VA Tech Shootings

Whenever there's s mass shooting, people start talking about gun control. I don't think gun control will prevent crime. If someone is determined to kill someone, that person will find a way. The biggest massing killing at a school took place on May 18, 1927, at Bath, Michigan.

A man named Kehoe became angry because he had to pay an extra tax for the building of Bath Consolidated School. He believed the financial problems the tax caused led to the foreclosure of his farm. On May 18, 1927, he killed his wife, blew up the barn, and then drove to school and set off the dynamite he had earlier planted inside the school. Most of the victims ranged from second graders to sixth graders. While rescue workers dug through the rubble, he ignited the dynamite he had in his car, killing himself and several bystanders. He killed a total of 45 people.

How would gun control have worked in this situation?

 

The two biggest mass murders in U.S. history were done with fertilizer, & airplanes.

 

Gun control would not prevent all killings, but just because of that fact, we do not have to go and make it easy for criminals to get guns? (Figuring that if they do come after us, we will pull out ours and always win). Again, nobody is trying to deny law abiding citizens any guns.

From what I heard, the Virginia law did not even require a background check, and especially not legal residence, since so many people from other states with gun laws are going down there to get them.

 

The biggest mass murder in US history began on January 22 1973 and has yet to end. It was done with a lie.

 

Murders happen in Massachusetts, where it is next to impossible to get a legal hangun. Respectfully, I believe the "gun free zone" was a contributing factor in this.

I don't have an answer for the law, 'cept maybe if New York didn't make it so hard to own a gun, people wouldn't go to Virginia. Maybe U.S. citizenship could be a requirement, but I don't have a problem with inter-state gun sales.

 

In addition, to being inaccurate, I thought the governor's speech was another fine example of PC Country USA...

"One of the most powerful stories in the human history of stories is that great story central to Judaism, Islam and Christianity; the story of Job..." - Governor Tim Kaine​

 

You need to check where you're hearing stuff, then.

To purchase a handgun, you have to pass a background check. This guy was apparently squeaky clean.

The only people who will be prevented from buying guns with more gun control laws will be law-abiding citizens. Do you realize just how few guns used in crimes are legally purchased? This one was an exception.

There are many times more people who are beaten to death than shot. Does this mean that we need to pass laws making it more difficult to obtain blunt objects?

More people die in car accidents than are murdered with guns.

Many times more people are stabbed than shot.

And more people die from deer attacks than snake bites.

Perception rules this day and age of emotionalism; logic has little value any more. People percieve that flying is dangerous and driving is safe, yet air travel, mile for mile, is many, many, many times safer.

Why?

Because when a plane crashes, it's spectacular! Hundreds dead all at once. Film footage galore.

The same with guns.

You don't hear about Joe Thug who was beaten to death by Billy Bob and Jim Bog Gangsta.

But, this murderous rampage in VA was spectacular!

So, it's perceived as being worse, even though it's not.

Oh, and for what it's worth, I have personally stopped three crimes using a handgun and one with a rifle, and only once had to even fire a warning shot. Four people were arrested.

All with guns that certain knee-jerk reactionaries want to ban because they look scary.

As an aside, while driving across Canada, I was not permitted to take my Ruger 10/22, because it's an "assault weapon", even though the bullets could bounce off a windshield. However, I could take my 91/30 and my 8mm Mauser, even though I could shoot someone through the entire car. They don't look scary.

 

Oh, I missed a few who I thought would be blamed who are now being blamed:

Americans in General

In Sydney, Australian Prime Minister John Howard said Tuesday the university shooting in Virginia showed that America's "gun culture" was a negative force in society. [Their violent crime rate has skyrocketed since they banned guns.]

In India, which has some 80,000 students in the U.S., commentators called for greater protection and stricter gun laws. [Stay home.]

"It's not a question of an Indian professor getting killed in the firing. This is related to the American gun laws," said K. Subrahmanyam, a former member of India's National Security Council.
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Congress (I saw this one coming)

Lapse of Federal Law Allows Sale of Large Ammo Clips

April 16, 2007 2:30 PM

Brian Ross and Dana Hughes Report:

High capacity ammo clips became widely available for sale when Congress failed to renew a law that banned assault weapons.
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Charlton Heston

With a view to Monday's deadly shooting rampage at Virginia Tech, European newspapers are blaming the lack of gun control measures in the United States and implying that Charlton Heston is indirectly responsible for the scope of the killings.

In America, "buying a machine gun is often easier than getting a driver's license."

Across the continent on Tuesday, European media rubber-neck at Monday's massacre in the United States. Most seem to agree about one thing: The shooting at Virginia Tech is the result of America's woeful lack of serious gun control laws. In the strongest editorialized image of the day, German cable news broadcaster NTV flashed an image of the former head of the National Rifle Association, the US gun lobby: In other words, blame rifle-wielding Charlton Heston for the 33 dead.

Papers reserve their sharpest criticism for the 2004 expiration of a 10-year ban on semi-automatic weapons under the then Republican-controlled Congress. Others comment on the pro-gun lobbying activities of Heston's NRA. Some papers also draw analogies between school shootings and Muslim fundamentalist suicide bombers.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/

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I expect the UN to make a demand that we surrender to their authority at some point in the next week or so.
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One way to settle the debate .. do states that have stringent gun control laws have a lower rate of gun death per capita than states that do not?

If they do, it would be worthwhile to exact gun control across the board.

 

Generally, places with the most stringent gun control laws have the highest rate of violent crime. When Australia banned guns, their violent crime skyrocketed by something like 400%.

Why would it be worthwhile to to violate the US Constitution?

 

Thanks for this info - do you have a source for this. I am interested in see some real numbers so that when I discuss the issue here it has bearing.

 

Don't so much care about Australia for our purposes. There could be other factors involved there. How about STATES that have gun control legislation in place?

The U.S. Constitution now has several dozen amendments. Do they all violate the Constitution? For example, the abolition of slavery, universal suffrage? If you say they do, please explain why we do not have the right to amend our own constitution. If not, could it be time for another amendment, one banning guns?

I don't see guns doing us any good at all and can't think of a reason they should be tolerated. Put the manufacturers out of business and be done with it, just like heroin and cigarettes and all the other social evils.

 

I am wondering what those of us who are preaching this Sunday intend to do with the Va Tech shootings. Will there be a special time of prayer to remember the families of the victims? Will the situation and its meaning be addressed in sermons, either tangentially or as the main theme of the message?

I am preaching at the church where I am a member, while our pastor and ten members are on their way to Louisiana for a Habitat build. I have felt led to preach on "Choose Life", from Deuteronomy 30:11-20, and to speak about how our culture in all too many ways promotes death, but we as Easter people are given the opportunity to choose life, proclaim life, teach life, share life.

If there are other preachers doing something like this, wouldn't it be helpful and interesting if we posted those sermons in the BB or at least offered links to them, if they are posted elsewhere?

 

The right of a citizen to bear arms is a deterrent to tyranny. All other rights of the citizen are upheld by this amendment. Men like Mao, Stalin and Hitler favored gun control, men like Washington, Jefferson, and Webster favored the 2nd amendment.

"Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the American people's liberty teeth and keystone under independence ... From the hour the Pilgrims landed, to the present day, events, occurrences, and tendencies prove that to insure peace, security and happiness, the rifle and pistol are equally indispensable . . . The very atmosphere of firearms everywhere restrains evil interference - they deserve a place of honor with all that is good." - George Washington​

"The strongest reason for people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government." - Thomas Jefferson
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"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any bands of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States" - Noah Webster​

"To prohibit a citizen from wearing or carrying a war arm . . . is an unwarranted restriction upon the constitutional right to keep and bear arms. If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of constitutional privilege." [Wilson v. State, 33 Ark. 557, at 560, 34 Am. Rep. 52, at 54 (1878)]
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One reason such horrific events like this happen are because of gun control laws that keep good, God-fearing people from carrying handguns to defend themselves and others. If some men in every classroom had their six-shooters with them in class, Mr. Cho wouldn't have made it past the first classroom. It's kind of hard to repel the pistol-bearing enemy with a straw and spitballs.

 

I just saw a headline that the Supreme Court is upholding a nationwide ban on partial-birth abortion for the first time ever. Wow!

 

Well it appears that the libs have lost one more tactic for the purpose of population control. ( But so as not to derail this thread I digress)


Praise the Lord!:godisgood::jesus::thumbs:

 

I will state up front that I think it makes no sense for citizens to be allowed to have guns except in really, really exceptional cases.

The above argument (from Rufus_1611) is certainly not to be dismissed lightly. It is entirely possible that an armed citizenry is a deterrent to tyranny. However, 3 problems come to mind:

1. Even if guns do deter tyranny, this does not suffice to show that allowing citizens to bear arms is the best choice, when all other dimensions of the problem are factored in. It is possible (note that I am only saying that it is possible) that the value in deterring tyrrany is less than the harm created by having guns in the hands of unstable people like the Virginia Tech person. So we need to look at what is optimal in the "big picture" sense.

2. The deterrent to tyrrany argument might fail in light of the specific nature of the military forces that we have today as compared to 200 years ago. With a modern military with such advanced and powerful weapons, it seems rather implausible that citizens with small arms would be much of a deterrent. There was not a similar imbalance 200 years ago when it was pretty much "our small arms vs the government's small arms".

3. We need to consider that a number of societies with strict gun control have existed for decades without tyranny coming to pass. I would think that most Western European nations since WWII fall into this category along with places like South Korea and Japan.

 

Remember the French riots, last year, when citizens watched their cars get burned, businesses looted, while the property owners stood their, helpless, and even the police retreated.

We need to protect American's right to defend against not only government tyranny, but against the dregs of society, as well.

Also, if everyone keeps bringing Europe as a model of what to act like, how come we can't have nuclear power, like they do ?

 

Europe is the last model of anything we should look to.