[Xugumad]

Cam
He easily could have, he just would have had to go about it much differently, such as attacking people at night or in their homes when they are alone.

You quoted my post where I said 'from a distance', and then went on to answer like you did...

People can always come up with different ways to do things, no matter what tools they have.

And that's a good reason for giving a means to anonymously and easily murder from afar?

Ah, I forgot - guns can be used for good as well as evil.

It might have taken longer but then again it would have been harder to link the killings.

It would have been a lot harder for him to do so. (you cite breaking into somebody's house at night as comparable, which it isn't: it requires personal physical involvement and locational presence, both of which are absent in the sniper case)

If I got a rifle with a noise/flash suppressor and got on the roof of my house, I could easily kill several people, and most likely nobody would ever find out that I did it. The sniper is doing something very similar. I can get a rifle from a local gun show, no questions asked. All that stops me from being a successful serial murderer is the motive. All the tools are right there, it'd only take me a couple of minutes to do it.

It was only a matter of time until somebody cunning started exploiting a very obvious means of terror. Now that it's begun, and that everybody realises how pathetically easy it is to terrorize millions and millions of people using only a rifle and a van, whilst displaying the inability of state and federal law enforcement to deal with it, the genie will never be stuffed back into its bottle.

MaggieL
A bomb would have worked just as well (as it recently did in Finland).

A bomb requires knowledge of assembly and materials involved, as well as the know-how to make it, place it, get away unnoticed, and detonate from afar. While a smart individual can do most of that reasonably easily, I can - as mentioned above - become a successful murderer with much greater ease using a rifle.

There are no 'Bomb Shows' for private citizens - they are reserved for heads of state and ministers of war. I wonder what the FBI would do if I built a couple of bombs and started selling them to the highest bidder in my backyard. Apples and oranges.

Derailing a train. There's lots of ways to kill randomly without guns. Happens all the time.

Strange. I don't see CNN reporting 24/7 about that. Terror is being inflicted right now in your backyard, and all it takes is a gun and a van. Pandora's box has been opened, and it contained FMJ rounds.

Sure, you can easily derail a train. But what tool is being used to intimidate millions, kill (potentially) dozens, and get a nation to hold its breath? It's not al-Qaeda training camps, it's not American Airline jets flown into buildings, it's not WMDs being stockpiled by a dictator at a secret Middle East location. It's a guy with a rifle.

As an aside, I think your flame baiting ("rant as you will", which is an obvious provocation) requires a bit of moderation. Maybe dave/dhamsaic is willing to mod this forum, and bring his well-exercised tempering approach to your posts. ;-)

X.

PS: I'd love to see some of the people voicing their pro-gun beliefs going up to the families of the murdered victims, looking into their eyes, and saying "Guns don't kill people." Especially to the husband who saw his wife dying right in front of his eyes, or the six (?) children of the man shot at the Manassas gas station.