http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070416/ap_on_...a_tech_shooting

Ouch.

I just hope this will bring some more support to pro gun control movements. Unless, of course, Americans want more guns so they can defend themselves against this kind of madman.

Well I guess that would depend if this guy got his guns legally or not.

I'm not entirely sure on what happened really, on much of the back story, but I do have a feeling that gun control wouldn't have helped all that much. And honestly, I hope this doesn't turn into a stance for political movement, but any side.

I've just read an article about gun control (or rather, the lack of it) in Virginia. Apparently it is possible to legally buy a gun without even a background check. What kind of madness is that?

Guns don't kill people. People with guns kill people.

Citation for your article? And also, he seemingly bought these two guns legally.

Sorry, it was an article in a newspaper, not on the 'Net. Besides, the newspaper was in French...

Edit: Here's a quiz about gun laws in Virginia. You'll be astonished by some answers...
No background checks are required at gun shows or at private gun sales. There is no waiting period when you want to purchase a gun. No license is required to buy a handgun.

That's exactly the problem.

Owning a gun isn't "exactly the problem" at all. I'm sick of poorly thought out arguments for increasing or decreasing gun control from both sides of the two spectrum life we live in. How is the fact that he bought them legally "exactly the problem." Because barring all gun sale, there is no way to be able to know if a person is going to do something like this. While yes, its nice saying that not-so-strict gun laws that don't even apply to this incident are the problem, they make a nice scapegoat, they aren't, plain and simple. This is just one of those horrible things that happened, there is no reason to it no matter how hard you look.

I could go through a 6 month waiting period, do drug tests, take an IQ test, and do gosh knows what else, get the gun, and still shoot the store clerk on the way out.

---

As for your little quiz, I got 100%. As in, "nothing surprised me."
Okay, VA gun laws are retarded, that had little to nothing to do with this case. Stop using the death of 33 people as a political platform. You're just as bad as Bush when he brings up 9/11 in regards to every single policy choice he makes.

In Québec, they're talking about passing a law that would forbid people to take semi-automatic handguns out of the shooting club: in other words, it would be illegal to walk around with a handgun or to have one at home. All semi-automatic guns would also have to be purchased via shooting clubs. This law would never work in the United States (Americans are very fond of their 2nd Amendment), but in Québec, it would be a safe way to keep massacres like this from happening: if a civilian is seen with a handgun outside of a shooting club, he gets arrested and his gun is confiscated, with no questions asked. His background, his age and his mental state wouldn't matter.

Guns are not the only problem, though. I guess we can all agree on that.

Yeah it would be nice for once if we could have a tragedy without some asshat using their deaths for political agenda.

No.
This man was deranged. He had planned this for a while. THIS WAS NOT A CRIME OF PASSION. Had guns not been available to him he would have used something else. He had already written some bomb threats. I don't think it would be a stretch for him to make them.

I think it's funny when the pro-Gun nuts in the US argue that they have a right to own a gun because it offers them protection against attack.

When Hizbullah use their weapons to resist Israeli invasion, they are branded "terrorists" and there are immediate calls to disarm them.

I also cannot understand why this, and yesterday's incident at the NASA building receives so much attention in the UK.

It's like this country has become the 51st State of America.

People are being killed in Somalia and nobody seems to give a fuck...

... But then again, they are just Africans. <_<

And they're also being killed by a US ally (ie. Ethiopia)...

Don't even get me started on this. Really. We've got a million dead in Darfur, another couple thousand dying a day in places like Africa, we've got car bombings in Iraq, and we, as Americans, have the nerve to make this a huge deal, when all of this stuff is going on? We show more simpathy to a mere thirty three people, than to the thousands that are dying each day, in a more horrific way. I mean, don't get me wrong. This shooting was terrible. But you can't just randomly go and treat this like it's a Holocaust. Just is disrespectful to the thousands of people that are dying, each and every day. I hate it.

Darfur doesn't make all other trageties nothing. It truly is comparing apples to oranges. This was a horrible event, and it was/is a big deal, because, simply put, it happened here, not on the other side of the globe. Whether you like it or not, that makes a huge difference.

Going around treated the murder of human beings as something horrible is treating it like it should be treated. Because the murders of these people were a horrible act that should be mourned. Should action be taken in Darfur? Of course. Should we be feeling bad about that? Yes. But does doing/not doing that in any way, shape, or form take away from mourning the lose at VA Tech? No it does not.

I understand your point.

My point, however, is that the British media is so concerned with all affairs American nowadays.

We had reporters flying to Virginia in order to interview the students of Virginia Tech, while just yesterday 73 Somalian were killed, and hundreds of thousands have fled their homes. So far, I've not seen any proper coverage on this event, and the attention given to it pales in comparison to the amount of coverage that has been given to the recent gun-related killings in the USA.

On Tuesday, Israeli forces executed a Palestinian man after they had arresed him. I've not seen any coverage of that in the Western media.

(blizzard)

There are US fingerprints all over the situation in Somalia.

I think another reason why there's been more reporting on the Virginia Tech situation is that it hasn't been normalized, it's kind of shocking for such a large mass murder to have taken place on a US university campus; whereas with a place like Somalia, that violence is made to appear almost "natural" (ie. "Those Africans are always killing each other"). That said, I do of course pray for the victims of the Virginia Tech massacre. I worry also about the after-effects, ie. the possible backlash against the Asian-American community in the US.

Ay, more like a whole hand in the situation (ie. US special forces advisors IN the Horn of Africa advising Ethiopian troops).

Oh, this shooting. I was talking to Delta about it the other night, because he was asking me if we were talking about it in my classes at all (we're both in college). I told him we only talked about in in my Sociology class, and there were some articles in the school paper, but that's about it. He goes to school closer to VTech, so I guess they were talking about it a lot more there. We sort of came to the conclusion that people up here in MA don't really want to think about it too much, and I can say that's the situation with me, I guess. I can't really vouch for all the other students on my campus. Anyway... I know that this happened, and that a ton of people died, but I've refrained from dwelling on it excessively. I guess it would just depress me a lot, I mean... it's 33 separate and special lives so quickly extinguished- people just like you and me. It hurts to consider them all. (I realize that this makes me sound like something of a heel, that I'm trying not to think about it to protect myself.)

What also freaks me out is that the same thing could happen right at my college. We have a huge campus, and 20,000 students- a lot like down in Virginia. If someone decided to walk into a classroom or a lecture hall where I was and start killing people... it would work. And I'd probably die, because I always sit in the front. It's so hard to prevent something like that. (And I agree with the point about the gun control laws- it doesn't matter how long you have to wait to get legal possession of a firearm. You could have a spotless record... and start killing people as soon as you got the gun. Laws can't protect against that kind of stuff.) Anyway... I guess all I can do is accept what's happened and to realize that although it could happen to me tomorrow, I just have to hope that it won't and continue to live life.

As a sort of PS- do you think that killers ever really take the time to think about their victims? Do you think they realize that the people they're about to kill have families, and special talents, feelings, friends, and places in the world? That they mean something to someone? I wonder if they ever think about those things before they go on and snuff out lives.

This is what I tried explaining to my one friend who was pissed off that we care so much more about the VA Tech shooting than anything else. Its not that we don't care about those in Darfur, or people dieing in bombings overseas, it's that those situations are, quite frankly, "old news". The shock of Darfur has passed, as has the shock of 9/11, and as will the shock of the VA Tech shooting. As for those dieing in car bombs in the mid east, thats now expected. People bomb places often in the middle east, so its not that we don't feel bad for the people involved, we just aren't surprised.

The school/college shootings don't happen every day, or even every year, especially in the US. People are shocked by what happened, the media realizes this and talks about it a lot, even in other countries.

They're nuts? Shit, after what happened at VA Tech, I wish I could bring a gun to school, not so I can cause any harm, but so I can protect myself in that kind of situation. I think those who don't want anyone to be able to legally own a gun is nuts. Because as long as guns exist, no matter how hard they are to get a hold of, crazy people will still find a way, even if it takes years, they'll get ahold of a gun. And once they do, all of us good citizens who follow any crazy "anti gun law" will be fucked. OR we can allow people to buy guns, although be more strict with criminal background/psycological health background checks, and when the crazy person does finally get a hold of a gun, us un-crazy people will be less fucked, because hopefully one of us will shoot the crazy person before they shoot us.

I don't know about all killers but I'd imagine that this particular killer probably didn't see the others as humans or he didn't consider himself human.

The point I was also trying to make is that we must denaturalize this violence and ask why Southwest Asia is so frequently bombed, or why Somalia is seeing so many massacres. That of course would lead to some unpleasant conclusions contra the US government's line, which is one of the reasons why the media only plays sound bites and forces a naturalization of these conflicts: so that not too many critical questions are asked.

Horrible as it may feel, events like this almost have to be used for political ends. Such a tragedy highlights a problem within our society, and it's by needs political because politics is how we deal with social problems. Now, there are ways for both sides of an issue like gun control to try to use this in support of their own cause. In either case, both will be weak, the massacre does not indicate any particular solution, only that a solution is needed. And so we debate.

Well Jack Thompson blames video games for the shooting.

Can remember traveling through Virginia and reading an article in local newspapers about how Richmond had the largest percentage of "conceal and carry" persons of any majour city.

And yeah, gun shows in Texas and other states are pretty lieniant (sp?) when it comes to individual sales. The dealers attending them still have to get the forms filled out and do the background checks. Managing private sales of firearms is extremely hard to police.

As to personal protection, a shotgun is often better in the home than a sidearm. Yet it isn't as sexy as a hand gun. Sports-shooters do often look to black-powder rifles or single shot weapons like Thompson Contenders (which have the option for various caliburs with barrel replacements). And the Ruger or Colt single-actions are still popular.

I personally prefer a SigSauer pistol. The 9mm isn't as likely to kill someone as a .45 ACP. Law enforcment likes the man-stoppers of 10mm's or .45's. Am only middlin-to-fair with a pistol for accuracy while the open-sighted rifle is more my thing. Mini-14's and Winchester/Marlin .30-.30's are wonderful for varmit or brush hunting. Never owned a more powerful rifle like a Remington 700 which is a favourite amongst deer hunts and snipers alike.

No, the laws in the U.S. will never be so progressive as to limit where you can purchase/keep the firearms. And outlawing ownership only means that black market small arms are going to be extremely popular. Right now, the low end SK rifles and AK's are hot. Not sure how many of these are legally entering the country. It is almost impossible to verify if they were smuggled across a border or shipped in properly from Norinco or the Soviet Republics. Running serial numbers only works if the gun is registered or taken into evidence from a crime.

The government is probably doing more to track the ammunition sales, since this is a way to verify what's out there in people's hands. It is even possible the ATF looks into rather sizeable purchases. Even as a gun enthusiast who doesn't own any, tracking the sales to me makes a lot of sense. And with today's ability to track anything via database, it wouldn't hurt my feelings if the government tracked what I bought versus tracking what books I read.