blogging it real

And yet the response from most gun nuts is "if only all of the students and teachers had guns, then the guy would have been killed straight away."

For some reason, the scenario of a campus full of panicking people, all of them armed, doesn't seem so attractvie to me...
 

I imagine it would end up rather like a scene from Reservoir Dogs.

If you armed every person in the US when they hit 18 like I suggested it would be interesting to see the outcome. You'd have constant suspicion and the need for ten times as many hospitals, courts, police, prisons and cemeteries.
 

Guns don`t kill people, it`s people that kill people. Guns are just big shiny Phallic-like things to salivate over and strap close to the crotch as a designer accessory.

They aren`t designed to hurt anybody going about their business on campus or at the office, they are only designed to blow furry little rabbits away. Ask Charleton Heston.

It`s the right of every self respecting American to own a gun and keep one in his car, his bathroom cupboard, under his pillow, in his kids lunchbox etc....

Nah,,,guns don`t kill people,,,ask anyone in the NRA.
It`s just those pesky pimply socially inept emotionally retarded serial masturbators that give guns a bad name when they somehow get their greasy hands on one.
 

One slight flaw in the home-grown terrorist phenomenon: the gunman was South Korean. Not quite sure what his status in the US was ... student visa I assume. Could make life still more unpleasant for other international students in the US if it's the case.

I thought that in the US one had to provide proof of citizenship to purchase guns legally?

Anyways, I'm kinda reaching the conclusion that the right to bear arms is appealing in theory, and disasterous in practice.

I wonder if the US will reconsider now (like the UK after Dunblane, and Australia after Port Arthur).
 

"Guns don't kill people. Exit wounds do"

That from a US bumper sticker. Says it all about the US gun culture really.

And according to the NRA, based on a comparison of gun deaths in the USA (where everyone has guns)and gun deaths in the UK (where most people don't), there is no link between having a gun and killing someone and not having a gun and not killing someone.

And you'd be a fool and a communist to make the connection.
 

yeah randominanity, I often wonder why that argument doesn't pop up more in the US. They live ina country where a lot of people have guns and they have a lot of deaths. there are other countries where you could count on one hand the number of gun deaths in a year. believe it or not in Korea where there are literally millions of thousands of guns in the hands of the military (which is everywhere) you virtually never, ever hear of murders committed by guns.

He was a real nut job by the sounds of it. Never spoke to anybody. from the sounds of it the university should have done more to get the guy a psychiatrist. be interesting to see what was done for him because it seems like their were warning signs for Africa for a significant period of time.

Also it seems as though he went to live in the US when he was about 8 or 9 years old and so was a US citizen. I wonder if they will start calling him an American at any stage.
 

I should clarigy that to be "Millions of gun" in South Korea. The gun deaths you do hear of are invariably soldiers who have lost the plot and killed other soldiers.

Your average civilian can't get near a gun and there are no gun deaths I can recall in my time there.

Funny that.
 

I'll try again.

"CLARIFY". "MILLIONS OF GUNS"
 

To clarify on the status of the shooter: according to the NYT he was a "resident alien". And according to the Guardian he used his "Green Card" as one form of ID to buy one or more of his guns.

I think that made him what we would call here a "permanent resident".

But a permanent resident who had spent the majority of his life in the US I'm guessing.
 

Well it comes back to the USA's history I guess. The war of independence (or revolution if you're a pom) couldn't have succeeded without the arms that were easily accessible to the populace. Those that drafted the constitution recognised this and thought it was important that the ability be retained should the time ever come when the Government of the American States was oppressive in the same way the British Crown had been.

The only problem with this approach, as laudable as it may have been at the time, is that society evolves and changes. What was right in the 18th Century might not be so good in the 21st.

Unfortunately it's not an argument that most Americans are comfortable with - understandable given how dearly they hold their constitution.

USA - a nation born in the blood of revolution and forged in blood of civil war. Is it any wonder violence plays such a significant part in their society?
 

I guess at the end of the day you reap what you sow and we shouldn't be any more concerned with the fact that tens of thousands of US citizens kill themselves with guns every year and tens of thousands die of starvation and preventable disease in the world EVERYDAY.