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

[Oerwinde]

No mention on whether he was american or not, only that he was asian.

[Lare Kikkeli]

He was a chinese exchange student.

[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.

 

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?

Indeed, but what are you going to do practically ?. The only thing that would stop a potential nut case is incarceration. Psychology teaches us that certain people are a greater risk factor than others, but we can't jail people for what we think they might do, correct me if i'm wrong, gun laws in the US already prohibit you from owning a gun if you have a diagnosed serious mental disorder. If society is completely saturated with firearms it makes it that much easier for anyone to get one.

 

If I wanted a pistol I would know who to ask, but it's doubtful that he would be able to come through, and even then the cost would be astronomical.

 

He was a chinese exchange student.

He didn't bring the gun with him on the plane from China though.

Edited April 17, 2007 by Gorgon

[Walsingham]

On reflection I think the key is BOTH psychological and material avilability. Thus Japan has a bonkers culture of gun lust, but no guns. While Switzerland has all the guns and no gun culture.

 

I don't know what the ruels are in the US but an individual can be sectioned over here under the mental health act if they are believed to be an imminent risk to public. However, I am talking about the far less controversial step of ensuring that people in the process of losing their marbles have counselling and other support services available to them in a culture which does not stigmatise their use.

 

However, I think there is a far more wide problem of a certain types of young men being drawn into extremism for want of anything in popular culture that can satisfy their spiritual/actualisation needs. This is hardly an original observation of my own, but I was wondering what people thought.

[Dark_Raven]

A sad event.

 

He used hand guns to do this? He must have been a good shot, killing 30+ people. I can see this happening with a semi or full auto gun. Something seems strange about this.

 

People kill people. Guns, knives, WMDs and other items are just a tool to accomplish the goal.

[Sand]

This event shows the full scope of what it means to be human. From heinous and unfathomable cruelty of one man, to the compassion the survivors and the community shown each other, and the insatiable need to place blame on someone or something for this tragedy.

Edited April 17, 2007 by Sand

[WILL THE ALMIGHTY]

why would the guy want to kill himself? And mroe importantly, why kill everyone else at the same time?

[Kaftan Barlast]

why would the guy want to kill himself? And mroe importantly, why kill everyone else at the same time?

 

 

Perhaps an individual who is tormented enough by his own problems to want to die, and at the same time blaming everyone else for his failiure.

[Eddo36]

He was a chinese exchange student.

 

No, he was South Korean.

 

And if you want to ban guns, why not ban fertilizer and bleach so IED's can't be made in car bombs? It's worse than any gun.

Edited April 17, 2007 by Eddo36

[Sand]

They aren't as portable and concealable on an individual person.

[Gfted1]

They aren't as portable and concealable on an individual person.

 

 

Says you. Youve obviously never seen how much bleach and fertilizer a double leg amputee can cary around in those hollow prostetics. Of course, that goes out the window if they only have peg legs.

[Walsingham]

They aren't as portable and concealable on an individual person.

 

 

Says you. Youve obviously never seen how much bleach and fertilizer a double leg amputee can cary around in those hollow prostetics. Of course, that goes out the window if they only have peg legs.

 

You forget that peg legs can become a handy incendiary by the subject spinning around very very fast on a wood floor.

 

I must say it seems a little odd to blame everything on the modern youth. You think Bugsy Seigel, Sammy Gravano, and Kate Bender were all post baby boomers?

[Gorgon]

He was a chinese exchange student.

 

No, he was South Korean.

 

And if you want to ban guns, why not ban fertilizer and bleach so IED's can't be made in car bombs? It's worse than any gun.

Ever considered maybe finding some more healthy hobbies in light of whats happened ?

[Walsingham]

He was a chinese exchange student.

 

No, he was South Korean.

 

And if you want to ban guns, why not ban fertilizer and bleach so IED's can't be made in car bombs? It's worse than any gun.

Ever considered maybe finding some more healthy hobbies in light of whats happened ?

 

What was that report-a-loon telephone number again?

[Eddo36]

Clearing the myth.

 

Gun Control Saves Lives

 

New York City and Washington, D.C. are two of the most restrictive cities in the country with respect to gun control, yet they are also two of the least safest cities in the country.

 

Criminals buy guns outside of the restrictive areas and bring them in illegally.

 

Arlington, VA has a significantly lower crime rate than D.C., but it's right next door (see the FBI "Crime in the United States" reports).

 

Handguns are 43 times more likely to kill a member of your own family than an intruder.

 

The study by Arthur Kellermann from which that statistic is pulled doesn't say that. The number includes suicides. The study doesn't take into account defensive uses in which a shot was not fired (99% of the uses), and it doesn't reflect intruders avoiding homes with firearms inside.

 

Your gun is more likely to kill you or someone you love than an intruder.

 

Less than one percent of defensive gun uses results in a kill (see Gary Kleck's book "Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America). According to the National Institute of Justice's report "Guns in America: National Survey on Private Ownership and Use of Firearms", guns are used over 1.5 million times a year in self defense. With tens of thousands of gun deaths a year, that means that firearms are used 40 times more often for protection than for murder.

 

We would all be safer if there were fewer guns.

 

Guns in the wrong hands are dangerous, but in the right hands they are used for protection and deterrence. According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reports, Georgia's homicide rate dropped 21% after making it easier to get guns, whereas Wisconsin's rate went up 33% during the same time period after making it more difficult to get guns. There are a lot of factors that go into homicide rates, but gun ownership is definitely not one of them.

 

We don't need guns in a civilized society.

 

How many people living in or around urban areas leave their cars unlocked or their front doors open all the time? There are civilized and uncivilized people in the world, and there are places and events that lead to some very uncivilized behaviour (like hurricanes). Having a gun means that people in the area can defend themselves and others against those uncivilized people.

 

Guns should be banned because thousands die every year.

 

Most of those people are criminals killed by criminals, according to the FBI "Crime in the United States" report. Also, many of those deaths are suicides. If someone is going to kill themselves, and they can't get a gun, they'll try something else. Again, guns are used far more often in self-defence.

 

We need to do something about the increasing access to guns.

 

Over the last half-dozen decades, the government has steadily restricted our right to keep and bear arms, and access has been decreasing. However, none of the 20,000 laws on the books are making it any harder for criminals to get guns, because by definition a criminal won't abide by the law.

 

The police can protect us.

 

In several cases, the courts found that police do not an obligation to respond to emergency calls. Even when they do, though, it's often too late. According to a story in US News and World Report, G. Witkin found that 95% of 911 calls are dispatched too late to stop a crime. When someone breaks into your home, you don't have time to call police. When a gunman charges into a diner and shoots up the place, you don't have time to call police.

 

It is too dangerous for the average citizen to deal with criminals.

 

Citizens fighting crime happens all the time. However, even better is to have crime not happen, and gun ownership is an excellent deterrent. After a series of rapes in Florida in 1966, women began buying guns and the police department ran training sessions in handgun use. After 36 rapes in 1966, there were 4 in 1967 (see Paxton Quigley's book "Armed and Female").

 

The safest way to deal with criminal assault is not to resist.

 

The US DOJ found that of 32,000 attempted rapes in 1979, 32% were successful, but in the case of an armed victim, only 3% were successful. Should a victim just sit back and let an attack happen, or should they defend themselves? What about defending your children when someone comes after them? Criminals avoid armed victims. In 1982, Kennesaw, GA passed a law requiring the head of household to keep a gun, and burglaries dropped by 89% (see Gary Kleck's "Crime Control Through the Private Use of Armed Force).

 

Allowing people to carry weapons means every disagreement will turn into a shootout.

 

People currently have many weapons, including lawn implements, kitchen utensils, sporting goods and household appliances, all of which have been used in murders. In states that have liberal carry laws, crime rates are generally lower. Florida's carry law in 1987 was followed by a homicide rate drop of 39% according to the FBI Uniform Crime Reports.

 

The average citizen with a gun is a bigger threat to himself and others than a criminal is.

 

Proper training is very important. The NRA has spent millions of dollars on training adults and children. In fact, the NRA is the only organization spending money to try to educate kids about gun safety, but they're being stopped at every attempt by knee-jerk politicians and soccer moms who want to hide their children from the realities of the world. Accidental death rates from firearms have been declining steadily for 50 years, and armed citizens shoot and kill twice as many criminals as police do.

 

Firearms drain resources because of medical costs.

 

Most of the medical cost is because of criminal violence, not lawful possession of firearms. Did you know that medical malpractice causes more deaths per year than firearms, according to a Harvard Medical Practice Study?

 

Countries where gun ownership is severely restricted have a crime rate that is much lower than ours.

 

England and Japan have lower murder rates than the US, and they have restrictive gun laws. However, Switzerland and Israel have high rates of gun distribution and have even lower rates. South Africa's murder rate is even higher than the US, and they have very restrictive gun laws.

 

The police favor gun control, and they know more about crime than we do.

 

The 12th Annual National Police Survey produced in 1999 by the National Association of Chiefs of Police showed that police reject gun control as an effective crime control and that they support private firearms ownership.

 

Only police and trained and responsible enough to carry guns.

 

According to the Washington Post 8/28/94, pA1, 19 out of 1000 officers in Washington, D.C. were arrested. According to the Commissioner of Florida's Department of Law Enforcement, only 9 out of 1000 carry permit holders in Florida had licenses revoked.

 

There's nothing wrong with a waiting period for a background check.

 

So if someone is threatened, they should ask the criminal to wait a few days so that a background check can be completed? Criminals don't wait for background checks -- they buy on the black market.

 

Guns should be registered.

 

Would that help make life difficult for criminals? No. New York and Washington, D.C. required registration years ago and promised not to ban guns. Then, politicians decided to ban some guns and used those registration lists to round them up (see 9/5/92 Daily News article "Weapons Ban Defied"). A man named James Wright was a gun control advocate who received a grant from President Carter's Justice Department to study effectiveness of gun control laws. He found that waiting periods, background checks and other gun control laws were not effective in preventing or reducing violent crime ("Second Thought About Gun Control" in The Public Interest, Spring, 1988).

 

http://www.westnet.com/~levins...l5.html

Edited April 17, 2007 by Eddo36

[Meshugger]

That study, if anything, just reenforces my point. The matter is a social one. More people in the US seems to suffer from "I like to shoot people"-syndrome than in other countries.

Edited April 17, 2007 by Meshugger

[metadigital]

On reflection I think the key is BOTH psychological and material avilability. Thus Japan has a bonkers culture of gun lust, but no guns. While Switzerland has all the guns and no gun culture.

 

I don't know what the ruels are in the US but an individual can be sectioned over here under the mental health act if they are believed to be an imminent risk to public. However, I am talking about the far less controversial step of ensuring that people in the process of losing their marbles have counselling and other support services available to them in a culture which does not stigmatise their use.

 

However, I think there is a far more wide problem of a certain types of young men being drawn into extremism for want of anything in popular culture that can satisfy their spiritual/actualisation needs. This is hardly an original observation of my own, but I was wondering what people thought.

Mental health is woefully under-appreciated and completely insufficiently dealt with by (as far as I can discern) ALL societies.

 

That's where the solution to this issue lies, and only when societies address the elephant in the middle of the room that incidents like this will be consigned to history.

[Sand]

Trying to control the tool of violence will solve nothing. Only through controlling the need to exert violence on others will solve these problems.

Edited April 17, 2007 by Sand

[Calax]

They aren't as portable and concealable on an individual person.

Tim McViegh would disagree with you (I think I spelled the name right.)

[Sand]

Of course he wouldn't. He's dead.

[Azarkon]

No mention on whether he was american or not, only that he was asian.

 

A bit of black comedy and proof that people & the media are too quick to point fingers when the perpetrator isn't white:

 

http://wanusmaximus.livejournal.com/

Edited April 17, 2007 by Azarkon

[Tale]

He was a chinese exchange student.

 

No, he was South Korean.

 

And if you want to ban guns, why not ban fertilizer and bleach so IED's can't be made in car bombs? It's worse than any gun.

Ever considered maybe finding some more healthy hobbies in light of whats happened ?

Gorg Thompson, lol

[Sand]

Indeed, though it does appear to be slightly disturbing. A needle through a tongue? OUCH!

[Tale]

They aren't as portable and concealable on an individual person.

Tim McViegh would disagree with you (I think I spelled the name right.)

Timothy McVeigh didn't conceal ammonium nitrate on his person. He had barrels of the stuff.

[Gorgon]

No mention on whether he was american or not, only that he was asian.

 

A bit of black comedy and proof that people & the media are too quick to point fingers when the perpetrator isn't white:

 

http://wanusmaximus.livejournal.com/

what is that web site, I don't understand whats going on.