Shootings in American University

[Lonnie]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6562 259.stm

This was absolutely horrific, so far, no real reason has been given, but the news broadcast I saw, said that a couple of students were arrested for taking photos, while the gunman was left to carry on killing.

Obviously, as time goes on, more information will come out, debates on their gun laws, death penalty etc, but for now, our thoughts must be with the injured and bereaved.

[joannie10]

of course this is sad for all those concerned but lots of people dying unnecessarily everyday. It is your given right to think of the families if you wish but if we were to spend time doing that for all those who died everyday we really would allow ourselves to become very unhappy people unable to function normally in life. agree with anotheoldgit about the queen and beckitts messages, although of course probably the queen has not actually given it a 2nd thought! One thing I would comment on that really annoyed me though was seeing George Bush at the University - he stood there while they gave him a standing ovation -was that necessary?
ps another 150 dead in bagdhad today and death toll still rising - as mentioned on a different thread there will be no cadlelit vigils there!

[joannie10]

yeh more like it!! ooops though bout spelling. Maybe time to be signing off from the computer - eyes are tired!

[sp1814]

anotheoldgit

No - you're correct...that picture was printed in one of the London papers the day after the shooting. However, at that time, there was a degree of confusion as to how many shooters there were.

Also, if the students gave a general description of the suspected gunman as being a Asian man in his twenties with glasses, the police, I assume acted on that information and detained that innocent lad because that's all they had to go on at the time.

[maxximus]

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context =viewArticle&code=CHI20070418&articleId=5431

[anotheoldgit]

Wow, thanks goodness for that sp1814 I thought I was going senile.

[suzuki1]

how many roads must a man walk down

[redhead23]

jenstar -= unbelivable how u can make light of something like that u ******* idiot people died , famillies are left bereaved

[Phantaxus]

Craziest statement I saw on this was someone on breakfast TV from the NRA saying that if the teachers had been armed then less people would have died.

[gerkin]

There was apparently an Indian Massacre near the campus - may be the spirits have got their revenge ?

[NJOK]

Interesting that we're having this gun debate. If you look at the media reaction in America, gun control has hardly been mentioned. At all. By anyone.

They really don't get it.

[Lonnie]

if you read this, the right to bear arms pertains to the Militia, not ordinary citizens, but its like everything else, we/them, only use the bits you want to.

I don't know, maybe i'm misreading it, but thats what it says to me.

2nd Ammendment

http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/consti tution.billofrights.html

[Kromovaracun]

The implications of introducing gun control in the USA aren't just constitutional - though that's a pretty hideous can of worms in itself - there are also practical issues.

The USA is huge - geographically and demographically, and regulating the existing firearms within the system would be an absolutely mammoth - and in some ways impracticable - task (note: I'm not saying I'm against them doing something about it, but it does limit the possibilites considerably)

[don1]

just a test

[Clanad]

I've posted a more lengthy (some would say, windier) response in the Law Topic, Lonnie... but this excerpt from a current article tells a different story about British gun laws...
"... This turns out not to be the case. As Malcolm observes, violent crime rates in England, very high in the 14th century, fell more or less steadily for five hundred years, even as ownership of firearms became more common. By the late 19th century, England had gun laws that were far more liberal than are found anywhere in the United States today, yet almost no gun crime, and little violent crime of other sorts. (An 1870 act, which was seldom enforced, required the payment of a small tax for the privilege of carrying, not simply owning, a gun.)

Despite a well-armed populace, Malcolm reports, "statistics record an astonishingly low rate of gun-related violence in the late nineteenth century." How low?

In the course of three years, according to hospital reports, there were only 59 fatalities from handguns in a population of nearly 30 million people. Of these, 19 were accidents, 35 were suicides, and only 3 were homicides 3 an average of one a year.

Contd.

[Clanad]

Contd.

Despite these rates, which Malcolm is right to call astonishingly low, the British government decided at the turn of the 20th century to begin a program of gun control that would ensure "that nobody except a soldier, sailor, or policeman, should have a pistol at all." The claimed justification was the "enormous" number of handgun injuries.

This effort was initially frustrated by popular resistance, but the first regulatory law in this campaign was passed in 1903, requiring a license for the purchase of a pistol. Such licenses were freely available, though, and citizens remained well enough armed that when (unarmed) London bobbies were chasing a group of armed robbers in 1909, they had no trouble borrowing pistols from passersby, while other armed citizens joined in the chase. Rates of gun violence remained low..."

The referenced Malcolm is Bentley College historian Joyce Malcolm who authored Guns and Violence: The English Experience ...

[Lonnie]

Thanks Clanad, I think that puts it into perspective, and probably puts the whole thing back onto parents teaching their children the rights and wrongs of life, respect for the law, and other people, but that then starts another debate.

But then again, you'll never stop someone like Cho doing something like this.

I'll take a look at what you've put in the Law section