[Brett Robinson]

My point being, people act like automatic weapons are available at the local grocery store. They're not. Nor have they ever been used in any of these school shootings, to my knowledge. I'm not sure what you thought I was implying when I said "yeah our country is overrun with AK47s" but I was referring to something I mentioned earlier which is that people, especially Europeans, seem to that guns are readily available in the US. Automatic weapons, as you succintly described, are certainly not readily available and you'd have to be a devoted firearms enthusiast to seek one out.

[hat and beard]

Originally Posted by sarramkrop

If i was gonna killed, i'd rather be shot than stabbed. Tha way you would have less chances of feeling any pain.

True story: A knife wielding maniac threatened to kill me on the bus last night (apparently I look gay!). The gentlemen sitting next to me thankfully wrestled the knife away from the fucker and I'm still alive to tell about it.
Fuck a bunch of weapons.

[demonrail666]

Personally, I blame Judas Priest.

[Norma J]

I don't know why anyone would defend gun ownership.

[the ikara cult]

Originally Posted by Brett Robinson

do we ban fertilizer because it was allegedly what mcveigh used to kill more people than all those 20 school shootings combined?

You cant carry fertilizer around on your person and use it instantly. The point about guns is its BANG and thats it, dead, its a million times easier. If you are going to do a Columbine you are clearly gone in the head and the deed has nothing to do with the weapon you are using; you will achieve your goal no matter what. Guns are easy.

Ok theres a study called the Milgram experiment that i imagine many of you are familiar with.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment
This is a study based on conformity and authority obedience and such, but i want to focus on another aspect of it.
"In the variation where immediacy of the "learner" was closest, participants had to physically hold the learner's arm onto a shock plate, which decreased compliance. In this latter condition, 30% completed the experiment"
My point about this is that when you hold a gun it is psychologically easier to kill someone, you just pull the trigger, you can do it on impulse and thats it. When you stab someone, there is more proximity, more physical aggression. And i think that a gun reduces the amount of anger and aggresion needed to kill.

And i want to point out that though im in England im not going to try and make points about american culture or society that i dont understand, im just talking about guns in the hands of anyone.

[the ikara cult]

Originally Posted by swa(y)

apply how?

of coure many of these parents are going to be sensitive...

if my child gets hit by some fuck driving a volvo i might be sensitve towards seeing that volvo ever again...

however...

that doesnt mean it should no longer be manufactured.

The purpose of a gun is to kill and injure, this is not the purpose of a car.

[Brett Robinson]

Originally Posted by the ikara cult

You cant carry fertilizer around on your person and use it instantly. The point about guns is its BANG and thats it, dead, its a million times easier. If you are going to do a Columbine you are clearly gone in the head and the deed has nothing to do with the weapon you are using; you will achieve your goal no matter what. Guns are easy.

i see what you're saying, but this is not the case with today's massacre and the columbine shootings.

both, as mcveigh's alleged fert bomb, were planned out weeks or more in advance.

the school shooting killers did not just pick up a gun aimlessly and decide to go on a shooting spree. it was planned out. just like mcveigh's action.

guns may be "easier" but that's just a misperception.

[Brett Robinson]

Originally Posted by the ikara cult

The purpose of a gun is to kill and injure, this is not the purpose of a car.

not entirely true. a gun is just a chemical reaction resulting in a discharge. (let's keep the orgasm jokes out of this thread...) they are no different, ultimately, than fireworks, which ARE much more controlled, can be essentially used for similar purposes (i've been hit with a bottle rocket in the stomach, not pretty), but i don't think you'd say that fireworks main purpose is to kill and injure, they are to entertain. firearms are sport, just like i can take a baseball bat and smash your face in.

[atari 2600]

Milgram
We Do What We're Told
I remember the Peter Gabriel song from So

The main concern is handguns. As any hunter will tell you, handguns are designed to be easily concealed and kill people.

They should be highly regulated.

Rifles, less so. The main practices that need to stop right away are classifieds for guns and gun shows.

[atari 2600]

McVeigh...I resent that someone mentioned that we should ban fertilizer or heating oil or whatever as their idea of a sarcastic joke.
Quote me on this: I think you're a bag of fertilizer for making the comment.

As I posted before, McVeigh is alleged to have had ties with the National Alliance and other hate groups, and some allege, with the CIA.

Who do you think killed all those black kids in Chicago and Atlanta in the '80s?

It was right-wing terrorists. Probably with ties to our government.


again:
As far as this shooter, as they almost always are, they may have been programmed by some hate group.

Most "lone wolves" that carry out acts like these have some affiliation with a hate group or militia, yet the proponents of this hate that coerce these troubled individuals are only made culpable in extremely rare cases.

It seems pretty fucked that if you have a cross on your website and claim to be "christian" like a lot of these white power militias and hate groups, then you're somehow not treated like Charles Manson for pushing the buttons of the psychopaths that commit abhorrent crimes like these.

A primary repeat offender is Dr.William H. Pierce (dead since 2002) who wrote the homespun terrorist hate-book, The Turner Diaries which unfortunately still carries great influence. Some of his recent followers include bombers Timothy McVeigh & Eric Rudolph, the hicks in Texas that dragged the black man behind their pick-up until he was dead, and the nutjob in L.A. that gunned down eight at a Jewish daycare center. The url for his genocidal National Alliance organization is www.natall.com. Their symbol is an upside-down peace sign.

If you're appalled at Pierce's thought and his followers (which are growing by the day), please support the Anti-Defamation League.
Their site is www.adl.org
http://www.adl.org/learn/ext_us/Pierce.asp

[the ikara cult]

Thats what i said, it was premeditated, they would find a way of doing it if you banned guns.
I dont think its a "misperception" that guns are easier at all, i think the example i gave illustrates this; Its a proximity thing. Its easier for people to shoot someone dead than beat them to death with a bat or stab them to death. The example i gave showed that "normal" people were less capable of behaviour that endangered the life of others (again i hasten to add im not focusing on the obedience aspect of it) when it involved an act of physical aggression - Guns require less aggression therefore its easier for "normal" people to use them to kill.

[the ikara cult]

Originally Posted by Brett Robinson

not entirely true. a gun is just a chemical reaction resulting in a discharge. (let's keep the orgasm jokes out of this thread...) they are no different, ultimately, than fireworks, which ARE much more controlled, can be essentially used for similar purposes (i've been hit with a bottle rocket in the stomach, not pretty), but i don't think you'd say that fireworks main purpose is to kill and injure, they are to entertain. firearms are sport, just like i can take a baseball bat and smash your face in.

Youve made my point for me there; Guns are designed and developed to kill and maime, they have no other purpose. Fertilizer, bats, bricks, fucking dildos, you can use them all to kill but they arent as efficient and easy (psychologically and physically) to use as guns. I feel im repeating myself here, i think i shall have to go.

[atari 2600]

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

getting rid of guns will strip legal owners, responsible hunters, and responsible u[stading citizens of their firearms. It will not get rid of any black market guns, criminals smuggling guns in from another country, etc.

i think every adult citizien of USA should be required to take firearm safety classes before age 21. That way, even those that do not own guns know how to use them safely, if need be, to take out some fucker like this idiot madman at Virginia Tech.

children of responsible gun owners very arrely misuse weapons. children of gun owners who hide their shit from the kids are the ones that suffer.

There's some truth to all this, but it really sounds to me like you're on autopilot, because this is not an all-or-nothing issue.
But maybe that's just me because I've heard this view so many times...this tired old clap-trap that "guns don't kill people, people kill people," when both cases are clearly true to an extent and there is no black and white on the issue, i.e., People kill other people with guns. Bumper sticker-isms fail to negate the truth, sorry.
In relation, and to demonstrate that I am no stranger to the issue, I used to live not far away from Kennesaw, Georgia, where it's the law that you must own a firearm.

Look, if you really want to keep your guns and at the same time
eliminate a lot of the gun crime in America here's what you do:
You do something (hell if I know what...at least talk about it to others) about our government importing cocaine directly into this country and all the gang culture it has spawned that use the guns to kill people, many of which are often innocent bystanders. And much of it, Rob, is coming in right over Texas' airspace.
You demand that guns are to only be sold by licensed gun dealers and that the Wild West days of gun shows are fucking over!
Another thing you do is personally lobby to help shut down these hate-groups.
You also must advocate more regulation of handguns, not only for people trying to obtain them, but additional regulation for the manufacturers.
Of course, it takes money to overcome inherency and create change. Therefore, you put a ceiling on how much gun manufacturers can charge in the U.S. and you simply start taxing the shit out of both domestic gun manufacturers and those that are importing them; they can afford it. Besides, it would be just the tip of the iceberg as far as what these gun manufacturer fucks truly owe society. Also, the cost of a gun wouldn't rise because of the price ceiling and thus this wouldn't necessarily encourage more black market sales.

I find your suggestion of a required training course in firearms safety for all citizens just a little tiny tad extreme.

[floatingslowly]

Originally Posted by atari 2600

Look, if you really want to keep your guns and at the same time
eliminate a lot of the gun crime in America here's what you do:
You do something about our government importing cocaine directly into this country and all the gang culture it has spawned that use the guns to kill people, many of which are often innocent bystanders.

right on.

my main problem with banning / regulating guns is the government. it's the whole "give and inch / take a mile" thing coupled with their extreme inability to manage jack_shit. I'm not sure I would trust someone to manage something they have a vested interest in perpetuating.

although I do think that further regulation would be helpful against random killings, the type of people that are actually intending on using guns for crime will simply buy it for $50 from the "dude down the street" or someone who did (another product of the CokeWARZ).

those guns usually come with the serial numbers already filed off. regulation won't stop that at all.


I'd also like to state that I have never owned a gun and I never intend to.

[GeneticKiss]

My stance on guns is as follows:

There are some places in the world I would feel safer being in if I was armed. However, I don't think I'd actually shoot someone unless there was no alternative, i.e. my life/another person's life were at stake.

The difference with school shootings as opposed to regular shootings:
A. Young people have their lives end or forever altered.
B. It tarnishes the idea (dead by now) that parents can feel safe sending their kids to school.

That is enough to put some new laws on the books.

[Florya]

Originally Posted by Brett Robinson

but you don't think i should be allowed to shoot a bullet into a beer can?

I have no problem with you wanting to put a bullet into a beer can (actually I do, but that's a different argument) What I'm suggesting is that the gun you use to shoot that beercan is stored in a place that makes it difficult for you to use it when you've had enough of shooting beercans and decide to start shooting anyone that's pissed you off in your lifetime. I'm not saying that you shouldn't be allowed to own or shoot a gun, just that it need to be controlled in a responsible way.

As for Tim McVeigh, you're right, he did use common farmyard fertilizer to make his bombs, but that's not an argument for banning fertilizer, it's an argument for controlling it. One very simple way of doing this is to ask the person who wants to buy 5,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate to prove that they need it for agricultural purposes. If they can't, don't sell it to them.

The thing with fertilizer is that it is made to be used to fertilize farmland, an unfortunate side effect is that it can also be made in explosives.

The gun on the other hand, was designed with one thing in mind - killing.

I really can't see why there is an argument against at least some form of gun control in the US. The equivalent of yesterdays massacre happens every week in the US - 32 children killed in individual acts of gun related violence every week. That's 1600 per year - roughly the same rate as your soldiers are being killed in Iraq.

[Norma J]

If it's your right to bare arms, then it's your right to get shot dead whilst attending college aswell.

[demonrail666]

I still say that the New Wave of British Heavy Metal had SOMETHING to do with it.

[something]

you can ban guns but you cant ban mental illness personally i think anyone who needs to own a gun is a dick head with a small .. um brain

[the ikara cult]

Originally Posted by swa(y)

you say that as if killing/injuring is NEVER necessary.

And yet how many gun related deaths are completely unneccessary and/or intentional and would not have happened if the assailant hadnt had easy access to one? Thats not rhetorical, i actually dont know, but id guess its a significant percentage, and im inclined to think that even if only like 5% fell into this category its a cause to change things.