Where do you stand on, "The Shooting"?

Now, liberals will be saying take all the guns away... I side with the article below, and said as much, shortly after the shooting.


Guns on campus: One is one too few


57 minutes ago

BLACKSBURG, VA., IS a college town surrounded by countryside full of good ole boys who grew up shooting and hunting. Virginia Tech undoubtedly has a good number of experienced marksmen on campus as students, staff members and faculty. If just one of them had been able to retrieve his weapon quickly, there might be only three dead -- the first two victims and the shooter -- instead of 32.

Crazy? Hardly.

Consider the Saturday shooting at the Uptown Tavern in Manchester. Two men, one a Golden Glove boxer, were being tossed from the bar at 12:45 in the morning when the boxer allegedly punched a bouncer in the face. The other man pulled a handgun and started firing at the bouncers and assistant manager.

The gunman fired six shots into the crowded bar before a customer who had come over to help the bouncers whipped out his own handgun and fired back. He hit the shooter twice, disabling him and instantly ending the shooting spree. The only reason that same scenario could not have played out on the Virginia Tech campus is that firearms are banned there.

Predictably, where guns are banned, only those willing to disobey the ban have guns. Law-abiding, rational citizens who might be able to stop a mentally ill or simply cold-blooded killer are left defenseless in the face of a murderer.

\"All the school shootings that have ended abruptly in the last 10 years were stopped because a law-abiding citizen -- a potential victim -- had a gun,\" Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, said after the Virginia Tech shooting.

Those that did not end abruptly? No armed citizen was there to stop the massacres.

You can say that one gun on campus is one too many. But it is and always will be impossible to prevent a determined person with ill intent from smuggling one (or more) onto campus. The best defense against such people is to increase the number of armed good guys so that there is always someone nearby able to respond.

See original article at The Union Leader ....<br><br>Post edited by: admin, at: 2007/04/17 22:16

i think they should also offer shooting classes in school so kids can defend if need be but then yu can also be training a possible killer so its tough one.

It was tragic and i my heart goes out to them all..

While listening to the radio this morning on the way to work, they were talking about this VT tragedy. Mostly talking about how the media is already blaming people from campus security to the dean to the local law enforcement. Its sad when a gunman can kill this many people, and not even catch the blame. I wholeheartedly agree with the below article. I believe if everyone, or a majority of people carried guns, you wouldn't have all these school shootings. The potential shooter would know that there would be enough people around with a gun to stop them. Like it says, there would be 3 or so people dead. I keep hearing for stronger gun laws to protect our population, does anyone really believe that will help? I'm seriously curious. By taking guns away from the law abiding citizens who would actually register them, they are giving the non-law abiding citizens, who would do harm to others and would not care about registering guns or what laws were out there, the power. More guns = Safer Citizens

DK

Is there anything that pains the human heart more than injustice? 31 lives are snuffed out in their prime by one madman for no other reason then he was insane. Think of the anguish those families must feel right now.Think of the anger and disbelief at the sheer unjust pointlessness of it all
. When i heard the news i felt rage. Rage at the unfairness.Rage at Cho. But anger comes from fear and i had seen that it was fear i was feeling. Not fear for my own life, but rather the fear that comes from the realization that we are all helpless against a world of unfair and unjust events. Sure we can train and prepare and argue over every facet but we can never see all ends . Planes will always crash, tragedy will always strike the innocent. We can prevet only what we can forsee. We lament this feeling of helplessness in the face of injustice. May serenity find the families of the victems sooner rather than later.

Is there anything that pains the human heart more than injustice? 31 lives are snuffed out in their prime by one madman for no other reason then he was insane. Think of the anguish those families must feel right now.Think of the anger and disbelief at the sheer unjust pointlessness of it all
. When i heard the news i felt rage. Rage at the unfairness.Rage at Cho. But anger comes from fear and i had seen that it was fear i was feeling. Not fear for my own life, but rather the fear that comes from the realization that we are all helpless against a world of unfair and unjust events. Sure we can train and prepare and argue over every facet but we can never see all ends . Planes will always crash, tragedy will always strike the innocent. We can prevet only what we can forsee. We lament this feeling of helplessness in the face of injustice. May serenity find the families of the victems sooner rather than later.

I come a place where the Port Arthur Massacre occured (Tasmania).

I know some of the feelings that are expressed here. But there is something that I think some people are are overlooking.

**From Death comes Life**. Something good will eventually come out of this. If it isn't tighter gun control then some kind of protection will be put in place so that it can never happen again somewhere else.

As long as they are in our thoughts then they will never forgotten.

Sharmilla Wymann

its just a shame that because of this thats the reason the good will come. also i was watching the video footege, he was comparing himself to jesus that is sick. i cant believe but i can there are people out there like that. my thoughts go out to all the familiys, i hope this doesnt happen again. to many shooting have accured at schools. MTFBW us all.

It is tragic what happened at VT. It is also tragic that there will be politicians that will use this as a spring board for their own personal agendas for gun control in either direction. I can see where allowing more weapons could help as a deterent, but it can also be the second edge of the sword. You wouldn't know who was going to be the \&quot;one\&quot; that uses it the wrong way and slays more people. It could work in either direction. Then you have the other page to view as well, would another student, or whoever, be willing to put themselves in the position to possibly have charges brought up on them for shooting the individual that started shooting to start with? Would their right to defend themselves and others be upheld, or would they face legal ramifications in a negative manner? No matter what is decided, the people that want to commit these crimes will find a way to do it. Ink on a page won't stop a weapon from getting into the wrong hands and being used to destroy lives.

Forgive my avoidance of that thing called subtlety. One well placed person with the right tool could have avoided the whole thing. It is a shame that as the world seems to get closer to what some consider armageddon the more constraints that get placed on us as law-abiding citizens. So here goes this kid that wasn't hugged enough by mommy and daddy or called a name or picked last for dodgeball or whatever. He will now give the anti-gun lobby more ammo (no pun intended) and has even affected some of our shopping habits, i.e. eBay. I have to go back to that old saying \&quot;When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns\&quot;. Does there need to be a gun on every citizen in the U.S? No, but how about at least having a responsible quick reaction force within a designated response time that will take out the problem without waiting for approval from some mayor or governor?