Could absence of gun control have saved VT victims?

[vluvski]

I firmly believe that the eradication of most gun control laws could, in fact, have saved many lives at VT and in other tragic shootings.

Why did no one hear about this shooting at Appalachian Law in 2002? (sarcastic shrug)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachian_School_of_Law_shooting
One of the Luby’s survivors, a woman whose parents were shot right before her eyes, had a gun in her car. She didn’t have it on her person because it was illegal in the state of Texas to carry a firearm. Now THAT is a crime!

My husband and I own a Taurus revolver, and it stays loaded at our bedside. If MD had legal concealed carry, we would own two and both keep our firearms with us. Think about it. Most individuals are law abiding citizens. If it was legal to carry a gun, the vast majority of people carrying guns would be law abiding citizens. If I was a criminal, I would think twice about pulling out a weapon if I knew that was a good chance someone in the vicinity would have a gun.

Gun control accomplishes one thing, and one thing only. If it is a crime to own a gun, only criminals will own guns. It’s as simple as that.

 

[vern_humphrey]

During the Viet Nam war, we had a radio station, AFVN (you may have seen the movie, “Good Morning, Viet Nam!”)

They had commercials on that station – for things like “Take your atabrine pill.” One very clever series advertised the in-country recreation center at Vung Tau. The ads in that series always ended with the same three words, “Bring your weapon.”

Good advice. I’ve followed it ever since.

 

[catsrus]

Make it legal for everyone to carry a gun from age 1 to death. (which will come a lot sooner than if they are not carrying)
I still will not have one in my house and would reaaallllyyy reconsider sending my kids off to school, be it grade, middle, high or college, where every kid in the room is packing!

And I don’t see where gun control had any part in this. Cho bought his guns quite legally.

 

[vern_humphrey]

Make it legal for everyone to carry a gun from age 1 to death. (which will come a lot sooner than if they are not carrying)
I still will not have one in my house and would reaaallllyyy reconsider sending my kids off to school, be it grade, middle, high or college, where every kid in the room is packing!

And I don’t see where gun control had any part in this. Cho bought his guns quite legally.

Ah, but he was breaking the law when he brought the guns on campus. And a person contemplating mass murder would never break the law, now would he?

(Well, yes, he would. But his intended victims wouldn’t – which is what he was counting on and which made it so easy for him to kill so many.)

 

[vluvski]

Cho bought his guns quite legally.

He also brought them on campus quite illegally. I’m sure many of the students at VT, and perhaps even some of the victims whose lives were so tragically ended, also bought their guns quite legally, and were quite legally obligated to leave them at mom n pop’s house since VT is a gun-free zone .

All it would have taken was one person- ONE PERSON! who had access to a firearm to take this guy out before he killed 32 innocent people who quite legally had no right to protect themselves against a madman.

 

[Grow_in_Faith]

I agree with you 100%. Criminals will get their guns, one way or another. Gun control keeps innocent people from being able to defend themselves.

 

[JLSacred]

I wonder, though, how many other spur of the moment crimes, by less crazy people, would occur if ordinary people were packing pistols. For instance, you’re carrying your gun and get in an argument with your brother at his house, things escalate, and instead of punching him, in a fit of passion you kill him. I don’t think it’s an unrealistic scenario. It could be that ordinary people might occasionally find themselves losing control and shooting people.

 

[Sir_Knight]

I wonder, though, how many other spur of the moment crimes, by less crazy people, would occur if ordinary people were packing pistols. For instance, you’re carrying your gun and get in an argument with your brother at his house, things escalate, and instead of punching him, in a fit of passion you kill him. I don’t think it’s an unrealistic scenario. It could be that ordinary people might occasionally find themselves losing control and shooting people.

What you believe is not supported by actually facts. In 1989, the state of Florida allowed it’s citizens carry concealed firearms. According to records from the Florida department of Justice, Crime rates involving gun owners with carry permits have consistently been about 0.02% of carry permit holders – significantly lower than the general population. Additionally, after passing their concealed carry law, Florida’s homicide rate fell from 36% above the national average to 4% below the national average and remains below the national average to this day.

 

[system]

IGun control accomplishes one thing, and one thing only. If it is a crime to own a gun, only criminals will own guns. It’s as simple as that.

I’ve always wondered why this cliche leaves out the police? Why wouldn’t it be, **"only the criminals and the police would have guns? ** I always thought that made no sense.

Well, timing is everything, I was all set to start a thread on Sunday asking people about gun laws, based on a Sunday editorial in the NY Times. I thought it had a couple good points and wanted to hear from people on both sides of the “issue”. But then, VT happened, so I avoided it.

It has to do with gun laws in different locations. You know like in the wild west movies when they would come to a town and at the city limits it might say, “no firearms” or “check guns with the sherriff” or rifles only, or whatever. It seems like this is what VT had decided to do. The laws in VA allowed those who wanted to to carry a weapon, but within the community of VT, that was not OK.

According to the article, that is forbidden in PA; towns cannot make their own law within their own city limits, and the article criticizes the fact that particular towns cannot make their own gun laws. For instance Philly had 406 homicides in 2006, most by gun. The author was asking why a town like Philly would have to live with the same gun laws as some of our very rural areas, like Potter county. Hopefully I’m getting his ideas across.

I don’t consider myself rabidly anti-gun, and I have family and friends that have guns and hunt, and if I lived up in the mountains I may even consider having one (darn bears). But there are supposed to be some laws to protect us, and they are not working. Seems the VT shooter who had been judged (by a judge!) as a danger to himself and others, went to buy the gun; they ran an “instant- check” on him (what happened to the 3-day wait?) and he walked out armed. The second gun he bought online(!) This is not good.

From what I’ve read of Vern here, (if I may use you as an example Vern) he’s a trained soldier and a practicing Catholic, and is not likely to go off like this. So him having a gun, doesn’t really bother me at all. I’ve known some guys with a pretty tenous grip on reality who own guns. This definitely bother me, because sooner or later, one of those guys does go off, usually with no warning and people die.

 

[Erich]

Here is one of my favorite examples of gun control (2.5" bull’s eye at 100m for a score of 93)

http://www.gunboards.com/forums/uploaded/Vic/20043723335_psl target Russian D ball.JPG

 

[lizaanne]

I agree with you 100%. Criminals will get their guns, one way or another. Gun control keeps innocent people from being able to defend themselves.

Amen to that!

~Liza

 

[carol_marie]

I don’t understand when people argue that if guns were illegal, there would be less shootings. Drugs are illegal and that doesn’t stop anyone from getting them if they want.

I am not about gun control at all.

But I have to admit - I was a bit puzzled by the response of the gunshop owner who was so sad to hear that he sold the very powerful guns to that kid. He said it upset him to know that all of those people were dead. What does he THINK people do with his guns? The kind he sold certainly aren’t used for hunting. Protection I suppose?

So while I support a person’s right to have guns… I wouldn’t want to be in the business of selling them.

 

[BioCatholic]

All it would have taken was one person- ONE PERSON! who had access to a firearm to take this guy out before he killed 32 innocent people who quite legally had no right to protect themselves against a madman.

My buddies and i have a running debate over how many people would have been saved had one of us, or any LEO been there with a firearm.

i used to carry my sidearm to class. BUT, when i was in grad biochemistry, my mind was solely focused on biochemistry, and NOT civil defense. after the 1st shot or 2, i would have realized what was going on.

THEN, i would have gone into seek and destroy mode. first having to seek out, and then engaging, and finally killing the shooter.

how many shots could he have got off before i fired? would my rounds have gone through him, or bounced off a brick wall, or fragmented and hit bystanders? if i saw him in a hallway, how could i be 100% positive IMMEDIATELY he was the shooter, and not just an off duty fuzz like me looking for the real shooter?

lets hypothesize that 2 shots are fired before i realize what is going on, draw my sidearm and start seek n’ destroy. another 3-4 are fired while i locate the shooter. lets say i dont care if i get hit and just push straight past all doorways without looking, and fire on sight at any person with a gun. probably another 3-4 shots he can fire. so thats between 8-10 shots, possibly killing 5-10 people if he shoots them in the right place.

im not Neo from the Matrix. people would have still died. likely without using correct (and slower) tactics, i would have been hit too. now i am all about going down in a blaze of glory, but only if i could get the shooter too. people still would have died though.

 

[zootjeff]

My buddies and i have a running debate over how many people would have been saved had one of us, or any LEO been there with a firearm.

i used to carry my sidearm to class. BUT, when i was in grad biochemistry, my mind was solely focused on biochemistry, and NOT civil defense. after the 1st shot or 2, i would have realized what was going on.

THEN, i would have gone into seek and destroy mode. first having to seek out, and then engaging, and finally killing the shooter.

how many shots could he have got off before i fired? would my rounds have gone through him, or bounced off a brick wall, or fragmented and hit bystanders? if i saw him in a hallway, how could i be 100% positive IMMEDIATELY he was the shooter, and not just an off duty fuzz like me looking for the real shooter?

lets hypothesize that 2 shots are fired before i realize what is going on, draw my sidearm and start seek n’ destroy. another 3-4 are fired while i locate the shooter. lets say i dont care if i get hit and just push straight past all doorways without looking, and fire on sight at any person with a gun. probably another 3-4 shots he can fire. so thats between 8-10 shots, possibly killing 5-10 people if he shoots them in the right place.

im not Neo from the Matrix. people would have still died. likely without using correct (and slower) tactics, i would have been hit too. now i am all about going down in a blaze of glory, but only if i could get the shooter too. people still would have died though.

Ok, so suppose you and 4 other dudes are packing, you hear shots, you go into the hall way and see the 3 other dudes poking their heads into the hallways guns drawn. You then tell the other dude to drop his weapon, he refuses, then you all three shoot each other in self defense. Meanwhile the real killer is still out and about.

You know how many deaths in Iraq and and other wars are from friendly fire? It’s not beacause they want to kill the good guys, it’s because oops, such power with such a little small click of the finger, and bad planning.

I think what might have been a better policy would be for faculty to have mandatory fire arms unless they failed a psych test. And no guns for anyone else. That way you would know not to shoot the random dudes who come to the rescue who don’t know each other. It’s the same for 911. Pilots need rubber bullets mandatory.

I’m also of the opinion that people with green cards shouldn’t be able to buy semi-autos…

 

[jman507]

Thanks BioCatholic, I think you bring up some good points.

You might not actually want all kinds of people to have guns, because in this case, even if x amount of people have guns in the building, you could end up with a situation where lots of innocent people get shot by well intentioned people. Others might mistake others with guns as the actual shooter. You might end up with people shooting even if the orginal shooter has been incapacitated.

A better idea, might to have a certian amount of staff in the building permitted to carry a firearm and all trained. The police should have an idea of their training and tactics and they should know what the police are likely to do. Granted once the emergency happens it won’t go completely to plan, at least you have people trained what to cue others to do, and have some idea of how the others will go about nuetrilizing the threat. Would you like a small somewhat organized effort or 25 individual (well and unknown number) efforts? (Somewhat organized given I doubt they’ll train as much as the SWAT team.)

I guess though is still the question about how much time and money ought to go into setting that up, which is the problem with any emergency planning. How many campuses are there, and how many times have something like this happen? How might you incorporate this into other projects the organization might like to do? There should be personal trianed for all types of emergency. Some might enjoy the gun training. Can take it up as a team building and unity project. Granted even if everyone doesn’t like the guns, there is still the emergency training aspect, which a lot of staff should be at.

Now if we could get a person with ESP on every initial assesment of a situation.

 

[Sir_Knight]

Ok, so suppose you and 4 other dudes are packing, you hear shots, you go into the hall way and see the 3 other dudes poking their heads into the hallways guns drawn. You then tell the other dude to drop his weapon, he refuses, then you all three shoot each other in self defense. Meanwhile the real killer is still out and about.

You know how many deaths in Iraq and and other wars are from friendly fire? It’s not beacause they want to kill the good guys, it’s because oops, such power with such a little small click of the finger, and bad planning.

I think what might have been a better policy would be for faculty to have mandatory fire arms unless they failed a psych test. And no guns for anyone else. That way you would know not to shoot the random dudes who come to the rescue who don’t know each other. It’s the same for 911. Pilots need rubber bullets mandatory.

I’m also of the opinion that people with green cards shouldn’t be able to buy semi-autos…

Thanks BioCatholic, I think you bring up some good points.

You might not actually want all kinds of people to have guns, because in this case, even if x amount of people have guns in the building, you could end up with a situation where lots of innocent people get shot by well intentioned people. Others might mistake others with guns as the actual shooter. You might end up with people shooting even if the orginal shooter has been incapacitated.

A better idea, might to have a certian amount of staff in the building permitted to carry a firearm and all trained. The police should have an idea of their training and tactics and they should know what the police are likely to do. Granted once the emergency happens it won’t go completely to plan, at least you have people trained what to cue others to do, and have some idea of how the others will go about nuetrilizing the threat. Would you like a small somewhat organized effort or 25 individual (well and unknown number) efforts? (Somewhat organized given I doubt they’ll train as much as the SWAT team.)

I guess though is still the question about how much time and money ought to go into setting that up, which is the problem with any emergency planning. How many campuses are there, and how many times have something like this happen? How might you incorporate this into other projects the organization might like to do? There should be personal trianed for all types of emergency. Some might enjoy the gun training. Can take it up as a team building and unity project. Granted even if everyone doesn’t like the guns, there is still the emergency training aspect, which a lot of staff should be at.

Now if we could get a person with ESP on every initial assesment of a situation.

While both of you bring of valid points, the FACT of the matter is that it has yet to happen that way.

A similar situation to the one that happened at Virginia Tech occurred on January 16th, 2002 at Appalachian Law School in Grundy, Virginia. A disgruntled former student began a similar shooting spree. The difference in this case was that the attack was stopped by three individuals, two of whom were legally armed with handguns. Unfortunately, the attack was not stopped until three people had been killed and three more wounded. Why did it take so long to stop the attack? The good guys had to retrieve their guns from their parked cars before they could confront the gunman because ALS was a gun-free zone.

They didn’t shoot each other with friendly fire. They didn’t even shoot the attacker but because they had guns, they were able to stop the killing.

 

[Sir_Knight]

It has to do with gun laws in different locations. You know like in the wild west movies when they would come to a town and at the city limits it might say, “no firearms” or “check guns with the sherriff” or rifles only, or whatever. It seems like this is what VT had decided to do. The laws in VA allowed those who wanted to to carry a weapon, but within the community of VT, that was not OK.

However, if you limit a person’s ability to defend themselves, then you assume responsibility for their safety and VT failed in that regards and that failure was DEADLY. And who suffers because of their failure? Not them but the people who’s rights were denied.

According to the article, that is forbidden in PA; towns cannot make their own law within their own city limits, and the article criticizes the fact that particular towns cannot make their own gun laws. For instance Philly had 406 homicides in 2006, most by gun. The author was asking why a town like Philly would have to live with the same gun laws as some of our very rural areas, like Potter county. Hopefully I’m getting his ideas across.

Being a PA resident and a holder of a state issued license to carry concealed weapons, I can tell you that no town or city in PA is allowed to pass any firearms laws that are more restrictive than state law. Philly got into big trouble with the state attorney general’s office for trying to pass their own gun laws. And that’s the way that it should be. State law should supercede local law just as national law should supercede state law and God’s law should supercede all of man’s law.

I don’t consider myself rabidly anti-gun, and I have family and friends that have guns and hunt, and if I lived up in the mountains I may even consider having one (darn bears). But there are supposed to be some laws to protect us, and they are not working. Seems the VT shooter who had been judged (by a judge!) as a danger to himself and others, went to buy the gun; they ran an “instant- check” on him (what happened to the 3-day wait?) and he walked out armed. The second gun he bought online(!) This is not good.

He bought this gun weeks before the shooting. Would a 3-day wait have mattered? Waiting periods have done more harm than good. People that have been threatened and wanted to buy a gun for protection HAVE BEEN killed while waiting but attackers just waited the time that they needed and did the crime anyway.

As for buying a gun on the internet, the gun still has to be transferred from one federally licensed firearms dealer to another and they have to perform the same background checks. For example, if you wanted to buy a gun from me, you would send me the money AND you would go to a federally licensed firearms dealer in your state. He would send the required paperwork to a federally licensed firearms dealer in my state. My federally licensed firearms dealer would then ship the gun to your federally licensed firearms dealer. You would then pick up the gun from your federally licensed firearms dealer AFTER going through the background checked performed by your federally licensed firearms dealer.

 

[DanteAlighieri]

cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/00news/finaldeath98.htm

Interesting article. Good news: for the time studied,

Firearm deaths for children and teens dropped significantly between 1997 and 1998

but the bad news is that the deaths were in the thousands.

Children. And teens.

Unacceptable. Period.

I freely admit I didn’t scour the web looking for current data, and that the numbers I found were for all gun deaths of kids and teens (not just accidental ones). But I’ll give kudos to anyone who finds such data showing that the numbers are no longer in the thousands due to fewer restrictions on guns.

Add the deaths of children and teens in with the accidental shootings that may occur when armed civilians step in to defend themselves, and the number of unacceptable deaths would be even higher, of course.

Call me a liberal anti-gun nut, but one child who kills himself accidentally by finding mommy and daddy’s gun and playing with it is enough reason to ban the filthy things, in my estimation.

Peace,
Dante

 

[Sir_Knight]

Call me a liberal anti-gun nut, but one child who kills himself accidentally by finding mommy and daddy’s gun and playing with it is enough reason to ban the filthy things, in my estimation.

Even though they SAVE the lives of MANY other folks?

Then you should be for the banning of swimming pools – more children die by drowning than via gun accidents. If even "one child can be saved from drowning, we should get rid if them altogether.

And let’s not forget about cars. More than 18 times as many children are killed in car accidents than via gun accidents. We can save 18 times more children by banning motor vehicles than by banning guns.

 

[system]

However, if you limit a person’s ability to defend themselves, then you assume responsibility for their safety and VT failed in that regards and that failure was DEADLY. And who suffers because of their failure? Not them but the people who’s rights were denied.

I’ve heard this point and I understand it. I’m not sure I have an opinion on it yet. And that was what that editorial I referred to was all about. Seems VT just did what the city of Philly once tried to do but was not allowed to. Are you saying VT should change back so that all can carry weapons? I think the alcohol-fueled, testosterone-heavy environment of college is the wrong place for guns. Just think about why that’s the prime age for a soldier.

He bought this gun weeks before the shooting. Would a 3-day wait have mattered? Waiting periods have done more harm than good. People that have been threatened and wanted to buy a gun for protection HAVE BEEN killed while waiting but attackers just waited the time that they needed and did the crime anyway.

As for buying a gun on the internet, the gun still has to be transferred from one federally licensed firearms dealer to another and they have to perform the same background checks. For example, if you wanted to buy a gun from me, you would send me the money AND you would go to a federally licensed firearms dealer in your state. He would send the required paperwork to a federally licensed firearms dealer in my state. My federally licensed firearms dealer would then ship the gun to your federally licensed firearms dealer. You would then pick up the gun from your federally licensed firearms dealer AFTER going through the background checked performed by your federally licensed firearms dealer.

All that sounds good if they actually do a background check. It seems that neither gun dealer seemed to figure out he was just the kind federal law is suppose to prevent from buying guns.
So, what we hear from the gun advocates is that “the mass-murderer broke the guns laws” but we don’t hear that 2 federally licensed gun dealers also broke the gun laws.

WASHINGTON, April 20 — Under federal law, the Virginia Tech gunman Seung-Hui Cho should have been prohibited from buying a gun after a Virginia court declared him to be a danger to himself in late 2005 and sent him for psychiatric treatment, a state official and several legal experts said Friday.

Federal law prohibits anyone who has been “adjudicated as a mental defective,” as well as those who have been involuntarily committed to a mental health facility, from buying a gun.

The special justice’s order in late 2005 that directed Mr. Cho to seek outpatient treatment and declared him to be mentally ill and an imminent danger to himself fits the federal criteria and should have immediately disqualified him, said Richard J. Bonnie, chairman of the Supreme Court of Virginia’s Commission on Mental Health Law Reform.

nytimes.com/2007/04/21/us/21guns.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

This is what I meant when I said there are laws to protect us that are not working. According to some, the failure of these gun laws, should be reacted to by MORE people having guns. That is either

1. a great marketing pitch from the gun companies,
2. great propaganda from the NRA
3. total paranoia
4. satan’s practical joke on humans
5. All of the above

Should the average peaceful citizen have to go out and buy a gun, because his/her neighbor down the road has gun, is angry, and drinks alot?