VA Tech Shooting: What can we possibly do?

[vern_humphrey]

And you have not demeaned anything I said? If I have offended you, please accept my apologies, I only meant to oppose the idea of guns as solutions, which they are not.

Now you see why the root causes cannot be attacked – people who do things like demean and belittle others don’t see what they’re doing, even as they talk about attacking the root causes.

 

[Thekla]

I work at a large university. I’ve seen student’s reactions to alarms, warnings and PA systems. They are ignored. Students live in a world where risk and injury is glorified. MTV has shows like “Jackass” and “Scarred” and YouTube shows people getting injured as entertainment.

The Church has the “Culture of Life” and I suppose it could be extended to a “Culture of Safety”. We need to teach young people to embrace and value life enough so that they protect it.

I do not criticize the administration of VT. You can’t plan for every contingency. Locking down a university is like locking down a city, simply impossible.

Nohome

Around here, the purpose of the old air raid siren is to simply notify the populace that something is going on; that perhaps they ought to get to a TV or a radio or a computer. If they choose to ignore it, there’s nothing you can do about it. But people were wondering how you notify that many people spread out over such a large area of a problem. After all, a lot of people aren’t inside of a building to hear a public address system.

 

[seekerz]

Now you see why the root causes cannot be attacked – people who do things like demean and belittle others don’t see what they’re doing, even as they talk about attacking the root causes.

I’m not perfect, neither are you obviously. Calling my posts silly and placing “stick your tongue out smilies” aren’t exactly the most mature of responses. Actually I was enjoying the banter with you till then as my earlier post about exchanges with you should have made obvious.

I also do not have all the answers as my pseudonym indicates but you and I both happen to know someone who does, Jesus. Let’s just agree to disagree okay?

 

[Sir_Knight]

I only meant to oppose the idea of guns as solutions, which they are not.

The facts disagree with you … * Violent crime appears to be encouraged by gun control. Most gun control laws in the United States have been written since 1968, yet the murder rate has risen during that time. SOURCE: National Center for Health Statistics, Vital Statistics, Revised July, 1999.

• In 1976, Washington, D.C. enacted one of the most restrictive gun control laws in the nation. Since then, the city’s murder rate has risen 134 percent while the national murder rate has dropped 2 percent. SOURCE: Dr. Gary Kleck, University of Florida using FBI Uniform Crime Statistics, 1997
• Maryland claims to have the toughest gun control laws in the nation and ranks #1 in robberies and #4 in both violent crime and murder. SOURCE: FBI Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) for 2000, p. 79, Table 5, “Index of Crime by State”
• Australia and the United Kingdom both virtually banned handgun ownership, while during the same period handgun ownership in the United States rose steadily. Yet the rate of violent crime decreases in the United States (down 13.5%), and skyrocketed in the other countries (26.5% for Australia and 59.8% for the United Kingdom). SOURCE: (1) Recorded Crime - Victims, Australia, Australian Bureau of Statistics, May 27, 2004. (2) Crime in England and Wales 2002/2003. British Home Office, July 2003. (3) FBI Crime in the United States by Volume and Rate, 1984-2003.

 

[Thekla]

Best advice I have heard all day is to allow faculty to carry guns and offer incentives for those who do and are fully trained.

There’s a direct correlation in this country between the number of guns owned and the number of people killed by guns. I know that there are people who think that guns on campuses are a good idea, but I can’t believe that people think that arming teachers is the way to go.

We’ve got too many armed and crazed citizens already. We hardly need more of them.

 

[seekerz]

The facts disagree with you … * Violent crime appears to be encouraged by gun control. Most gun control laws in the United States have been written since 1968, yet the murder rate has risen during that time. SOURCE: National Center for Health Statistics, Vital Statistics, Revised July, 1999.

• In 1976, Washington, D.C. enacted one of the most restrictive gun control laws in the nation. Since then, the city’s murder rate has risen 134 percent while the national murder rate has dropped 2 percent. SOURCE: Dr. Gary Kleck, University of Florida using FBI Uniform Crime Statistics, 1997
• Maryland claims to have the toughest gun control laws in the nation and ranks #1 in robberies and #4 in both violent crime and murder. SOURCE: FBI Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) for 2000, p. 79, Table 5, “Index of Crime by State”
• Australia and the United Kingdom both virtually banned handgun ownership, while during the same period handgun ownership in the United States rose steadily. Yet the rate of violent crime decreases in the United States (down 13.5%), and skyrocketed in the other countries (26.5% for Australia and 59.8% for the United Kingdom). SOURCE: (1) Recorded Crime - Victims, Australia, Australian Bureau of Statistics, May 27, 2004. (2) Crime in England and Wales 2002/2003. British Home Office, July 2003. (3) FBI Crime in the United States by Volume and Rate, 1984-2003.

You may be right, but having lived for years in a place where gun ownership and crime were both low until recently and have both shown an alarming rise (simultaneously), forgive me for being skeptical. I have no axe to grind here and no numbers to show, only my personal experience and convictions.

 

[vern_humphrey]

Around here, the purpose of the old air raid siren is to simply notify the populace that something is going on; that perhaps they ought to get to a TV or a radio or a computer. If they choose to ignore it, there’s nothing you can do about it. But people were wondering how you notify that many people spread out over such a large area of a problem. After all, a lot of people aren’t inside of a building to hear a public address system.

It’s time for the Parable of the Skydivers again.

Two men jumped from 12,000 feet, one of them without a parachute. As they fell free of the plane, he shouted to his friend, “Well? Tell me what I should do now.”

And his friend said, “I really can’t tell you what you should do now. But if you had asked five seconds earlier, I could tell you what you should not do.”

The way to avoid or minimize the effect of disasters is to plan ahead of time. There are two keys to dealing with situations like this:

1. Communication.

• As you said, you can use sirens – and that makes sense, after all, there have been tornados around Blacksburg so they already ought to have sirens already.
• Sirens can have codes – a prolonged blast, for example, could mean “go to the tornado shelters.” A series of short blasts could mean “lockdown.”
• Intercoms in classrooms are not beyond modern technology, either.
• Cell phones and an emergency number should be part of the communications system.

1. Plan of action.

• Based on an actual event or events.
• Modified for the physical conditions at the college.
• Specific responsibilities – for example, each teacher is responsible for his or her classroom and students.

 

[vern_humphrey]

Here’s an interesting news article.
msnbc.msn.com/id/18151200/

MSNBC News Services
Updated: 2:41 p.m. CT April 17, 2007
TOKYO - The mayor of the Japanese city of Nagasaki was shot to death in a brazen attack Tuesday by an organized crime chief apparently enraged that the city refused to compensate him after his car was damaged at a public works construction site, police said.

The shooting was rare in a country where handguns are strictly banned and only five politicians are known to have been killed since World War II.

. . .

It was the second attack in the last 20 years against a mayor of Nagasaki, which was destroyed by a U.S. atomic bomb in 1945 and whose leaders have actively campaigned against militarism.

In 1990, Mayor Hitoshi Motoshima was shot and seriously wounded after saying that Japan’s emperor, beloved by rightists, bore some responsibility for World War II.

 

[mary_bobo]

There’s a direct correlation in this country between the number of guns owned and the number of people killed by guns. I know that there are people who think that guns on campuses are a good idea, but I can’t believe that people think that arming teachers is the way to go.

We’ve got too many armed and crazed citizens already. We hardly need more of them.

And how many of those guns, owned legally and purchased legally, are used in killings? I have not decided about guns on campuses, I only kinow that the body count may have been smaller if someone had a gun. Most people who have guns, particularly those with CC permits have gone thru a background check and have passed a test in order to get said permit. You know the old saying, “if you take away guns from the people, only criminals will have guns”.

 

[aimee]

Does anyone know if campus police carry guns? I understand they don’t …I’m thinking they should.

 

[Sir_Knight]

There’s a direct correlation in this country between the number of guns owned and the number of people killed by guns.

References please. I have already provided supporting data which proves your statement incorrect – as guns become restricted, murder and violent crime rises.

We’ve got too many armed and crazed citizens already. We hardly need more of them.

On the contrary, we do not have enough. If the students and teachers were armed, many lives might have been saved. Don’t believe me? Look at what happened 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.

The bottom line is that guns in the hands of responsible citizens SAVE lives!

 

[thechrismyster]

If you are legal age to carry a concealed weapon, and are able to obtain a permit, and you are competent mentally, there is no reason not to carry a sidearm of some sort… if you choose to. if you don’t feel comfortable, that is fine. you don’t have to. but the choice to carry is our FIRST freedom.

There is no such thing as a ‘gun free zone’… you can legislate it, sure… but laws are for the law abiding… the gun-control people never quite seem to understand the disconnect there.

When i was in college, i was able to stop an attempted mugging and/or what could have been rape of a fellow female student off campus because i carry a pistol and was at the right place at the right time…

Without a second ammendment there would be no other freedoms.
The second guarantees ALL the others.

 

[Thekla]

Does anyone know if campus police carry guns? I understand they don’t …I’m thinking they should.

I’d bet that they do. In our school, the officer assigned to our building carries a gun.

If communities are serious about having guns on campuses, let them pay more in taxes for real officers in every building.

 

[vern_humphrey]

There’s a direct correlation in this country between the number of guns owned and the number of people killed by guns. I know that there are people who think that guns on campuses are a good idea, but I can’t believe that people think that arming teachers is the way to go.

We’ve got too many armed and crazed citizens already. We hardly need more of them.

From the BBC:

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2656875.stm

As gun crime leaps by 35% in a year, plans are afoot for a further crack down on firearms. Yet what we need is more guns, not fewer, says a US academic.

---

For 80 years the safety of the British people has been staked on the premise that fewer private guns means less crime, indeed that any weapons in the hands of men and women, however law-abiding, pose a danger.

Government assured Britons they needed no weapons, society would protect them. If that were so in 1920 when the first firearms restrictions were passed, or in 1953 when Britons were forbidden to carry any article for their protection, it no longer is.

The failure of this general disarmament to stem, or even slow, armed and violent crime could not be more blatant. According to a recent UN study, England and Wales have the highest crime rate and worst record for “very serious” offences of the 18 industrial countries surveyed.

But would allowing law-abiding people to “have arms for their defence”, as the 1689 English Bill of Rights promised, increase violence? Would Britain be following America’s bad example?

Cowboy
The ‘wild west’ image is out of date
Old stereotypes die hard and the vision of Britain as a peaceable kingdom, America as “the wild west culture on the other side of the Atlantic” is out of date. It is true that in contrast to Britain’s tight gun restrictions, half of American households have firearms, and 33 states now permit law-abiding citizens to carry concealed weapons.

But despite, or because, of this, violent crime in America has been plummeting for 10 consecutive years, even as British violence has been rising. By 1995 English rates of violent crime were already far higher than America’s for every major violent crime except murder and rape.

You are now six times more likely to be mugged in London than New York. Why? Because as common law appreciated, not only does an armed individual have the ability to protect himself or herself but criminals are less likely to attack them. They help keep the peace. A study found American burglars fear armed home-owners more than the police. As a result burglaries are much rarer and only 13% occur when people are at home, in contrast to 53% in England.

---

A study comparing New York and London over 200 years found the New York homicide rate consistently five times the London rate, although for most of that period residents of both cities had unrestricted access to firearms.

When guns were available in England they were seldom used in crime. A government study for 1890-1892 found an average of one handgun homicide a year in a population of 30 million. But murder rates for both countries are now changing. In 1981 the American rate was 8.7 times the English rate, in 1995 it was 5.7 times the English rate, and by last year it was 3.5 times. With American rates described as “in startling free-fall” and British rates as of October 2002 the highest for 100 years the two are on a path to converge.

Woman with gun
Gun crime rates between UK and US are narrowing
The price of British government insistence upon a monopoly of force comes at a high social cost.

First, it is unrealistic. No police force, however large, can protect everyone. Further, hundreds of thousands of police hours are spent monitoring firearms restrictions, rather than patrolling the streets. And changes in the law of self-defence have left ordinary people at the mercy of thugs.

---

Nearly a century before that American bumper sticker was slapped on the first bumper, the great English jurist, AV Dicey cautioned: “Discourage self-help, and loyal subjects become the slaves of ruffians.” He knew public safety is not enhanced by depriving people of their right to personal safety.

Joyce Lee Malcolm, professor of history, is author of Guns and Violence: The English Experience, published in June 2002.

 

[Jay74]

If you are legal age to carry a concealed weapon, and are able to obtain a permit, and you are competent mentally, there is no reason not to carry a sidearm of some sort… if you choose to. if you don’t feel comfortable, that is fine. you don’t have to. but the choice to carry is our FIRST freedom.

There is no such thing as a ‘gun free zone’… you can legislate it, sure… but laws are for the law abiding… the gun-control people never quite seem to understand the disconnect there.

When i was in college, i was able to stop an attempted mugging and/or what could have been rape of a fellow female student off campus because i carry a pistol and was at the right place at the right time…

Without a second ammendment there would be no other freedoms.
The second guarantees ALL the others.

“Gun free zone” in potential perpetrator language translates to “sitting duck zone.”

 

[Sir_Knight]

You may be right, but having lived for years in a place where gun ownership and crime were both low until recently and have both shown an alarming rise (simultaneously), forgive me for being skeptical. I have no axe to grind here and no numbers to show, only my personal experience and convictions.

That’s why none of us should draw general conclusions from our limited experiences. That is why I have provided conclusions not on my own experiences but on more global data and I have provided the source of that information so that folks can independently research it for themselves if they have doubts.

 

[Sir_Knight]

“Gun free zone” in potential perpetrator language translates to “sitting duck zone.”

 

[BioCatholic]

Does anyone know if campus police carry guns? I understand they don’t …I’m thinking they should.

Most do. Where i did my masters at, i was working full time as a LEO, and going to class. The campus fuzz had guns.

They could not stand that I brought my sidearm to school with me, but Federal law allows law enforcement to carry (not concealed) weapons as long as a badge and ID/permit are displayed.

you can bet if some skell started opening up, i’d have taken him down in a heartbeat. wait for campus police? heh. remember that off duty cop at the mall in utah? he engaged the shooter as soon as he saw him, and NO ONE else was killed. the shooter’s plan went to pot.

you know the saying “every boxer has a plan until he gets hit”?

well every shooter has a plan until he gets shot at. let me tell you, if you are not TRAINED, when the gunfire starts, you will lose all sense of time, your plan, and anything else you think you have.

i have been saying for years that if a person wants a concealed permit, then they should have to be able to pass a field test, and psych exam. if they are well trained and level headed, then most basic firearms training ranges can be equipped to test their abilities.

do you know how many hours i had to train in order to be able to stick an IV in someone’s arm? thats just a little needle. we are talking about firearms here. if a person can pass a well-designed field test, then 1) they will be trained enough to carry most anywhere SENSIBLE, and they wont shoot themselves in the leg when it really hits the fan, or have their gun taken away from them by the attacking person and used on themselves.

if you took me and my 2 Marine brothers, just armed with 9mms, i can guarantee you that the 3 of us could take on 3 other average crazy whackos armed with SMGs, simply because we have so much training between us, that it wouldn’t even be a fair fight. training is the key. not every cowboy packing heat, not banning all firearms, just proper training and sensible protection laws.

 

[Jay74]

Ditto. Ever hear of a massacre at a police station, firing range, or gun store? The second amendment is all about self defense, since in a free society a government can’t always be there.

I don’t know if I really want too many students packing. But I do know this–I’d much safe if potential perpetrators thought an unknown number of people in their target group might be.

God bless.

 

[seekerz]

That’s why none of us should draw general conclusions from our limited experiences. That is why I have provided conclusions not on my own experiences but on more global data and I have provided the source of that information so that folks can independently research it for themselves if they have doubts.

Do you have any matching figures on gun-related accidental deaths and do your crime statistics include domestic violence involving firearms?
Just curious.