Uhh...heres and idea alot of people are seemingly overlooking, gun control [B][I][U]and[/U][/I][/B] More treatment of disturbed/metally ill people.
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Uhh...heres and idea alot of people are seemingly overlooking, gun control [B][I][U]and[/U][/I][/B] More treatment of disturbed/metally ill people.
[QUOTE=crisis;695747]The Swiss model is another typical gun nut red herring. It totally ignores cultural and social influences as well as the fact that every Swiss male must complete several years in the military. So the population to a man has military training including discipline. They are not [I]“given a fully-automatic rifle with several hundred rounds of ammunition by the Swiss militia”. [/I]They are given the option to buy a weapon upon leaving the military. They also have a high gun suicide rate.
I find it startling that even gun nut mentality can find any logic in highlighting the eccentricities of one country out of all the rest as the example to follow even forgetting the unique circumstances that surround it.[/QUOTE]
But it does show that just because there are a lot of guns in a society, it doesn't mean that there will be a lot of murders.
[QUOTE]From what I can see they can own small calibre rifles that do not contain a magazine (single shot)[/QUOTE]
Doesn't matter... they can still make someone just as dead as with an automatic.
[QUOTE]Because criminals still have them and people still have them . A buy back or ban or whatever won’t work immediately. Guns will have to slowly go out of circulation. It is a slow process but one that can’t work unless it has a starting point.[/QUOTE]
Won't work immediately? How long have guns been abolished in the U.K.?
[QUOTE]How would England’s current circumstances be helped by giving everyone access to more guns? There is no logic in that.[/QUOTE]
It may not, but potential victims can at least protect themselves.
Bizarre.
Police Say NBC Got A Package From Cho
April 18, 2007 04:57 PM
Authorities say the Virginia Tech gunman sent photographs, videos and writings to NBC in New York before he died in the massacre that left 33 people dead.
NBC said it turned the package to authorities today. Virginia State Police say the information may be a very new, critical component of the investigation. Authorities are in the process of attempting to analyze and evaluate its worth.
NBC said that a time stamp on the package indicated the material was mailed in the two-hour window between the first burst of gunfire and the second. It contained what the network described as a "lengthy diatribe."
(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
[url]http://www.wtkr.com/Global/story.asp?S=6389574&nav=ZolHbyvj[/url]
This whole thing is just twisted and sick.
I suppose it was too much to hope that this wouldn't turn into a frivolous discussion of gun policy, it's a shame that anyone want's to use a tragedy like this push their views on something so stupid. I have heard so many debates [I]exactly[/I] like this one in the past two days it's nauseating. A firearms ban in the US would work just about as well as prohibition did. It doesn't even make sense to suggest such a thing, and this isn't really the appropriate thread to do so. That's just my opinion; I'm sure it will be ignored.
Sorry that I haven't anything to contribute to the full 10 or so pages because I haven't read most of this thread, but this relates to it too.
I'm not sure if it was talked about before (as I said, I haven't had time to read the entire thread), but the gunman is Korean and they're now afraid of a backlash to Asians in general. People often jump to conclusions and it's not fair to just generalize all Asians as "uncontrollable freaks that shoot everyone".
[url]http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18178194/site/newsweek/[/url]
[quote=NSXType-R;696049]it's not fair to just generalize all Asians as "uncontrollable freaks that shoot everyone". [/quote]
It's not fair, and it makes no sense.
[QUOTE=Mr.Tiv;696052]It's not fair, and it makes no sense.[/QUOTE]
Right. It's like right after 9/11 and everyone went after Muslims for no reason at all. It's not like they're behind it all.
I saw this coming
[B]Violent video games blamed for Virginia Tech slayings[/B]
[QUOTE=theinquirer.net]TV pundits and rent-a-quotes have been quick to blame the shootings at Virginia Tech on the use of violent computer games.
Attorney Jack Thompson and noted TV shrink Doctor Phil McGraw have both blamed video games for Seung-Hui Cho killing all his school mates.
While it is fair enough for Thompson to make that sort of statement, McGraw should really have thought a bit before he agreed.
So far there is no evidence that Cho played a video game in his life, let alone a violent one.
However, there is a lot of evidence that suggests that Cho was a depressed loner whose creative writing was so bleak that his teachers referred it to he school counsellor.
Yet McGraw seemed to run fleeing from Occam's razor in favour of blaming video games. He claimed that "if these kids are playing video games, where they’re on a mass killing spree in a video game, it’s glamorized on the big screen, it’s become part of the fiber of our society. You take that and mix it with a psychopath, a sociopath or someone suffering from mental illness and add in a dose of rage, the suggestibility is too high."
Seung-Hui Cho, a 23-year-old English major went on his killing spree after his girlfriend dumped him.
He had been taking medication for depression, that he was becoming increasingly violent and erratic, and that he left a note in his dorm in which he railed against 'rich kids', 'debauchery' and 'deceitful charlatans' on campus.
He also managed to get his paws on a nine millimetre handgun and a 22-calibre handgun, but apparently that is normal behaviour for a depressed kid in the US.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Zytek_Fan;696073]I saw this coming[/QUOTE]
Ah, the cure all solution for every violent person out there....:p
Personally, I've played a lot of Grand Theft Auto games and I thought it was an alright game. However, either way, I don't see a change in my aggression.
In the vids he sent to NBC he's posing with guns and going into incoherent diatribes. Blaming someone, but he doesn't say who, drove him to do it...be cause he 'had to'. Angrily ranting and using alot of profanity in most of the clips.
He also mentioned the two main shooters in the Columbine tragedy.
He was one sick dude.
[QUOTE=clutch-monkey;695792]
that's what waiting periods are for ;) it takes an average of 3 weeks to collect a weapon in my case (over a month if it's your first one) [/QUOTE]
I suppose the problem is still that once someone has a gun and has bought it legitimately and sat out a waiting period etc he has it. A waiting period of three weeks may not have been an issue for the guy in Virginia as he appeared to have planned this. Conversely a waiting period is also of no use where someone is prone to mental problems or violence but they have not manifested themselves in an extreme way as yet. They have a legal gun and are a legal owner. They them may at some stage find themselves in a situation where these problems do manifest themselves in an extreme way.
In effect I am not sure there are a great many situations where waiting three weeks is of much use at all. I would rather someone show a justifiable reason that they need a gun or a particular type.
[QUOTE=clutch-monkey;695792]
the fireman and police games are being held in Adelaide this year, and most of the oversea's competitors have permission to bring their own firearms, many of which have been illegal here since 1996. Will be interesting to watch, at any rate. [/QUOTE]
Done and finished. They are cops after all. :)
[QUOTE=Dino Scuderia;695845]
So...how do you stop this sort of mental illness? How do you prevent a crime before it happens? In cases like this you can't...no amount of gun control...no amount of security can prevent such cases either.
[/QUOTE]
This is a problem that is at the root. I am against gun proliferation only because it avails a terribly effective method for these people to use when they go off. But mental illness and the stigma of it are being recognised more by the wider community as an illness as opposed to dismissing it as weakness or a character flaw. The difficult part comes with dealing with these people who can be identified as carrying this trait to the extent it can manifest itself in such a devastating way.
How do you test everyone?
What are the levels acceptable and when is a level deemed to be dangerous or potentially so?
What can you do to these people before they have actually done anything without impinging on their human rights?
When is the good of the many put above the good of the few?
[QUOTE=Dino Scuderia;695990]A few years ago a woman in Texas drowned all 4 or 5 of her kids...so do we need bathtub control? No...a mentally disturbed person is going to find some method to do whatever it is they feel the need to.
Stay rational people.[/QUOTE]
Restricting availability of guns to those who actually need them is an order of magnitude more rational than controlling bathtubs. You need to take your own medicine. :)
[QUOTE=Fleet 500;696003] But it does show that just because there are a lot of guns in a society, it doesn't mean that there will be a lot of murders.
[/QUOTE]
Yes but what does that in turn show?
[QUOTE=Fleet 500;696003]
Doesn't matter... they can still make someone just as dead as with an automatic. [/QUOTE]
I was merely responding to this quote you made.
[I][B]Originally Posted by Fleet 500[/B]
In the U.K., private ownership of firearms has been nearly abolished.[/I]
Not debating the lethality despite the fact a half trained monkey could work out more bullets and more bullets per minute can result in more carnage and quicker.
[QUOTE=Fleet 500;696003]
Won't work immediately? How long have guns been abolished in the U.K.? [/QUOTE]
They aren’t.
[QUOTE=Fleet 500;696003]
It may not, but potential victims can at least protect themselves. [/QUOTE]
They may be able to in certain circumstances to varying degrees. That is all.
They are also open to all of the rest of the threats associated with gun proliferation.
[QUOTE=IBrake4Rainbows;695870]According to CNN, background checks were carried out. and he passed.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Dino Scuderia;695970]He was accused of stalking a couple of girls at VT in 2005. Also he was taken to a mental hospital at one point because he became suicidal.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Dino Scuderia;695845]One of his teachers recognized from instinct that he was in need of counseling and that in general he was a scary person. She even notified the police at one point because of tendencies he showed. Of course they couldn't do anything before he actually committed a crime.[/QUOTE]
But then why didn't these come up in a background check?
[QUOTE=Mr.Tiv;696037]I suppose it was too much to hope that this wouldn't turn into a frivolous discussion of gun policy, it's a shame that anyone want's to use a tragedy like this push their views on something so stupid. I have heard so many debates [I]exactly[/I] like this one in the past two days it's nauseating. A firearms ban in the US would work just about as well as prohibition did. It doesn't even make sense to suggest such a thing, and this isn't really the appropriate thread to do so. That's just my opinion; I'm sure it will be ignored.[/QUOTE]
That's all good and well, but if the same thing had've happened after Port Arthur here in Australia, people would still have assault weapons. Unfortunately it takes tragedies like this to force people to change their ways.
[QUOTE=Fleet 500;695717]I looked around and found the same figures from a "gun control" website. Just how accurate are those figures?
There are approximately 19,457 crimes involving firearms in the U.K. every year. How can that be if gun control works so well?[/QUOTE]
The figures I got were quoted from a study from Harvard University.
"Crime involving firearm" is a fairly loose term, which I'm guessing in this case involves people being held-up in armed robberies adn threatened etc more than anything else. In the UK we currently have a problem with imitation firearms, which at the moment have relatively weak restrictions on purchase. The majority of hold-ups and the like are done with these imitation firearms. Sadly there is also a growing problem of organised criminals being able to convert certain legally bought imitation handguns into proper live firearms. There are gun control campaigners currently lobbying to get the restrictions on imitation firearms tightened too.
I was not trying to suggest that in the UK we live in some happy-clappy utopia where we all love each other etc, we have problems with violent crime (and increasingly gang crime) just as any country does. However, I guarantee that things would be much, much worse if gun laws were relaxed to let any old guy off the street legally buy a firearm. Tightening gun laws is not going to immediately stop shootings, but it will make the access to firearms for criminals, potential criminals and the mentally unstable severely limited. How can that NOT be a good thing? :confused:
[QUOTE=Mr.Tiv;696037]I suppose it was too much to hope that this wouldn't turn into a [B]frivolous[/B] discussion of gun policy, it's a shame that anyone want's to use a tragedy like this push their views on something so stupid. I have heard so many debates [I]exactly[/I] like this one in the past two days it's nauseating. A firearms ban in the US would work just about as well as prohibition did. It doesn't even make sense to suggest such a thing, and this isn't really the appropriate thread to do so. That's just my opinion; I'm sure it will be ignored.[/QUOTE]
Due in no small part to the lax gun laws in Virginia a dangerously mentally ill person was allowed to walk into a store, hand over his credit card and walk out with the guns and bullets that he would then use to slaughter over 30 innocent people. I'd hardly call the gun control issue "frivolous", would you? :rolleyes:
I still can't see why people are saying that it doesn't make sense to try and limit access to firearms. Surely everyone, especially at this tragic time, would be wanting the government to be doing anything and everything within their power to keep lethal firearms out of the hands of dangerous people? The arguments [I]against[/I] tightening gun laws just don't make a damn bit of sense to me. :(
[QUOTE=2ndclasscitizen;696133]That's all good and well, but if the same thing had've happened after Port Arthur here in Australia, people would still have assault weapons. Unfortunately it takes tragedies like this to force people to change their ways.[/QUOTE]
Indeed, the handgun ban that came into force in the UK came within a year of the awful Dunblane school massacre in Scotland. The tragedy highlighted a serious flaw in the existing gun regulations, and the flaws were swiftly remedied to try and prevent it ever happening again.
With regards to the matter of mental illness there's no doubting that it is every bit as important a factor as the gun contol issue. In this particular case it seems that pretty much everyone who came into contact with Cho was deeply worried about his behaviour, and it's hugely disappointing that the concerns and complaints of fellow students and teachers didn't lead to concrete action, like being referred for serious psychiatric assessment and treatment.
However, it is a sad fact of life that serious mental disturbance is something that will always affect a small percentage of people. There is really very little that can be done about this, especially those out in the wider world and not in a more closed environment like a college campus where they will come into contact with people who may be able to help them. There will then be a small percentage of these mentally disturbed individuals who will inevitably turn to violence of some kind. It's not nice, but it's a reality of life. This is as strong an argument as any for the tightening of gun laws IMO. Everything that can reasonably be done to keep dangerously mentally ill people from getting their hands on firearms (not to mention the criminals wanting to get their hands on guns) should be done. Even just stronger profiling of people wanting to buy guns would have helped in this case. If background checks had been forced to dig a little deeper then they were there's no way a guy with serious question marks over his mental stability would have been able to walk out of that store with those guns.
Does anyone else find it quite disturbing that news agencies are openly broadcasting his rantings and pictures all over TV and the internet? I think it's in extreme bad taste, especially for the families of the victims to have those images and words plastered all over the news. I can't even imagine what they're thinking watching that. Surely NBC should have passed the information straight to the police and washed their hands of it. This guy posted this stuff to NBC with intention of it sealing his legacy and his notoriety in the realm of infamous serial killers. By broadcasting it they are granting the guy his final wish, giving him exactly what he wanted. It's just chilling and wrong IMO. :(
[QUOTE=Jack_Bauer;696163]However, I guarantee that things would be much, much worse if gun laws were relaxed to let any old guy off the street legally buy a firearm. Tightening gun laws is not going to immediately stop shootings, but it will make the access to firearms for criminals, potential criminals and the mentally unstable severely limited. How can that NOT be a good thing? :confused: [/QUOTE]
Switzerland has more relaxed gun laws (compared to the U.K.) and the number of people killed there (per 100,000) is less than in the U.K. How do you explain that?
[QUOTE]I still can't see why people are saying that it doesn't make sense to try and limit access to firearms. Surely everyone, especially at this tragic time, would be wanting the government to be doing anything and everything within their power to keep lethal firearms out of the hands of dangerous people? The arguments [I]against[/I] tightening gun laws just don't make a damn bit of sense to me. :( [/QUOTE]
Instead of keeping lethal firearm out of the hands of dangerous people, I would rather the dangerous people be kept off the streets. That guy in Virginia was determined to be a threat to himself and others and should have never been out in public. It can't be blamed on guns.
[QUOTE]Indeed, the handgun ban that came into force in the UK came within a year of the awful Dunblane school massacre in Scotland. The tragedy highlighted a serious flaw in the existing gun regulations, and the flaws were swiftly remedied to try and prevent it ever happening again. [/QUOTE]
Wait a minute... Crisis says that handguns were banned in the U.K. You say they were. Which is it? :confused: