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spiral78
Joined: 05 Apr 2004 Posts: 11534 Location: On a Short Leash
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Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2012 11:39 pm Post subject: US School System Drives Students Mad? |
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Well, according to Charlton Heston (who is God, after all), it's not about lax gun regulations. So what else could it be???
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Aug. 1, 1966: Charles Whitman, 25, a college student and former Marine, killed his wife and mother before carrying a rifle to the tower on the campus of the University of Texas in Austin, where in a 96-minute rampage he fatally shot 14 others before police shot and killed him.
Nov. 1, 1991: Gang Lu, 27, a University of Iowa graduate student from China, used a .38-caliber revolver to kill four members of his department, another university employee and himself. He reportedly was angry because his doctoral dissertation was not nominated for an academic award.
May 1, 1992: Eric Houston, 20, a former student at Lindhurst High School in Olivehurst (Yuba County), returned to the school with a 12-gauge shotgun and a rifle. He killed three students and a teacher and wounded 10 others before surrendering to police. He was sentenced to death and is on Death Row at San Quentin State Prison.
March 24, 1998: Mitchell Johnson, 10, and Andrew Golden, 8, took seven guns to a school near Jonesboro, Ark., where they pulled a fire alarm and began shooting as everyone exited the school, killing four students and one teacher and injuring nine others. They were released from a juvenile detention center in 2005.
May 21,1998: Kipland Kinkel, 15, shot and killed his parents after being suspended from his Springfield, Ore., high school for bringing a gun on campus. He returned to the school the next morning, killing two students and wounding 22 others. He was sentenced to 111 years in prison without the possibility of parole.
April 20, 1999: Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, walked into Columbine High School in Colorado and in a rampage of gunfire and homemade bombs killed 12 students and a teacher before killing themselves. The massacre led to an increased emphasis on security at U.S. schools.
Oct. 28, 2002: Robert Flores, 40, a nursing student at the University of Arizona, shot and killed an instructor in her office on campus and then entered a classroom where he killed two more teachers before committing suicide.
March 21, 2005: Jeffrey Weise, 17, went on a shooting spree at Red Lake High School on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in Minnesota. He killed nine people, including his grandfather, and wounded five others before killing himself.
April 16, 2007: Seung-Hui Cho, 23, a student at Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg, Va., shot and killed 32 people in attacks two hours apart in two campus buildings. Cho, who was diagnosed with mental illness, killed himself. The university was found negligent for not alerting the campus after the first round of shootings.
Feb. 27: T.J. Lane, 17, took a 22-caliber pistol and a knife to a high school in Chardon, Ohio, and fired 10 shots at a group of students sitting at a cafeteria table before school, authorities said. Three students died. Lane was arrested outside the school.
April 2: One L. Goh, 43, a former nursing student at private Oikos University near the Oakland International Airport, sprayed gunfire on a classroom there Monday, killing seven people in one of the deadliest attacks ever on a California campus, according to police. He was arrested an hour later at a store in Alameda. |
http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Deadliest-U-S-school-shootings-3454376.php
Oh, yeah, and don't forget the most recent one:
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James Holmes, the suspect in the Colorado shooting rampage, is described as a quiet, standoffish medical student from San Diego who recently dropped out of a doctoral program at the University of Colorado medical school. |
http://tucsoncitizen.com/usa-today-news/2012/07/20/colo-suspect-is-medical-school-dropout/ |
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johnslat
Joined: 21 Jan 2003 Posts: 13859 Location: Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
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Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2012 2:28 am Post subject: |
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Dear spiral,
To me, one of the most absolutely boneheaded responses to all this comes from the gun nuts who are using this as a reason for MORE guns. They're saying, "See, if everyone in the theater had been carrying, someone could have taken the guy out.
SURE
So, there you are, sitting in a dark theater when all of a sudden smoke bombs start going off and a guy wearing body armor is spraying the area. People are screaming, panicking, running for the exits, but not you. Slowly you rise to your feet, draw your trusty Glock (or whatever) and drop the mother. Hey, you're a hero.
The idiots spouting such nonsense have clearly never been in a firefight, and some of them have been playing far too many video games in their Mom's basement.
Regards,
John |
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spiral78
Joined: 05 Apr 2004 Posts: 11534 Location: On a Short Leash
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Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2012 2:42 am Post subject: |
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Dear John:
Absolutely agree.
The 'hero' in your scenario is utterly undistracted by whomever accompanied him/her to the theatre, or by any of the helpless women and children (men are never helpless, right?) milling about and possibly screaming in his/her immediate area.
He/she won't be jostled or distracted by either strangers or his/her own loved ones.
No. Cooly and calmly, he/she focuses solely on the criminal which he/she can clearly see and identify in the surrounding mayhem, sights his/her gun, and fires an accurate shot which ends the criminal's career.
Without, mind you, damaging any of the milling, jostling innocents in the immediate vicinity.
Never mind the teargas, either - it will certainly have no effect upon someone exercising his/her second amendment rights.
Sounds like a skinny, pimply 14-year-old's fantasy. Back to the NRA after all!
Best regards,
spiral |
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wangdaning
Joined: 22 Jan 2008 Posts: 3154
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Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2012 3:39 am Post subject: |
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I don't think the argument is that one person will be a hero.
If more people carried guns, then people would be less likely to use them for these sorts of things.
One psycho with a gun walks into a room of twenty without guns. The psycho has the ability to injure many.
One psycho with a gun walks into a room of twenty with quite a few also carrying guns. The psycho is just your average psycho.
It is not about being a hero. If it was common to carry guns, fewer people would find them a good method to attack or terrorize others.
I am not a pro gun freak, I am just used to guns. I understand some people get nervous around them. I really only get nervous if it is pointed towards a person (even more if it is me).
For the US, I think this is an issue that should be decided by the states individually, or better yet, by the local governments.
I know in California many in the LA or Bay area would like to get rid of guns, but for those of us from Northern California or Eastern California, many would like to keep them and be able to carry them. I do not see why the local governments cannot be responsible for passing laws that reflect the desires of their population. Making Federal laws to appease the minority living in urban areas does nothing but irritate the majority living in rural areas (who already have guns). |
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EFLeducator
Joined: 16 Dec 2011 Posts: 595 Location: NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS
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Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2012 3:45 am Post subject: |
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wangdaning wrote: |
I don't think the argument is that one person will be a hero.
If more people carried guns, then people would be less likely to use them for these sorts of things.
One psycho with a gun walks into a room of twenty without guns. The psycho has the ability to injure many.
One psycho with a gun walks into a room of twenty with quite a few also carrying guns. The psycho is just your average psycho. |
Right!! Great points but don't try and explain it to individuals and groups that are anti-gun.
It's COMMON SENSE amigo, especially for those of us who have been trained in the use of a hand gun...a person properly trained would have saved lives. |
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EFLeducator
Joined: 16 Dec 2011 Posts: 595 Location: NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS
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Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2012 3:46 am Post subject: |
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spiral78 wrote: |
Dear John:
Absolutely agree.
The 'hero' in your scenario is utterly undistracted by whomever accompanied him/her to the theatre, or by any of the helpless women and children (men are never helpless, right?) milling about and possibly screaming in his/her immediate area.
He/she won't be jostled or distracted by either strangers or his/her own loved ones.
No. Cooly and calmly, he/she focuses solely on the criminal which he/she can clearly see and identify in the surrounding mayhem, sights his/her gun, and fires an accurate shot which ends the criminal's career.
Without, mind you, damaging any of the milling, jostling innocents in the immediate vicinity.
Never mind the teargas, either - it will certainly have no effect upon someone exercising his/her second amendment rights.
Sounds like a skinny, pimply 14-year-old's fantasy. Back to the NRA after all!
Best regards,
spiral |
Wow. Totally unbelievable message. |
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EFLeducator
Joined: 16 Dec 2011 Posts: 595 Location: NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS
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EFLeducator
Joined: 16 Dec 2011 Posts: 595 Location: NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS
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artemisia
Joined: 04 Nov 2008 Posts: 875 Location: the world
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Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2012 5:56 am Post subject: |
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So these days in America, you need to be fully armed (and preferably wearing your own bullet proof vest) when going to a movie, eating in a restaurant, doing a bit of shopping or attending a uni lecture? And everyone else needs to be, too?
Is this really some people's idea of a normal, sane life or are you having us on? |
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scot47
Joined: 10 Jan 2003 Posts: 15343
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Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2012 7:34 am Post subject: |
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Easy access to guns is something that baffles many of us looking at the USA from afar. Weird. |
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wangdaning
Joined: 22 Jan 2008 Posts: 3154
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Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2012 10:10 am Post subject: |
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artemisia wrote: |
So these days in America, you need to be fully armed (and preferably wearing your own bullet proof vest) when going to a movie, eating in a restaurant, doing a bit of shopping or attending a uni lecture? And everyone else needs to be, too?
Is this really some people's idea of a normal, sane life or are you having us on? |
No one said you needed to carry a gun. Why would you think I can't?
scot47 wrote: |
Easy access to guns is something that baffles many of us looking at the USA from afar. Weird. |
Well, in pre-Great Depression times, United States, it was normal for many people to be carrying firearms in public. As I mentioned, in many places people are not unnerved by guns. As natural as putting on a watch.
The US is not the only place where firearms ownership is more relaxed. The UK is up tight, and former non-settled colonies share this tightness (India, Pakistan, Palestine, HK). The US, New Zealand, and South Africa are not as up tight. My point is that it is hit and miss with gun control in the former colonies. To say many from afar are baffled, well, that is like saying many don't understand why Chinese leave the bones in when they eat chicken. Some people have grown up with different situations. You don't want a gun, fine. You want to tell someone else they can't have a gun, you decide if that is acceptable? Or better yet, let a group of rich old men who have legally sanctioned private armies decide if it is acceptable.
To me that is weird. |
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spiral78
Joined: 05 Apr 2004 Posts: 11534 Location: On a Short Leash
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Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2012 12:38 pm Post subject: |
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Actually, wangdaning, chances are that a few people in that theatre were armed. We're talking Colorado, after all. Clearly it didn't help.... |
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johnslat
Joined: 21 Jan 2003 Posts: 13859 Location: Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
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Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2012 1:04 pm Post subject: |
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"It is not about being a hero. If it was common to carry guns, fewer people would find them a good method to attack or terrorize others."
Of course - because psychos like Holmes are such rational, clear-thinking individuals that they would obviously be deterred by the possibility of their getting shot.
In that theater, if there had been others carrying when he walked into the dark in head-to-toe body armor, threw tear-gas/smoke bombs into the crowd and began firing his weapons, there would have been even more people killed.
How many of you have actually been in a firefight? How many of you have actually shot at other human beings while you were being shot at?
Unless you know what that's like, you have no idea of what you're talking about.
Regards,
John |
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spiral78
Joined: 05 Apr 2004 Posts: 11534 Location: On a Short Leash
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Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2012 1:24 pm Post subject: |
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If lenient gun laws were the answer to crime, the Colorado shooting wouldn't have happened. |
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wangdaning
Joined: 22 Jan 2008 Posts: 3154
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Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2012 1:39 pm Post subject: |
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spiral78 wrote: |
If lenient gun laws were the answer to crime, the Colorado shooting wouldn't have happened. |
And if strict ones were there would be no crime in Mexico. |
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