Another shooting in America

[jofeb04]

more information here

This is just awful. Can't believe there were two seperate incidents guess they must have been related.

They must be related.

Can't believe it's happened again!
When will they learn?

Awful. Just why do they continue to defend their "right" to bear arms?

My point exactly, beansprout! They say it's in the constitution, well, I say "TAKE IT OUT!"

Its not that easy, it was put there for a reason. ( I personally blame the British ) I agree that it needs to be regulated and that its ridiculous that you can buy a gun in Wal-mart but The Right to Bear Arms was put in the Bill of Rights for good reason.

Apparantly gun laws weakened since Columbine.
How has there been a two hour time lapse when there would have been loads of police around ?

Its a big campus he could have holed up anywhere for an hour or two

The police are saying that it was one gunman. The campus is locked down. The right to bear arms is in the constitution over here, sad but true and G Bush, bless him defends this right. I abhor guns and always have. Made my dad give up his shot guns after Hungerford and hand them over to the police. Let's hope that the next Presidential Election brings a more "peaceful" and "humanitarian" regime to this country.

I understnd it's part of their Constitution - but FGS how many more shootings like this one do they need ?

The two are related.

They need tougher gun control , its far to easy for people to get them. Maybe now they will toughen them up

paula: no it wasn't. It was put in the bill of rights because the Texans wouldn't have joined the union otherwise. That's why it's an ammendment and not in the constitution.

Congress can change the constitution when it really wants to.

Suppose it's frightening now for the law abiding to give theirs up if so many are in the wrong hands.

That may be but its for the same reason

Exactly LL where does it stop ?

They always bring out a weirdo to speak for the Right to Bear Arms instead of someone intelligent. They are intentionally being biased.

I feel that both the Virginia State police and college authorities will have tough questions to answer over the next few days and months.

Why was this allowed to happen and what were his motives?.

This brings back into focus Columbine and other school/college shootings that have happened over the years. Something like this will happen again. After Columbine the issue of college security was looked at again and tightened; laws re gun control were not tightened. The "right to bear arms" in the Constitution won through again and the arms lobby in the US is a very powerful one to go up against.

The college was not completely locked down either; on such a vast campus with 26,000 students a lockdown is going to take a long time to achieve. This is why that did not happen. I have since read the authorities view of the first shooting being a "domestic" and assumed the gunman had left the campus. If this is indeed what was thought then harsh questions of this decision will need to be asked.

'Apparantly gun laws weakened since Columbine. '

Gun laws vary by state. So generalisations like this are just that.

The 'right to bear arms' was put into the Constitution as a direct result of how the colonials were treated under British rule.

There's NO WAY those who drafted the Constitution could have foreseen how things would become 200 years on.

I lived in Littleton at the time Columbine happened.

Comparing what occured there to what happened to VA Tech is like comparing apples and oranges.

The VA Tech campus is enormous by British standards, although many universities have an even larger campus. My alma mater is double the size of VA Tech, with nearly double the number of students.

We must also remember that a state university is actually public property, security has to be done in accordance with this.

I think gun control should be regulated by the state, as it is is.

I went to University of Texas at Austin, which also has 50,000 students.

That campus is huge and even has satellite campus buildings because they needed more space.

The campus also sits near town centre and is surrounded by busy roads and even has a motorway running alongside one part of it.

ANYONE could come onto it - it's public property.