Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
Dear god... another shooting at Virginia Tech.
Mountains
Veteran
Two dead (confirmed), gunman still at large. I'm just home from Blacksburg (home of VT). Between there and Roanoke (about 25 miles) I passed well over 100 police vehicles speeding south. Even once I got into town I was still seeing numerous police vehicles headed that direction. Every law enforcement officer within a 50 mile radius seems to be converging on the VT campus for the mother of all manhunts.
Prayers for the Tech community please. We didn't need this again...
Prayers for the Tech community please. We didn't need this again...
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
In any case, pls keep us posted as to developments, I'm sure you will.
Ah, so I buy a knife too.
Now the guy who wants to rob me brings a gun.
I buy a gun.
The guy brings a machinegun.
I get one too.
Now he brings a bazooka.
I need one of those.
There’s no end to it and safety will always be an illusion.
However, I really do not think this is a good solution, at all. And I am an enthusiastic gun owner. Let me explain why I think this way. People get into fistfights at school, or very heated arguments. Not very often, but it happens. Now if everyone is packing heat, even the two people that are fighting, the chances are very, very good that someone will pull a weapon which will set off a chain reaction resulting in a literal Mexican standoff.
I can see allowing staff members only to carry say, non-lethal weapons such as tazers and the like. maybe even weapons loaded with rubber or beanbag shot. Hell, at least give them a baseball bat. I can attest, those things hurt like hell and break bone. But the argument that everyone should carry a gun is fundamentally flawed. Because it assumes that everyone can handle a firearm in a high stress situation and in a rational manner. And again I can attest through personal experience that the average citizen under fire is anything but rational.
On the other hand, completely outlawing guns is not the way either. As in all things, the middle way is best.
@zenff No, I would never keep a bazooka in the house... a gun is as far as I would go in your scenario.
Beyond that, do you honestly live in that much fear of someone coming into your house? If so, that's very sad. I refuse to participate in that kind of fear.
That sounds like a good idea, for staff to have tazers or other non-lethal weapons, but what kind of a world is it, if university faculty and staff have to carry weapons and fulfill a quasi-police function? That's bizarre. The university would then have to provide training for all faculty and staff in how to use their weapon. If it's true that Virginia Tech is trying to allow everyone to carry guns, I'd say that's the wrong course. Allowing everyone to carry guns means the angry and unbalanced students are also allowed to have guns. You may as well issue every incoming freshman a gun, along with their course catalog and welcome packet.
Kellermann AL, Somes G, Rivara FP, Lee RK, Banton JG.
Source
Center for Injury Control, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA.
Abstract
OBJECTIVE:
Determine the relative frequency with which guns in the home are used to injure or kill in self-defense, compared with the number of times these weapons are involved in an unintentional injury, suicide attempt, or criminal assault or homicide.
METHODS:
We reviewed the police, medical examiner, emergency medical service, emergency department, and hospital records of all fatal and nonfatal shootings in three U.S. cities: Memphis, Tennessee; Seattle, Washington; and Galveston, Texas.
RESULTS:
During the study interval (12 months in Memphis, 18 months in Seattle, and Galveston) 626 shootings occurred in or around a residence. This total included 54 unintentional shootings, 118 attempted or completed suicides, and 438 assaults/homicides. Thirteen shootings were legally justifiable or an act of self-defense, including three that involved law enforcement officers acting in the line of duty. For every time a gun in the home was used in a self-defense or legally justifiable shooting, there were four unintentional shootings, seven criminal assaults or homicides, and 11 attempted or completed suicides.
CONCLUSIONS:
Guns kept in homes are more likely to be involved in a fatal or nonfatal accidental shooting, criminal assault, or suicide attempt than to be used to injure or kill in self-defense.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9715182
---
For every time a gun in the home is used in a self-defense homicide, a gun will be used in
1.3 unintentional deaths
4.6 criminal homicides
37 suicides22
http://www.vpc.org/fact_sht/hgbanfs.htm
---
IMO the gun culture in the US is a holdover from the frontier days when there was no law around to protect you and a family had to rely on firearms to protect themselves.
I don't fear for myself, but yes for my family... the crack heads are out of control here with the home intrusions. I'm glad this subject came up, now I'm more convinced that I need to get my permit... I understand you don't agree, it's all good, to each their own.
For every time a gun in the home is used in a self-defense homicide, a gun will be used in
1.3 unintentional deaths
4.6 criminal homicides
37 suicides22
http://www.vpc.org/fact_sht/hgbanfs.htm
So the point is that guns can be used in self defense effectivly, but the stats are that they will more likely be used some other way.
But if the person is 'me' and I am neither suicidal or homicidal then those statistics would not apply to 'me'..
I personally don't own guns, I am just being devils advocate.
My actual stance is that the US constitution like it or not does grant the power to bear arms. Thus one needs to change said constitution in order to take citizens guns.
"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
Since the sentence starts out with the proviso that we're talking about a well regulated militia (what we now know as the National Guard), that's all it's talking about, period, as far as I'm concerned. When that was written and ratified, citizen soldiers were truly citizen soldiers. You were part of your state's militia, and you kept your gun hanging over the mantle. Sure, you could kill a rabbit or a deer with it, but when you got called up because the British were invading (again - you Brits need to get over that...), you were expected to use the gun for that purpose.
I don't honestly think the framers could possibly have foreseen the culture of guns that has developed in the US, and if they could, that they'd have written the Second Amendment the way they did. It promotes lawlessness and crime, and nowadays does nothing to promote the establishment of a well regulated militia.
Fact is, even if you outlawed all the guns, suddenly only outlaws would have guns. And not everyone would surrender them so freely... I know I wouldn't.
You could either conclude that there was no militia and thereby nobody eligible to bear arms. Or that, like Zayl said, that anyone *is* militia. Or like me you could understand that there need to be gun owners who learn to shoot etc in order to form a militia when needed.
Anyway, back to the real world. This will keep happening over there for obvious reasons, even if there are newer laws and restrictions, the unerlying notion about guns is instilled into the culture. I hope for the best of those who are involved and let the least amount of sufering occur.