How many more deaths will it take?
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It has happened everywhere from Scotland to America, and it happened most recently at Virginia Tech. March 1996, Dunblane, Scotland: Thomas Hamilton shot and killed 16 children, their teacher and himself. 11 years later, Cho Seung Hui kills 32 people and then himself on the campus of Virginia Tech. Everyone is speculating whether Hui was unstable or disturbed, and for how long, but no one has changed gun control in America. After Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris killed 12 classmates, a teacher and themselves at Columbine High School in Colorado, everyone attacked gun control in the United States, but nothing drastic happened. I think the easiest solution to the whole situation is to outlaw handguns. Gun enthusiasts would string me up for saying this, but I’ll say it again…OUTLAW HANDGUNS! Doing background checks on someone just isn’t enough anymore. In Virginia there is no waiting period on buying a gun, so Hui was able to walk in, wait 10 minutes while an instant background check was done, and then he committed one of the worst tragedies in America’s history. What would have happened if that was Harvard? Would legislation change more quickly. What if that had happened in the streets of Washington D.C., or at the footsteps of the U.S. Congress? Maybe if it had happened at the steps of the Senate gun control would actual change. I wonder to myself, how many lives will it take to shut up gun lobbyists? America has basically outlawed cigarettes. America won’t allow someone to take their own life over time, but if someone wanted to, they could buy a gun and kill someone else. I will never understand the logic of our government. Whether money from lobbying groups is a factor or not, don’t the lives of the people who elected count just a little bit more than a new BMW in your driveway. Here is a link to a BBC article on school shooting before VT. The amount of lives lost is astonishing, but still...no changes. |
Alex, I see your point but marijuana is also illegal and everyone smokes it. Everything that is illegal pretty much anywhere can easily be obtained if one tries hard enough. I will give the fact that it may be too easy to get a firearm legally, but making that stricter is also problematic. In getting a gun license and obtaining a firearm it must be registered and may make weapons easier to track by the appropriate authorities. Outlawing anything in the United States really doesn't do anything.
I agree with the previous post in that it's not really the guns that are our problem. People can attack others by plenty of different means. sure getting a gun is simple and may help put the unsteady individuals plan in motion, but I doubt if someone had that much malice in them that not being able to buy a gun wouldn't stop them from carrying out what they set to do.
As far as the student violence, I really doubt it's something that can be prevented. I think it is engrained into our society as a whole. People are focused on the world revolving around them. They expect no pain and hardship to enter their life, and if it does they expect it to go away. They want the easy way out of things. Unfortunately this is not how life works and this fustrates the unsteady individual feeling the world is against him causing him to take revenge on the world. If a person is not in the right mindset it can cause such an act of violence as we seen in VT and elsewhere.
i understand what each of you has said. Hui was not a criminal, he was unstable, but he was still able to buy a firearm legally in the state of Virginia, even though he had already been through mental evaluations and help. I think the only real options are to create a national system for background checks (more in depth) or to outlaw handguns (NOT all guns). I understand that guns will still be obtainable, but it will be more difficult, which will lessen the number of deaths hopefully.
Yes, the old cliche "guns don't kill people, people kill people" stands true in this argument, but guns make it easier for people to kill people.
America banned alcohol, anybody remember that. It didn't work out to well, people bootlegged, and NASCAR got started...obviously not too good, but it was overturned. What I'm saying is...raise gun control, and if it doesn't help, fix it. Things can be changed, they are everyday, i'm just pissed that nothing has been done since Columbine, and most likely, nothing will be done after VT.
Nice job. Did you hear what one guy said after VA Tech? "Well, this wouldn't have happened if all the students had been armed!" Um, yeah. Anyone up for a game of crossfire?
I don't understand how more firepower can fix a situation. It reminds me, sadly, of the Sean Bell shooting. The chance or possibility of more lives being taken in any situation should justify stricter gun control. It's logic.
"I doubt if someone had that much malice in them that not being able to buy a gun wouldn't stop them from carrying out what they set to do."
Do you think Cho could have killed 32 people with a knife? I don't.
No, if they had a knife or large edged weapon. More would have died. Not ammunition dependant.
Also bans, and new laws have been proven not to work.
Check the the CDC study done on the Clinton bans, the DC bans. Violent crime increases in the states or counties with the most gun laws. Remember, laws only affect the law abiding.
Enforce the laws that exist. That is all that needs to be done. Virginia allready has a law the prevents people with a mental health history from purchasing firearms. But guess what the court and police system did not process that information and add it to the individuals background, if they had he would have failed the check and not been allowed to purchase.
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This isn't black and white
While gun violence is a problem in the US, simply banning guns will obviously affect gun violence, but won't make everyone stop killing each other. Look at the UK, for example, a country that in recent years banned knives. Any idea why? When the government took away private gun ownership, criminals found that sharp, edged weapons are still lethal enough to commit crimes.
Also, here's an article comparing a town with mandatory gun possession to one that banned non-cop gun ownership. Guess which one turned out having drastic decrease in crime?
http://wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=55288
As the saying goes, "If you outlaw guns, then only outlaws will have guns." It'd be nice to think that criminals will follow whatever laws you implement, but the real world doesn't work that way. Unless you implement a total police state, or engage in some type of behaviorial control of the population, people will get shot, and it's better, in my opinion, to give victims of violence more options than to simply cower in fear of their attacker. It would be nicer if the sources of this violence could be identified and dealt with, but "The War on Guns" sounds more appealing to you, and other voters, than any real solution, doesn't it?