NRA's Response to Virginia Tech Shootings: Stand Your Ground

The statement on the actual website is below the above mentioned webpage was just a gateway, easy mistake
The National Rifle Association joins the entire country in expressing our deepest condolences to the families of Virginia Tech University and everyone else affected by this horrible tragedy.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the families.

We will not have further comment until all the facts are known.

Andrew Arulanandam
Director of Public Affairs
National Rifle Association

i will join joe in expressing my deepest sympathies.

i also believe that the indiviual who committed these murders is at fault, not the inanimate object he used.

just one concealed carry citizen could have ended this insanity much sooner and saved many lives, but this was prohibited because of the "gun free zone". too bad the rule didn't stop the murderer

Mother Jones should remove mother and put in it's place basketball. Today is not the time for battle or spin. Try to care like you want everyone to think you do!

"just one concealed carry citizen could have ended this insanity much sooner and saved many lives, but this was prohibited because of the "gun free zone". too bad the rule didn't stop the murderer"

great that is Bob, the best way to defeat gun crime is surely to have more guns. I think not. When will some of you people realise that the second amendment was conceived at a time where Americans were under threat from tyranny...you're trying to uphold a principle that is decades, if not now, centuries out of date.

Australia had similar gun laws, a similar crime rate, and culture to America per capita. We had a shocking incident in Tasmania where 35 people were slaughtered by a crazed gunman. This resulted in our Government fazing out, then banning all Automatic weapons and most semi-automatic weapons. It is widely proposed that these amended gun laws have directly effected the gun crime statistics in Australia over the last 10 years.
The argument for the changes was based on a simple premise, weapons that were designed to kill multiple people on mass have no place in Australian society, and if these weapons fall in the hands of the psychotic or criminally unstable it gives these individuals disproportionate power over the public.
In short it is proposed that it takes a lot more effort, planning, time, commitment, and prolonged rage to destroy the same amount of lives without access to automatic weapons.
A readily available automatic weapon in the hands of the criminally insane, psychotic, or extremely violent individual could be picked up and fired in rage impulsively, resulting in horrific fatalities on a scale that can't be match without some kind of prior planning, and time.

I think what James has said makes a lot of sense. Preventing automatic weapon ownership would not prevent gun sportsman or hunters from having guns and it wouldn't even prevent a person from having a gun for defense. I am not for illegalizing guns because I do not believe in prohibitions in general. However, I think controling what kinds of guns are available and how easily we can get them is a lot like saying, 'Hey, you can drink alcohol, but you can only drink so much and then you can't drive.' We do put some controls in place when the well-being of the masses is at stake, in everything from sanitation to drinking and driving, so why does the gun rights community feel the 2nd Amendment should be exempt from these kinds of controls, which come about as a result of sociatel evolution?

Bizarre and deeply upsetting watching this story from the safe haven of the UK, where only the police have the right to bear arms in public, and few of them do. How on earth do you allow your constitution to be hijacked by the archaic notion that citizens must defend themselves againt state tyranny? Let democracy take care of tyranny. Let the furnaces take care of your guns....

I have the most heartfelt sorrow for those who have experienced loss in this horrible event. I won't get into the "if a student was packing this could have been stopped sooner" scenarios, but I do feel it is quite dishonest to only partially report what the NRA has posted on their website as they have a public statement specifically concerning the VA Tech shootings as I have quoted below. The text you pasted was something that was already up concerning the NRA yearly meetings which are about to commence.

quote:
"The National Rifle Association joins the entire country in expressing our deepest condolences to the families of Virginia Tech University and everyone else affected by this horrible tragedy.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the families.

We will not have further comment until all the facts are known.

Andrew Arulanandam
Director of Public Affairs
National Rifle Association"

Congratulations NRA. Once again you delivered. Only this time, you delivered big time.

Congratulations NRA. Once again you delivered. Only this time, you delivered big time.

This Korean student had left wing professors who taught him to hate America and he acted upon what his professors taught. The professors should be tried for hate crimes. Let us ban left wing professors from the colleges.

the nra can bully the american people all it wants.I repeat for emphasis.
YOU have no 'gun rights' whatever.
The STATE has a right to a Militi.
The first half of the 2nd amendmont is the ONLY example of a right granted that comes with a declared limitation and allowable purpose. The U.S. Suprem Court agrees with ME, the right to keep a well-regulated Militi belongs to the STATE!
Too bad about that legal ignorance of yours.
Maybe you could help yourself if you put down the bottle nra thugs.

eve TS oulton says: "Bizarre and deeply upsetting watching this story from the safe haven of the UK, where only the police have the right to bear arms in public, and few of them do. How on earth do you allow your constitution to be hijacked by the archaic notion that citizens must defend themselves againt state tyranny? Let democracy take care of tyranny. Let the furnaces take care of your guns...."

You mean the type of government "tyranny" that first bans guns then institutes one CCTV camera per 14 people, fingerprinting of children, mandatory ID cards, world's largest DNA database, proposed tracking of every vehicle everywhere in the country by satellite, removal of habeas corpus, right to face accusers by grand jury, rights to trial by jury, yada yada yada. I'm afraid it's a "safe haven" that many Americans would rather avoid.

Me, when faced with an armed madman, would rather have the chance to fight back rather than cower and wait for the inevitable.

eve TS oulton says: "Bizarre and deeply upsetting watching this story from the safe haven of the UK, where only the police have the right to bear arms in public, and few of them do. How on earth do you allow your constitution to be hijacked by the archaic notion that citizens must defend themselves againt state tyranny? Let democracy take care of tyranny. Let the furnaces take care of your guns...."

You mean the type of government "tyranny" that first bans guns then institutes one CCTV camera per 14 people, fingerprinting of children, mandatory ID cards, world's largest DNA database, proposed tracking of every vehicle everywhere in the country by satellite, removal of habeas corpus, right to face accusers by grand jury, rights to trial by jury, yada yada yada. I'm afraid it's a "safe haven" that many Americans would rather avoid.

Me, when faced with an armed madman, would rather have the chance to fight back rather than cower and wait for the inevitable.

This story makes it clear why guns should be band and destroyed.

Yeah, there's an idea.
Armed teachers.
So next time an unruly student irritates the overworked, underpaid, out of pocket spending teacher, s/he can just pop the little bugger.
Oh, and that nasty bit about guns killing the owners far more often than the owners kill 'bad' guys?
Too bad I guess. There is a better answer.
Outlaw the private possession of firearms.

Don't tell me it can't work, Britian forbids in-home possession of even shotguns, and lo, they DON'T have Columbines and the like.

If we haven't the guts to try to stop the things from being sold, why not open up all the stops and let in nuclear weapons for every psycho?

We keep ignoring the fact that the criminals with records CAN BE STOPPED if there is no ilicit source for weapons, because said weapons are banned.

Now think it through.

No private possession of weapons.

No black market for arms. You aren't going to risk prison for 2 or 3 years in order to go around armed looking for a target of opportunity.
Since Amendment II, unlike ALL THE OTHERS, qualifies it's grant of right by declaring to what purpose the right may be legitimately put, no, "YOU" have no gun rights whatever.
The states do. Umm, yes!

Every SINGLE TIME the contest has come down to "personal right to arms" v. "State right to well regulated militia" the Supreme Court has ruled for State Right.

EVERY SINGLE TIME!

THEREFORE cannot be protected!

If everyone on the campus had a gun, the gun man wouldn't have stod a chance. Guns for everybody, if every child under 12 had a gun, we wouldnt have the trouble with child abuse. Go NRA go... guns for everyone is the answer to all of our problems. I hope everyone that reads this picks up sarcasm. GET RID OF THE DEATH WEAPONS. GUNS ONLY HAVE ONE PURPOSE, TO KILL!!!!! Anyone who thinks that an armed society, either live in a small town bubble, removed from mainstream society, OR they are just not very intelligent. No crime is stopped by people with guns IN COMPARISON, to the amount of death, destruction, pain and lost caused by people with guns. These NRA people, are playing politics with American lives!!!

This story makes it clear that we need to ban left wing professors who teach their students to hate America and act upon it.

BTW, I suggest you check with your supreme qourt rulings.
THEY say its a right of the STATE! hehe NOT the people.

This psycho kid gunned down offspring of the same parent’s sides with NRA and advocates more gun to spread in this civilized society. Well deserved. Need more gun and genocide, go to Iraq or Somalia!!

I have always loved Mother Jones, but this is a disgraceful attempt to make the NRA look untouched by the shootings.
Gun Control does NOT take guns out of the hands of criminals, it proved yesterday in my home state of Virginia, that such strict gun laws are totally ineffective. If law abiding, campus security, staff and students had not been banned from having firearms on any campus in Virginia... Yesterday the lone shooter would have been stopped long before 32 innocent people had to die.

So Mary Jo....left wing college professors are to blame for this. Are you an idiot? I went to university (you obviously didn't) and I don't ever recall one professor telling me I should hate America. Also, one can't blame the NRA for this although they do tend to show a lack heart when shootings like this occur. Remember, they held their national conference in Denver just days after the Columbine tragedy. I agree with the poster who said the writers of the second ammendment were in a different time and a different place and didn't have automatic weapons in mind when they established the law. They had single shot muskets that took all day to reload. As an American living in Europe I must say I do feel a hell of a lot safer knowing I am not going to get shot walking down the street.

Nobody gets murdered in Europe??? You get a different source for news than I get. This was a tragedy perpetrated by someone who already broke multiple gun laws.
Tyranny? Think Armenia and the Turks, think Rome: the road to Rome was lined with crosses, think Japan and their overrunning of China- UGLY. How about Herzogovnia?
Iraq? The Mongols? The list is long. How about sex slavery of young girls going on today in Asia?
I read some of the above comments and I think their head is buried in the mud. Can't they learn from history? How about Nazi Germany? They had some of the strictest gun control laws ever enacted in the history of the world up to that date. How many million died? You think it can't happen in this country? Try Ruby Ridge, or Waco. They were both incredible acts of violence perpetrated by our own government.
There historically have been far, far more people murdered by tyrannous governments than by any total of disadvantaged psychopaths, no matter how many guns the individuals had.
It is sad and unfortunate that these people died. Guns are RELATIVELY safe. No one can guarantee you complete and absolute safety. Life has risks. But if you give up your right to own a gun, you also give up your ability to even try to protect yourself against a tyrannical and self serving government. No Republic in the history of the world has managed to survive more than a few hundred years. How long will it be before 'your' government begins to come for your neighbors. And then you? Ask the Armenians what they did. You can read the book- "Forgotten Fire" by Adam Bagdasarian. Or do you truly not really care other than a knee jerk reaction?
The United States militia was enacted to prevent despotic governments (including our own) from doing things like stealing your private property, housing soldiers in private homes, and even worse things like the English law of Prima Nochta.
Study history, people; you'll insist on having these gun rights.
Is there a danger? Absolutely.
Are you safer with them than without them? Absolutely.

Of course people get murdered in Europe. I never said they didn't. But do they get murdered to the same extent that they do in the USA? Hardly. There were over 30,000 gun related deaths in the US alone last year. There were less than 10 in Germany. Even when comparing all of Europe, which has a similar population to that of the US, the numbers are not even comparable. Your suggestion that history tells us that people need to be armed to protect themselves from tyrranical governments makes little or no sense. Give me one example where an armed society brought down a tyranical government or stopped one from forming for that matter? I am trying to think myself. In the Balkans one could openly buy an AK-47 and other weapons at markets on the streets. Look what happened there...ethnic cleasing and neighbor on neighbor violence. Everyone armed themselves and thousands still died. Nazi Germany is a poor example of gun control because its important to remember that the Nazis were legally elected to power by the people. Furthermore it wasn't the Nazis who created german gun laws, it was the Weimar government. The Nazis just didn't change them....why would they? And if you are referring to the Holocaust, the Jews only made up less than 2% of German population. Any armed resistance would have only strengthened the support for the Nazi and their propaganda campaign against the Jewish population. And by the time the Germans realized that supporting the Nazis was propbably a bad idea, the government was basically finished. And I don't see how sex slavery in Asia and the possession of a gun have any connection. Are you suggesting arming all the 8 year old orphans in Asia? And to answer your question...no Americans do not learn from history because they are completely ignorant of it. Mention the Turks and Armenians in the same sentence and 99% of Americans will have no idea what you are talking about. Most won't even be able to find either country on a map. America has a culture of violence. Take Canada for instance. They have more gun owners per capita than the US but a fraction of the gun crime. Why? Why is it that they can live with guns peacefully and Americans cannot? And what gun laws did that nutter for VT break when he walked into a gun shop, they performed the 30 second background check, he paid for the gun and ammo and walked out? No law was broken. I find it remarkable that any Tom, Dick or Harry can walk into a gun shop, buy a semi-automatic pistol without any license or certificate that proves they know how to use one safely. One needs a license to show they can safely drive a car....why not a gun? Would it be that difficult? But in reality its too late for gun control in the US. The damage has been done.

Gun control will never happen in America because:
Crazy people with guns kill people.
Murders create fear, ergo you need police.
Police (and you?)need guns to shoot the "bad people".
Gun companies profit from the precarious situation.
Enormous amounts of this money are lobbied to politicians.
These politicians ensure their constituents continue to do business.(and get reelected).
Politicians who want to ban guns lose red state votes and lose funding.
No election= no new laws enacting prohibition of firearms.

Go back to top of page: Crazy people with guns kill people...

Its a tragedy what happened. Even more so that we won't see an end to this cycle within our lifetime.

"Give me one example where an armed society brought down a tyranical government or stopped one from forming for that matter? I am trying to think myself"

I believe a perfect example of stopping a tyrannical government would be the struggle for Independance from Great Britian by The United States of America in the 1770's. It was a successful fight that couldn't have happened without an armed civilian population.

As long as Americans are armed (in homes that want them), the temptation to overthrow our democracy will remain low. We're going to have set backs and issues. Our history shows us that what makes us great is how we change, sometimes slow, sometimes quick. But we do change.

Also, drugs are illegal and lots of people will still sell, buy, and use them; even knowing the consequences. The laws against drugs are not deterents. To stop murders by making guns illegal will not work. We have to change how people think and act towards each other.

It's profundly depressing that so many Americans react with blind helplessness to the notion that a gun-obsessed culture might cause events like Virginia Tech. But it's almost as bad that so many like molotov above (fascinating choice of name, by the way) have a sincere, if lunatic, belief that the rest of the developed world lives in an Orwellian tyranny of permanent surveillance which can only be resisted by the threat of civilian armed mayhem, NRA-style. Adjust to the 21st century, for pity's sake. King George is long gone. Surveillance cameras protect more than they snoop. But accept this, too... that every time you use the digital world - internet search engines, email, cellphones, satnav and credit cards - you leave traces which carry just as much potential for tyrannical misuse. Are you going to kiss them all goodbye to keep the ghosts of King George at bay? Of course not, you're going to shoot first and ask questions later. Best of luck, mate.

This notion of "the 2nd amendment is outdated" is crap. Once you go down that road, you leave room for people to say "habeas corpus is outdated" and trash like that.

The fact is, if Virgina had decent gun laws, the lunatic FOREIGN STUDENT would never have been able to legally buy a guy and therefore it would have likely prevented the horrible crime.

And if you think arming everyone is the solution, you're an idiot too. This kind of thing happens once every 30 years or so, so what happens in between when everyone has guns? How many people get shot accidentally/intentionally out of rage? What kind of lunatic thinks giving students guns is a good idea? Morons... And if everyone was armed and there was even one gun incident on campus, then the rule would certainly have been changed directly after again leaving a huge hole in your argument.

guns don't kill people, people kill people. true true. but people kill people a whole lot easier with guns.

Most of the shootings are by minorities(e.g. gangs in L.A.). Let us just ban the minorities from having guns.

Which would you rather have?

The right to own a gun, or the right to not get shot in the head by a lunatic? give up your guns, let people live in safety.

fight for real freedom!

Coming from Canada, i think that the people in your country who think that having more guns and facilitating even more the acces to firearms are complete idiots. The second amendment of your constitution is clearly out of date and the folks at the NRA... well sorry for saying, but they are total jerks that are building political capital for their own private little lives on the lives of others. Violence leads to violence and putting guns in the hands of every citizen will eventually resume in more violence and more fear. Wake up !

"Bizarre and deeply upsetting watching this story from the safe haven of the UK, where only the police have the right to bear arms in public, and few of them do. How on earth do you allow your constitution to be hijacked by the archaic notion that citizens must defend themselves againt state tyranny? Let democracy take care of tyranny. Let the furnaces take care of your guns...." Eve TS Oulton

Yes that's a brilliant plan, lets put our future in the hands of a bunch of democrats and destroy the only things we have to defend ourselves with. God you smart, you should try running in the next presidential election.

Chris, Bigbenr, David, common sense, Eric, and Olivier, where do dumb [expletive deleted] like you come from? Ok picture this some nutcase wants to go into a building and kill a bunch of people. In building A everyone has guns. In building B no one has guns. Which building is the shooter going to walk into hmm? Blaming guns on shootings like this is like blaming spoons for making people fat. Even if we "banned" guns it wouldn't keep them away from criminals. Do laws keep people from doing drugs? Let me answer that for you-NO-. Do you think a law would keep a criminal from getting a gun? Here I'll help you out -NO-. So yes let's ban all guns and take them away from the law abiding citizens so they can no longer defend themselves while at the same time criminals will buy them anyways. Here is another scenario for you. A robber walks into a bank and pulls out a gun and says "everyone on the floor" everone gets on the floor and he succeeds. Now if everyone had a gun when the robber walks in the bank and says "everyone on the floor" instantly he has 80 guns pointed at him. No sir you get on the floor. Personaly I hope all you anti-gun moronic idiots are in a building one day when some nutcase walks in and decides he wants to kill everyone. I also hope that a few civilians in the same area have concealed weapons licenses with them and you can see how valuable the 2nd amendment really is.

@Ben
Man, talk about the most, using your words, «dumb [expletive deleted]» responses.

Let’s then follow your so intelligent way of thinking and let’s hope that every man and women in your country carries weapons. Why not settle down in a café and be so much secure because nothing will happen to us, because everybody around us are armed. Let us be educated in institutions of higher learning while being secured by the fact that every single people surrounding us are carrying firearms. Let’s feel free to go to the bank with our semi-automatic weapon just in case that someone show’s up and tries to rob the place.

Talk about an idiotic way of thinking.

Let us put in the hands of our citizens the means to create and to generate more and more violence… the single and only purpose of a firearm being to create violence.

Of course that banning guns cannot prevent such tragedies, but don’t you think that there could be at least a little more coercive procedures to obtain such a weapon ?

If you are so bright, and nothing tells me that you are, maybe you can explain to me what use in anyway possible can a 23 year student have in a 9mm semi-automatic and a 22 semi-automatic. Why in the whole world would anybody need such a thing ?

What you’re saying is that the more guns people have the more safe they will be. Think of it the opposite way my dear friend. If nobody had guns… the world would be a safer place. Putting instruments of death in the hands of people is one hell of a sure way to know that one day or another, someone will use that instrument not to defend himself, but to take lives that should not have been taken. And come to me with that crap about faith… the only and single purpose of a firearm is to create death, no guns surely means less violence. Coming from a country were 2/3 of the murders involves firearms, maybe you should reconsider the fact that 200 millions guns in circulation will probably affect the natures of the crimes that are being commited.

I say, one thing to you, and that’s just because you insulted me by wishing that one day I get stuck in such a situation and that I will have forever gratitude if someone around me has a weapon… dumb [expletive deleted] to you [expletive deleted] ! Keep on wishing for all your citizens to be armed and let’s see what happens to your already so up the road society that generates and produces mass violence not only inside your borders, but everywhere around the world. Keep on shouting for your old and raunchy second amendment if you wish my friend, get yourself a gun and feel safe in your little world and dream on cause what happened in Virginia this week will keep on coming at you like the plague.

So long.

Thanks Ben...so I am a 'Dumb [expletive deleted]'. Real intelligent language. I can see what type of individual I am dealing with here. But I'll bite. What does it say about a society where everyone needs a gun to defend themselves? That is not a society that should be proud. I detest people like you who hide behind the second ammendment. Let me ask you this. Do you walk around everywhere with a gun tucked into your belt? Somehow I doubt it so you are basically just blowing smoke. The problem here is that a mojority of Americans are stupid people. They believe everything people tell them. Its a country that lives and breeds in fear. The government keeps you afraid with their ridiculous color coded terror chart, every other word out of dickhead Bush's mouth is terror and the media gobbles it up and spews it out to all of you. I have an idea, maybe it should be REQUIRED for all Americans to keep and carry a firearm with them at all times. Now that would be interesting.

Actually that should have said 'lives and breathes' in fear. Ooops....not sure a lot of people should breed. Oh and by the way Ben. If I am a dumb [expletive deleted], then what is Mary Jo with her brilliant comments. Those are some real whoppers. Hopefully they'll enact a law that says all morons can't own guns. She'll never get one.

Alright Chris I will agree with you that guns are made for killing. But if you think that there is a way to get rid of EVERY gun on earth then you've got something else coming. Since criminals aren't going to hand over their guns then why take away law abiding citizens weapons and their ability to defend themselves hmm?

Hitler said "One man with a gun can control 100 without one" Not saying I like the man or anything but he does have a point...

As for your little cafe' scenario, Olivier, one of my friends is serving in the US army in Afganistan. When he came back on a break he personaly told me that if you go into any bar over there every single person will have a FULLY AUTOMATIC gun with the(and you guys are complaining about semi-autos....). They are also all getting drunk and gambling etc. at the same time. He said that in the two years that he has been over there, not A SINGLE PERSON has been killed in one of these bars. Would you like to know why? If some guy gets mad and pulls out his AK-47 and decides he is gonna shoot someone hes dead in about as long as it takes the guy next to him to pull out his own gun. Trying to shoot someone in that type of environment would simply be suicide and any person with a brain in their head could figure that out.

And for the "why would a 23 yr old student need a 9mm semi-auto and a .22 semi-auto" I can't tell you what he would need them for but I can tell you what I use mine for. I have killed hundreds of ground squirels with my .22. I do this because they dig holes an cattle break their legs in them. Fewer squirels=fewer holes=less broken legs. I don't have a 9mm but I do have a little Walther .380 which is pretty dang close. It is small and I can hide it anywhere on my person in case some nutjob decides he is gonna start killing people.Then at least I can defend myself. I own a 7mm-08 for big game hunting, a 12 gauge for bird hunting, a .357 for hunting, two .22s (a semi-auto and a pistol) for shooting for fun and hunting small game, the .380 for self defence against two legged predators, and a .44 mag for defence against the four legged kind.

And Olivier as for my little situation at the end of my last post, what if the gunman had a gun pointed at your head and was going to pull the trigger when somone else took him out? Don't tell me you wouldn't be grateful to that person.

And Chris I don't "live and breath in fear" wanna know why? Cuz I can own firearms and if someone wanted to kill me then at least I would have a sporting chance. I live in Northern Idaho. On opening day of hunting season I can walk into a store with a pistol on my hip and a rifle across my back and no one will give me a second glance. I've done it numerous times. You wanna know what would happen if someone decided to rob the place while I was there? It would be the last thing he ever decided to do. My grandpa used to go to school every day with a rifle which he would put in his locker and nobody said a thing about it. He said you could walk outside and in the parkinglot there would be a gun in half the vehicles outside and all the doors were unlocked and school shootings were unheard of.

Personaly, I believe that "Gun control" meens "Taking aim."

and Olivier, as for unanswered questions, do you think someone will go into a building where he knows there are people with guns or the one without, if he is gonna try to kill people? As for more laws whoopie, the students at Columbine broke 18 gun laws when they killed all those people, do you think two more would have stopped them?

hmm...didn't post my last comment but it put the unanswered question one up...

Alright Chris, I will agree with you that guns are made for one reason which is to kill. But if you think that criminals are going to turn over their guns because we pass a new law then you've got something else coming. So why take guns away from law abiding citizens and their ability to defend themselves?

Hitler said "One man with a gun can control 100 without one" I'm not saying I like the man be he does make a valid point.....

Oblivier, I can't tell you what a 23 year old student needs a semi-auto 9mm and .22 for but I can tell you what I use them for. I use my semi-auto .22 to kill ground squirels. I have killed hundreds of them because they dig holes in which cattle break there legs. Fewer squirels=fewer holes=less broken legs. I don't have a 9mm but I do have a Walther .380 which is pretty close. I use it to protect myself against two-legged predators since it is easy to hide on my person. I also have a 7mm-08 wich I use for hunting, a .357 mag used for the same thing, a 12 gauge for bird hunting, a .44 mag for defence against four-legged predators, and another .22 which I use for plinking and hunting.

I live in Northern Idaho. On opening day of season I can walk into a store with a gun on my hip and a rifle on my back and no one will give me a second look.

As for the cafe' scenario, one of my friends is in Afganistan working in the US army. He has told me that in the bars over there everyone brings FULLY AUTOMATIC guns with them (and you guys are complaining about semi-autos...) and in the two years hes been over there he has not seen a single person shot in a bar (and he spends quite a bit of time in them). That is because every person in there knows if he pulls his gun out hes gonna be dead in about as long as it takes the guy next to him to pull his out and shoot. My grandpa used to take guns to school with him and no one cared. In the school parkinglot there were guns in half the vehicles out there and the doors were unlocked. School shootings were unheard of.

Personaly, I believe that "Gun control" meens "Taking aim."

Afghanistan? Now there's a society we'd all be proud to model ourselves on. Speaking of pride... how the gun lobby's hearts must have swelled up today just looking at Cho Seung-hui, proudly exercising his constitutional right to bear arms. Breaks my heart to live in a culture where the annual number of gun deaths in a population of 60 million is roughly twice the total Cho killed in a single morning. God Bless America!

Wow Ben, you're an army on your own ! I'll just say one thing about your stupid comparaison with Afghanistan... you're talking about a country that has been at war for at least 30 years with ennemys from abroad and inside their own borders. I don't even understand how in a single way you can compare the reality in Afghanistan with the one in the US. Moving on...

for your knowledge, i come from Canada, specifically Quebec, a french speaking province in the north east where there's a farely well implanted hunting culture. A lot of people own firearms for hunting but nobody values guns as an embly of freedom or liberty. The fact is that with almost the same proportion of guns per people in Canada then in the US, there are twice as much firearms murders in the US then in Canada.

We have a national gun registry, automatic weapons are banned, and having acces to pistols and semi-automatic weapons are restricted. Sure that people will get a gun if they want to have one, but restricting more means that less people can gain easy acces to firearms.

We had a crazy guy in Montreal september 13 2006 who went in Dawson College and fired at students, he killed one and injured twenty. He would have killed many more if there not have been a police car a couple of meters away where he started shooting, the guy had an arsenal. But the police response was so quick that his plan got beat and he got shot in the leg before turning the weapon on himself. He bought his guns legally, even though he was a deranged person and those things will happen. But the more you try to take guns away from people, the more you prevent them from using guns in the first place.

There is no single way possible for me to admit that guns are a solution to anything... no way. They're one of these things that i wish we could disenvent.

And as far has you're comment on the fact that if everybody was armed, no one would go in and start shooting because he knows he would be dead in a second. Look around the world man, what do people do when they want to kill people, they kill people no matter what and they find means to do so... like blowing themselves up in the middle of a crowd and the fact that people are armed doesnt change a single little thing about that.

Keep on dreaming cause violence is never the answer no matter what you say.

"What does it say about a society where everyone needs a gun to defend themselves?"

Wrong question. What does it say about a society where everyone is willing to defend themselves and others? That's a better question to ask and I say speaks positive of that society.

"Keep on dreaming cause violence is never the answer no matter what you say"

The author of that statement assumes that anyone and everyone who would bear arms in defense of themselves is committed to acting violently when the facts bear the opposite. Look at the incarceration rates for concealed weapons holders. They are much lower than society's average. Oh and by the way, there are hundreds of thousands of concealed weapons holders in the US. Where is all of the crime that these folks are committing?

So I guess you're saying the answer is to line up and get murdered execution style. That's not an answer I agree with.

« The author of that statement assumes that anyone and everyone who would bear arms in defense of themselves is committed to acting violently when the facts bear the opposite. Look at the incarceration rates for concealed weapons holders.»

Yeah, and incarceration rates in your country being one the highest in the world doesn't change the fact that you also have one the highest crime rates in the world. Come on dude, your telling me that gun owners are better citizens than the rest because they carry ? Wow, guns are actually instruments of good ? I'm stuned !

Maybe you need to educate a little more instead of preaching on your rights to bear arms that results in the fact that some states laws are so weak that any crazy [expletive deleted] can come in a store to buy a handgun.

And by the way, my answer is not for everybody to get shot execution style, i'm not a fatalist and i'm certainly not an idiot like you who believes that arming en entire population is the solution to violence.

More gun laws will solve nothing. Here's a brilliant idea. Enforce the laws we already have. A gun ban will do one thing, make the millions of law abiding American citizens who own firearms criminals. Yes, it is easy to get a gun in America. It's easy to get a car to. More people are killed in car accidents each year than are killed by guns. Why not make cars illegal, they're obviously more dangerous, right? How about tobacco products? Where will it end. I don't want to sound like a cheeseball here, but if you saw the movie "V is for Vendetta", those poor bastards readily gave up all their freedoms under the guise that it was for their protection. What happens when the government says that gays are spreading AIDS to much and decides to imprison all gays? Or that a certain piece of music may incite violence, and bans it? Or that a piece of historical art is offensive to certain groups and has it destroyed? Or that you must follow a government mandated curfew because certain crimes occur after certain hours? What then? HOw much control do you want your government to have? I personally would like the RIGHT to defend myself, with lethal force if necessary. I want the RIGHT to listen to whatever music I want to, view art from ages past, smoke a cigar while sipping aged whiskey and not have to worry that "the man" is looking over my shoulder. Democrat or Republican or Independent...the government should look protect the RIGHTS of the people, no matter how outdated or archaic they may seem. Our founding fathers were smart to give us the 2nd amendment. It made sense then, and it sill makes sense in these chaotic times.

Know why the U.S.A has never been invaded? Probably because there's a few million private citizens with guns and the will to defend their country, family, and self from the threat of tyranny. A little extreme, I know. But, think about it. You declaw the cat, it can't fight back very well, can it?

Back to what I said at the begining though. You want a few more criminals with guns in the U.S.A, ban them, and you'll have your wish granted.

fact: people use guns to kill people.
fact: people without guns don't use guns to kill people.

question: should we have more guns, or fewer guns?

WAKE THE [expletive deleted] UP!

« More people are killed in car accidents each year than are killed by guns. Why not make cars illegal, they're obviously more dangerous, right? »

Right, following your logic then, why not make fast food illegal, cause that one definitely kills more than guns and i know something that kills more people than guns... President Bush's foreign policy, you sould make that one illegal !

It's the same first grade logic as saying : « Bears have hair, i have hair, so i'm a bear ! » Idiot !!!

Guns are made to kill people... it's their only and single purpose, not like cars, fast food, baseball bats or whatever thing you can come up with that kills more than guns.

Olivier, don't even try to tell me that if someone had a gun to your head and was going to shoot you and a civilian killed him you wouldn't be grateful. The simple fact is, is that there is no way to destroy every gun on the earth. Criminals will keep them regardless of what the law says. So why compromise the rights of law abiding citizens and their right to own a gun? As for your little murder statistics, in places like Australia where guns have been banned, rape, and armed robbery have sky rocketed. Would you like to know why? Because every criminal that has a gun can figure out that their prey cannot defend themselves.

Yeah Ben i would be very grateful if somebody shot the guy pointing a gun to my head... i'd also be gratefull to a guy saving me from drowning or burning ! That still doesn't change the fact that if the guy doesn't have a gun and that more than enough was made to ensure that he doesn't have one... well the chances are that a guy actually pointing a gun to my head are very low wich is the case where i live. Sure you cannot destroy all the guns on the planet, but you can at least hope that things are done to ensure that less guns are available to a majority of people... not the opposite.

Okay, "common sense" and "oliver"

I obviously did not get thru to either one of you. First off "common sense" I did not swear at anyone or use insulting words to get my point across.

But chew on this: Yes, people with guns will kill people. Take the guns away, and those who wish to kill people and wish to purchase a gun, will do so illegaly.So, your gun ban laws will accomplish nothing. Zip.

I find it typical of people with your mindset. Run and hide, maybe the bad guy won't hurt me if I cower low enough.

You don't want ANYBODY to have guns just so YOU can sleep better at night.

Selfish. Typical liberal, cowardly mindset.

You, it seems, would rather live on your knees.

I would rather die on my feet.

If you didn't lie you wouldn't know what to do would you?

The NRA did not change their website so what?

The Brady campaign immediately started asking for donations THE SAME DAY!!

How crass and boring can one be?

Oh I forgot you are liberals.

check the crime rates of other countries that have outlawed guns.

!?

Its people like you who are the real criminals; taking away the rights of people to live in a free society unafraid that anyone could shoot them at anytime. that's why they don't allow everybody to carry around concealed weapons... because given the chance, you'll shot somebody you believe is a danger to you.

go

to

hell

don't

live

there.

"You don't want ANYBODY to have guns just so YOU can sleep better at night.

Selfish. Typical liberal, cowardly mindset."

You didnt swear, but you did engage in name calling. So dont pat yourself on the back yet. I'm proud to be a liberal and I'm tired of those who use the word like it's a bad word. Ghandi, Kennedy, MLK, Jesus were all liberals. Liberals have nothing to do with this discussion.

Even if guns were illegal, if you wanted to kill someone you would succeed. Because there are knives, cars, rope, any number of ways to destroy each other exist. We can not regulate how we kill each other simply by making one method of murder illegal.

All we can do is start listening to each other, stop judging, stop demanding that someone else do things our way/my way. Cut the other person a little slack, every one of us has had a bad day and been a real creep to another someone without meaning too.

Show respect to each other, when we respect each other it's harder to call names, it's harder to take a swing, it's harder to murder.

So, here is a self proclaimed liberal who thinks outlawing guns is a foolish and wasteful act of futility. Guns are the symptom, not the cause of our problem.

By making one method of murder illegal... you also take away the means for self defense for others.

Why would you punish the law abiding gun owner?

People are the symptom. Not guns. People.

Yes, JFK, Ghandi, the rest, were liberals. But even JFK was pro-gun. Even the Dali Lama has stated "If someone is shooting at you with a gun, it would make sense to shoot back with your own gun."

common sense, I don't live in a hell because if I judge someone to be a threat to me, my family, or friends I will have the ability to kill in self defence and not sit there at his mercy until the cops arrive in which time it would probably be too late. I am also not worried that someone will shoot me while I'm walking down the street. On opening day of season there are hundreds of people running all over the state with loaded firearms and no one gets shot out of cold blood. For me, where you live would be the real hell. unable to defend myself from criminals and relying on the law inforcement to protect me. Sounds like fun.

And let me emphesize something from one of my earlier posts. Blaming guns for murder is LIKE BLAMING SPOONS FOR MAKING PEOPLE FAT.

Well spoken Ben. If I were there, I'd shake your hand and buy you a beer amigo. Glad somebody is on my side.

"We had a crazy guy in Montreal september 13 2006 who went in Dawson College and fired at students, he killed one and injured twenty. He would have killed many more if there not have been a police car a couple of meters away where he started shooting, the guy had an arsenal. But the police response was so quick that his plan got beat and he got shot in the leg before turning the weapon on himself. He bought his guns legally, even though he was a deranged person and those things will happen. But the more you try to take guns away from people, the more you prevent them from using guns in the first place." Olivier

Oh yes, the police "response was so quick" even though he had time to shoot 21 people. You know what? 1 bullet could have saved an innocent person's life and saved a lot of pain for 20 more. All it would have taken was one of the victims to have a gun and the outcome could have resulted in the attackers death instead of the victim. Same thing in VT. If a few people in that room would have had guns I bet 32 innocent people wouldn't have died, a few probably still would have but I bet the killer would have been one of the few.

One last thing for now, did you know that in switzerland a law was passed that requires every able person to have a firearm in their household. Would you like to know something else? There is virtually no crime there. Hmm I wonder why...it couldn't be that a criminal would know that he might not live very long in a place like that...if he was trying to rob or kill a person. And yet guns don't keep people safe....hmm...please explain to me how that works, I just can't figure it out......

Thanks, jynx, and same to you. Nothing makes me more mad than some liberal going "we need more gun control" and "trees have right" and "rivers have rights" you know something else? I think oxygen molecules have "rights" too and people with that outlook on life outa quit breathing them.

The Swiss system works because....drum roll...they understand that an armed society, is a polite society.

Also, they have never been invaded. Even in WWII. Sure they were occupied, but the Nazis had the sense to move along. Why? They didn't feel like duking out with the locals.

Don't give up the good fight bro. When and if the time comes. You know who will come out smelling like roses, and who will be crawling to us on hands and knees asking for our protection.

Kennesaw, GA passed a law 25 years ago that required everybody to carry a gun. Quess what? The crime went down and no more murders.

Jynx, I especially like the "crawling to us on hands and knees asking for our protection." part, couldn't have put it better myself.

I can't help but wonder what might have happened if most of the VT students had been armed. Is there a chance that in the confusion and fear of the moment, a withering crossfire could occur, snuffing out perhaps even more lives? Or this, if you were a deranged, angry gunman and you knew most folks were packing, wouldn't you get a sniper rifle instead of a handgun and fire from a distance?

I'm not anti-gun. Yet, I can't help but think that some of the pro-gun arguments I am reading here lack the kind of deep, comprehensive thinking that this very serious subject deserves.

"for your knowledge, i come from Canada, specifically Quebec, a french speaking province in the north east where there's a farely well implanted hunting culture. A lot of people own firearms for hunting but nobody values guns as an embly of freedom or liberty. The fact is that with almost the same proportion of guns per people in Canada then in the US, there are twice as much firearms murders in the US then in Canada."-posted by Oblivier

Explain this then Olivier, on wikipedia it said that "Around 30 million people live in Canada's ten provinces and three territories." Now, lets do the math. In America there are around 300 million people. Thats ten Americans for every one Canadian. If there is only twice the amount of murders in America than Canada with a population ten times bigger then I think your reasoning is screwed because with your logic there should be ten times as many murders. Maybe our semi-auto guns and less strict gun laws are doing something after all.

If a person were fireing from a distance people could get behind something and keep from being shot. As for your "error rate" if you look, you can find that civilian error rate in taking out the threat is significantly smaller than the error rate by police offiers.

jynxisfly:
I feel like you misread my post. I am against gun control. It won't fix the problem, perhaps I needed to be simpler..guns are a symptom of PEOPLE having issues.

People in this country have lost respect for the other person. It's all about me and mine and how I want things done. (using the I, me and mine in a general way, not myself personally feeling this way).

It seems like it's difficult to accept we have different points of view and that it's okay. Personally, I rejoice in the infinite diversity of our world, now if we could just quit killing each other. Not killing each other starts in our hearts and minds, not by outlawing the tools that we use to kill.

For the record, I wont have a gun in my home. I enjoy having that right. But if the government tried to outlaw guns in this country I would protest right alongside any one who did own a gun or who wanted a gun. The right to own a weapon may be archaic but it's a right that shouldn't be removed based on whims and fears of people. When fear rules your actions, you stop living freely.

Signed, a Proud Liberal

Regarding gun control in Australia: yes, it certainly sounds good on paper; the problem is, it didn't work. According to everything I've read, crime has risen in Australia since the ban went into effect. Maybe fewer people have been murdered with firearms, but more rapes are occuring now than did before the ban, more home invasions are occuring now than did before the ban, and more murders are occuring now than did before the ban.

Regarding the Second Amendment: if you don't think America is under threat of tyranny right now, you don't read the news; the USA Patriot Act is one of the grossest violations of personal liberty I've seen in my lifetime. I assure you, the Second Amendment is just as timely now as it was at the time the Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution. In any case, it's irrelevant: until someone successfully repeals it (using the amendment procedure outlined in the Constitution), it remains the law of the land.

Bigbenr, here you go spreading disinformation again. The Supreme Court of the United States has, to my knowledge, only ruled on one major Second Amendment case in the last hundred years. That's the Miller case and it does not, despite your beliefs, claim that the Second Amendment is a collective right of the states. It merely states that any weapon protected under the Second Amendment needs to be related to service in a militia. Period. Everything else the liberals read into it is pure wishful thinking.

If you know of any other Supreme Court cases, please list them. Note, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is NOT the Supreme Court, so its opinions are only binding in its own circuit (the West Coast, basically).

Furthermore, you misinterpret "militia" to mean "state militia." In fact, the "militia" referred to in the Second Amendment is the "unorganized militia," which is defined in Title 10, Section 311 of the US Code. It consists of all males between the ages of 17 and 45 and all female members of the National Guard. I merely clear that up because it's a commonly misunderstood point. It's only marginally relevant because the Second Amendment doesn't protect the right of the "militia" to bear arms, it protects the right of the "people" to bear arms. And throughout the Constitution "the people" is used to mean individuals and the words have been interpreted that way over and over by courts throughout the land.

Finally, the militia clause is what is referred to by lawyers as "precatory language." It explains =why= the amendment exists, but it is in no way binding. Break the amendment into two parts, the militia clause and the people clause. The people clause is a complete sentence which works grammatically without the militia clause (the right of the people to bear arms, shall not be infringed). The militia clause is meaningless without the people clause (a well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state). Simple grammatical analysis shows which part of the amendment is the operative part and which part is simply explanatory.

But I guess people just don't like logic....

« Explain this then Olivier, on wikipedia it said that "Around 30 million people live in Canada's ten provinces and three territories." Now, lets do the math. In America there are around 300 million people. Thats ten Americans for every one Canadian. If there is only twice the amount of murders in America than Canada with a population ten times bigger then I think your reasoning is screwed because with your logic there should be ten times as many murders. Maybe our semi-auto guns and less strict gun laws are doing something after all ».

Allrighty Ben, first of all, there are two territories in Canada not three, Labrador being annexed to Newfoundland and second of all, let's go on the math thing for a minute or so to get you back on your feet, as the way you or some other redneck ( joke !!! ) wants to die i think, cause for now, you're certainly crawling in your own non sense logic.

According to a study by Statistics Canada posted in 2000, average crime rates for 100 000 people is 4 times higher in the US than in Canada. The number of homicides in the US were 15517 and 542 in Canada... do the math yourself, that's about 28 times more murders in the US. And according to other sources, 2/3 of the homcides in the US are commited with firearms and 1/3 in Canada, meaning ? 10345 (almost 30 everyday) vs 180 (not even 1 per 2 days) in Canada, 57 times more homicide deaths by firearms in the US than in Canada. Following your intelligent reasonning the US sould have a population of 17 100 000 000, roughly about 3 times the population of the earth and 534 times the population of Canada to get a firearms homicide rate as low as the one in Canada.

And it is also proven by police officials in Montreal and Toronto that the majority of firearms used in homicides (mostly gang or organized crime related) in Canada comes from the States because of your to permissive gun laws. Maybe our gun laws and also our non-violent culture are actually preventing people for being shot everyday.

I'll be glad to send the source of the doccument if you wanna do a little more reading and a little less shooting !!!

Before saying that my numbers are screwed, go back to school man, cause maths are certainly not you're gift in life. Just for the saying, maybe i'm a liberal and i might even be a left wing idealist that values life even in threes and in rivers... but the fact is that i do value life a lot and i don't believe in violence as an answer for social or political problems.

By the way, good job on mentionning Hitler, that's a guy you wanna base your arguments on. Let me remember you what one of you're past President said (let's see if you know this one): « The only thing that we need to fear is fear itslef ». Remember that one when you'll be shooting at eachother with your arsenal.

And for the other idiots making stupid comments on WWII, well you seem to know that Switzerland was occupied, but also don't seem to know that they helped NAZI'S to hide money and values stolen to the jews that were gazed and executed during the Holocaust.

You might also be interested in knowing that Switzerland is a progressive country that as evolved around a coalition government (formed by representatives from the right, left, greens and radicals) for the past 50 years and one of the richest countries in the world and also is one of the only remaining west european country that obliges military service at the age of 18. The army being a sort of upscale state militia, the law you are refering to is that people are allowed to keep their service weapon in their homes. That's quite a different reality than allowing citizens to go in a gun shop and buy semi-automatics weapons because it's written in their aging constitution.

Does «bear arms» mean that i could also buy a rocket launcher or a thank? Wow that would be a killer wouldn't it !

Since i'm actually on fire in the present moment, some of you seem to believe that the solution to violence is to actually get the majority of the people armed and r-e-a-d-y to go. Isn't that like saying to a coke addict that the only way to stop doing coke is to actually do more coke... yeah, that's an idea that could resolve a lot of problems. Geez... i wonder why nobody has ever thougth about that before ?

And yes, I actually enjoy talking to you conservatives morons, i've been learning a lot. Keep it up !

Cheers from Quebec, Canada.

I had basically had enough of this conversation until I read a comment by jynx. When the hell was Switzweralnd occupied? Certainly not during WWII. See this is what I mean. Completely ignorant people making comments they don't know crap about. The reason Switzerland wasn't invaded by the Nazis was because they were NEUTRAL. Look the word up if you don't know what it means. Secondly, the Nazis were pouring millions into Swiss banks so it was good business to leave Switzerland alone. Thirdly, by 1942 when Germnay occupied most of Europe, 80% of Swiss exports went directly to the German war effort. If you think for one minute that the Wehrmacht didn't invade Switzerland because a bunch of yodlers had guns you are serioulsy warped. Don't talk about stuff you know nothing about. I have a better idea, go clean your gun.

Comrade Cho, through his glorious sacrifice, has blazed the trail for the final downfall of decadent American capitalism! The running dog plutocrats of Wall Street and Washington rightly quake in fear at the imminent triumph of socialism! The inevitable outcome of the historical dialectic will be the slaughter of the parasitic capitalists followed by the establishment of a socialistic paradise where such basic needs as food and medecine will be freely and easily available to the proletariot. Arise, my American brothers! You have nothing to lose but your chains!

Oh my. Apparently now the Commies are coming out of the woodwork. We must be vigilante in looking for the Commie spies amongst us. Students, if you know of any Commies, report them to your Campus Police.

I wanna make 2 corrections on my last comment.

First, it's my mistake to have not included Nunavut has the third canadian territory wich was formed in 1999. It was in the past a part of the Northwest Territories. Sorry for the mistake, i look like an idiot.

Second, in the case of Switzerland, i should not have said it was «occupied by the Nazis» but that it was «under the strong influence of the Nazis».

The campus was a gun free zone which meant that nobody could defend themselves. How stupid. The city in GA required everybody to carry a gun and quess what, the crime went down because the criminals knew they would get shot. That is why everybody is packing in the hood.

Olivier, you are entitled to your opinions even when you have no logical thought process behind them. From the above, you hold many opinions near and dear, but you base them on emotion.

The Swiss were not "allowed" to keep arms, it was mandatory. It was also mandatory to maintain a viable supply of ammunition for that firearm. One of the more famous quotes of the World War was when the German (general?) was talking to the Swiss (Chancellor?). The Swiss had just indicated that the Swiss armed militia consisted of approximately one million people. The German asked what the Swiss would do if the German army invaded with a force of approximatley two million men. The German army was on the Swiss Border. The Swiss replied (something on the order of) 'each Swiss would have to fire twice'. The Germans did not invade.

Olivier, you've been oppressed so long that you can't accept freedom. You seem to think that anyone with a firearm will automatically be driven to kill indiscriminately. If you can't see a defensive purpose for firearms, then you will never understand where some of us are coming from. My firearms and (most likely) the firearms of some others who have commented haven't killed and won't unless it is absolutely necessary. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you will do it and some of us would prefer the freedom to make the decision. Should we castrate all male children because they might turn out to be rapists?

I will start by saying I can see where all of the gun loving NRA types are coming from here.

Guns are useful in defending against crazy people and tyrannous governments and all sorts of small furry animals.

However they are more often used in your country to kill innocent people. I can think of once when your guns were used to oppose a tyrannical government in your country in the last few hundred years yet I can remember many many more sad instances from the last decade where guns were used to kill innocent people.

Over here in Australia we have tough gun laws and it is actually hard for criminals and crazies to get guns, come over and try it for yourself.

Over there anyone can walk into a gun shop and so long as they have a clean record and MAYBE survive a cooling off period they can buy a gun.

Instead of bleeping on about something that happened once a few hundred years ago how about you EVOLVE and learn that gun ownership should be strictly controlled to save these innocent lives.

We still go Roo shooting over here for sport and we still enjoy freedom from the oppression of government PLUS our crazies don't have guns.

Although it is understandable you would live in fear of your government, they do have Guantanamo Bay after all.

Olivier, I was going to say to you "well, not all Americans are idiots", and then I remembered you were Canadian.

«Olivier, you've been oppressed so long that you can't accept freedom. You seem to think that anyone with a firearm will automatically be driven to kill indiscriminately. If you can't see a defensive purpose for firearms, then you will never understand where some of us are coming from.»

I do see a defensive purpose in firearms and i do understand where you are coming from. I just don't understand the need to be armed wich will eventually mean that you will resort to firearms before resorting to other means. I believe that less guns in a society means less violence and that governments should do all in their power to achieve that goal. I understand your rights has they are written in your consitution and that has a citizen you value that constitution. But that doesn't mean that it's not questionnable, especially when you look at all the violence in your country.

About the fact that i'm opressed and that i don't understand freedom... well, define freedom for me please. If you mean freedom as the way the US defines freedom, i do prefer to live in Canada and especially in Quebec where, as francophones, we have made and are still fighting for our rigths as the only majority french speaking province in Canada and the only french nation in America. We have been defending our rights and it as proven us good, since we have obtained a lot in the past 50 years and we've build a society thay we are proud to live in, a peacefull society. Maybe you should read a litlle about Quebec's history and you'll see that we are all but opressed my friend and that we have fought for a long time to not be victims of assimilition by the english-speaking majority in the rest of the country.

When i look at the freedom in the way of the US, i see a society of many contradictions where it's ok to show people getting shot on tv, but it's not acceptable to use bad words or to show a little bit of skin. I see a society that produces ,advertises and sells violence in their movies, their music, their culture in all sorts of ways.

Let me say, i do not wish to define freedom as you do and i certainly prefer to live in a country that has a story of peace and not a story of war and violence.

@ bogdan amidozel

Thanks fot the compliment dude, keep it up !

Tragedy at VT
The question is who really is to blame? Why did this young man become so violent? I see a very troubled young man with very poor social skills. Reading his plays I would suspect some childhood abuse in his past. This young man had a very fragile ego to start with. I agree with a commenter on CNN that something busted his bubble. What was that?

This young man with a fragile ego suffered one upset after another. The first was the rejection by the two females. It was natural for this young man to follow up on the urging of his fellow classmates to become more social, which means girls in our society. He however had an extreme lack of social skills. He however had a lot of pride and pressure from his culture to be someone. He therefore felt suicidal after the rejections and an encounter with the police. Patient was then taken in for observation by the police and introduced to our mental health system with the entire stigma involved. This was too much.

I proposed what caused the tragedy is our present trend towards a non-caring and greed based society. The laws passed by congress over the last few administration have been disastrous to freedom loving people. Our kids see it and our acting out, hence the shootings in schools.

I ask when did Cho’s violent behavior start? When did he buy a gun? After he was introduced to the mental health system. This is because of the taboo that our society has for people diagnosed with a mental illness. A taboo created by the neo-caste system of our present system. I propose the crisis was created by own callous system, which has strayed far away from the best intentions of our founding fathers.

Can’t people see the pattern? Every time democrats get into office, the powers that be try to erode our rights as citizens with new laws like the Brady bill or the newly considered bills by congress to require states to give information on citizen’s private lives for gun control. When republicans get into office, they fleece the country and enact laws like the Patriot act which further restrict our freedom.

Few see that what happened in Virginia is due to a general trend of hard heartedness pervasive in this country. Hardheartedness based on greed of those that run the press, big business and the government. Hard heartedness manifested in the Brady bill which gives no second chances. That assumes that a judicial system designed and run by men is so perfect that rights given by the constitution and the wisdom of our fore fathers can be taken away permanently without even the seven year forgiveness that the past writers of law tried to write in the law. A forgiveness based on the bible.

As for the mental health system, psychiatry is a science which even many practitioners, which I am one, realize lacks validity. We may have reproducible results in that you can get two psychiatrists to agree, but we lack validity in that there is usually no objective test that really determines rather a person in mentally ill. As is well documented, psychiatry is known for its abuses.

In addition what is the wisdom in using the civil case level of proof, as committing someone for mental reasons requires, counteracting the highest law, which the second amendment of the constitution is. Civil court does not require that you prove a case beyond reasonable doubt. On this basis I think most of the gun control laws involving mentally ill should be unconstitutional.

It all comes to the definition of freedom. Freedom is being defined by those who have wealth and power as their freedom to do and take as they please. How dare we interfere with this? We must be punished for our insolence. The new wave of punishment will come from there exploitation of this present situation. Many will feel okay to remain acquiescent because they do not feel threatened. But injustice is like a cancer. Although it is growing quietly, only a fool does not fear that it will not latter metastasize to affect the whole organism.

My problem is not that there should be no gun control, just that the existing laws are not a good balance between protecting the civil liberties of individuals and projecting the public. It is a fact that mentally ill people are not more prone to violence then those not mentally ill. The biggest predictor of violence is previous violence. I think thought controls action, so the actually the best predictor of violence is the level of malevolence .Cho’s poetry teacher documented that he was “just mean”,so Cho met this criteria. The problem is you cannot judge the whole population by a few individuals. Any way to me there should be a special court procedure, which requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt for judging people unable to bare arms. This should be separate from normal civil commitment. And there should always be a way out if the person regains their sanity. And all restrictions on gun purchase should have a statue of limitation.So that the person can purchase a gun,lets say, 7 years after either being released from a prison or a hospital.

Hey BigBen;
Even the Supremes occasionly screw one up,sometimes intentionally, they are only human beings after all.

The 2nd Amendment does the same thing that each of the other nine amendments in the Bill of Rights do. And that is restrict the governments ability to interfere with the civil rights of the individual.

Hey BigBen;
Even the Supremes occasionly screw one up,sometimes intentionally, they are only human beings after all.

The 2nd Amendment does the same thing that each of the other nine amendments in the Bill of Rights do. And that is restrict the governments authority to interfere with the civil rights of the individual.

Sorry about the double posting of my first comment.

Criminals always take the percieved path of least resistance. More guns represents the potential for increased resistance therefore they will always migrate to areas where there are fewer guns.

The Virginia Tech massacre represents the miserable and absolute failure of gun control.

Listen, if only some kids at virginia tech had been in armed as well, we would not have any of these problems right now.