Long ago, men used to settle their disputes with fists, if not with guns. Even if their were no guns there is still sticks, rocks, knives, and poison. Nuff’ said.

Australia outlawed guns in 1996.  Now, there are still crimes involving firearms, in each city, on a regular basis. 

The criminal, outlawed, black market imports firearms.

In Oz, only the outlaws have guns! 

You do not acknowledge that the FBI states that more than 2.5 million crimes each year in America are prevented by armed citizens.  Just the fact that there are armed citizens, and honest folks carry concealed weapons, is presented by the FBI as a crime deterrent, in each annual FBI crime report!

We, who carry concealed, are the first line of defense of our society, against the evil insane criminals.  If you impinge MY Rights, then YOU are a criminal!

Rights are assured for all of us, one being that I have freedom to determine my own “Life, liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”, as long as it does not infringe anyone else’s Rights.

So, if there is a gunfight, in my school, I will be protecting MY Rights and might even capture the criminal alive, as has happened in other schools, when students or teachers used their firearms to force shooters to disarm, surrender to the police.

Remember, “Personal Responsibility” mandates just that!

It sure is funy how little crime is on the campus’ where armed police are doing post grad work,  some in uniform, all armed because it is their public duty.  But, hey, many of us are not police, and are armed, carry concealed, also!

Your “Rights” must stop where they affect my “Rights”!  Live with it.  Many people you will never know, are around you, carrying concealed weapons and acting responsibly. 

Andrew Dysart mentions something that is most appropriate,
in the vein of ‘Events that can happen in seconds will be responded to by police who can be there in mere minutes.”

Armed citizens, on the scene, respond more than 2.5 million times each year to criminal acts, according to the FBI, preventing mayhem in our streets.

“I never have endorsed the notion that we should allow or encourage house-to house searches, or seize a citizens weapons, nor would I ever.  That is not what I said.

I said, “... the out of control completely INSANE notion that every man woman and child in America needs to own several hundred guns!”

The ONLY people I know with THAT many guns are dealers, and few of those have so many. ALL of the gun owners I know are safety nuts, too, but then they’ve been trained, and they think of guns as the tools they are, not penis extensions or extra muscles they didn’t have to work for. 

THINK about your idea, please.  The ONLY way I can think of to keep guns out of the hands of MOST nutcases is that door-to-door confiscation I talked about.  Short of that, and even WITH it, guns are just too easily made, too easily smuggled - it’s a Pandora’s box, and it’s open forever.  Now we must deal with it, and it’s my belief that reducing the cruelty, especially of children towards anyone different, reducing the terrible isolation and humiliation of some, is the best beginning. “Boys will be boys, don’t interfere - he has to learn to stand up for himself…”  THAT’S what has to change, because THAT’S a BIG part of what creates people like Cho.

Ian

As long as our corrupt corporations and political leaders are allowed to run free, unrestrained and unaccountable, Americans will always have guns. I wonder how these people would feel, supposing a wild scenario, that the killer was paid to do what he did, just so there would be this kind of backlash against guns by the dictators who seek to disarm the law-abiding citizens of America? Of course there are other ways of making people do things besides paying them…ask any involuntary guinea pig ever experimented on in America and it’s history…

We have some 60,000 gun control laws in the US.  They don’t work.  The problem is that criminals don’t care about the law and most of the time obtain their guns illegally. 

In the case of people like Cho, the government places more importance of the “rights” of mentally ill people than they do on the Constitutional Rights of the gun hobbyists.

Anyone who seeks mental health care should go on a list that would prohibit them from passing the required background check that is made when you purchase a firearm.  This ban would be removed once the person’s doctor states that the person is not a hazard to themselves or the community.

#71826 by Ian MacLeod

“HOW?  How do you take guns away from ANYONE but honest people?  YOU CAN’T - not without a very un-American house-to-house search and seizure, without compensation.  Can’t.  Be.  Done. Next choice?  Tell me a way to do it.  Really.”

Dear Sir, I never have endorsed the notion that we should allow or encourage house-to house searches, or seize a citizens weapons, nor would I ever.  That is not what I said.

I said,  “the great tragedy of needless death and suffering by the victims of some nut with a gun have been rendered pretty much meaningless in their efforts to ask for some sort of SANE control over the out of control completely INSANE notion that every man woman and child in America needs to own several hundred guns!”

And I stand by that!  SANE control over the out of control completely INSANE notion that every man woman and child in America needs to own several hundred guns!

Last time I checked the numbers on how many guns had been manufactured and sold in this country, that particular year it worked out to roughly 200 guns for every man woman and child in the country, and that was a few years back.

Suppose every one of your neighbors had every car they or any member of their family had ever owned still sitting in their yard, whether they ever used them or not. Wouldn’t you find that a little odd, not to mention unpleasant? Suppose they had no choice. Suppose there was no place to take them, no way to unload them? (no pun intended)

Most people buy a new car because they need one. I would like to believe most people buy a new gun because they need one. Can you understand where I am going with this?

This is INSANE! Nobody needs 200 new guns every year! There needs to be some sort of SANE accountability, and I’m not talking about the NORMAL person who has a right to own a gun. I’m talking about the manufacturers and peddlers. They need to face their responsibility.

I find it reprehensible the way they organize a group of gun tote’n nuts to show up every time there is a tragedy involving guns. Reprehensible!

This is like blaming the victims and their grieving families for the tragedy, because they didn’t give their kids a bunch of loaded guns and tell them to shoot to kill if they were in danger! Kripes! Lets hope that never happens!

The reality is, if a bad guy showed up and started shooting and everyone was packing a loaded gun and started shooting, there would be absolute mayhem as bullets flew and people dropped and maybe someone would get lucky and actually hit the bad guy. But chances are, with a bunch of frightened and untrained people shooting, even more innocents would die.

What we need are better laws controlling the manufacture and sale of weapons. Something the weapon manufacturers do not want us to recognize, which is why they are so happy to let the gun pack’n Moms and Pops fight their battles for them.

People don’t need that many guns. Most people don’t like or want guns. So why are so many being manufactured? Well to increase profit of course, so what’s wrong with expecting those manufacturers to do a better job of keeping track of their product? You can bet those car manufacturers keep track of their product. Ever received a re-call notice? 

We know a lot of those guns end up in the hands of criminals. Is anybody keeping track of them?

We need better gun laws. Gun laws that require the same kind of accountability from gun manufacturers that car manufacturers have to deal with!

But that probably wont happen. A Congress that hasn’t got the Gonads to stand up to an obviously corrupt administration, or stop an illegal bloody war sure as shoot’n isn’t going to suddenly find the courage to develop responsible gun laws for the gun industry!

Besides, there’s that dividend to think about.

To my many admirers what copy of the federalist papers have people been reading.Ellison from Minnesotta took the oath of office on a Koran owned by Jefferson I do not think he meant just Christian religion.About the 2nd ammendment for many reasons one of them being that they were not sure the British would not return and to raise an army quickly that would be armed they wanted the males to bear arms.I know that all you 2nd ammendment freaks are waiting for the British to return so let me be the first to tell you I do not think they are coming back.So do not shoot anything in a red coat it is probably just an old lady coming back from shopping.

As if George Bush wasn’t already giving Americans enough to be ashamed of, the very existence of the NRA ranks #1.

Hey Ian… love your delusion. How about a simple act of REGISTERING GUN OWNERS To their Death Devices? Car owners are registered in case they use their car as a deadly weapon, we can trace it to a perpetrator. How about FULL REGISTRATION AND FINGERPRINTING OF GUNOWNERS?.. Problem solved.. Oh, wait you little dicked gun owners don’t like that?.. tough!! Be RESPONSIBLE and register your god damned name to the serial number of your gun. Simple reason is all it takes in this argument.

No Gun, No shooting. Case closed. All those tiny penis men out there who need a gun to “EXTEND” their masculinity, are pathetic little dicks. Feel the burn you girlie boys.

People who die by the sword - or gun - do so because some nutcases have those weapons.  You don’t have to own a gun to die by one, but if you don’t have one and meet up with one of these mutcases, you die whether or not you have or hate or will or will not touch one.

It only takes one.

Ian

It’s only a debate until you don’t have a firearm when you need one. Then it’s a tragedy for the person who wanted to defend themselves and died instead. I don’t advocate criminals or mentally incompetent people owning a firearm but I’m a realist and in this imperfect world we live in it’s going to happen. How each and everyone will or should react is up to you as an individual. Self defense and survival are inherent to every living organism on this planet, that is what the 2nd amendment quarantees. A rifle in Colonial times was the best means of accomplishing that and it hasn’t changed much since. If anyone wants to give up “their” right to self defense, go right ahead, but don’t infringe on mine. It’s one of the few freedoms left in this country.

The vicious killing at Virginia Tech was trully a horrible thing, but it it is simply foolish to blame the entire incedent on firearms and 2nd ammendment followers. Cho was a mentally ill indevidual and the simple reporting of his condition would hve prevented the purchasing of the sidearm used in the murders in the first place. And it is important to remember that he had a completely clean criminal record, so it would have been impossible to govern Chos purchases without infringing on honest, law abiding citizens’ rights.
    And the banning of a few guns may seem trivial in the face of the massive tragedies guns can cause in the wrong hands, but one must keep in mind the statistics of other materrials commonly used in America. Every year, fast food kills 400,000 americans, smoking kills 200,000, and alchohol kills just over 30,000. One life is cerainly too many, but on the grand scale of issues in this country, firearms abuse is not nearly as much of a problem as McDonalds and Marlboros. And unlike those things, Firearms are actually something that can be used for good! It is certainly not as much of an issue in cities, but my family has to use guns to put food on the table, as well as to protect our livestock and horses from any predators that may attack. We use semi automatic actions for these jobs, simply because it allowes us to put any wounded game out of its misery quickly, with virtually no pain. Does this make us Militia members or aussalt rifle freaks? Of course not. We are just a law abiding family that would starve if our firearms were taken away simply because of the horrifying acts of a few crazed people.

THOMAS BILLIS wrote on 5/22 at 2:14 pm
“The second ammenment was right for colonial times and wrong for now.It is as simple as that.”

And clearly the first amendment falls into that category as well. The ‘founding fathers’ never foresaw television, telephones, personal computers with printers or the internet.  They meant for “the people” to have access to 18th century printing presses.  And that’s it.  And as for the religion part, they really meant that congress couldn’t prohibit the free exercise of a *Christian* religion.

Sound familiar? It should, it’s your ridiculous argument.

And as far as the tired “...guns have become tied to the sexual organs of the American male.” <yawn>. Please, is that the best you can come up with to make your case?

To: Louise on 5/22 at 10:38 am:

HOW?  How do you take guns away from ANYONE but honest people?  YOU CAN’T - not without a very un-American house-to-house search and seizure, without compensation.  Can’t.  Be.  Done.

Next choice?  Tell me a way to do it.  Really.

Ian

The second ammenment was right for colonial times and wrong for now.It is as simple as that.The number of gun deaths in all the western societies that have reasonable gun laws are a fraction of what we have here.Even the individualistic and living on frontier Australians cannot understand our love affair with guns.
The problem in America is that guns have become tied to the sexual organs of the American male.It is how they show they are men.
American men are going to have to learn to prove their manhood in different ways.Maybe they could do like the europeans actually try to satisfy a women a bed.

Let’s try this: guns exist; we do not have the option to make them NOT exist.  Say you are sitting on a bus, or in a restaraunt or something similar.  A gunman comes in and shoots all the people nearest him, takes all of 1.5 seconds to put in a new clip, and continues.  If ONE of oyu had a gun, you could stop him; without it, everyone he has enough bullets for is dead. It wouldn’t matter at ALL if guns were legal or not: people who want one can get one. They’re too easy to make, smuggle, whatever.

Why not, instead, try teaching children to include other children instead of the hazing, teasing, bullying and isolation that goes on in so much of Western society that’s always excused with, ‘Boys will be boys…”?  THAT’S what creates most of these, not guns.  Guns are tools.  My wife, before we were married, both protected and fed her child and herself with guns when she could do neither any other way.  That’s what they’re for. Anything, though, can be misused. Hell, I know how to cut a throat with a playing card.  Do you now want all decks of cards made illegal?

Think!

Ian

We die by the sword in this country because we choose to live by it. We have more guns than people who live here. So the gun lovers say arm everybody so everyone can defends themselves.Since angry,suicidal and homicidal people don’t value life anyway, maybe if everyone was armed the nation will resemble Bagdad. I personally accept the gun violence because America was founded on white male gun ownership. The Indians didn’t have guns neither did the slaves. White men in America will never give up their guns for fear of uprisings and of other races of people that in America. So America. continue to die by the sword because we will always live by it.

Or maybe the gun debate is related to the fact that weapon manufacturing and import is the number one industry in America today.

No, that can’t be! These well meaning pistol packin’ moms and pops don’t work for the weapons manufacturers ... er, do they?

Of course not. They just get USED by the weapons manufacturers.

So a few people get blown away every day, so what. Hey guns don’t kill. People do ... right?
Well yeh, if it takes a people to pull a trigger. But folks, the trigger on the gun that shoots the bullet is still the thing that killed!
Face it.

By encouraging the packing of loaded weapons by anyone and everyone anyplace and every place, these folks do indeed have to share in the responsibility of murder by gun. Not something they want to hear, which is probably why they scream so loud ... so they can’t hear!

Now, one of these folk’s favorite “robes” of self righteousness is the Second Amendment to the Constitution. Interesting in light of the fact that while they’ve been marching around tote’n their side arms, their precious Constitutional Rights have been systematically getting flushed down the toilet by the very same conservative bunch that demands they be allowed to pack em!

Guess they never read the rest of the Constitution.

For some strange reason they don’t seem to understand the purpose of having the right to keep and bear arms, is to defend the nation in the event that happens to be necessary (which, I suppose it may be at some point in time, given the damage done to our National Guard by that same conservative bunch mentioned above) and to kill game for the dinner table.

Of course we don’t want to deprive the millions who would go hungry if they couldn’t bring home fresh game every night.
Am I being facetious?
Of course not! [not]

Meanwhile the great tragedy of needless death and suffering by the victims of some nut with a gun have been rendered pretty much meaningless in their efforts to ask for some sort of SANE control over the out of control completely INSANE notion that every man woman and child in America needs to own several hundred guns!

Go figure!

Straightjacket crazy madness! 2nd Ammendment Rights. Conceal and carry permits. Self protection. Crime prevention. Law and order. Gun control. OOZI - AUDI! Pull the trigger LONG, gatdammit! We need to step off from dangerous ganja of that murder-glammorized haze, and dig ourselves for a minute here. Now that even a toddler can qualify for a weapon permit, are we really any safer? Oh, HELL, no! Just the opposite, if anything. At the rate we’re going, we’re subject to all end up dead from our own itchy trigger fingers. Not the terrorists. Not Al Qiaida. Not “them”, whoever they are. By our OWN HANDS!!!!

Has anyone bothered to look at what set Mr. Cho off? His decision to lethally break out with no hesitation was a beast birthed after hours of harsh labor. There was a point of conception that planted the horrorible seed in Cho long before that fateful day. The problem is that no one is sure when this happened or what initiated his death march into infamy. Was it teasing and mistreatment by other kids? Was he psychotic? Was he sociopathic? Was it mental instability? Was he the product of maladjustment during ethnic displasia? Was it chemical abuse or dependence - booze, pills, weed, dust? Was he a middle child denied enough hugs and attention? About what did he fantasize? Was he mad or angry or both? Was his rage triggered like a bull by the color red? Was it an allergic reaction to food combinations? Had his girl played him foul? Had anyone ever paid Cho much attention to know anything about him? What?

See, it’s not the guns we need as much that “what” we desperately need to address and answer. We fail everyday to assess the “what” that is not resolved with the gathering of armaments. Cho was a person. Cho counted way before he shot 30+ other people who counted just as much. Cho and each one of those people were very important, because they were US. So, why did we not recognize Cho before that? Having dropped the ball on the headcount, do we now really think that arming ourselves to the teeth against each other is going to ensure more effective security than our making a concerted effort to reach out beyond ourselves to sincerely know, help, protect, and love one another?

Virginia just released their latest “Crash Facts” (2005) detailing the causes of motor vehicle accidents in Virginia.  In 2005 there were 11,495 alcohol related crashes in which 322 people were killed and 7,512 were injured.  And yet, Fairfax County’s Penny Gross sees no problem with the State selling liquor in her County.  She doesn’t see a need to speak out against the wine tastings and liquor sales in her district on the heals of a tragic fatal alcohol related accident.  Have parents who’ve lost their children in alcohol related accidents somehow experienced less of a loss?  Should they find comfort that their child was killed by a drunk who purchased their vodka at a state owned store (and of course, gave the state some money in alcohol tax) rather than a lunatic with a gun?  The truth is that in one case (guns) we blame an inanimate object. In the other (drunk driving) we don’t blame the bottle of vodka, we blame the driver, which is in fact, the rational thing to do.  Think about that Marie the next time you take a sip of wine.

“If you want to know why the gun debate is so bitter, look inside the community room of the Mason District government center. There you could find plenty of guns, but no sense of decency to bind a community.”

Wow.

What about the missing sense of decency that allows parents to parade their dead children around so as to make a political point?  And the point they’re making is unrelated to the VCDL meeting to boot!

I can find nothing “decent” about the actions of those parents.  I’m sorry for their respective losses, I really am, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to cede absolute moral authority to them.