NJR: Shootings at Virginia Tech Worst in US History

[FG Lurker]

I wonder how many more of these rampages there will have to be before the US gun situation gets fixed. Workplace shootings. College shootings. School shootings. People walking into a random business or restaurant and shooting whatever moves. Will the US population ever learn?

Japan may well be a country of 12 year olds, but when it comes to guns the US is a country of 2 year olds.

[Greji]

I wonder how many more of these rampages there will have to be before the US gun situation gets fixed. Workplace shootings. College shootings. School shootings. People walking into a random business or restaurant and shooting whatever moves. Will the US population ever learn?

Japan may well be a country of 12 year olds, but when it comes to guns the US is a country of 2 year olds.

Tell that to the Mayor of Nagasaki!

[IkemenTommy]

Tell that to the Mayor of Nagasaki!

And that poor lady that got shot in Wakayama. Can't really say Japan, with strong anti-gun legislation, isn't all that safer.

[Hokgwai]

Kids knew who the gunman was. Supposedely he was known as the "Question Mark Kid"

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,266523,00.html

[Takechanpoo]

this is Kimchi quarity!

[FG Lurker]

Can't really say Japan, with strong anti-gun legislation, isn't all that safer.

Now, I'm wondering if the fucked grammar in that sentence is saying that Japan is safer or that it isn't safer... It's rather hard to tell.

I sure as hell hope you aren't trying to say that Japan and the US are somehow similar in levels of firearm murders because that would be a hilarious statement.

The gun murder rate in the US (not suicides, just murders) for 2004 was 5.1 deaths per 100,000 people. (Roughly 14800 murders in total.)

In a typical year Japan has about 20 firearm murders....total. In 2001 it was 22, I can't find figures for 2004.

The US seems to be ignoring the gun problem and praying to the FSM to magically fix everything. His noodly wonderfulness might do that, but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting. Maybe one day the US will wake up, but how many more people will have to die first...?

[omae mona]

The gun murder rate in the US (not suicides, just murders) for 2004 was 5.1 deaths per 100,000 people. (Roughly 14800 murders in total.)

In a typical year Japan has about 20 firearm murders....total. In 2001 it was 22, I can't find figures for 2004.

I pulled out my calculator and it looks like you are only 400 times more likely to get killed by a gun in the US than Japan. I see IkemenTommy's point - it's pretty much a wash as far as safety goes.

[AssKissinger]

Two or three American ghetto blocks will have more violent crime than the entire country of Japan.

[Kanchou]

I pulled out my calculator and it looks like you are only 400 times more likely to get killed by a gun in the US than Japan. I see IkemenTommy's point - it's pretty much a wash as far as safety goes.

But just as likely to get stabbed or beaten to death.

The fact about gun control is that you can't get rid of guns in America, at least not without trampling all over the constitution (and I'm not just talking about the 2nd Amendment...I mean the bill of rights as a whole), so the only solution that involves Americans keeping their freedoms in tact is for more people to carry concealed weapons in more locations (ie, ban weapons policies, except for on people's personal private property...but then again, you can't do that either...On the other hand, guns are banned on federal property, but you've got armed guards and metal detectors, so it's a different story).

If someone had just shot the guy after he fired the first shots, it would be just another blurb in the news instead of a tragedy of historic proportions.

Japanese law already provides the police to search your home for firearms without a warrant (I think?), given any suspicion, so you have the makings for effective gun control, at the cost of personal freedoms.

Theoretically, just ONE properly trained armed citizen is enough to take care of one Charles Whitman wannabe... except for when your on a school campus that bans firearms (yet does not provide metal detectors or armed guards).

[emperor]

Two or three American ghetto blocks will have more violent crime than the entire country of Japan.

[YT]N3rdxvQ6a3g[/YT]

[omae mona]

But just as likely to get stabbed or beaten to death.

Not sure what your point is. That there should be no gun control because you can still get stabbed? By the way, in the U.S. there are about 5 times as many gun-related murders annually as knife-related murders (source http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_04/offenses_reported/violent_crime/murder.html).

The fact about gun control is that you can't get rid of guns in America, at least not without trampling all over the constitution (and I'm not just talking about the 2nd Amendment...I mean the bill of rights as a whole)

Whoa, how on earth did that become a "fact"? Legal credentials, please.

(also, you are creating a straw man argument... nobody is proposing getting rid of all guns).

[Greji]

But just as likely to get stabbed or beaten to death.

9/11 was perpatrated with box cutters and airplanes. Oklahoma bombing with cow shit. The two guns in question killed no one at Virginia Tech. An obviously deranged Korean student did.

What else would you do? Bar all Koreans? Bar all exchange students?

This was one nut, acting alone. Not two guns. If somebody decides to kill someone, all the security in the world will not stop a dedicated loner from doing it.

Japan has the most stringent handgun controls in the world and as I said, it did not help the good Mayor.

The root of the problem is elsewhere.

[AssKissinger]

I wish we would have banned guns from the get-go but there's no way to go back now.

[Hokgwai]

But just as likely to get stabbed or beaten to death.


....If someone had just shot the guy after he fired the first shots, it would be just another blurb in the news instead of a tragedy of historic proportions.

Theoretically, just ONE properly trained armed citizen is enough to take care of one Charles Whitman wannabe... except for when your on a school campus that bans firearms (yet does not provide metal detectors or armed guards).

Indeed, I heard one person making the argument that if one of the teachers were armed. This would not have happened. Rubbish. Ain't gonna happen. Has there EVER been a generation in American history where the teachers in classroom were packing heat? Don't think so.

[kurohinge1]

Anyone who can tap their head and not hear an echo knows that the way to reduce these type of mass murders is to limit the weapons that can be used. It would be almost impossible for a maladjusted juvenile to kill more than a couple of people with a knife (in the same way this kid easily shot 32 people) before being overpowered or at least outrun. And the timescale would be very different, allowing more opportunity for intervention by the police.

The pro-gun lobby, with their heads in the sand, dream of every individual being armed and super-trained to shoot dead anyone with a suspicious bulge in their pants (watch out G-man!), while at the same time trying to avoid their small children playing with their 9mm at the breakfast-table and accidentally blowing their brains out over their rice crispies.

But they have forgotten that their right to bear arms, ironically, was intended to give citizens the means to ensure that they do not end up with a tyrannical government. That obviously has not worked.

If they will not go back, maybe they need to go all the way forward, and stop pussy-footing around in the middle while kids die. Insist on a level playing field and the right to bear the same arms as their government. The U.S. government is not afraid of guns, even though a few of their presidents have been at the wrong end of them. Empower the citizens with nuclear capability. That will make the government respect you. If the government thinks pissing you off will result in a city disappearing in a mushroom cloud, they will think twice about deciding what is best for you. And if everyone has them, surely everyone will be safe? Just like guns.

[omae mona]

If somebody decides to kill someone, all the security in the world will not stop a dedicated loner from doing it.

I read this and though "aha! It will be easy to prove gboothe wrong here. All I have to do is dig up statistics showing the overall murder rate goes down when gun control goes into effect. That would show that, on average, the dedicated loners kill less if they can't fulfill their goal with a gun".

So I googled, and much to my surprise, couldn't find any backup information. In fact, I found some evidence to the contrary. It looks like in the U.K., crime has gone up markedly since gun control went into effect in 1997. Now of course that doesn't mean gun control is the cause of the increased crime, but it sure is not the evidence I thought I would find about reducing crime.

So my first guess was wrong. Maybe gboothe is right. Anybody have any other information that shows what happens to crime or murder rates, in real life, when gun control is tightened?

[FG Lurker]

I read this and though "aha! It will be easy to prove gboothe wrong here. All I have to do is dig up statistics showing the overall murder rate goes down when gun control goes into effect. That would show that, on average, the dedicated loners kill less if they can't fulfill their goal with a gun".

So I googled, and much to my surprise, couldn't find any backup information. In fact, I found some evidence to the contrary. It looks like in the U.K., crime has gone up markedly since gun control went into effect in 1997. Now of course that doesn't mean gun control is the cause of the increased crime, but it sure is not the evidence I thought I would find about reducing crime.

So my first guess was wrong. Maybe gboothe is right. Anybody have any other information that shows what happens to crime or murder rates, in real life, when gun control is tightened?

These sorts of statistics and reports are pretty meaningless -- to get proper results you need a control sample. So you would need two UKs exactly alike (including all people) except one has gun control and one does not. Then it is possible to see how guns affect murder rates in the current socioeconomic situation in the country. Of course such an experiment is impossible, you can't clone a country.

gboothe says that the guns didn't kill these 32 people. I beg to differ. Without easy access to guns and ammo this would very likely never have happened. Sure, the nutcase student pulled he trigger, but the guns are what made it possible to kill so many in such a short period of time.

Removing all guns won't stop all crime. However guns are a magnifier, making a bad situation worse. If guns were removed from this situation, how would it have turned out? Okay, maybe he could have bombed the building instead. However to be effective this takes careful planning and a lot of work, much more so than buying a gun and pulling the trigger. He could have used a knife, sword, baseball bat, box cutters, any number of things. However nothing turns a single person into an effective killing machine easier than a gun. With any other hand-held weapon he might have managed to kill one or two people, but not 32.

Kanchou: Are you suggesting that students be allowed to conceal-carry on campus? Yeah, there's a good idea. University students are such mature, rational, and emotionally stable people...

How many more massacres and senseless murders do there have to be before people like gboothe and kanchou wake up and realize that the current situation is unworkable?

[Greji]

How many more massacres and senseless murders do there have to be before people like gboothe and kanchou wake up and realize that the current situation is unworkable?

The question is not about waking up, or sleeping through the problem Lurk. Gun control Laws at this time and date will only cause the law abiding citizens to comply, but just like in Japan, the Yaks haven't given up their bangers and won't until they're caught with them redhanded. As AK says, it's a great idea but non-workable and much too late.

Locked doors only keep honest people honest. They don't hinder a crook.

Abeit dated, but I think this is might be article that Omae Mona was referencing:


Monday, 16 July, 2001, 04:50 GMT 05:50 UK
Handgun crime 'up' despite ban

Handguns were banned following the Dunblane massacre
A new study suggests the use of handguns in crime rose by 40% in the two years after the weapons were banned.
The research, commissioned by the Countryside Alliance's Campaign for Shooting, has concluded that existing laws are targeting legitimate users of firearms rather than criminals.

The ban on ownership of handguns was introduced in 1997 as a result of the Dunblane massacre, when Thomas Hamilton opened fire at a primary school leaving 16 children and their teacher dead.
Read article here.....

[Hokgwai]

What bugs me is how fucking cheap the gun was. $500 + odd dollars....
5 bills don't equal the lives of 32 people.

[FG Lurker]

The question is not about waking up, or sleeping through the problem Lurk. Gun control Laws at this time and date will only cause the law abiding citizens to comply, but just like in Japan, the Yaks haven't given up their bangers and won't until they're caught with them redhanded. As AK says, it's a great idea but non-workable and much too late.

So your solution is to do nothing and leave things as they are now? The current status quo is acceptable to you?

The problem is not going to go away over night. However if change is started now then the situation can be worked on and improved slowly over time. It might take 50 years, it could take longer. Surely slow and small improvements are better than doing nothing and waiting for the next massacre.

Locked doors only keep honest people honest. They don't hinder a crook.

Agreed, and no free society can stop all criminal activity, especially organized criminal activity. The idea is to make it more difficult for guys like this to go out, buy a gun or two, and then kill a whole bunch of people.

[GuyJean]

.. Empower the citizens with nuclear capability. That will make the government respect you. If the government thinks pissing you off will result in a city disappearing in a mushroom cloud, they will think twice about deciding what is best for you. And if everyone has them, surely everyone will be safe? Just like guns..

:p Yeah, I always wondered why the 'guns beyond reality' lobby would be against any country having nukes]MAD[/URL] is one of peace.

GJ

[GuyJean]

What bugs me is how fucking cheap the gun was. $500 + odd dollars....
5 bills don't equal the lives of 32 people.

Chris has the answer..

[YT]juLQBeZXmPU[/YT]

GJ

[Greji]

So your solution is to do nothing and leave things as they are now? The current status quo is acceptable to you?

This happened in Virginia which is admittedly less strict in Gun Laws than other states. Look at states or locations that have laws almost as strict as Tokyo, like Washington D.C. Even with that Washington averages more than a homocide a day with a gun. Where are stricter laws going to outlast these houligans? The gun laws already in place can't be, or arn't being enforced as it is! What good will new legislation on control do. More teeth in enforcement and the penal system is what is needed, not more new gun laws!

As I said, even if you ban all weapons and call em in, only the good, law adbiding people are going to obey. The slugs are going to keep theirs.

At least with the status quo you'll have a gun and when the dude comes through your door packing heat, you can blow his pecker off without worrying about the lawman.

[Oradea]

At least with the status quo you'll have a gun and when the dude comes through your door packing heat, you can blow his pecker off without worrying about the lawman.

Thats a crock of shit, especially in the states. Someone breaks into your house with a gun, you shoot them with your gun, the fucker will probably sue you.


Anyway, America should change the ammendment, and disallow guns. But that will never happen. Theres too much money to be made from shooting each other.

Recently there has been a spate of gun related crime in London, like 5 seperate instances in the first four months of this year, but it is rare in the UK, where very few have guns.

America has a lot of guns, and a lot of shootings, Canada has a lot of guns, but very few shootings.

If there was one way to make it better, we would have thought about it by now, I guess its gotta be different for each country and its citizens.

[Kanchou]

Anyone can sue anyone for anything. It doesn't mean that they're going to win. You're more likely to win a counter-suit for what he was doing in the first place anyway.

It also doesn't mean you're better off being shot by him than getting sued for defending your property.

And considering that at least 50% of college students aren't old enough to even buy and carry a handgun yet (not including graduate students), I'd say by the time they're 21, they should be responsible enough to carry a weapon. This goes doubly for instructors.

And by "fact," I mean "incredibly obvious" that you can not strip away the 2nd amendment AND take away EVERY gun (meaning from the "bad guys" as well) without taking away the 4th amendment rights. But why stop there? What's to say that only the 2nd and 4st amendment rights are fair game? Why not just burn the whole constitution while you're at it?

And to protect the people as required by the government, it would mean they would have to provide for metal detectors and armed guards everywhere. I mean why not, they've already got rid of the 4th amendment, they might as well take advantage of it to keep us "safe" from the people who managed to hide their guns somewhere the government couldn't find them.

There were probably at least 500 people on that campus that day. If 1/100 of them had been packing and was trained to use it, that would mean there would have been 5 people who could have stopped him in his tracks. But instead, there was a weapons policy, yet not guards or metal detectors to back it up, which means 32 innocent people are dead.

I'm fairly sure state law says mentally unstable people (he was diagnosed I think) can't buy guns... same goes for alcoholics and drug addicts. How about we just enforce those laws instead of thinking about gun control?


Although I think SOMEONE should have seen the warning signs when they saw him buying a load-bearing vest and probably upwards of 10-15 magazines or more (plus about 200 rounds of ammo to go with it). The guns he actually used were run-of-the-mill handguns. The issue being that he had so much ammo he could just spray crowds of people. On the other hand, it would have only take ONE bullet his direction to stop it all.

[kamome]

"Gun control" is really a vague term, and it seems that what it means to boothie is not the same as what it means to Lurk. boothie is right that you have to attack the issue from the enforcement and penal angles, but Lurk is right that banning/severe restrictions at the point-of-purchase are another important step toward gun control.

The thing with boothe's argument that doesn't make sense is the statement that "only law abiding citizens will have their rights to buy arms restricted". Every criminal is a law-abiding citizen until he decides to break the law. This Cho kid at Va Tech didn't become a mass murderer until he decided to put two guns on his credit card at the local WalMart and pump bullets into the student body. You need a gun suppression system that deters would-be shooters from the ability to cross the line. I'm thinking the only way to do that is an outright ban, but without a Constitutional amendment what other way is there of accomplishing that goal? Metal detectors at every access point in every American public building?

[Kuang_Grade]

Anyone can sue anyone for anything. It doesn't mean that they're going to win. You're more likely to win a counter-suit for what he was doing in the first place anyway.

Maybe, but that doesn't mean you won't be spending thousands on legal bills defending yourself in a court....and exactly what would be the counter suit, damages to a door frame or a broken window? Sure you can bag them in criminal court, but where's the cash in that? And if they are breaking into your house, the odds of recovering anything counter suit is probably not that great, since, you know, they are breaking into your house to steal stuff. If they had cash sitting around, they probably wouldn't be breaking into people's houses.

Yes, the legal system is open to anyone but in reality, unless you have cash or are suing someone with alot of cash, your suit won't get off the ground because lawyers generally don't work for free.

[Greji]

Canada has a lot of guns, but very few shootings.

Less people to shoot?

[Mike Oxlong]

As for gun control in the US, why not try a system similar to the Canadian one, where guns are not outright banned, but one needs to take an official gov't course to get a FAC (firearms aquision certificate). The course includes a background check if you'd like to get your FAC. Only with one of those can a person purchase a gun. That's how it was back in the day, anyhow. Handguns were banned except for target practice, and were only allowed to be transported to and from the range. Could not be carried at any other time, only in storage. While not a perfect system, it seems to have been working better than the free-for-all in the US of A.

[AssKissinger]

If America needs gun control then Japan needs gasoline control...

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20070415a7.html

Kobayashi was convicted of demanding money and scattering a gasoline mixture at a Takefuji branch in the city of Hirosaki on May 8, 2001. He set fire to the premises after the branch manager refused to give him the money, killing five employees and injuring the manager and three other people

And knife control.


http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9803/14/japan.teen.violence/

A 13-year old killed his teacher after she scolded him for being late. Another student stabbed a classmate who had teased him about his frizzy hair. Even a policeman was slashed by a teen-ager trying to steal his gun.

Such scenes are growing more common in Tokyo, a city that's long been considered one of the safest in the world.

While the Japanese are familiar with teen violence in other countries, such as the United States, until now they felt that youth violence was not a problem in their own country.


But that sense of security is evaporating, after a series of attacks and murders.

Even more troubling is that nearly all the recent offenders are students in junior high. More often than not, the weapon of choice is a so-called butterfly knife

But seriously, I would hate to see how many Japanese would go postal if they had as many guns as Americans do.