Shooting at Virginia Tech

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by piercehawkeye45

What the hell is that suppose to prove? Whether or not 100,000 or 2 people have died from poisoning, it doesn’t change the fact that 12,000 people have died from homicide in 2004. I have never compared firearm deaths to any other death statistics because I don't think it is a contest, they are all horrible and we should be working to prevent deaths in every field. If you are honestly using this to back up a pro-gun view, I highly suggest looking at yourself and what you stand for.

Don't be a frigging tool... the point is that the statistics are not all that alarming when taken in the context of all deaths. 46,000 people died from MVA's and I don't hear you quoting some anti-auto site to make sensational claims. Death is a fact of life, here, over there, everywhere. I don't think this is a contest either. This is a discussion, keep it that way. Given that there were 2,400,000 deaths in the US in 2004 the figure of 12,000 deaths is a whopping 0.005% of all deaths in the US for that year.

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr54/nvsr54_19.pdf

[duck_duck]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Don't be a frigging tool... the point is that the statistics are not all that alarming when taken in the context of all deaths. 46,000 people died from MVA's and I don't hear you quoting some anti-auto site to make sensational claims. Death is a fact of life, here, over there, everywhere. I don't think this is a contest either. This is a discussion, keep it that way. Given that there were 2,400,000 deaths in the US in 2004 the figure of 12,000 deaths is a whopping 0.005% of all deaths in the US for that year.

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr54/nvsr54_19.pdf

That is an unrealistic comparison because guns are designed weapons and cars are not.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by duck_duck

That is an unrealistic comparison because guns are designed weapons and cars are not.

I guess my comments are about things we can do to avoid deaths in general. Regardless of what causes them.

[piercehawkeye45]

We should work to prevent deaths in all fronts, including cars and poison.

Ibram, I am not putting all the blame on the kids that made fun of him and I don’t have any sympathy for this guy, I can just relate to him in some ways. He had no right to do this or even come close to doing this but I am just making the point that if you make some kids life a living hell and make him feel excluded from society and you let him buy a gun, what do you think would have happened?

[zippyt]

I have NOT red ANY of this thread , ALL you gun haters F off and die !!!

Look at this and wounder WHY kids Kill !!!

[freshnesschronic]

I just watched some video of Cho on ebaumsworld. (He has no accent at all, by the way)

That man was so out of touch with everything that I felt painfully awkward when I viewed it. I support the moment of silence tomorrow at 11 AM in the United States. I will also wear orange and maroon to support Virginia Tech. Man, some things in this life are just unneccessary and irrelevant and the consequences are devastating and disgusting.

[wolf]

Originally Posted by sycamore

I'm not sure what exactly you're saying here, Wolf. If he was schizophrenic, it certainly could have been a result of environmental and/or psychosocial factors.

Most of the current research indicates that schizophrenia is a brain disorder, either chemical or structural. Stressors can exacerbate symptoms, but they don't cause the disease.

Originally Posted by sycamore

1) "If it bleeds, it leads"...that's journalism in today's society. Did the police really expect NBC to sit on it?

NBC only posted the excerpts they did because they were given permission. Frankly, I'd love to see the entire manifesto, including all the video clips.

I collect crazy guy manifestos whenever possible.

I have some good suicide notes, too.

Originally Posted by sycamore

So is April the official month of crazy? Look how much bad shit has happened in April in this country.

I go to a conference every other year on Critical Incident Stress Management. Three times, half of the conference speakers (mostly the FBI guys and other sorts of feds) have had to leave because "something happened." "Something" being things like Branch Davidian, Oklahoma City, and Columbine ... all occured during the conference.

We actually experience a lull in April at the nuthouse. When I left work tonight we were at 64% capacity. We usually are closer to 95%, and gone as high as 116%, but usually manage to cap things at around 105%. Yes, we end up with more patients than we have beds.

Originally Posted by AgentApathy

To look at these figures, it seems like we need to balance US suicide figures against those of others where violence is "less rampant." Do you really think that suicides will cease to happen if guns aren't available, or (more likely) that people will just find another way?

Although they get a lot more attention, I deal with relatively few suicides by firearm. Based on my own experience, I'd put #1 at overdose, #2 cutting, #3 jumping from high places. #4 kind of sorts out to CO poisoning, hanging, and other (I had a suicide attempt by toothpaste ingestion once). It stands to reason that a higher number of completed suicides are by firearm, but I don't think it would #1 for attempts. Stats on completed suicides are pretty easy to find, I've searched around a bit and can't find any for attempt without completion. There are 16 attempted suicides for every completed suicide according to the CDC.

Originally Posted by duck_duck

That is an unrealistic comparison because guns are designed weapons and cars are not.

Ted Kennedy's car has killed more people than ALL of my firearms (and knives and swords).

[duck_duck]

Originally Posted by wolf

Ted Kennedy's car has killed more people than ALL of my firearms (and knives and swords).

That is irrelevant. Whomever ted kennedy is, his car was not designed as a weapon nor is it something that can be banned because a great deal of ameicans depend on cars to work, go to the market etc.
Guns on the other hand are specifically designed to kill. It is not wise to allow a population that glorifies violence to have access to firearms.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Duck duck, I'm sorry but you are very much mistaken, and following that particular mistake leads to genocides, as has been demonstrated seven or eight times in the last century. Armed populations do not suffer genocides because they can kill off the Einsatzkommandos before they can have sufficient effect -- it took the available might of the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS plus the Romanian Iron Guard and Gestapo an entire month to reduce the Warsaw Ghetto. Now imagine the likely outcome of the Final Solution if every Jew in Europe had had a Mauser Kar-98 and two hundred rounds of ready ammunition -- I mean, would anyone disapprove of an empty Auschwitz and a heap of dead Nazis?

It is wise to prevent genocides, and there is only one known way: stay armed. Genocides happen when three factors come together: hatred, government/state power, and gun control laws.

That is an unrealistic comparison because guns are designed weapons and cars are not.

Funnily enough, automobile accidents are by the numbers thirty-five times as lethal as firearms accidents, and even deliberate homicides only increase the numbers to approximate parity -- and a third of the homicides are ruled justifiable: lawful, that is. Killing bad guys. What's more, two-thirds of the unjustifiables are bad guys on bad guys. This is a net social plus no matter what your point of view is.

We may sum up the Virginia Tech massacre in very simple terms: in places where strong gun control is in place (college campuses generally are such), what you have created is hunting preserves for crazies.

And there is a solution to this kind of problem. It's not exactly nice, but then, getting murdered isn't very nice either, is it? I'll tell you what it is later.

The other thing that really strikes me is how much general resemblance there is between Cho Seung-Hui's diatribe and Ted Kascinski's manifesto: there are lengthy listings of grievances that are in the authors' eyes monstrous, enormous wrongs; there's a fury of resentment -- and then there's a complete inability to come up with any solution or resolution of any of it. They will make some approach to figuring out how to resolve it but will stop short of doing so; there is an incompleteness to their thinking. It stops at the sound and fury and at the revenge fantasy.

[duck_duck]

There was also genocide in america by the government towards an armed native american population and most of them died anyway. If you want to prevent genocide then the civilized nations of the world should be proactive in preventing monsters like hitler, stalin, saddam etc. from coming to power or staying in power.

As for automobile deaths, what does that have to do with guns? It is not a numbers game and it isn't realistic to compare the two. You cannot ban cars and they are not made as weapons. Just because one has a greater number of deaths per year does not mean the lesser is ok.
Also pointing out college campuses have gun control doesn't mean anything since anybody can walk off said campus, go buy a gun and then walk back on the campus and kill at will.
I understand the pro-gun argument and believe most american gun owners are good people but making guns so available in a nation makes it that much easier for the bad guys to get them.
America should not only ban it's guns but make sure anybody who is ever convicted of a violent crime, never see the light of day ever again.

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by wolf

...Ted Kennedy's car has killed more people than ALL of my firearms (and knives and swords).

So has Laura Bush's. Your point?

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Ha, ha, ha.

Damm tootin. There is not enough money out there to fix the problems with the mental health system in the US.

So, in order for you to put money in your own pocket, you're willing to sacrifice more people to this kind of mental-illness-spawned killing spree? It WILL happen again, and at a new record level.

[AgentApathy]

Originally Posted by duck_duck

Whomever ted kennedy is,

Let me get this right: you want to speak authoritatively on the US based on your short time here, but you don't know who Ted Kennedy is?

I think you can STFU now.

[Kitsune]

Originally Posted by zippyt

Look at this and wounder WHY kids Kill !!!

I'm going to hell for laughing so loudly at that.

[AgentApathy]

The US is NOT the most violent nation in the world for gun violence. There's a chart here: http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcgvintl.html that lists firearm deaths per 100,000. The US comes in at 3.72/100,000 and interestingly enough Northern Ireland comes in at 5.24, Brazil at 10.58, Estonia at 8.07, Mexico at 9.88, and Italy, even at 1.88! Italy comes in at more than half what the US does, but I don't ever hear of anyone cancelling honeymoons to Italy or Ireland or trips to Carnivale because they are afraid of being shot.

It's your choice to live in fear. Duck duck, I've read enough of your drivel here that I sincerely hope that you never come back to my country. We have our problems, but your country has its own. With your head that firmly stuck in the sand, my only wish is that the internet didn't have subterranean reach.