Excellent. No law would have stopped this massacre. Much of the gun violence in the US is due to gangs because of black market drugs. The Federal Government has become more powerful and corrupt than ever. Citizens must not be disarmed.

Guest

Weapon is not a solution

The solution to stop something like this is not to turn a campus to Wild West and allow everyone to carry concealed weapon.  
 
What good that will do?  
 
Unless you have pre-knowledge of an attack, it is impossible to defend yourself with a gun.  
 
Gun was made for offensive purposes not defensive. 
 
You cannot defy the law of physics. By the time you take out your concealed weapon and release the safety pin, you are already dead. 
 
Let us assume some students they had guns in this incident, start shooting, and let’s say all were better trained then military and would not shoot others by mistake. 
 
What would happen after the police gets there? Watching bunch of students shooting, they don’t know who the perpetrator is.  
 
Probable result?  
 
We cannot be sure exactly but it's safe to assume the casualties would be much higher then 33 people.

Registered

Weapon is not a solution

I am somewhat disturbed that the horrific tragedy at Virginia Tech has left me strangely unmoved. That is not exactly correct. I am in some respects resentful of the way the event is being mourned and am even seemingly unmoved by the tears of the fellow students and the parents of the victims. I am actually ashamed of the hardness of my heart in this matter.  
 
I first became aware of these feelings while listening to the eulogy for the victims being delivered by George W. Bush. Once again, this intellectual realization/reaction was the last - the slowest to emerge. The first was a visceral aversion to the president’s words. Of course his remarks and even his presence at the memorial service was strictly pro forma, had Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter been president, exactly the same speech would have been delivered. Listening to this man, who will go to his reward with the souls of perhaps a million around his neck, I could not help but be reminded of the remark that “kill one and you are a murderer; kill a thousand and you are a hero.” To my mind hearing Bush’s heartfelt, comforting remarks was the same as if I were listening to Pol Pat. Here is the supreme irony of a man, who will be judged by history as one of its biggest mass murderers, comforting the victims of a deeply tormented, deranged, lone psychotic who, thanks to the guns virtually placed in his hands by our “free enterprise system”, committed an act of comparative insignificance. May the gods forgive the psychopaths, great and small, for they know not what they do. 
 
The other day we killed 300 Iraqis. No, not exactly. They were the victims of insurgents’ attacks in response and in reaction to our presence there. In the law, crimes committed in conjunction with a crime and crimes facilitated by a crime and crimes committed as a subsequent result of a crime must be laid at the feet of the perpetrator of the original offence. Hence I say we killed 300 Iraqis the other day.  
 
Now I realize that people in America are devastated far more by the murders of the 32 than the 300. Even Tony Soprano knows it is a rule of human consciousness to count our family, friends and members of our tribe as possessing far more importance than strangers (twelve thousand miles away). For the rest of us, who possess a little more geographical and emotional distance from Virginia, both crime scenes posses a degree of abstraction that might perhaps give us more objectivity and a chance to see an equal level of global humanity.  
 
I am sure that I am not the only one who has wept over the deaths of the six hundred thousand plus innocent Iraqi men, women and children we have murdered since we began the rape of this small, defenseless country. This is partially because I have made a conscious effort to be impacted by the stories and the photographs of the Iraqi victims. This has taken a nearly ghoul-like obsessive search for unspeakably horrific photographs and accounts far from the headlines – not recommended for more sensitive viewers. Unlike the Vietnam war where Americans were nightly bombarded with scenes of atrocity and carnage, the Iraqi conflict has been effectively sanitized for our protection. We see the rifles shooting, bombs dropping and the missiles firing, but most Americans believe with Werner Von Braun, “Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? That\\\\\\\'s not my department.”  
 
I have deliberately chosen to make these distant, unknown victims my family, my friends and I have also chosen to respond more authentically to these deaths than even deaths like the VT students. I can claim only the most distant sense of responsibility for the tragic deaths of the 32. I can however, as a citizen, in whose name my government is contributing to this slaughter, claim a much higher degree of responsibility, guilt, shame and grief. For me, it is imperative that I use most of my pity for the Iraqi deaths, not for the brave but criminal soldiers fighting so illegally or yes, even for the victims of our own senselessness worship of these metallic phallus substitutes that we Americans refuse to stop fondling. 
 
Sometimes the madness of my fellow citizens makes me so distraught that I want to run screaming into the street. You know what the latest spin on the VT massacre is? Pundits are blaming it on the ABSANCE of guns on campus. Yes the absence of guns. It seems there is a ban on concealed weapons in effect there. The logic goes something like this. If the other students in the class were packing, when the gunman showed up, he would have been blown away. They actually assert that as gun ownership goes up, examples of gun related violence goes down.  
 
Back in the seventies, iconic knuckle-dragger, Archie Bunker - paterfamilias of the TV show All in the Family, came to embody the quintessential ditto-head mentality of Rush Limbaugh. One of his more outrageous approaches to airline hijacking was a suggestion that, upon boarding, each passenger be issued a handgun. In the seventies, this was laughable. Sadly, that is no longer the case. It is amazing how the right wing gun nuts are now using this same argument in light of the VT tragedy to restrict further even present, permissive gun laws. Only this time it is no joke.  
 
Bob Boldt

Guest

Weapon is not a solution

Bob Boldt expressed it perfectly of what many feel. It\'s my sentiments exactly. On another note, the US warmongering has desensitized many through the media, movies, commercials, cartoons, and toys. It is our responsibility to teach our children responsibilty and the better way to deal with conflicts on all levels. Right now, look at the role models being fostered on all of us. Violence is lauded and even praised as a heroic, patriotic solution. What values are we teaching our children?  
 
I can think of automobiles which causes more deaths within the US than guns. We don\'t blame the vehicles but place it on the drivers. Like the ride, Crazy Cars, there are those that will use it as a weapon. So it is a conditioning that needs change.  
 
There\'s a need to change attitudes (being more respectful, instilling good values regardless of religious beliefs, anger-management,tolerance, and the like; behaviour;habits;even modifying our lifestyle. Being sensitive to others\' feelings is a good start. Empathy instead of apathy. Maybe we should self-examine ourselves honestly and how we relate to others. To the bible-bangers, don\'t bang it; live it through example. It is wiser to take the message and not the messenger. Everything starts within us individually to make good changes.

Guest