Another shooting in America

[jofeb04]

more information here

there is a county in Georgia where it is illegal not to own a handgun.

Not practical especially in more rural areas

wow. One county in Georgia. I'm impressed.

only one that i know of.

I am really not sure how to disarm on a massive scale. The trouble is guns cannot now be disinvented. In answer to your question paula, I think there will have to be a level of gun ownership by people in authority. I do not have the answers but I do know that making guns so easily available has catastrophic results.

If someone broke into your house; would you assume they were carrying a gun? And then if you were to confront them - would you shoot them in the assumption that they would shoot you?

Well in response to that no I wouldn't because I live in the UK.

If I were in the USA and owned a gun I would shoot them if I had no other options and was afraid for my life.

Littleapin I don't think most people in the States own a gun. The only people I ever knew who had guns were policemen. Making exeptions for Shotguns of course. Hunting is big in the States.

Littleapin I don't think most people in the States own a gun. The only people I ever knew who had guns were policemen. Making exeptions for Shotguns of course. Hunting is big in the States.

Is there anything left to hunt?

Loads to hunt

This thread is so depressing. I can't believe anyone could argue pro-gun & certainly not someone on MN. So naive, I am!

good. I shot it down.

"So how do we get the guns away from the maniacs then?"

Proper state and federal mandated criminal checks along with mental health checks may be a good start. Not just giving Joe Public a three day cooling off period. How can it be that a person can go along to a gun fair and buy weaponry without any form of check. This is what the Columbine two did.

America is a violent country.

Many "stable" people have guns in their possession and as another poster has rightly pointed out such a weapon is more likely to be used against another family member accidently or deliberately. How many US homeowners have ever had training in either gun usage or safety or same or had thoughts re safe storage of such weaponry?. Surely a person would not think it a good idea to keep a loaded weapon on a nightstand but this does happen.

"Gun laws won't help since most of these guys get them illegaly anyway".

Following Columbine security became the main issue; not gun control laws. This is why such controls were weakened.

What if it turns out that this person held all this weaponry perfectly legally?. Which is Virginia with lax controls is probably likely.

BBC news just confirmed that the gunman was an asian student living on campus.
Well that'll give comfort to the far right and the NRA, especially if he's muslim. I'm ashamed to say I was disappointed to hear this. Because despite the fact that I'm white and it has no bearing on how I view the case, I'm sure that many American white conservatives will find comfort in the fact that it wasn't a nice white boy from an affluent family who did this.

I know these crazy right-wing gun demanding fanatics are in the minority, therefore I'm not going to generalise them as 'americans' BUT they are a significant minority and therefore carry political clout especially as their president is one of them. That worries me.

It is now known that the gun man was a south Korean student in the US on a visa, therefore he would have had to obtain his guns illegally as you are only allowed hand guns if you are a US citizen.

I have been told (by a British police officer) that guns are pretty easy to obtain in the UK if you know the right people to ask.

So surly the question should be why did he feel the need to do this not the US gun policy

It's a difficult complex issue and as a mother living in the US it terrifies me to think someone might walk in and shoot my kids at school. I was living in AR at the time that two children shot five other children after arranging for a fake fire drill.

That said, I cannot be a hypocrit and say that I have never owned or been around guns. As a child we had many hunting guns in the house as my father and brothers used to hunt quite a lot. My first husband owned several hand guns - we did not have children at the time. And when I was single I took a handgun course, obtained a license and had a handgun at my home - I lived alone in a fairly remote area - and in my car as I took the deposit to the bank every night.

We do not have guns in the house now.

So what is the answer? I think for one thing we have to address the violence in our culture. The movies and video games that kids are exposed to are really frightening. I read somewhere that some of these video games are the same that are used to train the military.

I don't think there is an answer jaberwocky

America is awash with guns, no legislation is going to change that

The gun culture is too ingrained

This will just keep happening over and over, it's sad but inevitable