Posted on 04/23/2007 7:36:17 AM PDT by presidio9
Not since 9/11 can I remember a worse week than the one we have just experienced.
This week the death toll in Iraq went even higher; hundreds died as the government prepared to send more American troops into the war zone. Yet I don't remember even a casual conversation about that as the unimaginable tragedy unfolded at Virginia Tech.
Reporters love to cover big stories, but there was no joy in our Washington bureau which carried the biggest part of the load in covering the Virginia Tech horror for our people, there was only revulsion and a sense of duty that such things must be covered.
It was what happened in the days and hours after the shooting that I found most depressing. In the wake of 9/11, people demanded action. This time it was different.
This time, public officials reacted with despair, even resignation despair that no one seems to know what to do, resignation that these things are going to happen from time to time as long as guns are available to the mentally deranged, and because powerful forces oppose tightening the gun laws, there is just not much that can be done about it.
This is an enormously complicated subject. There is no magic quick fix, including more gun laws. But Virginia Tech must have shown us one thing: The current safeguards are not working, and unless something changes, it IS only a matter of time until what we saw or something worse happens again. The question that keeps running in my mind is: As a people, are we prepared to accept that?
I believe B.S. had Ben Stein (more BS) on in a short segment where Stein asserted that “Americans need to get over their love affair with guns.” I thought Stein was a “conservative.” Nix that idea.
One week has passed. The libs are all using the media to call for seizing legal guns from law-abiding citizens and leaving them in the hands of criminals who obey no laws.
>>>Journalism 101<<<
Newspeak: “powerful forces oppose”
In English: the Constitution, the American public oppose
Newspeak: “tightening the gun laws”
English: gun prohibition
“(Personally, I am for campus bans on undergrad student guns generally, because I think stupid accidents from immature students are far more likely than a wacko acting out.)”
Oh really? I can’t seem to recall any of the accidental campus shootings you seem so fearful of. Care to state your statistical basis for this? Or when you say you “think” so, are you really meaning you “feel” so?
The 2nd Ammendment’s protections apply to all of us. Not just to those whom you deem worthy.
That's right. A gun free zone will only make it easier for evil men to do evil things.
The "current safeguards" are not safeguards at all. Virginia Tech students were sitting ducks that day and this fact should serve as a wake up call to all those who seek to protect themselves against evil.
Good link...
This really is a moot point.
I think you need to be 21 to own a handgun and at least that for a ccw.
Most 21 year olds are not freshmen.
Fearful? No, I just think that undergrad’s tend to be very immature and DRINK a HELL of alot. They are a huge majority on campus and they tend to be in large enclaves all alone without any “outside” influence.
No stats, just surmising. (And that is THINKING, based on admittedly few observations over some years; but it is not just “feeling”.)
And I’m not interested in disarming every single person. I think higher students and faculty and staff should all be allowed, mostly to balance if this kind of psycho thing happens.
But if the campus wants to allow everyone to be armed - se la vie. I’m not that upset about it. I just think they’ll regret it - the likelihood of general day-to-day problems is greater than ever having a homicidal maniac show up and blow everyone to pieces.
OTOH, I just now find out it was only the last 5 years or so that VA banned guns for anyone on campus (not sure of policy before that, except now noone is allowed). So, it’s very possible before that, few mishaps were happening.
As for your comment about “ALL of us” - I doubt that. People here are clamoring for more gun control for nutcases like Cho. So I guess the class of “possibly unstable” doesn’t count in your 2A protections.
Cho was not on the street, and he had not comitted any crime. Harmless people write incredibly disturbing and violent things all the time. Should Quentin Turentino or Bret Easton Ellis be forcibly incarcerated?
When you start making laws to crack-down on the supposedly mentally dangerous, you are headed down a slippery slope. Bear in mind that the experts in the mental health professions tend to be liberal. For example, many conservatives believe that homosexuality is a mental disorder, just as many liberals feel the same way about "hate speech/hate crimes." Are you prepared to undergo forcible reprogramming the next time you call somebody a faggot?
Bear in mind that Cho was evaluated and deemed a danger to himself, but not others.
When I was a senior at a large Southern University in the late 1970s, most of us in Army ROTC had CCW permits and frequently carried on campus and to class. I majored in Criminal Justice so there were also cops in my classes who were routinely armed and everybody knew who else was armed. No problems whatsoever. NONE. Not a single one.
Of course no weapons were permitted in the dorms and I was sharing a house off campus with other army cadets. Even normal students not in ROTC were often seen with shotguns or rifles in a vehicle rack during the various hunting seasons. Again, no problems, at all. A lot of folks (including students) in the area fed themselves by harvesting wild game. Heck, I did too.
Cutting down on the meat bill by killing deer during the season allows a bigger party budget. However, ALCOHOL and GUNPOWDER never mix. That's also pretty basic to growing up and attending school in the deep south. Sure there are always hunting accidents. But none involving students during the time I was in school....at least none of which I'm aware.
Things seem to have changed since I was in school. Now the globalist liberal cabal is in charge all over the nation. Last time I checked, the proud Army ROTC programs were in danger of being evicted from the campus by the Administration. When I was in school, we had the #1 biggest noncompulsory ROTC Program in the nation. It was a sign of student patriotism for Fraternities and Sororities to join the first and second year ROTC program. They loved it, then. The times...they are a'changin' I guess. For the worse, it seems. This is what happens when the SHEEP MENTALITY is inculcated into the student campus attitudes.
The gun grabbing lobby, which is primarily funded six or seven figures at a time by a smattering of gazillionaire liberals in Hollywood or New York, always refers about the gun lobby as a sort of pro violence cabal funded by the evil gun industry that owns the smoky backrooms of Washington.
That's BS. There isn't some impersonal powerful force opposing tightening the gun laws, there are millions of independent gun owners who care about their rights being taken away and vote. That's all.
These are the same characters who claim that war powers will subvert the Constitution.
>Barack Obama started out deploring
the violence of Virginia Tech as yet another example of the pervasive
violence of our society: the violence of Iraq, the violence of Darfur,
the violence of . . . er, hang on, give him a minute. Ah, yes,
outsourcing: the violence of men and women who . . . suddenly have the
rug pulled out from under them because their job has moved to another
country. And lets not forget the violence of radio hosts: <
Not a word is said about the slavish devotion of certain professors to the ideals set forth by the likes of Karl Marx and his ilk. Look at the hordes of brainwashed college students who show up at staged protests against this country’s ideals, and it’s defense of freedom.
Cho didn’t come up with his all-consuming rage against the rich out of thin air, after all. He was fed communist, anarchist dreck for 4 years.
He learned all to well to hate.
Can you provide a single example, or are you just speaking based on your personal feelings? I can give a counter example: You can carry on Utah U -- 44,000 students -- if you have a permit. There has been no increase in gun accidents etc. No "kids gone wild with guns." You know what there also hasn't been any of? Mass shootings.
He lived in a dorm owned and operated by Virginia Tech. Technically, Virginia Tech was his landlord. They could have gone in at any time.
I already answered this stuff later. Amazing how you guys ascribed to me the same concept, “feelings”.
As for no mass killings - as I clearly said, they are rare no matter what.
This is what gets me. It seems while (generally) conservatives are fighting against increasing gun/weapon restrictions/laws, they are calling for “better” incarceration of “mentally ill”. This is definitely a liberal-type thing to call for more laws, only liberals usually want only criminals and mentals unleashed, and everyone else locked up for things such as not wearing seatbelts or bicycle helmets or for putting recyclables in the trash. Definitely have to be careful of calls for incarcerating allegedly “mentally ill” people - SINCE IT IS *NOT* CONCRETE what is “ill” any way.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
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