Shoutbox

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Originally posted by atown44
How in hell are you expected to lockdown a campus of 26000 students? (Many of which are driving to school with no way to check their e-mail. Campus police aren't exactly the biggest regiments either, how do you expect that many police officers to go through the entire campus, secure each building, and keep the perpetrator away?

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It isn't about the lockdown, it is about the time delay between sending a notice, and how that notice was send (and during the shooting!!!). And they could also said that lessons were cancelled and people should stay home.

Of coure this wouldn't prevented it from happening in the worst case, but it might have saved some people...

If there was a bombtreat they sure would be able to evacuate people...

Saying it wouldnt matter isn't a reason for not doing it. That's the same as saying restricting gun access would prevented it. It may or may not, but it also might (and certainly will) prevent many other cases.

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Things such as video games, or parents, or nobody cared enough to try and prevent it. These are all subconscious means our mind use as principles to make our own understandings of shocking and ming-shaking events.

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all those things _feed_ what is already there.

It starts with being bullied and ends with this for example.

Hence why I am also extremely against bullying people or even disrespecting other cultures etc, it all starts with this. It's the values and morals (or lack of) which quite often starts all this.

Sometimes you can't understand people in this world. Gun crime is a serious problem in America, and the only thing good that could come out of this is if laws are made much much much tighter on guns, if not getting rid of them all together

There was a study, violent video games only have an 'effect'* on people who are already violent and/or mentally unstable(for lack of better word) - in that part of the brain..


Also IMHO the 'violent video games cause people to be violent' is bollocks.

*effect doesn't mean they start going out killing people, just that they were more active in the part of brain that handles violence after playing the violent video games and more likely to get violent with someone/act out something from a game

Can't link to source 'cause I read it in a science magazine I read

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Originally posted by CookieRevised
Anyways, now you're saying that it is the fault of the restriction on campus to carry a gun that this happened? Excuse me? Since when is taking law in your own hands been a solution for anything?

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First of all, self defense is not "taking law into your own hands".  It is taking responsibility for protecting your own life and lives of others, and it is sometimes the only solution.  When someone comes into your classroom and opens fire, you know police won't get there fast enough -- you are on your own.

Argument against "taking law into your own hands" would apply where the perpetrator is not a clear and present threat to yourself and others.  It doesn't apply here.  Everyone at Virginia Tech would have been better off if an armed student or staff member had shot the psycho after he killed the first one or two people. 

By the way, the perpetrator of another school shooting was stopped by armed students.  Although it seems at that point he was trying to leave, there could very well have been additional victims if someone got in his way.

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Originally posted by CookieRevised
...anyone can buy guns (and even semi-automatic weapons) without any background check or license or whatever!

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This is not true.  A background check is performed when you buy a gun and was performed here.  He had no criminal record, so he was allowed to purchase the guns.

Furthermore, a license is required to carry a concealed weapon in public.  The review process for that license is more extensive and penalties for carry without having one are quite severe.

Well the problem with gun violence in is quite deeply rooted in the United States.

The second amendment to the constitution states this:
"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."

As you can see in order to reduce easy access to guns, this must be handled at a very core level.

Moreover, United States' economy is heavily dependent on the weapon industry. For example the DoD (department of defense) has a massive budget for financing weapon research which is basically guns, ammo etc. Now if say one day they decide that they are going to stop making guns, the entire nation's economy would collapse... The very fiber of US's existence is dependent on their ability to facilitate easy access to weapons and their ability to support wars by selling them the weapons.

I know that selling weapons to war raged countries and providing civilians with easy access to weapons might seem like two different things, but they are tied together due to the same core reason being that the very foundation that the United States is built on their existence...

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Originally posted by Adeptus
This is not true.  A background check is performed when you buy a gun and was performed here.  He had no criminal record, so he was allowed to purchase the guns.

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There needs to be more checks, lots more. Checking his mental history may of saved lives in this case.

The only problem I have with this is the fact it took over TWO hours to warn the campus.

Not only that, they LET the students carry on with their lessons.

If some guy has just shot someone in a dorm and has gone missing...are you really going to want to go to lesson if your told?

I know I wouldn't

They definetly could have handled this alot better and probably saved alot more lives.