Monday, April 16, 2007

The Power of the Gun


I'm not saying this as some one for or against the right to bear arms, but today's tragedy should remind us of what is the consequence of this freedom. I believe the 99.999% of the people who own guns use them properly and responsibly. But of that .001% that literally go mad...well they do a lot of damage. When one talks about our right to bear arms one must also realize that these types of tragedies not only can happen, but will happen.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

I doubt the killer legally owned his guns.

Gib said...

Freedom kills. No two ways about it. That said, if the fact that he was legally allowed to buy a gun matters, it's also of some relevance that Virginia Tech absolutely bars firearms on campus. A few years back, an off-duty cop moonlighting as a law student used his gun to end a campus rampage at I believe West Virginia University. Of course, before he could do that, he had to run to where he had parked off-campus and get his gun, because they weren't allowed on school property.

Teethwriter said...

A couple of things. One: I think the fact that the was legally allowed to buy a gun, and the fact that VA has extremely lax gun control laws trumps Robert's doubt whether he legally owned them. After all, are we supposed to assume that only people who illegally own their guns do horrible things with them?

Second, I understand Gib's example about the off-duty cop who had to run off campus to get their gun, and my first thought was that perhaps police should be excused from that rule. But then I thought about another time I was in a New York bar and met up with a couple of cops who were friends of a friend, who showed me their piece as they were downing shots. Now I'm pretty sure there's some regulation against that like there's a regulation against carrying guns on VA campuses. Either way there's not too many methods to prevent something like this from occuring outside of either setting up metal detectors in school buildings (still a flawed system), or an individual being alert. We'd all like to think we're safe, but unfortunately safety is only a state of mind, not a state of existance.

Anonymous said...

If someone wishes to cause harm to another they will get a gun somehow. Everyone should be able to protect themselves unless they are clearly not fit, such as a past history of violence or mental complications. I think that you should have to go through a tight process to get a license to carry (we sure do in MA), but once you are eligible you should be allowed to protect yourself no matter where you are.

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