemesis is "mental health rights groups"- who want NO consequences WHATSOEVER for the criminal actions of the mentally ill. We have had real hard core extremist groups like NAMI really attack and vilify the health care field in mental health- because we DARE suggest that when a 6'5" man attacks a 5' tall female nurse and tries to kill her, he needs to go to jail! He knew quite well what he was doing- bipolar or not, and needs to be locked up for a long time, preferably with a 20-30 year probation period after spending about 5-10 years in prison, with an EXTREMELY regimented med regime, to insure he never goes off meds again and endangers innocent victims again!

The "gun debate" really doesn't belong in this one at all IMHO- it should focus on violent offenders that are mentaly ill.

I could think of literally hundreds of pedophiles, rapists and murderers that would NEVER be able to offend again- if we simply treated assault in mental institutions as a felony, no matter mental status, if the staff member assaulted wish to press charges.

And it should NOT be up to the prosecutor to decide- it should be like domestic violence- the police HAVE to haul them off to jail, and they must be charged with a felony, THAT day.

I agree and don’t expect much change if any. And you are right this should not be a “gun” debate but many cannot pass up the opportunity to try and grab out legal firearms – do we here any of them pushing for long mandatory sentences for gun crime – a tactic proven to work? – of course not.




It will never happen IMO- they will always blame the guards, the administration etc. And to be honest some of it may be true. Are violent and insane people isolated well enough in your opinion?

Vermillion:

The only problem you have, a small but huge one, is Israel. No society is more armed than Israel but yet Israel had a lower homicide rate than Norway, Ireland, Finland, and some others prior to the renewal of the intifada. And did you read that of all our states, the one that always gets blamed, Texas, isn't even in the Top 10 in the US. Louisiana, Mississippi, Maryland, and Nevada take the medals and the honorable mention.

I otherwise told you to change the culture, and never mind the guns. Here's why:

"A Scientific American article (June 1999) accounts for the high murder rates in the South on the grounds of a "culture of honor". A white man living in a small county in the South is four times more likely to kill than one living in a small county in the Midwest. Southerners showed higher levels of cortisol and testosterone in response to an insult. Murder rates due to arguments are higher in the South and Southwest, but murder rates associated with felony (robbery or burglary) are lower."

And for what you and yours always leave out:

"Gun control laws are stiffer in Canada, and many claim this accounts for the murder rate being lower in Canada than in the United States. 65% of US homicides were committed with firearms, versus 32% in Canada. However, a large American study indicated that liberalized laws for carrying concealed weapons reduced murder rates in the US by 8.5%. US homicide rates in the year 1900 were an estimated 1 per 100,000 -- at a time when anyone of any age could buy a gun. Statistics-gathering may have been less thorough at that time -- and few people had the money or interest to buy guns [my note, a rather dubious conclusion]. But American gun supply (including handguns) doubled from the 1973-1992 period, during which homicide rates remained unchanged (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 4-Aug-2000, p.A10).

Politicians in Massachusetts have cited the State's tough gun control laws as the reason for its low murder rates. However, the adjacent states of Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont have some of the least stringent gun control laws in the US, yet the first two have lower murder rates than Massachusetts and the murder rates in Vermont are comparable to those in Massachusetts. Murder rates in Boston increased 50% in 2004 over the previous year, while murder rates in Los Angeles, Miami, Washington and many other major cites saw murder rates decline. "

So it wasn't, it isn't, and will never be the guns, but us. And so maybe, to borrow what some soul said elsewhere here on AD, well, maybe Mr. Tarantino and his glorification of violence shouldn't be speaking on campus. Not that we'd have a law against such, but saner heads might prevail and not make the invite.

Oh, the source of the above info can be found here:

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

Sorry, one more. We can blame it all on the 60s:

"The homicide rate doubled from the mid 1960's to the late 1970's."

Sorry, even one more. I trust, naively so, that you realize that "homicide" is not the same as "murder". Have you taken that into account when considering the numbers? Again, I said I was being naive, since the UN study that you are citing repeatedly from itself reports:

"The statistics cannot take into account the differences that exist between the legal definitions of offences in various countries, of the different methods of tallying, etc. Consequently, the figures used in these statistics must be interpreted with great caution. In particular, to use the figures as a basis for comparison between different countries is highly problematic."

But don't let that stand in the way of you going out of your way to bash the US of A just one more time.

Sorry, but even one more, since I'm obsessing again. Does Europe and/or Canada have a problem with Mexican and Jamaican crime gangs killing in their nation[s]? So you might wish to correct for that as well, as I hardly think that such souls will pay any heed to any gun ban fetish on your part.

I tend to fall on the pro-gun side of this debate, however the above argument is problematic...

Let's say we accept this premise that it's not guns, it's people (or culture). Apart from this statement being tautologically true, what is the difference in effect? If people cannot use guns "correctly", then allowing people to have these weapons is still going to create the same problems.

I don't have the stats on other types of homicides/murders involving other lethal weapons, but I would bet that in the US guns are the preferred choice. I know that this doesn't prove that guns are the culprit; it could suggest that US culture is the culprit. So, if culture is the problem, then hasn't culture demonstrated it is incapable of having access to these types of weapons?

This is the road where this type of argument leads...

I am not sure “culture” is the right word since it implies all of us everywhere. Certainly guns are a big part of the “criminal culture” – don’t leave home without one. But clearly there is no relationship between gun violence and gun distribution (legal).

For example we know that in most areas there is a legal gun (1 or more) in about 50% of US homes. Yet gun violence is NOT distributed this way – in fact in places where there are fewer legal guns in homes (because of laws) gun crime rates are usually higher – Washington DC for example.

So for most of us – using guns “correctly” is no problem and for those who don’t – well most of those guns are illegal. IMO we have a gun problem because we refuse to enforce gun laws.

Well, this was KivrotHaTaavah's argument; not mine. I don't believe it is at all clear that there is no relationship between gun violence and [legal] gun distribution. The stats suggest that there is a correlation but perhaps not a strong one.


I agree that you can cite examples such as you have demonstrating your thesis. There are other examples that go counter to your thesis. You're cherry-picking (employing confirmation bias) to make your case. If one makes a statistical claim, then one must look at all the stats available to confirm or deny that claim -- anecdotes, no matter how accurate, will be insufficient.


As far as I know, VaTech mass murderer did follow the law for purchasing the guns; the gun shop owner did as well for selling the guns. So, your proposed solution doesn't solve these types of problems.

Once someone legally purchases a gun, the system has no checks associated with either the gun or the person who purchased it (not that I'm suggesting this should be the case). There is also a large grey market for gun sales (like gun shows) where background checks aren't performed.

I will agree with you on one thing, Ted. The black market for guns is huge. More enforcement would probably help. Increased enforcement will come at a cost though. Specifically, more innocent people will be charged.

Changes in homicide trends have been driven by changes in the number of homicides in large American cities
From 1976-2004 --
• over half of the homicides occurred in cities with a population of 100,000 or more
• almost one-quarter of the homicides occurred in cities with a population of over 1 million.
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/city.htm#urban

Lets discuss. What do you think is happining in cities for this to be true?


True but the issue is how could someone with all the problems this boy had get guns. And did the police check after the first shooting to see if anyone who was a UVA student had recently purchased a gun AND knew the first victim?

I see it didn't take but 1-1/2 questions before you blamed Bush. Amazingly typical and telling. This is merely another opportunities for the libs to make a political point. Who cares about the students? Who here has been to Va Tech? Well I have, and actually attend it for one year. The campus is huge and there are 26,000 students. If stormtroopers were posted at every door frisking each student/professor as they entered, the liberals would be marching on Washington. Universities by their nature are open environments.

Furthermore, the answer given to question #3 above will not guarantee any reduction in future shootings.

having seen may debates on similar questions to these let me the following observations in answer

1) It is problematic in trying to extrapolate from other cultures particularly Europe since the cultural differences are profound.
2) It is problematic in trying to use logic which talks about legal restrictions when the abundance of weapons makes legal control "Shutting the stable door"
3) The effectiveness of legal detterance on the mentally disturbed is questionable.

Given this lets talk about what is known to be effective with both the sane and mentally disturbed and works across cultural boundaries.

I give you advertising and product placement - These are known to be effective in changing views and habits worldwide and only the most severe differences in culture can resist them but given time even they eventually breakdown. They are effective with the sane and the disturbed.
American society is primed to be receptive to guns other countries less so But the solution is the same.
Reduce the exposure to guns as effective solutions to problems, as symbols of power. Guns have so much air time as product placement they are effectively being grossly subsidised by media. The amount of positive reinforcement they get is astonishing.

In short, dont ban guns, its people who kill. So the solution is to alter what is influencing how people think (remember advertising and product placement does work). So just like that other killer tobacco, severely limit the "Air time" they get.

BTW It would be refreshing to have U.S. crime dramas without quite so many shootings and guns.

Why dont Canadian shoot each other as much since they get much the same programmes? - Remember their culture, and TV scheduling is different. They are resistant but not immune.