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News

Another shooting in America

171 replies

jofeb04 · 16/04/2007 20:54

more information here

OP posts:
ViscountessPetitLapin · 19/04/2007 11:45

Eleusis - "his actions and intentions fell into a pattern of previous school and college shootings" - and STILL he was able to walk into a store and buy a gun!

Americans are not all loons. And no, they don;t wander around with guns in holsters like John Wayne. And yes, there are pyschopaths in the UK.

But the gun laws in the USA facilitate this sort of crime. DESPITE the clear knowledge that it has happened before and will have happen again.

How many laws were passed after 911? My god, a whole government department was created (Homeland Security). But there have been a long list of school shootings and still gun apologists cling to the bloody "it's a constitution right!" argument.

Eleusis · 19/04/2007 12:33

Viscount, I completely agree with you there. THIS man should not have been eligible to buy a gun. Why upon being released from the hospital was that not checked? Seems bloody obvious to me that it should have been.

squeakybub · 19/04/2007 13:49

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Eleusis · 19/04/2007 13:52

Earth. And you?

squeakybub · 19/04/2007 13:57

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Eleusis · 19/04/2007 14:02

Could you remain civilised when you express yourself, please?

zippitippitoes · 19/04/2007 14:07

I think it is hard to understand the us attitude to gun rights from a Uk perspective...we hate them to the extent that most people don't want armed police

Eleusis · 19/04/2007 14:15

Zippi, I think it is also difficult to understand because the British (in my humble opinion) are far more tolerant of laying down rules that apply to all for the sake of the greater good. Wheras Amercians will think whoa wait a minute, I have done nothing wrong why are you penalising me? So, a move to take away gun from law abiding citizens American might take as a personal insult, and a British person might be happy to contribute to the common good.

Americans do not like to have their rights of freedom infringed upon. And many do see gun ownership as a fundamental right.

As I said earlier, I see both sides.

expatinengland · 19/04/2007 15:43

Some pretty powerful statements here, and most are very balanced and thought-invoking. I too see both sides of the fence on this one, and as an American think that gun laws should be tightened, but I'd never want to ban guns, and this would never happen anyway....because then only the 'bad' guys would have the guns like in Washington, D.C. (D.C. has a very high crime rate but citizens can't own guns, whereas VA has a much lower crime rate.) This guy was able to purchase the guns because he passed the background checks..remember prior to this he had no felonies. It's too bad the UVA folks didn't take him more seriously at that level before the time he bought the guns. Thanks for Michigan info...have not been to that state, but hear it's lovely...this just points out how you basically have 50 different laws regarding guns.

Also his videos and such surfaced after this happened...again too bad he couldn't have been helped.

It pains me to hear this news and my heart goes out to all the victims and their families. I have many close friends that graduated from UVa and from the engineering school and for the rest of their lives they will now be embarrassed to tell people where they went to school. (It's like how it must be for a person born on Sept. 11...people always get that look or on 7/7 in the UK.)

However, it also pains me that few on this thread have expressed any sorrow for the victims or their families. I suspect that it is because a lot of UK folks think that we're just getting what we deserve with our gun laws. Sad, but I suspect this might be on some peoples' minds.

I must say some comments have been downright silly...Please explain NotQuite your comment regarding the statement "socioeconomic and historical factors" make Americans more likely to kill. I would argue that is not true...more access to guns makes more gun crime in America. More access to guns in the UK will continue to increase UK gun crime too. And please, please explain DominiConnor how "Americans like killing other Americans." So no UK folks ever get killed by guns or knives?

How many of you on this thread have lived both in the UK and in the US?

I hear about shootings in London and other places over here now too....does this mean "UK folks like killing other UK folks"? I'm not serious of course but gun crime occurs here too...I bet lots of people think...well that's just in 'bad' neighborhoods and only happens to 'those certain kinds of people." Well if you think that, you think just like most Americans. You don't pay any attention until something happens in YOUR area...then you get involved.

I love both the US and the UK and my heart broke on 7.7 too. I hope we all can sort this out, and I honestly hope some laws are changed...who needs to be able to buy a gun every month? But lets debate the issue without putting each other down.

suedonim · 19/04/2007 15:44

It's all very well saying that this particular man should not have been allowed a gun but, to quote from the BBC article, 'According to the Secret Service, there is no accurate or useful "profile" of students who engaged in targeted school violence.' so how would you pick out the one who's likely to go on the rampage?

It seems to me, too, that the US's relaxed attitude toward gun crime has contributed to this tragedy in that the original incident was regarded as a 'domestic' murder/suicide. Because of that assumption no moves seem to have been made to protect the lives of others in the vicinty. Surely in such events one should err on the side of caution and the default position should be to assume that there is a mass-murderer doing the rounds until proved otherwise.

I don't have an axe to grind with the US. My ds1 is a US citizen and currently ds2 is also in the US. We also have American friends and they are lovely people. But I do find their attitude towards guns weird.

At the end of the day, I guess if you live by the sword you die by the sword. I just hope to god none of my children are ever a sacrificial goat to someone else's freedom.

Eleusis · 19/04/2007 15:53

Small point, but ExpatinEngland, the school is Virginia Tech, not University of Virginia.

expatinengland · 19/04/2007 15:59

No...not a small point at all...a VERY big point as my friends would be appalled...OMG...I'm so familiar with both schools...UVa in Charlottesville and Tech in Blacksburg. Was emailing a friend at UVA this am and of course she said she was glad it wasn't at her school..I just knew she would say that..

Thanks for pointing that out..

Eleusis · 19/04/2007 16:16

So, are you from Virginia then?

CoteDAzur · 19/04/2007 16:19

The problem (as I see it) is not that guns can be "legally obtained" in America, but that they are obtained Too Easily. If a known suicide risk and recent mental hospital inmate (both of which Cho was) can obtain two guns, one a semiautomatic, there is clearly something wrong there.

I am also quite surprised at the apprehension from the Americans on this thread. If we haven't gushed out how sorry we are all those students died, that is not because we think they deserved it (?!?!) but because of course everyone is sorry for this needless loss and there is no need to say it. We are all mothers here, how can we not be shaken to the core by university kids dying in such a massacre???

A lot of people here may feel that there is a direct relation of cause and effect between having such lax gun laws and the frequent massacres (I do, for one) but we are still sad and sorry when they happen. Just not as shocked.

suedonim · 19/04/2007 16:41

Yes, I quite agree with you, Cotedazure. It goes without saying that people are horrified and sad at the deaths of so many and I can't imagine anyone 'normal' would think anything otherwise.

It never crossed my mind that anyone deserved to die; what foxes me is an affection for something that people feel protects them but is actually the instrument that kills so many of their nearest and dearest each year.

NotQuiteCockney · 19/04/2007 17:17

Expatinengland, what I meant about sociological and historical factors was basically a) the gap between rich and poor is greater in the US, and there is little/no security net, particularly in some states. b) people in the US have (I think?) a stronger belief that it is possible to rise from nowhere to become President/rich/whatever. (they can't. they never could, by and large.) I think the cult of the individual in the US has done a great deal of harm.

I do think the greater US murder rate is mostly down to the easier availability of guns, but I do think some other factors come into play, maybe.

DominiConnor · 19/04/2007 17:45

ExpatinEngland, America is a democracy, and the government makes no attempt to hide the number of people killed by their fellow citizens.
The vast majority of Americans are literate, and those who are not cannot be ignorant gun crime as conveyed by TV.

Thus Americans are free to make an informed decision on guns. They freely choose to support policies that ensure that vast numbers of weapons are freely available for use.

Americans support the death penalty for black people, and in certain highly specific cases for white men as well.

Not all Americans of course, but the vast majority. On other threads you may hear me use the term "grey haired white man defence". This is not of my own creation. It's from a friend of mine a serious academic who defends black men on death row. Strictly speaking he doesn't care about the race of his people, but as he explained to me, I shoot him in front of the lawyers present in the room and there would be no chance of me being executed, whereas about 80% of the black men who get executed in the US wouldn't even be convicted in the UK.

A gun is not a defensive item except in quite rare circumstances, and in any case most Americans lack the training to use any weapon effectively.
Kevlar is defensive, so is ducking, but if someone pulls a gun on you, any move towards a weapon is very very dumb.

Most guns carried by Americans have very short effective range. Thus to use them you are either near the opponent, in which case he's going to see you going for it, or you have to move closer to engage him. Maybe that's what you want to do, but it is not defensive. If you have the option of moving closer, odds are they you can move away.
Away is good.

suedonim · 19/04/2007 17:49

That's very interesting, NQC. Leading on from this, I was wondering earlier what the reasons are behind the US armed forces being so prone to friendly-fire incidents. Is it the familiarity with guns, the cult of the individual/lack of group discipline within their units or what?

NotQuiteCockney · 19/04/2007 18:08

The oddest sign of the racist application of the death penalty in the US is the fact that, whenever a state starts executing people again, after a lengthy gap, they always execute a white guy first, to try to deflect attention from the fact of how racist the death penalty is, in practice.

I expect the courts here are pretty racist too, tbh, but at least they're not actually killing people.

DominiConnor · 19/04/2007 18:44

American doctrine on this stuff is based upon British experience.
In both World Wars, senior Army officers were chosen largely upon who their great-grandmothers had fucked.
Thus the American watched in horror the squandering of British, Australian, Kiwi, Canadian, Indian etc lives.
British "tactics" were essentially to blast the shit out of the Germans. Stop for a while, then get soldiers to move slowly across churned up with mud whilst carrying 60 pound packs. Sometimes they marched in formation. Yes, really.
Guess what ?
They died.
By 1917 there was a recognised medical condition in German machine gun operators where they killed so many Allied soldiers they they ceased to be able to function. The British chinless wonders of course simply shot any British soldier who showed battle fatigue.

Thus the American doctrine became to keep firing right up until your troops directly engaged the enemy. Americans actually cared about losses, the British did not.
The American logic was that dead is dead, and it's better to lose N men through friendly fire than 20 * N from the enemy. British leaders From Haig through to Blair are physically scared by any maths involving more than two digits, so simply could not understand it.

Fast forward to the Gulf wars.
British defence purchasing has the goal of keeping Military suppliers alive, not British soldiers. To put it into perspective, the state of Idaho has several times more anti tank capability than the RAF and Army put together. I don't mean US Army bases which happen to be in Idaho, but part time National Guard units.
Thus America had the job of taking out Iraqi tanks, trucks etc. The Tornado is a hopeless joke, it could only take out a tank if it fell on one, sadly falling out of the sky is a common problem with them.
US tank busters have a a "bath" made of titanium around the pilot. The wings are designed so you can lose up to 50% of their area, one of the two engines, and still stay in the air. British low flying planes can be taken out by a shotgun, if they don't crash of their own accord.

The US ground force suppression was so hugely efficient that many people regard it as cruelly unfair upon the Iraqis.
Very few British soldiers died though armoured Iraqi units since for a tank to move into the open was suicidal.

There is no "front line" in a modern airmobile war. Iraq was being attacked from 3 sides, and it is beyond the wit of man to keep track of thousands of vehicles.

Before we get sneery about Americans, look up the stats for the Battle of Britain, and in particular at the number of Hurricanes shot down by Spitfires because the first wave of pilots were also chosen because of who their grandmothers had fucked (cf Sergeant Pilots), and simply couldn't be arsed to do all this tedious aircraft recognition stuff.

expatinengland · 24/04/2007 10:01

I'm a FL native, but lived in northern Virginia for nearly 16 years...I lived there longer than most places and in a way, it still feels like 'home' ..

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