yes, but for all you gun-control people, would you rather that the only individuals who are legally allowed firearms are soldiers and police officers...? i take the second amendment to be an assertation of the people's equality with government and law enforcement, and of their ability to defend themselves against the powers-that-be if necessary. not that i'm a conspiracy nut, but it is a very important symbolic statement, especially in American culture.

I have nothing against gun ownership, in fact I love old enfeilds and russian rifles, but there is no reason for the public to own automatic shotguns and stuff the NRA would love us to own. I sort of see the government thing, but a determined people can get their way with or without guns. An insurgency will always beat a trained army if the people aren't on the army's side.

Doesn't it seem that the mass shootings of the last few years have been targeting women and girls? Victims least likely to be carrying a gun for self defense as well. It just seems like there have been more dead females involved in these mass killings than men.

Automatic anythings aren't legal to own anywhere in the U.S. as far as I know unless you are a former member of the armed forces or a SWAT team.

I like #1 buck.



http://www.firearmstactical.com/briefs10.htm

In order to purchase a class 3 weapon in the United States which includes automatics and suppressors and what not you have to pay a tax of $200 I think it is and have a full background check done. I also seem to recall something about having a sheriff sign off on it but I am not sure on that one.

Automatic weapons are over rated anyway, In the hand of a skilled marksman semi automatic are just as deadly.

I wouldn't. If the government engages in a pattern of systematic abuse of its citizens(I don't much care for the gov't, but it's not at this point yet), it is our right to overthrow it and, at the very least, I'd like to take a few of the state's pawns to the grave with me. As it happens, I don't believe in the concept of natural rights, but I'm against giving up our weaponry which would have the effect of making us even more helpless against the powers of the state. The government's forces are both better trained and more organized than the general population, which is enough of an advantage.

I do not agree. Firstly, if you're acting to send a message, you will be inclined to make sure it gets across. Any reasonable person would realize that by committing acts of violence, one's message will not be clear to onlookers. Both the Unabomber and Muhammed Atta got their message across, clear as day. None of us need to wonder why they did what they did. Secondly, I failt to see why mental disorder is inadequate. For instance, recall that Korean fellow at Virginia Tech. He had an opportunity to convey his grand message, but instead he ranted and raved inarticulately about people who had done him petty wrongs, while at the same time he aggrandized himself. This is not the behavior of someone with a ideological message to communicate to us. In fact, most cases of mass murderers who leave letters or videos are like that. They complain about those they think have persecuted them and ruined their lives. They tend to be people who were unsuccessful in some facet that is important to them, they see no possibility for improvement, so they take it out on people they believe have screwed them, though they're likely overreacting to minor slights.



Sometimes, the reductive explanation is the best one. Why is it so difficult for you to believe that a person can be a failure in some key sense, blame it on others, then take revenge on them for it? The number of mass murderers who have fit this profile, in their own words even, is pretty large. Read about cases of mass murder and you'll see that's how the great majority of them work. I don't see why you want to give them a deep motive. I'm more than willing to acknowledge the courage of those who put themselves at great risk or martyr themselves for a cause, even if I don't agree with that cause, but I don't see that here.



It doesn't matter to me whether he's crazy, since he had a message that a sane person could make sense of, regardless of whether or not one endorses his conclusions. On the other hand, these mass murderers typically don't have a coherent ideological or philosophical point to make about our society. This is evident from everything I've read about them. They're highly egocentric, in most cases. They choose to tell us about their lives, their coming achievement, whereas the Unabomber and Atta had messages that were clearly much wider in scope.

Well, hardly anybody is armed in a college class. I have never been aware of a single student who came to college armed. Maybe women don't move fast enough to hide or run away.

Or maybe they're more often the target. The Polytechnique shooter targeted women exclusively.

Hmm. Perhaps these types of guys often have issues with females. Anyway, as Scorpio mentioned, armed college students are incredibly rare. In almost all college campuses in the States, firearms are not permitted on site, including in dorms. I believe that a few have locks boxes for firearms, that are handled by the Campus security, but this is not very common.

Schools and Colleges are generally gun-free zones. As are a lot of cinemas, and some shopping outlets. You will see signs asking patrons not to bring weapons in with them, whether they have a CCW permit or not.

Until there's a school shooting, that is.

Not true. In maine the senate tried to get guns banned from campuses after virginia tech, but it didn't pass.

Maine would be the exception to the rule; nearly all universities in the U.S. have a ban on guns. If it isn't strictly a school rule it is a state law.

Exactly, hence the word 'generally' in my post. There are some places that are more tolerant of the carry (concealed or not) of firearms, but mostly, they are banned from schools and the like.

no post

I don't understand what you're arguing by mentioning mutability here, but yes, it can be treacherous, depending on which side of the cause you stand. Still, I cannot help but admire people who die for principles. It is hard to feel strongly about ideas, compared to oneself or one's personal relationships. It takes a very special sort of individual to make the highest sacrifice a man can make for them. Nothing could be better proof that a man lives in the realm of the mind. I believe that if a man can find nothing admirable about dying for what one thinks is true and just, then he is too small for it. That is to say that he can make no sense of it, so he dismisses it as evil or moronic. Please do not take that as being an insult against you personally. I'm just sharing my thoughts on the topic without intending to attack anyone on this forum.

Yes, I am familiar with the case. On another board, a poster was using his photo as an avatar, which piqued by my curiosity. This is just one incident, though. I don't know that other mass murderers most often target females, but of course it is a possibility.

In a recent paper I did, almost all the cases of school shootings were correlated with bullying or rejection by one's peers.

The correct answer to this problem is for future generations to raise their kids and their grandkids up in an environment where "normality" is relative to the individual and not the group.

Unfortunately parents have been trying that for a while, but a few parents have no idea how to raise children and screw it all up.

Remember the little Amish girls killed in their school house? Remember the high school girls that were made to do perverted acts and then they were shot. The women's clothing store that had 6 women targets (I think only 5 died). It's not just college shootings.

I'm glad someone finally mentioned this. The Second Amendment is not about owning a gun for hunting or even for crime prevention, it's about owning a gun to protect yourself against your government and to keep it in it's place. Look at any dictator or totalitarian regime in history, they all initiated gun bans before securing power. All of them.

I think it's also interesting to note that colleges and schools are gun-free zones. It obviously doesn't stop anyone from using a gun, does it?

Wow, I never put this together in my mind before. You bring up some excellent points.

I imagine that you are referring in large part to the Third Reich, which would be quite erroneous. From 1919 to 1945 the Germans enacted three gun control laws: in 1919, 1928 and 1938. Of the three, the 1919 one, enacted by the fledgling Weimar government, was the most restrictive. It banned all firearms from private possession and punished contravention of the law with up to five years in prison. Keep in mind this was one of the first acts of a brand new democratic regime. The 1928 and 1938 laws legalized gun ownership and were mainly aimed at disarming paramilitary groups and getting "military" weapons (K98s generally) away from citizens respectively. The 1938 law allowed guns to be kept for home defense and hunting, although in the case of the former some sort of need had to be proved and the applicant had to be of "good character" (i.e. not openly opposed to the regime).

While I do not disagree that gun control is a major advantage to any totalitarian power, I also do not think it is a precursor to one in any sense. Making categorical statements like the one above really work against your argument which is, at its heart, somewhat accurate.

Sources:
http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcnazimyth.html
http://www.stephenhalbrook.com/article-nazilaw.pdf

Under Saddam Hussein, Iraq had the highest gun ownership in the world.

Honestly, that is a double-edged sword. I support the freedom to own guns (even though I don't) because for one simple reason... to protect just in case the govt. turns totalitarian.

Still, Canada has much more gun ownership and far less violence. I think Americans simply need to re-order their cultural ideals. For right now, they encourage violence and lead to the social dissolution that results in these school shootings. Insane to think that there has been two other rampages since this original posting. One in Illinois that killed 5 and one in California in which a 14 year old walked into class and shot a fellow student that had admitted to being gay.

What really disturbs me about this shit is that the shooter always kills himself.

There's no sense in that. No sense in killing all these people -- innocent people, essentially -- only to turn around and blow your own skull.


I don't understand it and it really irks me that suicides where you take a bunch innocent people with you are becoming so fucking trendy nowadays.

That's why he had to use gas on some Iraq peoples. Coming to the USA near you!

I think the thing is that a lot of these people who go on rampages plan to martyr themselves for whichever cause they see fit. It's making a statement. Therefore I find that it isn't the fact that the shooter almost invariably suicides at the end that bothers me, but rather the ideas that they kill themselves for.

There's a teacher in my school that claims everybody who ever commited a school shooting was a gamer (violent games) ... I'm pretty sure that's rubbish, and ever more so when I read on Wikipedia:



Can anybody tell me where I can find another source for that study, because Wikipedia isn't always reliable. I tried looking but didn't find anything.

On the same matter, anybody know of other studies that prove not everybody who does a school shooting is a gamer? But even if this were the case, what kid attending school DOESN'T have at least one violent game in his possession?

The reason isn't probably always that deep that they want to 'martyr' themselves. They probably just want to avoid any and all consequences.

You guys are over thinking it. They hate themselves and their life, so they want to die, but they also hate other people, so they inflict as much pain on others as they can before ending themselves. More often than not, it's all about simple hatred.

You would know all about that, wouldn't you Lord_Hate?

Yes.

Since when did people become pussies and blind to the fact that you should protect your family? I'm especially surprised with this crowd. A gun is a tool to do so, if you think that you can diffuse a life-threatening situation with simply talking to an armed robber/mugger/etc. - then you are surely living a world that I'd love to join. Just let me know what kind of drug you are taking that induces such psychosomatic ignorance. It's been said repeatedly in this thread, people are the problem, not the guns...it doesn't have to do with the gun itself, it has to do with who('s)(s') finger is wrapped around the trigger. Even then, have you ever take the time to stop and think why the media wants to push legislation like banning gun possession? Have you looked past the singular issue of gun control and at the "big picture"?

Those against gun control will pick-and-choose statistics that pander to their own view, but reject any other. Just look at crime statistics by race - I don't see "liberals" (and I hate to use the term because it is susceptible to any number of strawman arguments, but I'll do it anyway as to reveal anyone's true colours) ever bringing up these statistics. Hell, we could 'do away' with all the crime and school shootings if we just became a police state, huh? Which may not be to far from now.

- My condolences to the families and friends of those lost or injured.

It's a double edged sword, and just saying liberal statistics are pick and choose is just wrong. Every political movement does it.

Yes, but the anti self-defense crowd has one of the most effective disinformation campaigns around. It's way larger than the information compaign of pro-second amendment rights groups. Which is a shame.

The way to stop it would be to abolish school.

School shootings would cease to exist.

Then there would just be ... normal shootings.

Please. The Second Amendment was written at a time when the musket was the most commonly used type of gun. It took 15 seconds to load and shoot once. It was awfully inaccurate. Even if you had a more accurate rifle, it took twice as long to load. Muskets, besides the bayonet on the end, seem really unsuitable for self-defense.

Things have changed since then. The Constitution is written on paper, not in stone.

I'm not a huge advocate of gun control myself, but I think that the "if everyone had a gun, there would be no school shootings" logic is very flawed. If even half of the people in that room at NIU brought guns to class, there would have been many, many more school shootings. Regular people can get very angry, and if they have a gun in their pocket, they'll use it.