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8 Responses to "I Don’t Like Mondays"

1. | Reply Christopher
   Posted 17 Apr 2007 at 1:12am #
   

   I don't know what effect this will have on the gun debate, and we'll have to wait until the ballistics and ownership checks come back on the weapons.

   I do know this: I'm a student at Tech. I had friends in that building that are all thankfully safe. Virginia Tech policy is to expel any student caught carrying a concealed weapon (I need to look up the exact wording of the policy). This is our second shooting in two semesters.

2. | Reply FT'e
   Posted 17 Apr 2007 at 4:14am #
   

   Scary!

   Here is Switzerland we are talking a lot about military firearms. Every man in Switzerland keeps an assault rifle (with the corresponding ammunitions) at home. And we had some similar events, where mad people used their rifle to shoot men and women. The parliament is very near to forbid the possession of the ammunitions...

3. | Reply i don't like mondays « Only Talking Sense
   Posted 17 Apr 2007 at 9:22am #
   

   [...] Apr 2007 i don’t like mondays Posted by stevend under Life  I just found out (via NSLog) that the song ‘I don’t like mondays’ (originally from The Boomtown Rats, but [...]

4. | Reply Erik J. Barzeski
   Posted 17 Apr 2007 at 9:23am #
   

   Mental health is still a taboo subject here, unfortunately, and denial that it's an important subject leads to these sorts of things every few years. The availability of guns did not kill all these people - a deranged, mentally unstable person did. We can't blame video games, we can't blame guns, we can't blame the campus police for reacting the way they did. We can blame the nutjob who chose to do all of this stuff.

   I made the remark last night to my wife that the guy probably got in a fight with his girlfriend, killed her (and wounded the RA), then went off somewhere to think about what he'd done. He came to the realization that he was in deep shit, so he decided to go out with a bang, to be glorified and talked about in the media for years to come, to be the "top story" for weeks.

   But again, this is not an open invitation to debate the merits and pitfalls of gun control. Criminologists and the statistics are still very much on the side of the second amendment. This is a terrible act, but it's the act of a nutjob, not the act of an inanimate, unthinking object.

5. | Reply Chris Kelly
   Posted 17 Apr 2007 at 12:21pm #
   

   I'm a VT alumni myself, and I can't possibly imagine something like this happening at that campus. I am very shocked.

   Could police have done more? maybe, but then again, the assumption was that it was a domestic dispute, and the guy had gotten off campus as soon as possible. They were still investigating the first crime scene at the time of the second one. There was no reason to believe he'd go do what he did in the classroom.

   I will agree that this is the act of someone who just wasn't all there. I don't believe there could have been much done to prevent something like this, either. It could have happened at any campus, and by anyone, regardless of sex, religious beliefs, or nationality.

   While I'm not big on guns myself, I'm surely not going to be one to dictate whether or not others should have the right to bear arms.

   I don't think much policy is going to change at VT either. Seriously, what can you change in the future in hopes of preventing something like this, and not make students feel like prisoners?

6. | Reply Daniel
   Posted 17 Apr 2007 at 1:52pm #
   

   The sad irony of gun control is that no law-abiding citizen could have prevented yesterday's events. That is because, by definition, law-abiding citizens abide by the law, which means they do not carry weapons onto school property (be it elementary, junior or senior high, or college).

   If the law were different - if the law did not forbid people to defend themselves on school grounds, this and other similar recent events might have ended up differently.

7. | Reply Jeff Hume
   Posted 18 Apr 2007 at 1:39am #
   

   I just heard on the news that he bought the gun at a gun store in March. I think this will have an effect on the debate, as it should. Would this have happened if this shy kid had to venture into uncomfortable circles to obtain a gun or go and steal one instead of just walking into a store and buying one?

8. | Reply Erik J. Barzeski
   Posted 18 Apr 2007 at 9:12am #
   

   [quote comment="41218"]I just heard on the news that he bought the gun at a gun store in March. I think this will have an effect on the debate, as it should. Would this have happened if this shy kid had to venture into uncomfortable circles to obtain a gun or go and steal one instead of just walking into a store and buying one?[/quote]

   You can buy enough parts to make an explosive at grocery and hardware stores. You can buy an axe at Home Depot. Knives, poisons, scissors, or even your own bare hands are far more readily accessible than guns.

   Criminologists routinely come down on the side of guns. Less guns = less safety. Criminologists know a bit more than you do about crime rates and arrive at their conclusions from fact and scientific study. The gun debate is about facts and science versus emotional appeals. People like you, Jeff, love to envision a gun-free world, but that's simply not going to happen. You love to cite examples like "anyone can walk in and buy a gun" or "this little girl was shot, oh how sad." You ignore the facts - the scientific study - behind gun control in favor of tugging on heartstrings and making sentences that seem to be true but which are, when looked at in a hard, glaring light, quite the opposite.

   Jeff lives in Canada, a country with more citizen-owned guns per capita than the United States. The firearm homicide rates in Canada are ridiculously low. And yet, if you remove black-on-black homicides in the U.S., our rates are virtually identical to Canada's. Why? It's a poverty issue. It's a society issue.

   Little of this debate applies to the tragedy at Virginia Tech. It was the act of a deranged nutjob, and given the pre-meditation, the killer could have easily used any number of weapons. Guns didn't kill the people (not even literally) - the deranged nutjob pulling the trigger did.

   Further gun control discussion is not suitable. I'm tired of having the same debate again and again. As stated above, an emotional appeal will not work. Not when scientific study and fact exist.