Cho fired 170 rounds in 9 minutes.

[smoogatz]

That's just under 19 rounds per minute, or one round every 3.15 seconds. But you know, the solution is for everybody to be nicer. And if you outlaw handguns, next you'll have to outlaw cars. And rocks.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070426/ap_on_re_us/virginia_tech_shooting

[originalpckelly]

1. Cars kill way more people than guns do.

About 3.5 times as many.

Of course what's really scary is that doctors, hospitals and nurses kill way more, because medical errors/complications are the third leading cause of death.

[JVS]

4. yeah, but you can't shoot your way to work

[originalpckelly]

8. Actually, you can, but it might be painful.

[bbernardini]

19. Not with THAT attitude, you can't.

:evilgrin:

[Glenda]

107. I take it you haven't driven in Massachusetts? n/t

[bluerum]

5. I wonder if,,,

we put a gun in every car, how would those numbers change?

[Hangingon]

96. SWome traffic behavior ...

makes me wish we had car to car Sparrow missles or some such.

[unpossibles]

7. millions of people also don't use their gun twice a day or more for 10-30 minutes at a time

just sayin it's apples and ... not even oranges. Potatoes.

[originalpckelly]

10. You keep telling yourself that. Cars are deadly weapons.

[hfojvt]

17. As I bicycle through town

I call them 'weapons of mass destruction' but that might be a little bit hyperbolic. :o

[smoogatz]

20. Right. So maybe you could look up and compare the average number

of U.S. vehicular homicides per year to the number of gun homicides. On average, there are 13,000 gun homicides per year in the U.S. Or maybe you could look up and compare the number of deaths total due to injury caused by firearms vs injury caused by motor vehicles (they're similar); then compare those figures to the number of households with guns (roughly 40%) vs the number with cars (92%), and tell me which is more dangerous. This dumbass car argument is apparently the best the pro-gun people have to offer. My advice: try harder.

[Javaman]

26. I always find that when people post the facts supported by

stats, they never get a reply. LOL

Great post. I post marking for future reference.

[jmg257]

28. Actually, motor vehicle deaths = 43,400 Gun-related deaths is about 31,400. But close!

Suicides being the big number at roughly 16,700. Of course, 15,7000 kill themselves without guns.
Gun related homicides are around 12,000, accidental deaths about 650.

[Clark2008]

33. You didn't factor in how many people die from pollution emitted

from cars.

That's probably worse than even someone smoking... somewhere... outside... on their own property... in a hole... or wherever they've stuck them today.

[unpossibles]

30. I don't disagree with that in the least

and in fact, I think too many take cars for granted and do stupid things with them like reading while driving.

I still say they are different because the reason for a car is not to run someone over.

[originalpckelly]

46. Completely correct, they aren't intended to kill.

So it is an obvious difference, but the net effect on the US population is probably the most important determining factor. I worry more about cars because so few people treat a car like it is deadly.

[Maat]

11. Undoubtedly what you say is true, but I still say that this situation cries out for ..

more effective gun control.

I live in a very suburban (crowded) neighborhood, and the only one of my neighbors that should have a semiautomatic is the cop across the street, who is a gentle, even-tempered soul who is very well-trained, in terms of weapons. As to my other neighbors, there is a far greater likelihood that someone is the household will be injured by the household gun than any burglar or robber (actually, we've never had any such crime in our neighborhood in its entire existence).

In this retired social worker's opinion, what the VT killings tell us is that we need universal healthcare and a system in which mental health treatment is put on parity with treatment of other illnesses.

[OlderButWiser]

21. "a gentle, even-tempered soul "

And you're describing a cop? Is that sarcasm?

[Maat]

62. Nope. Not being sarcastic.

Worked as a Child Protective Services officer ("social worker") for many years, and many of the sheriffs that I worked with were very well-trained in successful, nonviolent conflict resolution and domestic intervention. My neighbor has a very congenial nature, and is very well-trained in these things also.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

12. Cars require licenses and registration and safety training.

[A HERETIC I AM]

73. "Safety Training"? Now that made me actually Laugh out Loud!

They might "require" registration but they don't require a license to operate one. Any nimrod that is barely tall enough to reach the pedals can get behind the wheel and operate an automobile. Legally, yes, a license is required by the state to operate a motor vehicle but it isn't a prerequisite to it's operation, safe or otherwise and the ability to safely operate that vehicle is determined by the state is via modest and cursory observation AT BEST.

Just exactly how much "safety training" did YOU receive before you got your drivers license? My bet is not much if any and the fact is, American Drivers as a group are horribly badly trained as operators of cars when compared to England or Germany, for instance.

Guns don't re1quire training either in order to operate them effectively, just for the record. If a person had never seen a gun before, it does not take long for the average human to figure out "Point and pull the trigger" is all that is necessary to effect operation of the device. Even if that first experience is self destruction, the lesson is learned.

I am not arguing either side of the debate on this thread, merely commenting on the statement made in your post.

"Cars require safety training" as a statement is not only false but largely ignored in the United States.

[Hangingon]

97. "Cars require safety training" as a statement is not only false ...

but largely ignored in the United States. Sadly this is true here in South Texas. Insurance is required, but there are lots of cars being driven without insurance by unlicensed drivers.

[originalpckelly]

85. And I think it would be extremely reasonable to say the same of guns.

Mandatory safety training would probably eliminate the only couple hundred deaths that occur accidentally, but it should be done anyway.

[smoogatz]

14. So, you're willing to live with an average of 13,000 gun homicides

every year in this country because more people die in car accidents? That's your argument?

[frankenforpres]

55. many on DU

support population control :sarcasm:

[originalpckelly]

84. So you're willing to live with an average of 42,000 deaths in cars?

It would seem to me that dead is dead. Or maybe I just don't get it?

Aren't those deaths we could potentially prevent?

[Virginia Dare]

89. I got no problem with bringing back the horse and buggy...n/t

[doc03]

104. Cars themselves rarely kill anybody, I guess you could

say they did in a few cases because of mechanical failure. The person operating the vehicle does the killing either from driver error or DWI most of the time. I don't see anyone outlawing cars and possessing a car is not even a Constitutional Right. I can can put my .357 on my kitchen table and it would be there 10 years from now as long as nobody picked it up it would never harm anyone. It takes someone to pull the trigger. I didn't see any call to outlaw knives when OJ killed his victims.

[onehandle]

109. People use cars way more than they use guns.

Which is one reason that that argument is pointless.

What's really scary is the thought of same number of people who ride in vehicles every day carrying guns every day.

[piedmont]

2. Britain outlawed handguns. Did their overall murder rate go down? nt

[smoogatz]

13. The US's murder rate is three times higher than the UK's.

Does that answer your question?

[piedmont]

16. No, it doesn't. Thanks for trying.

[smoogatz]

25. How do you account for the difference in murder rates?

Are the British just that much more civilized than Americans are? How do you account for the fact that the U.S. has the highest per capita homicide rate of any developed, first-world nation BY FAR? Are Americans just crazed savages, inclined to murder their countrymen at the drop of a hat? Or is it possible, maybe, that there's some significance to the fact that all of those other western nations, every single one, either strictly regulates or bans outright the private ownership of handguns?

[piedmont]

27. Since their rates are higher AFTER the handgun ban, I'd say it wasn't the handguns

For starters, I don't chalk up differences in crime rate between nations to single factors such as gun laws or degree of savagery. This isn't a replicated, repeatable experiment, and there's way too much noise to make out any signal.
But Britain did exactly what you propose for the U.S. and their homicide rate WENT UP.

[smoogatz]

31. Please site your source for this information.

Then site any instance in which a country's murder rate declined after handguns became more readily available.

[jmg257]

35. This is a good site showing increases in crime in UK.

http://www.crimestatistics.org.uk/output/page66.asp

Be carefull about the notes though, some indicators have changed in '98 - but seems most rates are WAAY up since then - like "violent crime", & "violence against person", yet other rates are down - like homicide. Have to figure out how they define catagories!

http://www.crimestatistics.org.uk/output/page39.asp

[smoogatz]

38. Doesn't seem to saymuch about homicide rates

unless I'm misreading it somehow.

[jmg257]

39. I know it's confusing - here's a good link to the homicide rates (up then down)

http://www.crimestatistics.org.uk/output/page40.asp

[smoogatz]

47. Looks like a nasty spike there after 2001.

But they also apparently didn't include data from the Transport Police (whatever the fuck they are) before 2002, and they don't tell us how many additional cases that might represent. Also you've got your London bombings and serial killer Harold Shippman in the mix. And, of course, the Brits get all tweaky when they get break 1,000 homicides in a given year--hell, we do 13,000 gun homicides alone in an average year.

[jmg257]

50. Doesn't it suck? My head was spinning trying to figure that out! I thought the UCR was bad! nt

[piedmont]

42. Alrighty.

Here's one source:
http://www.crimestatistics.org.uk/output/page40.asp




Then site any instance in which a country's murder rate declined after handguns became more readily available.
I don't need to. You are the one pushing an authoritarian prohibition. The burden is on YOU to show that the prohibition will do more good than harm.

[smoogatz]

51. Authoritarian prohibition?

You mean like Canada, the UK and Japan? Those famously authoritarian states?

[piedmont]

56. You don't have to be a dictatorship to enact authoritarian prohibition.

See the 18th amendment, for ex.

[Irreverend IX]

67. Japan's pretty damn authoritarian.

Most people there don't have any trouble with the law, but if you do get arrested you have pretty much no protections. They can beat a confession out of you if they want, and if you're brought up on false charges you're pretty much SOL. There's no equivalent to the 4th Amendment either.

As for the UK, they have four million public surveillance cameras, and there's a large faction within their government that constantly pushes to allow arbitrary searches by police, biometric citizen IDs and other policies that make the Patriot Act look like Steal This Book.

[marshall]

32. Statiscial comparison

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap-crime-murders-per-capita

Interesting that the US is #24 on the list of most murderous country per capita, and the UK is #46.

[smoogatz]

36. Yep.

It's also interesting to note which countries have murder rates similar to or exceeding ours. I don't see a developed western state anywhere near us--not until you get to Portugal (#33). No major inudstrial state until S. Korea (#38). No major European power until France (#40).

[billbuckhead]

23. They only 46 gun homicides in the UK, an over twenty year low

Britain's 46 homicides involving firearms last year was the lowest since the late 1980s.

<http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1611932,00.html>

[piedmont]

29. Tell that to the people killed by fists, knives, clubs, etc. Their overall homicide rate went UP.

"At least you weren't killed by something EVIL, like a GUN."

[smoogatz]

34. Cite, please. n/t

[piedmont]

44. see above. nt

[smoogatz]

49. Saw that.

Looks like their homicide rate spiked in 2002, and is currently trending down. I guess the club and knife ban is having its intended effect. Or maybe the spike was a bit of a statistical anomaly, due in part to changes in the way they do their record-keeping. Or did you skip that bit?

[piedmont]

54. good

Looks like their homicide rate spiked in 2002, and is currently trending down. I guess the club and knife ban is having its intended effect. Or maybe the spike was a bit of a statistical anomaly, due in part to changes in the way they do their record-keeping. Or did you skip that bit?
Possibly. It's still above where it was before the ban. I didn't skip anything-- the British Transportation Police is a force of only 3000 officers who cover the railways. Even if their data somehow weren't counted before, I doubt it would have altered the trend by much.

[smoogatz]

58. So, are you saying that the ban is responsible for the increase in gun

crime in Britain? Because nobody in the UK except a few far-right whackjobs appears to be of that opinion.

[piedmont]

59. I have no idea what's responsible. I know the gun ban didn't reduce homicides, though.

Here's a report from Scotland that suggests murderers just switched to knives:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4527570.stm

[smoogatz]

65. I wonder about the homicide rate in the UK, versus the raw number

of homicides. Has that gone up, too, in any significant way?

On edit: regardless, handguns were very strictly regulated in the UK before the ban, and the UK had and continues to have a murder rate that's a fraction of ours. So the fact that their very small number of murders have temporarily spiked up to a still very low number is kind of irrelevant. Also, the UK is just one country--look at the rest of the developed world compared to the U.S., and you can't deny there's a clear pattern: where guns are regulated and relatively scarce, homicides are relatively rare. Where guns are unregulated and common, homicides are common.

[piedmont]

78. Correlation does not equal causation.

"look at the rest of the developed world compared to the U.S., and you can't deny there's a clear pattern: where guns are regulated and relatively scarce, homicides are relatively rare."

Look at Switzerland: gun laws far more like our own than like the U.K., and a gun:person ratio of almost 1:3, and the second-lowest murder rate in Europe:
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap-crime-murders-per-capita


For what it's worth, from a Wikipedia article (I'll probably look into the sources of this article in the next few days):
In some 2001 statistics,<4> it is noted that there are about 420,000 assault rifles stored at private homes, mostly SIG 550 types. Additionally, there are some 320,000 assault rifles and military pistols exempted from military service in private possession, all selective-fire weapons having been converted to semi-automatic operation only. In addition, there are several hundred thousand other semi-automatic small arms classified as carbines. The total number of firearms in private homes is estimated minimally at 1.2 million; more liberal estimates put the number at 3 million.

http://www.ssn.ethz.ch/info_dienst/medien/nzz/documents/2004/07/20040718Zivilewaffen.pdf
translated by google:
418465 storm rifles and pistols of Swiss army are kept at home at present by soldiers, young or for other contactors - by the majority storm rifles 90. That comes out from the new “overview weapon existence”, which rises up the logistics basis of the army aufAnf the “NZZ on Sunday” provided. The last overview dates from 2001. According to the statistics to today 324484 storm rifles and pistols as well as several hundredthousand carbines changed over in the property of former soldiers.

[derby378]

106. Not to mention the fact that the UK is now a police state

Check this out:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x777148

[Taverner]

3. Cars are indeed more dangerous

We don't need new gun laws, we need to enforce the ones we have.

[originalpckelly]

6. Or realize that cars are as deadly as guns. At least most people who pick up a gun...

have an intense understanding they are using something that can kill. Few people have that thought the second they sit down in the drivers seat.

[Oeditpus Rex]

24. At least most people who sit down in a driver's seat

have been taught proper operation of a vehicle and are licensed to do so, as is the vehicle itself.

[Taverner]

102. Very True n/t

[smoogatz]

15. We need to ban the manufacture, import and sale of hanguns.

I can't think of a single good reason not to.

[jmg257]

48. Here is the primary one - they are a great choice for self-defense.

Until you can guarantee criminals and murderers won't get them, or knives, and bats, and any other dangerous instruments, - other people will want them. Their lives may depend on it. Pretty powerful reason.

[Taverner]

101. I can: Revolt against Tyranny

When they come for me with their guns (as Conservatives have been known to do in the past) I want to shoot back.

[BlooInBloo]

9. No - the solution is more guns. Everybody knows more guns = less killing.

[MissMarple]

18. I'm sure he was grateful to the GOP for allowing his clips to be sold over the counter.

I guess we all need to be prepared for our "Jericho" experiences. :sarcasm:

And I like to shoot guns. It's fun, in the right context, that is.

[jmg257]

43. Usually 2 magazines come with the gun, and are indeed readily available.

Ammo and mags can legally be bought on-line, at gun stores etc.

What is interesting is that he apparently used 10 rounders (from ebay) and probably/possibly 15rounders or so that would have come with the Glock. The 10 rounders are "assault ban" legal, the normal capacities wouldn't have been.

[gatorboy]

22. I thought the solution was everyone should've rushed him.

In a hail pf bullets, apparently.

[trumad]

37. Well--- 13 rounds per clip

thats about 13 clips. Thats very doable in 9 minutes.

[smoogatz]

40. Sure it's doable.

But is it the kind of thing we ought to encourage/enable by making these weapons readily available to any nutball that wants them? I guess that's my question. DU seems to think, in the main, that it is.

[Robb]

41. Well, with changing them and what-not

...still one hell of a lot of firing. That's what struck me from the beginning, the body count, and the number of shots he got off. Staggering.

[jmg257]

45. What is scary is the NINE MINUTES he had - unimpeded. Do NOT rely on the police to protect you! nt

[trumad]

52. Indeed

But thats what 13 clip semi-autos can do...... push a button--- the clip falls out and you then insert another---all in about 4 seconds.

[Wcross]

61. No such thing as a glock "clip".

I know they sell magazines for the Glock but I have never heard of a "clip" being sold for use with a Glock.

[saltpoint]

53. I think reducing the number of automobiles and greatly increasing

the construction of and reliance on public transportation is well worth looking into.

I'd like to see some bullet trains going up all across the continent with significant feeder arms into Canada and Mexico.

The rocks have been with us forever, I bet literally forever, and the VT tragedy was unstoppable.

But let's do work for a more environmentally responsible policy on public and freight transport.

[RL3AO]

57. All banning handguns will do

is create a bigger black market of untracable guns.

[aikoaiko]

100. and cause lots of boating accidents.

;)

[porque no]

60. All the usual suspects spouting the same old rhetoric.

The types of guns Cho used fall into the same category as a 50 Cal machine gun, which is illegal. That category is "too dangerous in the wrong hands". Those small, concealable weapons can do way too much damage. It ain't worth it.

If you can ban the 50 Cal machine gun you can ban those. The boys will just have to do with revolvers and rifles and shotguns, darn.

To the usual suspects, now would be a good time to bust out the "slippery slope" canard.

[jmg257]

63. Except for the fact that so many police carry them. Tough to make

such a popular pistol illegal. They made the move from revolver to semi a while ago - don't see them going back soon.

[LostinVA]

68. Police and military can carry them

[jmg257]

71. Because they are so trustworthy? What about the little people who really need protecting? nt

[Maat]

66. One can still prohibit semiautomatic handguns for personal use.

An exception can be made for military personnel and police. As it is now, there are many such exceptions in the law right now.

Semiautomatic handguns - I would not have one in my house, due to my experiences as a social worker. Teenagers and drunken parents tend to use them rather frequently to commit suicide. It is FAR more likely that the suicide scenario will happen rather than the handgun protecting anyone. The only people that have protected by semi-auto handguns are cops (and they would still be able to have them if any gun control law were passed).

[jmg257]

70. With 100s of thousands of defensive uses of guns annually, it is hard to know

which are semi pistols, revolvers, shotguns etc; we know there are way more defensive uses then suicides. I think getting rid of the reasons people want to kill themselves would be more effective.

IF the goal is to keep criminals from, getting them, having so many still avalible to the police and military will not be an effective way of controlling illegal weapons. Like the war on drugs - criminals find a way.

And, did you see that video of the cop beating up that women in Chicago? You really trust the cops, and Bush's military that much? Either way, i know I do not want to wait 9 minutes for the cops to come and save me - and I use to be 1!

[smoogatz]

77. I call bullshit on that bullshit.

The DoJ study puts the annual number of defensive gun uses at under 100k; far fewer than the number of gun crimes.

[derby378]

79. Depends on how you define "defensive uses"

If you define it as actually firing a pistol at a would-be murderer or rapist, the number will naturally be a lot smaller than the number of instances where a gun was merely brandished at a two-bit thug who then turned tail and ran for his life.

[jmg257]

87. It depeneds on what DOJ - Clinton's found it was possible in the millions:

This 1st from a pro-gun site - obviously a biased source:

"So, to refute the results of the National Self Defense Survey (the famous "2.5 Million" defensive uses), two pro-gun-control researchers, Philip Cook and Jens Ludwig, were given funding by the Clinton administration's Department of Justice to do their own survey of Defensive Gun Uses, to attempt to prove that the National Self Defense Survey's estimate was too high.
Unfortunately for advocates of gun control, the Cook-Ludwig survey produced results about the same as the National Self Defense Survey and -- in one remarkable paragraph -- suggested that their methodology was too conservative and that the Defensive Gun Use figure could even be doubled:"

and...
"* Even anti-gun Clinton researchers concede that guns are used 1.5 million times annually for self-defense. According to the Clinton Justice Department, there are as many as 1.5 million cases of self-defense with a firearm every year. The National Institute of Justice published this figure in 1997 as part of "Guns in America"—a study which was authored by noted anti-gun criminologists Philip Cook and Jens Ludwig."

And from the actual report:
http://www.pulpless.com/gunclock/165476.pdf
(which is about as confusing to read as those UK stats!)

On the basis of National Crime
Victimization Survey (NCVS) data, one
would conclude that defensive uses
are rare indeed, about 108,000 per
year. But other surveys yield far higher
estimates of the number of DGUs.
The key explanation for the difference
between the 108,000 NCVS estimate
for the annual number of DGUs and
the several million from the surveys
discussed earlier is that NCVS avoids
the false-positive problem by limiting
DGU questions to persons who first reported
that they were crime victims.
Most NCVS respondents never have a
chance to answer the DGU question,
falsely or otherwise.

Regardless of which
estimates one believes, only a small fraction
of adults have used guns defensively
in 1994. The only question is whether
that fraction is 1 in 1,800 (as one would
conclude from the NCVS) or 1 in 100
(as indicated by the NSPOF estimate
based on Kleck and Gertz's criteria).


Personally - I thought I had read it was a..."guaranteed" 370,000 DGU - with the 2.5 million number at the extreme top. I thought for sure I had read other DOJ stats that I now can't find - can you link to your source?

[Irreverend IX]

75. You want to ban semiautos because of the risk of suicide?

You can commit suicide with any firearm. It doesn't have to be concealable and capable of rapid fire. A single-shot shotgun is a great choice for offing yourself. If you want to stop suicides, you'll have to ban every single firearm out there.

And you think that cops are super-skilled with guns and that you can trust them to protect you? I wouldn't trust these two cops:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/LAW/04/26/atlanta.indictments.ap/index.html

I'm getting sick of the myth that cops have a level of firearms training that ordinary citizens can never achieve. I've seen a lot of cops at the local ranges, and most are miserable shots. They only have to practice for half an hour every six months, while civilian shooters usually get to the range a lot more often. After all, the civilians actually enjoy shooting while to most cops the gun is just another piece of heavy equipment they have to carry. There's a small minority of cops who pursue advanced training, but the number of civilian shooters who go for that training is by all accounts higher.

And you go on to say that no civilian has ever protected themself with a semiauto handgun? Bad move.

http://www.packing.org/oldnews/article/?article=10200

I found this in 2 seconds with Google. Here's a story about a guy who took down multiple armed robbers over a few years with semiautos and revolvers:

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-82533205.html

[scrinmaster]

98. Considering that it only takes one bullet to kill yourself,

I don't really see why a semi-auto handgun is any different from any other gun. It's not like you can pull the trigger twice.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

88. .50 isn't illegal. Just extra hoops to jump through

With a special tax stamp and a "whole lotta money", you too can have one.

The M2 machine gun is not easy to carry "concealed", though. On the "good" side, the M2 is not used in many crimes.

[scrinmaster]

99. About $32,000.

Legally owned machine guns have only been used in one crime ever, since the National Firearms Act in 1934. Some cop who shot his wife with his Mac-10.

[RL3AO]

64. The day the Dems ban all hand guns

is the day the Dems can kiss the next 5 elections goodbye.

[smoogatz]

72. Such is the power of the gun manufacturers' lobby

which holds us all as literal hostages.

[Pavulon]

74. Nom the power of reason

I should , as law abiding member of this society, be able to own a weapon. Change the constitution, or drop it.

[Irreverend IX]

76. The NRA is not a gun manufacturers' lobby.

It is a gun owners' lobby. The entire gun business is worth $2 billion a year, a paltry amount compared to the food, pharma, auto, electronics and other industries. The gun lobby gets its power from millions of individual gun owners who don't want to see their right to keep and bear arms curtailed because of the acts of a few criminals and nutcases.

[benEzra]

80. No, it's the power of 40 MILLION HANDGUN OWNERS...

that would create the backlash at the polls; the NRA membership is only 4 million. There are around 40 million handgun owners, and every single one of them is of voting age.

Do the math.

Merely raising prices on pistol magazines, and restricting certain cosmetic features on new civilian rifles, cost the House AND the Senate in '94 and the presidency in '00. Care to speculate on how an outright ban would fly? Never mind the civil war you'd have to fight (the literal kind) in order to actually take them.

[billbuckhead]

82. NRA takes money not just from arms merchants but the tobacco industry

I guess they have "common" interests.

[smoogatz]

86. Uh, maybe.

Although the various congressional scandals and general ineffctiveness might have had something to do with '94. And it's just this side of possible that Monica Lewinsky may have had some slight impact in '00. But I have no doubt that the NRA would like everyone to think that gun owners (of which I'm one, btw) all vote in lockstep against the interests of the 260 million Americans that don't own guns.

On edit: almost forgot--in 2000 there was also that business down in Florida. You know. It ended up with the SCOTUS appointing the wrong guy to the presidency.

[benEzra]

91. You think Florida would have been close enough to recount

had Gore not been running on a ban-more-guns message in the Gunshine state?

I don't. But Gore would have won even WITHOUT Florida had he carried WV and his home state of TN, and he lost those on the gun issue.

[smoogatz]

92. I'm pretty sure FL wouldn't have been close enough to recount

had it not been for large-scale election fraud and voter suppression carried out by Katherine Harris, at the direction of Jeb Bush. But hey, what do I know. As for WV and TN, you may well be right.

[benEzra]

95. Quite possible. But gun rights are indeed a huge issue in FL. (n/t)

[billbuckhead]

110. So Gore won even in Florida against the gun lobby in a fair election

People vote against all kind of guns for everyone, everywhere as well as for. Only through corruption and unfair elections does the gun lobby side ever win.

[Venus Dog]

69. He was a pretty good marksman for a lonenut English major

:eyes:

[benEzra]

81. Point blank range, not marksmanship.

I don't think his choice of major had anything to do with what he did, or what skills he might have possessed. He was shooting trapped people at point blank range in a confined environment, and was under absolutely no pressure from police or anybody else shooting back, for nine minutes.

BTW, I was an English major at the undergrad and graduate levels. I suppose that there are plenty of people who think that pursuing an M.A. in English and lit crit is wierd, but we're not all nuts. :crazy:

[Venus Dog]

83. My B.A. was in English , too, and I'm proud of it

I've also been accused of being a "loner" and I've also had gun training. With some of the same attributes as the gunmen, I don't think I could have shot so accurately even at such a close range under so much stress, so many times. That was my point. I guess even English majors lose the ability to grasp irony at times.:evilgrin:

[benEzra]

94. I don't think psychopaths like Cho are typically under stress

when they feel in control of the situation. Reports say the Columbine killers were smiling and laughing (!) as they were shooting people with their shotguns.

Once armed police broke through his barricades, Cho gave up and shot himself. But prior to that point, one can't assume he was stressed; that lack of empathy that a normal person would feel is one of the things that makes somebody a psychopath.

[Hunter_1253]

90. I don't understand why people...

insist on making this a gun issue. Guns are a red herring in this case. This is a mental health issue in this country. Cho was diagnosed with a form of autism, most likely Asperger's syndrome from the descriptions of his behavior that have come out. His problems were noted by family, teachers, and acquaintances. His condition was ignored by those who had the responsibility to get him help, forcibly if necessary. He was written off as weird and angry by those around him, and then people wonder why this weird, angry young man went on a shooting spree.

The violence was the net effect of his collapsing mental state. The root cause was the collapsing mental state over 20 some years. Cho could have easily picked up a knife, a baseball bat, or used his bare hands to commit violence. For those who say "fewer would have died, so guns are still bad", well, he could have also made explosives out of fairly common components or driven a car through campus running over people. Attack the root cause first, not the effect.

[Paladin]

93. It Most Certainly IS A Gun Issue

As long as we have a society with such sub-standard treatment of mental health afflictions, as long as we have a society that is so prone to mayhem and violence, the easy availability of firearms will be the equivalent of dumping gasoline on a forest fire. Painfully obvious fact: there are plenty of sociopathic "loners" in Oslo, Jakarta, Buenos Aires, Milan, and thousands of other places around the globe, and yet this country, with its gigantic supply of easily-acquired guns, is the only place where bloodbaths like the one at VTech have become commonplace. "Attack the root cause first"? Sure, why don't you go find us the several trillion dollars it will take to accomplish that worthy task; in the meantime, we need to do something about the gun situation.....

[billbuckhead]

103. Guns owners need to at least pay taxes to compensate society for costs

Since the gun companies can't be sued.

[derby378]

105. Innocent until proven guilty. And another thing...

You're proposing to tax me for a Constitutional right. What if I wanted to pass a Free Speech Tax on you to compensate society for having to actually think about issues instead of merely swallowing whatever swill the Bush administration fed them?

It cuts both ways, Bill. You want to curb gun violence? I'm on your side. You want to curb gun ownership? Then we've got problems.

[Paladin]

108. And Just Exactly What Are You, As A Gun Militant......

...prepared to do to curb gun violence? I mean proactively, before the next college campus is turned into a charnel house?