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Gun Control?
How do you guys feel about Gun Control now a days? In Virginia, it is illegal to carry a gun on a Virginia school campus. A bill that would allow students to carry one got shot down last year. Story. After the recent shooting, it seems that the law abiding students were sitting ducks, not able to defend themselves against a madman. Do you think that people should be allowed to carry concealed weapons wherever? For reference another Virginia school shooting was stopped last year before killing many people by two students with Concealed Weapons Permits. Story. Personally, I feel that if students had been allowed to carry firearms, we would have seen a lot less blood on Monday.
Comments
1. Foreigners are not allowed to buy guns in the US
2. Possibly adding a psychological evaluation when a person gets a gun license, or buying a gun
Maybe we'll do a show on it ^_~
I don't know how the details work in Virginia but the fact that an ordinary student (one with psychological issues on top of all) can go and get a fire arm seems like a sign of slack control.
How do things work in the states? Can anyone buy a gun after you're 21? I'm sorry but that's just ludicrous! If no one could get hold of guns, no one would need them. Why should only foreigners be prohibited from buying guns? Are Americans any less prone to use them?
I believe in an inherent right of people to have the means to protect themselves and others from harm. I also believe in the right of a people to willfully prevent access to things that will harm their society more than will help it. I believe that people have the right to use force to protect their lives, security, or property, but I also believe that the indiscriminate use of deadly force in the course of protecting petty property is a net loss.
A rational person who is armed is a benefit to society. An irrational person who is armed is a detriment.
The former has the ability to protect themselves and others, but the judgement to discriminate in using this ability according to the situation in a rational manner. The latter will likely use the weapon at inappropriate times, in an inappropriate manner, or for inappropriate reasons. The latter will allow untrusted individuals to gain access to their weapon. The latter will not practice proper maintenance. The latter will not shoot accurately and judiciously.
Now, are most people rational or irrational?
Do those numbers skew when said people are presented with dangerous or stressful situations? How can weapons be allowed to rational people and simultaneously disallowed to irrational people? Are the benefits of the rational armed population worth the drawbacks of the irrational armed population?
This is a societal problem and creating laws to control guns would hardly be a band aid for a wound with gangrene about to set it. Think about Prohibition and then think about bootlegging. It is the people that need to be affected. Education needs to be improved as well as access to education. The quality of life needs to be addressed as well. When human beings' basic needs are not met, the resulting misery causes them to do horrible things (with the exception of mental illness). Many people would like to divorce Cho's actions at Virginia Tech from the rest of the world but it cannot be done. Perhaps he grew up in a cave alone somewhere and then came and killed 32 people. It would be nice to think he's an anomaly in an otherwise smoothly running (haha) world. The reality is that no one lives in a vacuum. Everyone in this world is connected and everyone's actions affects everyone else.
My university will be holding a vigil and then a forum about the security at my campus. About 14,000 students there. I'm hoping their plans of action, if such a thing occurred, would not include emailing students about the presence of a shooter while we're already at class or out and about on campus. Some people go days without checking email. I'm still in a WTF stage about that tidbit.
As for the hospitalization issue. I have no problem enacting a purchasing ban for people recently hospitalized with mental issues. However, the gun store owner was still following the law.
This happened to someone who was supposed to be my roommate when I lived on campus over two years ago. She was moved to another dorm and directory excluded so that no one could look up her whereabouts on our then public university directory online. She and her stalker were both Asian. Her stalker showed up on campus looking for her while I was moving in. I always remember that he smelled to high heaven of cigarettes. The dorms were open because it was move in day. He walked into the room and copied the number off of the phone. He showed up a couple of times after and then continued to call asking for his stalkee. Later I was contacted by the girl's friend and then by the police. The police said to contact them if he called or showed up again. When asked they said he was dangerous and had assaulted the girl. He had followed this girl up from the city (in fact my neck of the woods) and was not a student. No one knew how he managed to get inside the secured dorms after move in day. My suitemates and I had all seen him more than once. When I requested that my number be changed, the police said that they might want me to talk to him. They also requested that I didn't tell anyone about this incident because of the danger to this girl.
Of course, this is when I told all of my suitemates and they told their parents (who went as crazy as my mother) and we kept our suite door closed from that moment on. I told my Resident Adviser and Resident Director. My mother went ballistic and sent letters to everyone from the President downwards. I told every friend and acquaintance, some professors, and an academic adviser what was going on so that they might know what had happened if I disappeared. My number was changed in an instant and well I moved off campus after that. My university's police and residential life were very lax in their reactions and had this guy been a shooter, at least five people could have been dead because they did not make provisions to protect us and even wanted me to be in contact with this stalker.
There seems to be more of a concern about "panic" than about people actually dying. It's more important not to cause a panic than it is to prevent death. I believe those who sent the email at Virginia Tech had to have known the small amount of people that email would have reached on a Monday morning.