Gunman kills 32 at Virginia Tech

[Sakobav]

A really shocking news on 33 students/faculty shot dead on Virginia Tech Campus and more than 30 injured. The shooter is said to be of Asian decent, had two handguns and multiple clips.

A very sad/awfull day and the worst massacre of its kind in US history ( in 1966 Texas Tech had a similar episode) and definitely puts the Gun control issue front and center in US Elections. Brings to fore a very divisive issue of Gun Control and is now part of US political debate and presidential election issue.

A developing tragic story thats going to have potentially an advserse impact on Gun laws in US and maybe the world.

Virginia Tech is one of the leading engineering schools in US.

P.S. I have edited my post since much more details are available and earlier post had incorrect facts. My advisor / professors sister and Brother in law are professors in same institute. The gentleman was close to initial site of shooting but was informed by his wife of goings on. Campus authorities Could have would have....

Please have all the victims of this horrific episode in your thoughts and prayers

[Risala]

A very sad day indeed.
Even though the pro gun lobby is very strong in the US,this is probably going to start the debate about Gun ownership laws all over again.
Guess this is the downside,when there is little or no legislation and a few maniacs go berserk.
PS thought that plus 10 round clips were banned in the US for civilian use.
Best
Sanjay

[art_collector]

SAD .......REALLY VERY SAD..

[mundaire]

Sad indeed and my heart goes out to the bereaved families who must now deal with this senseless act and it's tragic consequences for them.

BUT do keep in mind the fact that firearms are banned on most US university campuses (am not sure but I would imagine this would be the case for this uni as well)!

If this had not been the case, then this gunman could very well have been "stopped" early in his act by a vigilant gun owner... and maybe the final tally of casualties might have been much lower! If anything such incidents point towards the futility and negative impact of increased levels of gun control... Gun control MAKES such incidents possible, and DOES NOT help prevent them!

As always, this sort of thing is sure to generate some heat on both sides of the fence... just be sure to get all your facts and not be blinded by what the press chooses NOT to tell you...

Cheers!
Abhijeet

[mehulkamdar]

Navdeep,

Very sad news but as we hear more and more here, we realise that it was the bungling of the Virginia Tech Campus police in their not responding to the first shots and of their basically warming their a@#$s in the sun that saw so many killed. They waited for two hours after the first two shots were fired to even do something, declaring the shots an "isolated incident."

There is also the fact that MSNBC are a bunch of anti gun liars who would not hesitate to lie about any massacre involving guns - the shooter did NOT wear a bulletproof vest. He wore a shotgunner's jacket which he filled with magazines. As Abhijeet rightly points out, it was easy for him to carry this massacre out at a place where no one could defend themselves as they were all unarmed. Those chowderheads who believe that they would be protected by the police if they give their guns up, need to think long and hard about what really happened here and use their brains instead of getting high on the anti gun propaganda of third rate media outlets like MSNBC, the New York Times or the Chicago Tribune.

What is particularly galling is that even gun owners and shooters cannot think this through properly and look at the facts objectively.

[axp817]

And I really hope the part where they said that the serial numbers were filed out is true and that they were illegal guns and not procured legally. If they were procured legally by the punk, it gives them more reason to talk about changing gun ownership rights.

10 round magazines could not be procured during the assault weapons ban which ended a few years ago. Some states still follow the ban (e.g. Massachusetts) and you cannot have 10+ round magazines in those states.

Also, even during the national assault weapons ban, one could procure a 10+ round magazine if it was manufactured before the ban took effect.

I feel VERY sorry for the families of the victims, am very disturbed by this incident myself, and am very afraid for what could happen to us, responsible, sane gun owners in the near future, because of incidents like these.

-Naren

[HydNawab]

Its because of maniacs like these every person who owns a gun is considered to be of the same attitude.It puts responsible gun lovers like us into a difficult position.

Ashar

[Vikram]

Our collective heartfelt condolences and best wishes go out to the families of the victims.

I am slightly uneasy about having to write on gun rights when lives at such a large scale were lost.But,defence of gun rights here would only keep the debate on why this happened in its track than condemning that guns are to be blamed and thus preventing an honest discussion.


"Bloodbath In Blacksburg

Guns have been around for a long time, but these crazy shootings are a new development that point to a failure of culture to produce people with a sense of responsibility and self-control.

PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
The tragic murders of Virginia Tech students, apparently by an insane person, will prompt new attempts to ban private ownership of guns. Once guns are banned, crime will explode. Households and vulnerable members of society will lose the ability to defend, which will invite more intrusions and attacks. Knife crimes will rise as they have in Great Britain.

Gun prohibition will create a new industry for criminals--gun running and black market sales. Police will conduct stings by posing as black market gun dealers and entrap innocent citizens driven by fear and threat to secure means of personal protection.

A large industry of family businesses dedicated to meeting the needs of shooters, who would never shoot at anything but a paper or clay target, will be wiped out. Gun clubs will close their doors.

Collectors of valuable Winchesters and Colts, beautiful pieces of Americana, will have to give them up or be at risk of prison sentences.

Gun banners might be surprised at the number of Americans who provide parts and repairs for firearms that have been out of production for 70 or 80 years. Other businesses provide components from which dedicated hobbyists fashion ammunition that is no longer commercially produced.

Marksmanship is an Olympic sport. A large number of marksmanship events are hosted all over the country, with the national championships at Camp Perry being the best known. I have been a member of gun clubs for decades, and no member has ever shot anyone, accidentally or intentionally. For an older person, marksmanship is one of the few outdoor convivial pursuits, and the challenge of mind-eye-hand coordination and windage calculation is rewarding.

Guns have been around for a long time, but these crazy shootings are a new development that point to a failure of culture to produce people with a sense of responsibility and self-control. When I was a kid, a youngster could walk into a local hardware store and buy a gun. There were no restrictions. If a kid was so young that he couldn't see over the counter, the store owner might call a parent for approval. We all had guns, and we never shot ourselves or anyone else.

One of my grandmothers thought nothing of me and my friends playing with the World War II weapons my uncle had brought back. My other grandmother never batted an eye when I collected my grandfather's shotgun from behind the door and went off to match wits with the crows that raided the pecan trees or the poisonous cottonmouth snakes that could be found along the creek that ran through the farm.

My grandmother never worried about me until I got a horse, a more dangerous object in her view than a gun.

We also all had knives, which we carried in our pockets to school every day. We never stabbed anyone and very seldom cut our own fingers.

We often had fights, more often wrestling each other to the ground than fist fights. No one ever thought of pulling a knife or a gun on his antagonist. Parents and teachers did not exactly approve of fights, but they considered them natural. We were not arrested, handcuffed and finger-printed for being in a fight.

Except for war films, movie violence was rare. I still remember the shock we all experienced when the hero in a cowboy movie actually shot and killed the outlaw. Until that film, the hero would shoot the gun out of the outlaw's hand, knock him out with a punch to the jaw, and deliver him rope bound to the sheriff.

I began my teaching career at Virginia Tech when the institution still had its Cadets. Students marched in uniforms with powerful military weapons that as far as I can remember still had firing pins.No one ever loaded a rifle and shot someone. Indeed, as a high school and Georgia Tech student, we had to take R.O.T.C. We knew how to field strip a M1 30-06 rifle and could have procured surplus army ammunition with ease, but no one was ever irresponsible enough to load one of the weapons. When we had marksmanship practice, it was at a firing range.

The change is in the behavior of people, not the presence of guns. Banning guns does not address the cause of gratuitous violence. We need to find the cause of the sickness in our society that produces people who deal with their problems by murdering others.

England has discovered the truth of the NRA's motto -- "When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns." The gun ban has only disarmed the honest citizens. Drugs are banned, but they are available almost everywhere, as was alcohol during Prohibition. If a deranged person can't obtain a black market gun, he will make a bomb.

Indeed, the Iraq war has greatly stimulated interest in, and knowledge of, bomb-making. The longer the senseless occupation of Iraq continues, the more likely that Americans, like residents of Baghdad, will awaken each day to the news of 100 dead and 100 injured.

Gun rights are constitutionally protected, because the Founding Fathers did not trust even the limited and constrained government that they created. To infringe this constitutional right makes it easier to infringe others. Certainly the Bush administration has shown no reluctance to infringe such foundations of our political and legal existence as habeas corpus and the requirement that warrants be obtained before privacy is invaded.

If we lose the Constitution, we have lost our country.

Responsibility goes with accountability. Government, like people, becomes less responsible as accountability declines. Indeed, it is impossible to have irresponsible people and responsible government as the government is staffed by people.

In my day parents and teachers had authority. Today teachers have no authority, which is why they have to call the police to control the kids. Child Protective Service has stripped parents of authority.
Children are taught at school to call CPS if they are spanked by parents. Apparently, teachers cannot recognize the decline of their own authority in the decline of parental authority.

I remember when a misbehaving kid picked up by the police was turned over to his parents. Today, the kids are taken to jail.

Humans are fallible and will fail in their responsibilities to others and do bad things. However, today they fail more often than in the past. The cause is not guns.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions."


http://outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodnam ... sid=1&pn=1



I am surprised that Outlook should carry such a pro-gun article.

Best-
Vikram

[Sakobav]

One of the weapon Glock 19 was bought legally with all the required checks. All of the initial reports of bullet proof vest were wrong.

Blaming on Gun laws is easy but fact is what do computer games like doom/mortal combat teach wherein kids play a very graphic game slaughtering soldiers, people? Doesnt that de-sanitize a Kids psycho?

How does society react and shackle the very freedom guaranteed in Constitution and that thin line when someone abuses this forsaken right of action and speech by acting irresponsibly? Kneejerk reactions will not address any of such issues. Rest assured the debate will go on agenda will be hijacked facts will be lost.

Its time for grieving and praying for all the victims and their families.

Mehul you are correct initial reports were way off and authorities should have reacted early on but guess they were looking and had even located " person of interest" off campus. Unfortunate sequence of events lets see how this pans out.

[hamiclar01]

hi all

after the havoc let loose by a nut in virginia which left more than 30 people dead and made gun ownership seem such a bad name, i think i speak for all of us when i announce

1. that indians for guns and all it's members condemn the recent shootings in virginia tech, which was the work of a twisted, evil mind.

2. indians for guns believes in responsible gun ownership, and aims to propagate , to the best of it's abilities, the mature and responsible bearing of firearms.


anand

[Sujay]

"The NRA also argues that gun ownership keeps crime figures down. And while it may be unpalatable in the week of yet another shooting tragedy, it is a fact that as gun laws have eased over the past decade, violent crime in the United States has gone down"



Click Here

[mehulkamdar]

Anand,

Let us be very clear:

1. Indians For Guns has always believed ONLY in legal gun ownership and as a forum we always condemn killing of any kind, the VA Tech mass murder being no exception

2. To this end we have banned members and yellow carded several new members for making posts which would pass on virtually any other forum and which are the staple of films in India and abroad

3. At the same time if we are expected to call for restrictions on gun ownership, we will NOT do this. So many people got killed because the murderer picked a defenseless crowd. He did not try to kill people at a shooting range for obvious reasons

4. You may not have noticed, but a thread on this issue was started almost hours after the massacre started. The sequence of disinformation spread by the anti gun media in the US is on that thread if you pause to look there. While we condemn any killing of innocent people whether it is with guns, knives, or clubs, don't expect us to condemn gun ownership in any way

[mehulkamdar]

Navdeep,

The same scumbags on MSNBC who have been running an anti gun tirade over the past few days now want to justify the killer's binge by saying that he felt compelled to kill 32 people because he was bullied in school. The New York Times follows closely behind with India's Communist rag, The Hindu issuing editorial after editorial condemning the USA as a sick society. I wonder why they didn't think of India that way after Nithari or after one or another of the dozens of massacres that have taken place there.

Additionally, it was not the Second Amendment freedoms in the US that caused this massacre but the restrictions on gun ownership at university campuses. The murderer went on a killing binge at a university because he knew that he would not face any resistance. Using your logic, give me a reason why he, or any other spree killer did not try a spree killing at a shooting range.

The most important lesson in this tragedy is that the way the police bungled, waiting for two hours after the first two killings, clearly show how much more at risk people who choose to give their arms up and expect to be protected by the police are.

Sujay,

Thanks for the NRA link. The farce in this is that just a few weeks earlier, a Bosnian religious fundamentalist tried to go on a similar killing spree in a mall in Salt Lake City UT and he was stopped cold by a CCW pistol carrying security officer who was at a restaurant having dinner with his girlfriend. None of the anti gun fascists have any interest in highlighting that incident where dozens of possible victims were saved by a legal gun owner. But they must carp, of course, and some gun owners join them as well, in spreading anti gun disinformation.

[mundaire]

Both threads on this topic have been merged...

Cheers!
Abhijeet

[mehulkamdar]

Wall Street Journal Editorial on Gun Control

HOT TOPIC

Guns, Politics and the Law
The Second Amendment may finally get its day in court.

Saturday, April 21, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT

That the Virginia Tech massacre did not occasion a widespread round of political hand-wringing over gun control is, as one newspaper put it, a silent testimony to how far the gun-control debate has shifted in the past decade and a half.

Yes, the usual suspects have attempted to use the murder spree on campus as evidence of the danger of guns in America. But as unlikely a combination of leaders from Harry Reid to George Bush has been as one in warning we should avoid a "rush to judgment" in the wake of the killings.





That's progress of a sort, even if the Democrats' abandonment of the issue flows more from political calculation than principle. Political calculation, after all, is based on something beyond mere politics. The Democratic Party may have decided that gun control became a political liability in the 1994 and 2000 elections, but that doesn't go far toward explaining why that is so.
First, as we noted earlier this week, what happened in Blacksburg was evidence more than anything of the fact that there are sick and evil people in the world willing to do harm to others for no earthly reason. Pushing much beyond that point is political opportunism.

But over the past decade and a half, evidence of another sort has been accumulating. Violent-crime rates peaked in 1991, according to the Justice Department, and have fallen steeply since. Over the same period, gun-control laws in many states have been relaxed. Correlation does not equal causation, but it does make it difficult to argue that greater legal access to guns drives up levels of violent crime.

Whether concealed-carry laws and the like have held down crime rates remains a hotly debated subject. Certainly, more aggressive and effective policing, especially in big cities, has been a major force in driving down crime. One irony of this is that law-enforcement types have long been a major pro-gun-control force, even though it would seem that how their job is defined and performed has much more to do with crime levels than whether guns are available legally.

When violent-crime rates were rising, as they did steadily from the mid-1960s through the 1980s, it was easy to get political traction with calls to "do something" about gun control. This was true whether legally available guns had anything to do with those crime rates. But with crime rates falling even as legal gun access expanded, the argument has lost much of its plausibility, and so its force.

Which isn't to say no one makes the argument any more. The nearly uniform reaction in Europe to the Virginia Tech shootings has been to pin it on America's gun culture. Related to this is the charge that America is prevented from taking sensible steps to prevent gun violence by the invidious influence of groups such as the National Rifle Association. Quite apart from the fact that this implies American politicians and voters alike are dupes of the "gun lobby," it ignores the evidence, noted above, that violent crime and legal gun access either have nothing to do with one another or are, if anything, inversely correlated.





As this political debate evolves, it appears that the Supreme Court may finally get a case in which to weigh in on the Constitutional question of the right to bear arms. Last month, Judge Laurence Silberman on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of plaintiffs who claimed that their Second Amendment rights were violated by Washington's strict gun-control laws. The Supreme Court has not heard a Second Amendment case in decades, but federal appeals courts have generally taken a very restricted view of citizens' rights under the Second Amendment. The D.C. Circuit's 2-1 decision sets up a direct conflict with other circuits, and could wind up at the Supreme Court.
This could be a defining moment for gun control, as Judge Silberman's ruling unequivocally declares that "the right to keep and bear arms" under the Second Amendment belongs to individuals and not, as some have argued, only to National Guardsmen or members of government-organized "militias." "The phrase 'the right of the people,'" Judge Silberman wrote, ". . . leads us to conclude that the right in question is individual." He added: "The wording . . . also indicates that the right to keep and bear arms was not created by government, but rather preserved by it." In all, the decision is as clear a statement of the right to keep and bear arms as one could want. The mayor of D.C. has requested a rehearing of the case by the full D.C. Circuit. If that is denied, or if the full court sides with Judge Silberman, the next stop would be the Supremes.

A Supreme Court decision on what the Second Amendment means could transform the gun-control debate in this country. For now, the relatively muted political response to the Virginia Tech killings may be taken as a sign that, on this issue at least, our politics have become a little less reactive and a little more rational.