"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
- United States Constitution, Second Amendment, 1787
220 years later?
Simply, lethally, unnecessary.
Some sick fuck from the NRA has apparently said that were other students armed then the shooting may have been stopped earlier.
I hope members of the NRA are tucked up in bed tonight, sleeping soundly, as candlelit vigils are held at Virginia Tech.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
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9 comments:
I personally would like to do an Eddie Izzard-type protest. Get protesters dressed in black combat gear, line them up at the inevitable NRA convention to counteract the backlash. And at inappropriate times get them to shout 'bang, bang, ratatatatt'.
Guns kill people.
I agree. totally.
but there are just too many fucked up factors in my country (sadly, I must claim it as mine) to slap it all on the guns. Take away the guns, yes, and that will go along way, almost all the way.
But it will not solve the fatal plunge that (my? God I hope not) culture seems hell-bent on.
not again.
I just can't get my mind around it.
Yank
I don't agree with the NRA statement however, i do agree that people should have the right to bear arms if they so wish.
It is easy to look at the weapon of choice but people with a severe mental illness who are not cared cared for in society is the real issue. It seems that this young man came to the attention of the services on several occasions and yet 'slipped through the net'. When people are intent on this course of action they will use whatever, bomb, knife, etc.
I certainly think the process of obtaining a gun licence could do with being tightened, such as psychological evaluations.
Such a cliche, yet true. Guns don't kill people, people kill people.
I see your point, but what are guns designed to do?
Initially, the Chinese came up with the idea of putting gunpowder into small bombs to fire from a catapult in the 11th century and later developed the idea into a true gun with a metal barrel by the 12th century to be used by the military for defence. A gun was found in the early 1970's at Pan-La-ch'eng-tzu villiage, Manchuria and dated to around 1290 A.D.
I agree that guns are the means to kill people and not the thing that kills people, BUT...
I think that guns make it too easy. How many stories have there been of "I didn't mean to kill him!"
Pulling the trigger is so impersonal, requires so little thought, I think it enables more people to kill than perhaps otherwise would so do.
I agree IM, guns make it easy and impersonal which is why i suggest tightening how an application to hold a licence, with maybe a psych evaluation, is obtained.
Someone who is intent on using a gun is able to get their hands on one, with or without a licence, which is why i don't think this should be about gun licencing laws.
Dianne - we'll have to agree to disagree.
Of course it should be about gun licensing laws! Surely, the less guns in the public domain the better? Of course you can never stop the truly determined, but absolutely it should be made harder to get the damn things in the first place.
People kill people AND guns most certainly are designed to kill people. After all, isn't humanity wonderfully skilled at finding better and more efficient ways to kill each other in the first place? Guns weren't invented because they made a loud scary noise now, were they?
Police firearms teams go through extensive training, psych evaluation and interviews before they have access to firearms on active duty. Members of our armed forces; the same.
Hey Ing. How's tricks?
Actually, bullets kill people. People and guns merely facilitate that.
The problem is not simply too many guns. Canada has about 1 gun for every 4 people, but it has very little gun violence compared to its neighbour.
That said, given that the US has a problem with gun violence, it would make sense to try different approaches to solving that. Including rigorous gun-control.
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