And thus, another anniversary for a heinous and tragic event is created.

[GreasyDogMeat]

It is kind of ironic that some on this thread are advocating gun control/banning while a number on the news I've seen are advocating video game/porn/violent movie banning.

 

When we look at the number of school based shootings in the U.S. vs school based shootings in other European countries, you also have to remember many of these European countries heavily ban music/movies/games.

 

I really believe these shooting incidents are a lower moral standards combined with bad parenting and not an issue of gun control. If some nut really wants to go on a spree they'll get their hands on a weapon. These shooting incidents happen in Europe as well even with the stricter gun control laws.

[Gorgon]

I can't believe you would group video games and movie censurship with gun control, the first is patently stupid and doomed to fail, the second is a real world countermeasure against exactly this kind of violent crazy.

[SteveThaiBinh]

Which European countries heavily ban music, movies or games?

[Gorgon]

I think there was a proposal for legislation like that in Germany, don't think anything came of it though.

[Calax]

If he'd waited four days it'd have been bitterly Ironic.

[theslug]

Actually I think scientists have concluded that people with more white or grey matter, I forget which one, are more apt to commit violent crime. That doesn't mean if you have more than average that you will become a killer or something and I'm pretty sure it works the opposite way too. But yeah the kids that do this stuff are pretty insane. Obviously there should be gun control, but banning or even heavily restricting it to the point you gotta go through a bunch of bs red tape and such isn't a solution. I mean your just passing the real issue. The issue isn't really about guns, or gun control, it's about peoples actions. If you ask me, accountability is something that has been stunted quite a bit these last few years. It's not longer having the responsibility for something you've done, no it's guns, video games, pornography, t.v., music, a company that sells a product that someone misuses, or just some poor schmuck thats now at fault. It's ridiculous.

[GreasyDogMeat]

My point is that no one is addressing the root of the issue of what breeds these types of lunatics. 50 years ago guns were even more readily available to people in the U.S. yet school shootings were virtually unheard of.

 

When you look at movies and games they have steadily pushed the limits of decency further and further. These shootings are, IMHO, a combination of the 'me' generation, bad parenting and violence in the media. Violence in the media alone of course is not a reason for these shootings, most of us have grown up with it. I enjoy playing GTA, Postal, etc.

 

The problem is that people like this in Virginia and atleast one of the boys at Columbine are completely psychotic. Stricter gun control laws would not have kept weapons away from people like this, maybe delay it a bit, but not prevent it. One of the boys went out of his way to act like a friendly average teenager while writing about how he wanted to kill people in his daily life for petty things. Something needs to be done about TREATING these people and recognizing their problems before it explodes in a rampage.

 

"If he'd waited four days it'd have been bitterly Ironic."

 

Huh? Oh, the Columbine 'anniversery'. I think it is already bitterly ironic that another shooting like it happened almost 8 years to the day.

 

"The issue isn't really about guns, or gun control, it's about peoples actions. If you ask me, accountability is something that has been stunted quite a bit these last few years. It's not longer having the responsibility for something you've done, no it's guns, video games, pornography, t.v., music, a company that sells a product that someone misuses, or just some poor schmuck thats now at fault. It's ridiculous."

 

What theslug said. This is exactly what I was trying to say with the 'me generation'.

Edited April 17, 2007 by GreasyDogMeat

[Walsingham]

Being a designated crotchety old timer I have no problem with blaming the 'me' generation except the obvious one: it might explain graffiti, sex crime, and the ozone layer but it doesn't explain pathological violence.

 

What I DO feel confident blaming is a total lack of emergency planning by Virginia Tech. All large US corporations are expected, and indeed have, terrorist incident plans*, that would have prevented the latter incident. These mean clearly defined pre-existing plans of information and evacuation. However, the University only tell everyone TWO HOURS after the first incident that something's going on? This may be typical of the way university authorities treat students, but it does not excuse it. I would urge all of you to ask your own institutions what the hell they would do under the circumstances, and if possible to contact the local police to sort something sensible out.

 

 

*I'm not saying this was a terrorist, just that the plan would have helped.

[GreasyDogMeat]

I think the problem with the 'me' generation as far as pathological violence goes, is that it makes the problem even worse. While a psycho is a psycho I believe one raised in a situation where everything is about that person, it makes personal failures and disapointments that much worse and therefore, the violent reaction/rampage that much likely to occur sooner and worse.

 

I agree completly about how the situation was handled. From what I've heard, he shot two people, then came back to a different part of the campus TWO!!!! hours later and killed 30. They should have cancelled school after the first incident. Hell, if someone had a heart attack and died on campus (A natural death) school should have been cancelled, if nothing else, in respect of the deceased.

[theslug]

I think the problem with the 'me' generation as far as pathological violence goes, is that it makes the problem even worse. While a psycho is a psycho I believe one raised in a situation where everything is about that person, it makes personal failures and disapointments that much worse and therefore, the violent reaction/rampage that much likely to occur sooner and worse.

 

I agree completly about how the situation was handled. From what I've heard, he shot two people, then came back to a different part of the campus TWO!!!! hours later and killed 30. They should have cancelled school after the first incident. Hell, if someone had a heart attack and died on campus (A natural death) school should have been cancelled, if nothing else, in respect of the deceased.

Well I think that's a bit much with the heart attack scenario but for sure everyone should of been evacuated once shots were first fired. If anything I believe the Baby Boomers are the root of our problems. They are the ones controlling everything now and they are the onces who raised my generation. The generation before them was hawkish and stuff but the Baby boomers came along all peace and bs like that crap and ended up turning the united states into trash. And somehow I need to incorporate this into how they've corrupted the youth and how its somehow different from other generations and other parts of the world but I don't have time for that kind of madness, I just like blaming them for our problems because they are getting old and are going to take all our freakin money that we don't even have.

[LadyCrimson]

Being a designated crotchety old timer I have no problem with blaming the 'me' generation except the obvious one: it might explain graffiti, sex crime, and the ozone layer but it doesn't explain pathological violence.

I don't have any facts, which I know y'all like *grin* but I think that the "me" generation concept isn't likely the real root of the problem. I'd suspect there have been "me" generations in other civilizations of the distant past, just not ones with cell phones, video games, and Porsches.

 

There may be other possible explanations for increasing noticable incidents such as these - overpopulation/city-crowding, better news media coverage/record keeping of incidents that makes percentages vs. "the far past" seem inflated, increasing stressful 'modern' lifestyles/restrictions/financial pressures that may (emphasis on may) trigger violence in people who under milder circumstances might not have their internal "time-bombs" go off.

 

Anyway, definitely a tragic event. My sympathies for the families of those lost.

[steelfiredragon]

its madness, just madness.

[Calax]

I think that part of what causes people to snap younger is the amount of pressure put on each child to succeed. Whe your put through school you are told by every person, every teacher, every mentor, that College is the only option. and every little kid forces themselves to try for higher grades in order to get into a good college. The amount of testing (in Cali) is insane. every year students are put through at least four weeks of standardized testing, not counting Psats, SATs, or the militaries version of the SATs. My freshman year was the first year for the California High School Exit Exam which had my class stuck in testing for a week longer than any of the other classes (admittedly the difficulty was laughable).

 

Also (at least in my experiance) kids are pushed into cliques where a social norm is established. Some of us get tossed out of all the cliques or don't fit perfectly with one clique so will over the course of the year move around and never have a really steady group of friends. School councelors are usually scheduled for a month in advance because every kid with a scheduling grevience is sent through the councelors to get the classes changed, so if somebody has a real problem and it gets picked up on, either they get dragged off in the back of a cop car to the county mental health, or they bottle it and finially at one point or another go ballistic.

 

All in all we live in a society where accountability is non exsistant, more people are on antidepressants than not, divorce rates are through the roof. and access to violence, sex, and drugs is at an all time high. Of course we're going to see a heck of alot more people going ballistic. But I some how doubt that we will see any wild west family feuds popping up with death tolls in the hundreds.

[roshan]

Incidents like this are caused by people becoming obsessed with themselves. The liberals/lefties have brainwashed people with stupid concepts such as rights, liberty and freedom.

 

What is needed is an authoritarian society in which the emphasis is placed on duties, not rights.

[Gorgon]

All other things being equal, if a violent psychopat lacks lethal weaponry he isen't going to kill 30 people. Premeditaition and planning doesen't make any difference to the issue at hand, like I said, they don't sell dynamite or ammonium nitrate to just anyone for a reason.

 

You can't be the thought police and try to get into the head of every budding psychopath, it's a ludicrous proposition, and merely turning the issue aside with the age old clishe 'guns don't kill people', it just seems so incredibly inadequate.

Edited April 17, 2007 by Gorgon

[kirottu]

Incidents like this are caused by people becoming obsessed with themselves. The liberals/lefties have brainwashed people with stupid concepts such as rights, liberty and freedom.

 

What is needed is an authoritarian society in which the emphasis is placed on duties, not rights.

 

Is this a joke?

[roshan]

What makes you think its a joke?

[Fenghuang]

Incidents like this are caused by people becoming obsessed with themselves. The liberals/lefties have brainwashed people with stupid concepts such as rights, liberty and freedom.

 

What is needed is an authoritarian society in which the emphasis is placed on duties, not rights.

 

 

This is sarcasm, right?

 

...Right?

[Meshugger]

Fascism ahoy!

[Meshugger]

Back to the real issue here. Several countries around the world (Canada, Europe, some parts of Asia) have the almost, if not the same relaxed laws for guns (My friends brother owns enough guns to arm a smaller village, e.g. he has a several couples of assault-rifles, AK-47, M-16 etc..). Although the number of people compared to the amount of guns are lower in the rest of the world than in the US, but not by as much margin that would justify the huge amount of killings.

 

The only thing that i can come up with is that is a social issue, atleast to a certain degree. And no, it's not godless liberals, gays or gangsta rap, since the rest of the world is exposed to the very same.

[Walsingham]

All other things being equal, if a violent psychopat lacks lethal weaponry he isen't going to kill 30 people. Premeditaition and planning doesen't make any difference to the issue at hand, like I said, they don't sell dynamite or ammonium nitrate to just anyone for a reason.

 

You can't be the thought police and try to get into the head of every budding psychopath, it's a ludicrous proposition, and merely turning the issue aside with the age old clishe 'guns don't kill people', it just seems so incredibly inadequate.

 

I can't quote any studies on the subject but it seems to me that most of the individuals engaged in these acts in teh past have given many years notice that they were as barmy as a box of balm. If your objective is to stop gun-armed loons then irrespective of the general laws on firearms would it not be sensible to have some cross-checking against a well-prepared database of crackpots? Woud it not also be a wise plan to go further and to ensure better provision of better quality _borderline_ nut-care?

[Meshugger]

Ah hell. I just saw on BBC that one of the teachers who was shot to dead while helping the students escape (apparantly, he blocked the door with his own bodyweight), was a survivor from the Holocaust.

 

Now it is a 100% chance that this will become a movie, most likely directly for TV.

[mkreku]

My own father has enough weapons to supply a small army. The difference does not lie in the weapons themselves or the availability, it's just that in Sweden it's difficult to pick up a dangerous (semi- or fully automatic) weapon. It's difficult to buy a weapon. You can't buy as much ammo as you want, you can't buy as many guns as you want (unless you do it over many years..) and you have to have a clean record if you ever want to get a hold of a weapons license. Abuse it and the police immediately withdraw your license and confiscate your guns.

 

If you really want to kill a lot of people, you can still do it. But it will take you a couple of years to go through all the necessary bureaucracy to get all the equipment you'd need. Unless, of course, you get a few illegal arms from Finland. Finland is the closest neighbour to Russia.. You can even get a hold of rocket propelled grenades if you really want to. Still, it takes some kind of planning; it's almost never possible to kill someone using guns in a spur of the moment situation.

[Oerwinde]

My point is that no one is addressing the root of the issue of what breeds these types of lunatics. 50 years ago guns were even more readily available to people in the U.S. yet school shootings were virtually unheard of.

 

50 years ago it was perfectly acceptable to beat your kids if they got out of line. Children today are growing up in an age where there are no consequences for your actions. Do something wrong, most a parent can do is take away their playstation. If they try anything more serious, one call to the police by the kid can put the parent in jail. Theres no accountability anymore. Its always someone elses fault blah blah blah.

 

Anyway. Short opinion on the event: Guy was a psycho, he is to blame, not the media/video games/music. Gun control would have either prevented or lessened the extent of the event.

 

Opinion on gun control: Handguns and semi-auto/automatic weapons should be banned as their only use is to kill humans. Hunting rifles are a-ok.

 

People who say gun control doesn't do anything is ignoring the fact that places with no or light gun control have far lower rates of gun violence. Yes if someone is very serious about killing a lot of people, and plans it out for weeks/months ahead of time, he will find a gun, but limiting the amount of guns that are easily available will prevent the ones who just break from stress and bring their dad's gun to school.

Edited April 17, 2007 by Oerwinde

[Meshugger]

My point is that no one is addressing the root of the issue of what breeds these types of lunatics. 50 years ago guns were even more readily available to people in the U.S. yet school shootings were virtually unheard of.

 

50 years ago it was perfectly acceptable to beat your kids if they got out of line. Children today are growing up in an age where there are no consequences for your actions. Do something wrong, most a parent can do is take away their playstation. If they try anything more serious, one call to the police by the kid can put the parent in jail. Theres no accountability anymore. Its always someone elses fault blah blah blah.

 

Anyway. Short opinion on the event: Guy was a psycho, he is to blame, gun control would have either prevented or lessened the extent of the event.

 

Opinion on gun control: Handguns and semi-auto/automatic weapons should be banned as their only use is to kill humans. Hunting rifles are a-ok.

 

IIRC, the kid wasn't even an american. He was a chinese student who's been in the US for a year. Do they beat children in China?