North Illinois University Shooting

[kumquatq3]

I live 45 minutes from there and have 2 friends we attend the school

[Azarkon]

I think what frightens people about this whole ordeal is the "where next?" principle. With university shooting becoming such a common occurence in the US, it's no longer about if, but when and where. It's also the fact that universities are supposed to be safe havens, not places where you should have to worry about defending yourself against homicidal maniacs.

Edited February 16, 2008 by Azarkon

[Meshugger]

Indeed I would allege that doing so woud prevent more incidents than full gun banning.

 

More help for the mentally ill and rational gun control would prevent more incidents than both combined.

 

Meshugger: Um. No? Lots of micro-evolution has occurred in Humans in 2000 years. I think people too often dissociate mutation and evolution.

 

Sand: Oh really? Where did you learn that? Because it's wrong. Humans are evolving in 2 ways:

1) We're evolving faster as the human population increases (not more slowly, as predicted), due to population increase increasing the chance of favourable mutations occurring.

2) Populations geologically isolated are evolving away from each other - not towards one homogeneous mass as predicted due to globalisation; globalisation is serving to introduce some novel genes and mutations to work off, not homogenise populations.

 

Not really.

 

Look at africa, especially in the estern Kongo, Rwanda and Uganda. It's not even about power or religion any more, the situation has downright gone to Lord of the Flies.

 

What has this to do with the shootings at the university? No matter how humankind tries to evolve to something better, incidents like these prove that we haven't much left the jungle yet.

[Humodour]

Not really.

 

Look at africa, especially in the estern Kongo, Rwanda and Uganda. It's not even about power or religion any more, the situation has downright gone to Lord of the Flies.

 

What has this to do with the shootings at the university? No matter how humankind tries to evolve to something better, incidents like these prove that we haven't much left the jungle yet.

 

Or look at any number of European countries which are proof that mankind can try, and succeed, in evolving to something better and maintaining that improvement (but it looks like we're talking about philosophy and ethics now instead of biology).

 

Honestly, your argument sounds the type Visceris used to make.

[Kaftan Barlast]

Arming everyone wont work, and will just cause a huge number of accidental shooting. Enforcing psychiatric evaluations for gun owners doesnt work since it seems relatively easy to get illegal firearms. Love doesnt work since we're not hippies.

 

 

 

One thing that does work, but isnt that fun, is to but a fence around the schools and force everyone to pass through a metal detector on their way in. Another fun idea is to let teachers and students report suspicious individuals

[Humodour]

Kaftan: Or you could require people to have a licence and a reason to own a gun.

 

I mean, it seems only logical to me; you don't give guns to people who don't need them.

[Meshugger]

Not really.

 

Look at africa, especially in the estern Kongo, Rwanda and Uganda. It's not even about power or religion any more, the situation has downright gone to Lord of the Flies.

 

What has this to do with the shootings at the university? No matter how humankind tries to evolve to something better, incidents like these prove that we haven't much left the jungle yet.

 

Or look at any number of European countries which are proof that mankind can try, and succeed, in evolving to something better and maintaining that improvement (but it looks like we're talking about philosophy and ethics now instead of biology).

 

Honestly, your argument sounds the type Visceris used to make.

 

Oh, i never claimed that this had anything to do with random mutations on our binary helix

 

Europe has had a relative peace for 60 years. Insignificant compared on how long we have been on this earth. Point being, is that i personally admire people like King, Gandhi and alike. But the call from the jungle always gets the best of us.

[Kaftan Barlast]

Kaftan: Or you could require people to have a licence and a reason to own a gun.

 

 

That has been proven ineffective. Not only can these people get an illegal gun, but they can just as easily aquire a license. That guy in Finland a few months ago had a license, and Finland has much more restricitve gun laws than you could ever hope to get in the US. You just cant legislate away school shootings.

[~Di]

I thought people with mental are not able to buy guns including rifles and shotguns. I know they can't get hand guns because that is part of the background check.

 

Perhaps we should go back to the Wild West mentality where people carried weapons on their person.

 

The problem is that in most instances people who are being treated for mental problems are not in the background-check system, because of the patient/physician privilege. IIRC, only those who have been diagnosed and committed under certain legal conditions lose that privilege and privacy. Those are the ones who will show up on the background check, I think.

[Gorgon]

And theres all those people who have never recieved any kind of professional help for their condition. Being stamped as 'crazy' in some manner of federal database is a strong incentive to stay away.

[Humodour]

Kaftan: Or you could require people to have a licence and a reason to own a gun.

 

 

That has been proven ineffective. Not only can these people get an illegal gun, but they can just as easily aquire a license. That guy in Finland a few months ago had a license, and Finland has much more restricitve gun laws than you could ever hope to get in the US. You just cant legislate away school shootings.

 

It's not been 'proven' ineffective - careful how you use that word:

 

1) Murders with guns will likely always happen. What's changeable is the rate at which they happen, and gun control legislature DOES change this for the better. America could drop from having 80% of the world's school massacre cases to 25%.

2) You can't just make legislation. You also have to remove the guns currently in circulation, as Australia did through a buy-back scheme (e.g. get a licence or sell your gun to the government).

3) Finland gun control seem average in strictness.

[Calax]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/...IU-With-Lawsuit

 

 

great...

[Guard Dog]

The United States Constitution, Amendment 2, second clause states "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.". That is it. Gun control is unconstitutional, illegal, and quite frankly, not wanted since every politician who brings is up is quickly voted out of office. If there are enough americans who decide they have had enough of it then they can get their representative to propose a Constitutional amendment banning private gun ownership. Then we ALL get an up or down vote on the issue. But asking congress to pass a law is like trying to sneak in the back door what they know we wont accept in the front. And asking the court to re-interpret the 2nd amendment and decide it does not allow protect private gun ownership is even more despicable. It's time to face the facts, the US does not want gun control and no matter how many of these tragedies happen, we are not going to change our minds.

 

Two things to consider. Fact: In Washington DC is was illegal to own a handgun. Fact: Washington DC has the highest per capita murder rate in the county over the past 15 years. Fact: %97 of murders in Washington DC are comitted with handguns.

 

 

The other thing is this. Since the federal government passed legislation outlawing automatic weapons some 30 years ago, restrictions on gun ownership have grown tighter and tighter on both the state local and federal level. But gun crime has increased. In the 1960's you could walk into K-Mart (a popular department store at the time) and buy a semi automatic handgun AND ammunition for it at the same counter at the same time. No background checks, no waiting periods, no age restrictions per se (you had to be 18 it has now been bumped up to 21). And gun crime was just not that common. Campus shootings? Unheard of! It's easy to point the finger at the gun but I think there is a larger issue here. Guns have never been harder to get, and gun crime has never been higher.

 

Personally I think the problem is violent video games. I think violent video games should be outlawed and the people who produce and sell them should be jailed. Nobody ever killed anyone after playing Space Invaders! (HA! Just kidding Calax! )

[Tale]

The United States Constitution, Amendment 2, second clause states "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.". That is it.

Obviously it was a typo. The true intent was that "the right of the people to keep bear arms shall not be infringed." The arms of bears were popular commodities back in the day.

Edited February 18, 2008 by Tale

[Nick_i_am]

We are not more evolved than we were back then. We have more advanced technology but that is it.

 

Possibly not in the way that you mean, but on a purely technical level, yes we are. Comparing the life expectancy, average height and cranium size of modern people to those who lived 2000 years ago attests to that much.

[Guard Dog]

The United States Constitution, Amendment 2, second clause states "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.". That is it.

Obviously it was a typo. The true intent was that "the right of the people to keep bear arms shall not be infringed." The arms of bears were popular commodities back in the day.

 

Actually it should read "the right of the people to keep and arm bears should not be infringed". Who worries about crime when you have an armed bear following you around?

[Nick_i_am]

Two things to consider. Fact: In Washington DC is was illegal to own a handgun. Fact: Washington DC has the highest per capita murder rate in the county over the past 15 years. Fact: %97 of murders in Washington DC are comitted with handguns.

 

I'm not a huge fan of a redneck populus armed to the teeth, but I basically agree with what you're saying about it being far more of a social issue, and that people ranting about gun control is just dodging the main problem.

 

However, the statistics gathered from Washington don't outright suggest that anti-gun laws are ineffective as much as they suggest that such laws are very hard to uphold in an obviously violent city which has very little control over guns entering or leaving its bounderies.

 

You're right though, the majority of america doesn't want gun control and geographically america is far too big and 'open' (given its land-links to both mexico and canada) to really consider this an option that would have any real effect, even ignoring a stuborn populus and a constitutional law that's linked to the very founding of the countary itself.

Gun control HAS 'worked' in other countaries, but they are by and large countaries that are able to restrict the flow of illegal guns through their borders and have a population that actually supports said gun control.

 

What i'm saying is that I wish people wouldn't start ranting about gun control any time there was a shooting in america since canada 'proves' that a civilian population can be allowed to own guns without trying to shoot up a school every other week and that the issue obviously lies elsewhere.

 

Personally i'd start to point the finger at a school system that seems to do nothing but ostrosize the social misfit as being a freak of nature.

[walkerguy]

I refuse to read about school shootings on a video game the @%$#&&^ forum. Leave? Yes, OMG right now!

[kirottu]

I refuse to read about school shootings on a video game the @%$#&&^ forum. Leave? Yes, OMG right now!

 

I too refuse to read. It keeps my mind pure and uncu... uncorro... uncorrupd... It keeps my mind pure.

[mkreku]

Two things to consider. Fact: In Washington DC is was illegal to own a handgun. Fact: Washington DC has the highest per capita murder rate in the county over the past 15 years. Fact: %97 of murders in Washington DC are comitted with handguns.

So it's illegal to own a handgun in ONE city. Five miles away it's not. What do you think this proves? It only proves that your police force suck at what they do, nothing else.

[Sand]

We are not more evolved than we were back then. We have more advanced technology but that is it.

 

Possibly not in the way that you mean, but on a purely technical level, yes we are. Comparing the life expectancy, average height and cranium size of modern people to those who lived 2000 years ago attests to that much.

 

However, our behavior towards one another shows that we are as primitive as we were back then.

[Tigranes]

Yeah. I mean, we still breathe air. What's up with that?

[Tale]

We are not more evolved than we were back then. We have more advanced technology but that is it.

 

Possibly not in the way that you mean, but on a purely technical level, yes we are. Comparing the life expectancy, average height and cranium size of modern people to those who lived 2000 years ago attests to that much.

 

However, our behavior towards one another shows that we are as primitive as we were back then.

Speak for yourself. I don't recall clubbing any rivals for female attention lately.

[Sand]

Oh, come on now. We still have people killing each other over silly idealogies, wars raging over resources, and discrimination against those who show the slight bit of difference from "social norms." Taken as a whole, our species hasn't really changed all that much over the last two to three thousand years.

Edited February 19, 2008 by Sand

[Tale]

Greedy reductionism. Generally, if you can describe an entire species in the from of a few sentences, you're not actually being honestly descriptive.

 

I don't mean to argue there have been giant strides in evolution in the past 2000 years. To try to do so in the context of this discussion would be to be ignorant as to what evolution even means. I'm merely saying that your cliched coffee shop philosophy rational is asinine.

Edited February 19, 2008 by Tale