A brilliant argument, why not extend it to all students from Kindergarten up to college and university should be issued with weapon (eg gun and knife). On average the non-nutcases will outnumber the nutcases, so if a nutcase tries anything they will be quickly shot to pieces or stabbed (the authorities might need to hush up a few accidents).
No criminal in their right mind would then attack a college knowing all the students are armed.
If the government cannot protect the paranoid, we, the paranoid must learn to take our medication.
jim
Seriously, the killings in colleges this week are a tragedy and hopefully the cause will be found and future tragedies prevented, but fighting gun-crime with more guns just leads to gun-fights.
Guns make people think they’re superior to others, makes them think they have more control.
It will take well over a lifetime to change the attitude of that kind of person in the US. It won’t happen though, I can predict that American citizens would outrage that they’re not allowed to (own a gun) (be patriotic) anymore.
Anyone who wants guns outlawed in the US, good luck… only Outlaws use guns in the first place.
Thomas Hamilton in Dunblane; Michael Ryan in Hungerford. Then of course the various serial killers (Moors Murderers, Yorkshire Ripper, the recent killer of five women in Ipswich) and the various mass murdering terrorist attacks committed by the IRA, and more recently by so-called Islamic terrorists…
The UK isn’t free of it. We get fewer than the USA because we are only as big as one small US state. If we were 50 times bigger, we might have 50 times more.
I don’t think life is cheaper than it used to be. I think we just feel it ought to be worth more than our ancestors did. We can expect to live comfortably to 80+ years old. A hundred years ago, most of us might have lived to be 40 if we were lucky.
We expect the rule of law. We are shocked and feel cheated when it fails.
In Africa, in the last few weeks, people have been hacked to death in the streets, or burned to death locked in their churches. The people doing that have “permission” (as they see it) because of tribal rivalries, civil wars, revenge, honour, etc. Their society gives an outlet for this natural human aggression.
It is because in the USA and most of Europe we live in such a peaceful society that there is no outlet for the aggressive impulses of those on the margins of society, so now and again it bubbles up and explodes in one of these “sprees”, and then we’re all shocked.
But this grim analysis doesn’t change the fact that it’s devastatingly sad for those involved.
Please provide us a link to the source in which this information was published. I am curious as to how someone knows what is in the mind of these killers.
If you’ve made this information up, its not going to help your argument at all.
Again, if you’re making this up, you’re not helping your argument.
I’m not going to claim all weapons carriers are skilled marksmen, but most states require a basic weapons safety course before issuing a permit to weapons carriers. The first thing you’re going to learn in that course is how to use your weapon safely.
I am very doubtful that “cross fire” would be a significant issue in this case. All it takes is a few well-placed rounds for the situation to come to an end… there wouldn’t be bullets flying in every direction for 10 minutes, as most Hollywood films would have you believe.
The problem is that people WILL get guns no matter what. If we banned them, then only those who are willing to break the law will have them, and I believe that they are the last person we want to be armed, especially when no one else is.
An ideal world would have no guns. It would also be a castle in the clouds, called Happy Rainbow Land, and we would ride unicorns to the park to play with the elves and the fairies every day. Unfortunately, we don’t live in happy rainbow land. We live in Sad Storm Cloud Land, where there are guns and murderers, and always will be, regardless of how the government tries to control it.
The best thing anyone can do, in my opinion, is to be able to defend yourself.
Why has this thread degenerated into a gun control debate?
As far as I can see it, gun debate, in this instance, is irrelevant.
What we should be looking at here is the social and personal reasons that drove these young men to become so violent.
Guns are just one way a person can inflict violence on another. What needs to happen is to remove, or safely redirect, that violence in the first place.
I have a few ideas on what these causes are but they are just that - ideas, largely biased and uneducated. Regardless, we need to treat the sickness, not just its symptoms.
I just read this thread again for the first time since the first couple comments were posted. It amazes and disgusts me how many people blame the tool and not the reasons why this guy decided to go killing people.
I own more guns than unicycles. All of them are registered but yet I am still able to leave the country, fancy that.
Edit: Bruce, thanks for being the voice of reason on this thread.
I thought you where over the level of the “what sources” argument, Maestro .To answer your question: No, I don’t have any source on this foundment, but it’s not a foundment, it’s an opinion wich relies on my brain, education, experience, culture, knowledge… or lack of those, who can say?
You know, a brain can be usefull when your acces to the web is temporarily down.
So what do you expect now, you want me to find some so called specialists living in Siberia to find THE source? I won’t try and get it.
At that time, given my information level, I don’t remember any mass shooter who hit and ran in order not to get killed. How many mass shooters are in jail at the moment (or have been sentenced to death)? Maybe this can help my argument if I’m not totally mistaking.
Can you find some sources to emphasize your argument? So, how long would the bullet time last according to you (or your sources)?
cheers from “pretty happy raimbow land”
The University of Idaho is currently going through a thing, where some students want the right to carry concealed weapons if they have a license.
I feel it is relevant to this thread, you can read all about it here:
That sounds lovely!
Is it someplace in South America, and do you get all the kool-aid you want?
I want to join!
We have a similar debate going on in the UK at the moment, over alcohol. The ready availability of cheap alcohol is allegedly “causing” a wave of violent crime and random killings, stabbings and beatings as well as general anti-social behaviour.
This is strange, because I can easily afford as much alcohol as I could possibly drink,and yet I have never killed, stabbed or beaten anyone, and (with the possible exception of practising my concertina more than my neighbours would like) I don’t behave anti-socially. In fact, I seldom drink heavily, and only in socially appropriate circumstances.
So alcohol doesn’t inevitably cause the violence (etc.). Otherwise I’d be a thug.
Nevertheless, it is clearly observable that the availability of alcohol is closely associated with the increase in violence (etc.) in society generally.
Similarly, with the guns thing: if the guns weren’t readily available, the sort of selfish idiots who go on shooting sprees would have to do something else instead. They could still glass, stab or beat people, but at least they couldn’t shoot half a dozen people dead in half a dozen seconds.
Now, give me a gun to defend myself, and I would take so long to decide to use it that it would be virtually useless to me. Give it to a gung ho wannabe hero, and he might use it as a first option in a less urgent situation. Give someone a tool and they will look for a job to do with it.
“Hand gun’s made for killing. Ain’t no good for nothin’ else.”
We will never get rid of violent selfish idiots (or self-righteous wannabe heroes) but we can at least limit the damage they can do by not arming them.
Lets revoke the right to own guns to all because of a few crazies. That makes sense, eureka!
Anyways I heard of something a while back about a man who was in a college parking shooting another man, made into a mobile arsenal, walking into the school then he got in trouble for it. That’s about all I heard so does this sound familiar and if so where can I read of it? I also believe this shows when guns are used the way they should be they can be an affective tool. Imagine what could have happened.
My bad, I’m afraid:( .
I’m all for gun control but I think that revoking the right to bare guns in the US right now wouldn’t be a solution. It’s much too late unfortunately.
I THINK that education and prevention should come first, so that less and less people think that handguns are the only way to protect themselves and their families… Way to go!
I much prefer believing in humankind than in the power of guns.
.To answer your question: No, I don’t have any source on this foundment, but it’s not a foundment, it’s an opinion wich relies on my brain, education, experience, culture, knowledge… or lack of those, who can say?