Gun Free Zone
The shootings at VA Tech are another triumph for gun control. A triumph is you want innocents killed, because gun control prevents innocents from defending themselves. Criminals don’t give a damn about laws. That’s why these laws really don’t work.
VA Tech was a gun free zone. Which of course, is meaningless. Like when some small town votes itself a nuclear free zone, like the one I used to live in. saying you’re free of something is fine if you really have a say. But if the feds decided to build a nuclear power plant there, all they could do is file lawsuits. When it comes to guns, where there’s a will, there’s a way. The law can’t protect you from crazy people.
But having a gun could. And students or teachers at that school were armed, this story would have been much different.
Anti-gun people say they don’t like them because they are made to kill people. But they’re missing the point. They are made to kill bad people. Of course, everyone has a different definition of that. But ask yourself this question, if a gunman was coming at you down a hall, would you rather have a gun or not? If your car broke down in a scary neighborhood, would you rather have a gun or not?
Guns are great equalizers. They are dangerous and can be misused like anything, but no one counts hhow many times they have saved lives. In many instances, they do just that. Every cloud has a silver lining.
We’re sure to hear more talk about gun control again. Even though it has proven itself to be very unpopular in the US. Gun control is really no solution to anything. It merely makes some smug people think their opinions on how others should live feel better. But the defenseless who die an early death have these sanctimonious types to blame.
I think free speech is at risk here too more than Gun rights. Because already I see CNN going about the whole “violent video games cause children to become psycho killers” b.s. I know that today’s incident was a tragedy and video games should be the least of our concerns but the FBI’s never going to catch these killers if they’re profiling the wrong types of people by thinking like this.
Posted by on 04/16 at 03:14 PMEvery time there is a school shooting (though this was against adults at a college) you get that lame video game meme trotted out. They have no imagination and it’s been studied to death and there has been no usable conclusions on the matter.
Posted by on 04/16 at 03:35 PMThe problem is these so called profilers have no idea what the whole video game/comic book/sci fi culture is about. They take one look at video game fans and think we’re all goths or something. It’s also funny how it’s lefties like Hilary Clinton who’s the most outspoken about video game violence, so much for liberal freedom of speech huh?
Posted by on 04/16 at 03:41 PMThere’s no such thing. As I said, the left only believes in free speech when it agrees with them. If video games were about shooting Republicans and espousing socialism, they would have no complaints.
Posted by James Hudnall on 04/16 at 03:52 PMThe news is emerging that the shooter was a Chinese national here on a student visa.
Most mainlander men have to serve their conscription in the army before they’re allowed to get a passport to study abroad, so this guy was obviously trained to shoot. I’m guessing that’s why the casualty count was one of the highest in U.S. history. (The highest was that one in the 1920’s where that teacher blew up 45 school kids because he went mental.)
(This comment is a bit of a non-sequitur, but semi-related. Apologies!
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Posted by on 04/16 at 05:06 PMOf course they will talk about gun control and video games, that way they won’t have to even ponder what the problem really is.
Prepare for some major face time from all the panderers and promoters. The Imus snafu will be nothing in comparison.
AnniePosted by Anniemr on 04/16 at 08:25 PMHey, Annie. Long time no see.
Posted by James Hudnall on 04/16 at 09:09 PMI don’t have any opinions to add, (for once) but I do have some observations.
1) It seems like there is a school shooting every year now. It reminds me of back in the 90’s there was a big deal about a guy who killed his wife by burning her alive. It was all over the news, and over then next five years there were like 20 more cases.
...I just don’t get it.2) I have thought about the gun control issue. I would not feel comfortable learning in a place where students were armed all around me. This is especially true in high school. I went to four high school and all of them were filled with a lot of kids who really should never touch a gun.
3) There is no quick fix and there is no one cause. I think that what we are seeing is a confluence of a number of things.
a) Too much violent media from all sources. Paranoia sells and our society is getting bombarded with it. This includes video games, movies, and the internet. I sometimes shut down watching the evening news here in DC. So much death, it is hard for me to swallow sometimes.
b) I think that there are simply more people. Very few mammals on this planet will openly kill another mammal of the same species. No matter how predatory or violent the animal, almost all fights stop short of death--unless of course it is in captivity and with too high a population in too small an area. Early zoos learned this the hard way. Its a pretty obvious survival instinct. I think humans need a lot of space. I think our lifestyle puts a certain stress on us that we have a natural biological response to handle. 99.999999999999% of folks can cope. Some can’t.
c) Our tools enable us kill each other. I am not making any pro/anti gun control stance here. But I think that it is very hard for people to kill others with their bare hands. Like all the other mammals out there, I think that almost all people will stop short. However, guns allow us to bypass that entire biological response to stop short. It detaches us enough from the action to allow this type of actions to take place.
d) we have a shallow and cynical society. Most people don’t have a greater cause to hold on to or know what it means to sacrifice. I truly believe that sacrifice is a fundamental aspect of society being able to function for it offers people perspectives. Without it, it is easy to get seduced by this material world to think that our looks, job performance, or grades are the most important things in the world.
4) The idea that our world has become “not safe anywhere” is an overwhelming thought. I can’t handle it. Its too big, too horrific for me.
5) Its going to make me sick to watch us try to tear people down in a blame game over the next few weeks.
…this stuff really gets me down.
Posted by on 04/17 at 06:25 AM1 more observation.
I found the timing of the President’s statement regarding the second ammendment ougtrageous.
Posted by on 04/17 at 06:44 AMWhat did the president say? I missed that.
As for your points: School shootings seem much lighter than during Clinton where they seemed to happen couple of months.
During Clinton we also had a lot of Postal Workers shooting up their workplace. That doesn’t happn anymore. Maybe these things come in cycles.
This was an adult, shooting at other adults. It’s not a kid thing like a high school shooting. But I think it happens more often with younger people because their emotions are much more potent. I know how intense my feelings were for girlfriends back then. I never wanted to kill anyone, but the point is, this guy was 23 so his hormones were in full swing.
I think point b is the most accurate of all your arguments. A violent media only acts to desensitize people to that stuff. Violent video games are more of a catharsis than a cause. They used to say porn makes people into rapists. You don’t hear that argument anymore because it’s been proven to be noty true. There is no proof video games or movies make people more violent. They’ve been trying to prove that for years and failed.
But back to your point b, there are more people, so it’s statistically more likely for this kind of thing to happen. Even so, this is a aberration. You have to go back to the early 60s with Charles Whitman or the 1920 with that guy who bombed a school to find comperable mass killings.
Posted by James Hudnall on 04/17 at 08:23 AMIf the students were allowed to “Open carry” as in the rest of Virginia, (there are exceptions) then either this would not have happened or not to this extent.
Posted by on 04/17 at 08:34 AMThe president pretty much opened his speach by saying, I am sorry that this happened. But dont worry, I wount let “them” use this to repeal the second amendment.
I know that was what a lot of people were thinking, but he should not have brought it up. Keep the politics out of it while offering condolences.
And Brock, I will maintain that I would not feel comfortable knowing that students were allowed concealed handguns on campus. I am not for gun control by any means, but I just dont think I want more guns on campuses. I will also admit that if some students had a weapon, then a lot of deaths could have been avoided. But to me, the price of that is too high.
Posted by on 04/17 at 08:46 AM“I would not feel comfortable knowing that students were allowed concealed handguns on campus.”
They have to be clearly in the “open,” not concealed unless you have a permit. Another words, if you are walking, your weapon has to be in full view. The same applies in a car. I do understand that this would never happen in today’s environment, and of your concern, but I believe people of college age should be mature enough to handle them properly.
Posted by on 04/17 at 09:14 AM4) The idea that our world has become “not safe anywhere” is an overwhelming thought. I can’t handle it. Its too big, too horrific for me
You need to examine this misconception further. Most people in the world do actually manage to get along quite well with one another. “It’s a big scary world” is a fiction invented by government types who want to sell you protection you don’t need and that they can’t provide.
Posted by on 04/17 at 10:35 AMJim, that’s right. If the world was as bad as the media makes it out to be our life expectancies would be 30 and not 75
Posted by on 04/17 at 10:56 AM
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