Gun control, shmun control

rapp · Apr 17, 2007

Simple case of stupid people left in charge. Just a really bad day for them to be in charge.

moff_quigley · Apr 17, 2007

I was glad when Shelly Long left Cheers. She sucked. I couldn't stand her whiney butt.

robdamanii · Apr 17, 2007

That was the first thing I thought of when I heard about this. WHY didn't the entire campus shut down after someone is shot and killed and they couldn't ID the shooter?

And then we get to watch the president of the university on TV apologize and say "it was in our best judgement at the time." That's all well and good, but it doesn't bring back the 30 people who lost their lives because of YOUR stupid mistake.

manimal · Apr 17, 2007

i think they spend so much time planning and preparing for situations like this in high schools and below that they forget to deal with the universities. i know that we have outstanding action plans for active shooters in our k-12 schools but i don't think we've ever really planned for one at our university here. the tactics are all pretty much the same but we physically practice active shooter drills in the actual schools, but we've never done that at the university.
i'm curious to see the knee-jerk reactions on this one. :disgust:

urbaindk · Apr 17, 2007

manimal said:
i think they spend so much time planning and preparing for situations like this in high schools and below that they forget to deal with the universities.

Also people are forgetting that a 20,000 to 30,000 student university is like a small town unto itself. If somebody was shot on one side of your town would the police shut down the whole town right away, especially if they initially thougth it was a murder-suicide or a domestic violence situation? Also people are spread out all over a fairly large campus. And at 7am a large portion of the students are still off campus. (I don't know about you but I hated early classes) It's not like a highschool where you can just lock some doors and isolate the situation. I think it was an easy (but unfortunate) mistake to make.

llkoolkeg · Apr 17, 2007

Great...pass out the torches and pitchforks because someone besides the one who actually did this needs to be blamed. Didn't anyone learn anything from the Duke LAX fiasco? Reflexively shouting "off with 'er head" does nothing but increase the body count, guilt or innocence but a footnote.

lugnuts · Apr 17, 2007

Thats what I thought too. How could they not cancel classes? I mean, the shooter would have had a lot more trouble killing the numbers that he did if he didn't have packed classrooms to go to.

I don't know about shutting down the campus though. Or "locking down" the campus as I've heard on TV so much. How exactly would they accomplish that task over 2200(?) acres with so many students and faculty coming and going all day. It would have taken A LOT of road blocks and A LOT of LE personnel.

Not to mention, we are talking about a college full of adults, not an elementary school full of children. Can the authorities really expect to be able to control that many people? I would think that the students are going to want to come and go as they please and not be confined to their rooms all day (especially those that live off campus). Unless you are a suspect, they can't exactly detain you all day can they?? It may be in your best interest to sit tight in your room all day, but can they actually require you to do so? And on such a large scale too?

Kihaji · Apr 17, 2007

MMike said:
While it is a large number of people, and is LIKE a town, it still a school. You CAN cancel all classes immediately, etc etc. It is much more controllable than a town.

The decision to do (almost) nothing, was wrongity wrong wrong.

And how do you plan on giving word to the ~19k students and faculty who are not on campus, but on thier way in? Mental telepathy? Perhaps smoke signals.

There is also no proof what so ever that cancelling classes would have prevented this. Upon hearing the cancellation of classes the guy could have just opened fire right where he was, killing as many or even more people.

The administration made a decision, their reasoning behind it was sound.

llkoolkeg · Apr 17, 2007

It would have been much safer having countless thousands of confused people milling about the quad, I suppose. :rolleyes:

fluff · Apr 17, 2007

You mean students in US universities actually go to classes?

Silver · Apr 17, 2007

Kihaji said:
And how do you plan on giving word to the ~19k students and faculty who are not on campus, but on thier way in? Mental telepathy? Perhaps smoke signals.

Roadblocks stationed at the major entrances?

Took me 2 seconds to come up with an idea to prevent more people coming in...apparently I'm 1:59:58 faster than the people in charge at Virginia Tech.

It seems like the VT people are making the argument that since they couldn't have kept EVERYONE away, they didn't keep anyone away. I wish them well with that...

llkoolkeg · Apr 17, 2007

Silver said:
Roadblocks stationed at the major entrances?

Took me 2 seconds to come up with an idea to prevent more people coming in...apparently I'm 1:59:58 faster than the people in charge at Virginia Tech.

It seems like the VT people are making the argument that since they couldn't have kept EVERYONE away, they didn't keep anyone away. I wish them well with that...

Silver, thousands upon thousands live on campus or within walking distance. It ain't a commuter college, for the most part. Even had they cold war air raid klaxons and ten times the police force they actually have, getting confused and curious youth not to assemble and loiter when they sense something is amiss is no small task.

manimal · Apr 17, 2007

llkoolkeg said:
Silver, thousands upon thousands live on campus or within walking distance. It ain't a commuter college, for the most part. Even had they cold war air raid klaxons and ten times the police force they actually have, getting confused and curious youth not to assemble and loiter when they sense something is amiss is no small task.

true but they could have confiscated all frisbees and hacky-sacks to discourage assemblies

lugnuts · Apr 17, 2007

Kihaji said:
There is also no proof what so ever that cancelling classes would have prevented this. Upon hearing the cancellation of classes the guy could have just opened fire right where he was, killing as many or even more people.

llkoolkeg said:
It would have been much safer having countless thousands of confused people milling about the quad, I suppose.

good points. Not knowing his true motive, I'd guess this guy was probably going to kill folks regardless of if they were in class or not.

syadasti · Apr 17, 2007

llkoolkeg said:
Silver, thousands upon thousands live on campus or within walking distance. It ain't a commuter college, for the most part. Even had they cold war air raid klaxons and ten times the police force they actually have, getting confused and curious youth not to assemble and loiter when they sense something is amiss is no small task.

Are we talking about an early dismissal for a holiday or bad weather or an emergency here? When I went to university on a big campus people cleared out pretty quickly even when it was a non-emergency. Most people don't want to hang out and wait to see where they find a gunman. These are adults right, they know what to do during a fire drill and this was a real emergency.

urbaindk · Apr 17, 2007

syadasti said:
When I went to university on a big campus people cleared out pretty quickly even when it was a non-emergency. Most people don't want to hang out and wait to see where they find a gunman. These are adults right, they know what to do during a fire drill and this was a real emergency.

It's Blacksburg VA, it's not like they have anywhere else to go. Roadtrip to Roanoake anyone? Yea! (In Blacksburg, the University is the town, pretty much, not too many places to clear out to.)

MikeD · Apr 17, 2007

They thought there was a murder in a dorm...seal off the scene, deal with the crime, search for the killer, etc...they had no way of knowing it'd turn into a full-on massacre.

Does a city shut down when someone's been killed in an apartment building uptown?

Silver · Apr 17, 2007

llkoolkeg said:
Silver, thousands upon thousands live on campus or within walking distance. It ain't a commuter college, for the most part. Even had they cold war air raid klaxons and ten times the police force they actually have, getting confused and curious youth not to assemble and loiter when they sense something is amiss is no small task.

You have to remember that of the 26,000 [students] that we have, only about 9,000 are on campus. When the classes start at 8:00 A.M., thousands of people are in transit. The question is, where do you keep them where it is most safe? We concluded that the incident at the dormitory was domestic in nature. These other events occurred two hours later.

Three guesses who said that about VT...

VT Mtbkr · Apr 17, 2007

Silver said:
Roadblocks stationed at the major entrances?

Took me 2 seconds to come up with an idea to prevent more people coming in...apparently I'm 1:59:58 faster than the people in charge at Virginia Tech.

It seems like the VT people are making the argument that since they couldn't have kept EVERYONE away, they didn't keep anyone away. I wish them well with that...

So your in California on the other side of the country? Have you ever been to Blacksburg or even Virginia? Have you spent 5 years of your life in Blacksburg and have close family and friends in the town? Do you know the size of the town, police department and surrounding areas....No?

Well why don't you keep your comments to yourself and let the professionals deal with what should and shouldn't have been done on a campus and town that size with the information known at the time.

Sorry for the rant... but I couldn't stand it anymore.

Silver · Apr 17, 2007

VT Mtbkr said:
So your in California on the other side of the country? Have you ever been to Blacksburg or even Virginia? Have you spent 5 years of your life in Blacksburg and have close family and friends in the town? Do you know the size of the town, police department and surrounding areas....No?

Well why don't you keep your comments to yourself and let the professionals deal with what should and shouldn't have been done on a campus and town that size with the information known at the time.

Sorry for the rant... but I couldn't stand it anymore.

You must have missed my post above. Any guesses who said that, by the way? As far as Virginia goes, I was born in Christiansburg, for God's sake...but I guess your five years outweighs my 19...

JRogers · Apr 17, 2007

Hindsight is 20/20, guys.

llkoolkeg · Apr 17, 2007

Silver said:
You must have missed my post above. Any guesses who said that, by the way? As far as Virginia goes, I was born in Christiansburg, for God's sake...but I guess your five years outweighs my 19...

It was the University President, I am quite sure, seeking to justify the administration's on-the-fly decisionmaking...which I do not necessarily disagree with. As a Christiansburg native, you surely would agree that what was stated by the President is not a complete picture of the situation. A lot of those 17K "commuters" live within walking or biking distance to campus and would not have been held up easily by roadblocks. It's not like a high school or government facility with chainlink surrounding it and restricting the access points of pedestrian traffic. It's a huge open campus and easily accessible to students and townies alike. Solutions rather than blame assignment would be more helpful, productive and sympathetic I should think.

Changleen · Apr 17, 2007

llkoolkeg said:
Solutions rather than blame assignment would be more helpful, productive and sympathetic I should think.

Gun control?

Oh wait, I forgot America is too perfect to need it.

llkoolkeg · Apr 17, 2007

Changleen said:
Gun control?

Oh wait, I forgot America is too perfect to need it.

We are not perfect by any stretch...far from it...but the cure for what ails us will never be discovered by an opportunistic, self-aggrandizing ball-leach politicial whore. Laws enourage the compliance of none but the law-abiding.

Kihaji · Apr 17, 2007

Changleen said:
Gun control?

Oh wait, I forgot America is too perfect to need it.

And what would gun control do here?

Oh, you are under the impression that a person who wants a gun so they can kill people will stop because it's illegal.

Changleen · Apr 17, 2007

llkoolkeg said:
We are not perfect by any stretch...far from it...but the cure for what ails us will never be discovered by an opportunistic, self-aggrandizing ball-leach politicial whore. Laws enourage the compliance of none but the law-abiding.

It's a pity you're too retarded to recognise a perfectly sensible solution when you see one. As VB said, when even people like John Howard are saying gun control might do you a favour, your failure to even consider it is frankly bloody stupid.

syadasti · Apr 17, 2007

Kihaji said:
And what would gun control do here?

Oh, you are under the impression that a person who wants a gun so they can kill people will stop because it's illegal.

So you are under the impression that availability of guns will never change because they are illegal - they will be harder and more costly to acquire as time elapses.

Westy · Apr 17, 2007

Kihaji said:
And what would gun control do here?

Oh, you are under the impression that a person who wants a gun so they can kill people will stop because it's illegal.

So illegal drugs should become legal because they are also readily available?

OGRipper · Apr 17, 2007

Westy said:
So illegal drugs should become legal because they are also readily available?

Marijuana? In my opinion, yes. But that's a different discussion.

It's a tough call, but I don't think gun control is the solution for stuff like this. I think this is like a terrorist act in that once someone wants to do it, you can't prevent it from happening. You have to take away the desire to do it.

There will always be large groups of people and the means to cause mayem.

Silver · Apr 17, 2007

llkoolkeg said:
It was the University President, I am quite sure, seeking to justify the administration's on-the-fly decisionmaking...which I do not necessarily disagree with. As a Christiansburg native

I may have made up that part about being born in Christianburg. In my defence, I was seeking to justify my on the fly second guessing of VT's inaction.

Here's food for thought...You say that students milling around a quad would have been bad...but then all those guys with guns and body armor would have been able to stop the shooter had he come outside. After all, all the scary men with the guns were outside because there was shooting going on inside the building or something, man...

llkoolkeg · Apr 17, 2007

Changleen said:
It's a pity you're too retarded to recognise a perfectly sensible solution when you see one. As VB said, when even people like John Howard are saying gun control might do you a favour, your failure to even consider it is frankly bloody stupid.

Retarded! Why I never...!

I do not base my opinions on what John Howard says.

It has been tried countless times throughout history here and elsewhere and proven(at least to me) to be of no use but for the subjugating of free peoples and the promoting of the political aspirations of spineless sellouts and power-grabbers alike. Please keep all such high-minded wisdom all for yourself.

Silver · Apr 17, 2007

Westy said:
So illegal drugs should become legal because they are also readily available?

No, they should be legal because it's pretty hard to shoot up 60 people with heroin without their consent...

Changleen · Apr 17, 2007

This isn't about stopping every act of violence perpetrated, it's about making it more difficult for the average citizen to flip out and murder a high number of people because he has immediate free and easy access to handguns and ammunition. If such weapons are hard to get, then when such flip outs occur, the damage is greatly reduced.

Making handguns and ammunition for them illegal would make it far harder to obtain for the average person, especially after a year or two.

Even drugs is a good example. Ammo for handguns is as easy to obtain as walking into Walmart. If you have a gun, you probably already have some ammo. The average drug user has to go to some trouble to score. It's not as simple as walking into a store (in most cases) - it takes time and effort, especially for the 'harder' drugs.

Sure you might still get the occasional extremely determined nutjob who is willing to hunt around the black market for a few weeks to get hold of a decent arms cache, but for the most part finding and making contact with a black market supplier, arranging a meet and buy, and then going on a rampage is going to be a far less frequent event.

BurlyShirley · Apr 17, 2007

Changleen said:
This isn't about stopping every act of violence perpetrated, it's about making it more difficult for the average citizen to flip out and murder a high number of people because he has immediate free and easy access to handguns and ammunition. If such weapons are hard to get, then when such flip outs occur, the damage is greatly reduced.

Making handguns and ammunition for them illegal would make it far harder to obtain for the average person, especially after a year or two.

Even drugs is a good example. Ammo for handguns is as easy to obtain as walking into Walmart. If you have a gun, you probably already have some ammo. The average drug user has to go to some trouble to score. It's not as simple as walking into a store (in most cases) - it takes time and effort, especially for the 'harder' drugs.

Sure you might still get the occasional extremely determined nutjob who is willing to hunt around the black market for a few weeks to get hold of a decent arms cache, but for the most part finding and making contact with a black market supplier, arranging a meet and buy, and then going on a rampage is going to be a far less frequent event.

Drugs are actually a great example of why "gun control" as you suggest it would be a complete failure. I can see it now, "The War on Guns" entering its 20th year of futility as buying one is as simple as finding the nearest hoodlum peddling mexican-made six shooters on the corner.
Amazing that you're so steadfast in your ideas of how legalizing drugs would be better for society, and that doing the opposite with guns would have the same effect. Both have been shown to kill people, both involve violence in some circumstances...both give users a unique high.
Also, as an MTBer, the idea of penalizing an entire user group for the indescretions of a very few is insulting. You know those Mayan pyramids you always see on discovery channel? Up until a couple years ago you used to be able to climb to the top of them, lookout over the ruins...you know...really grasp the enormity of the thing. Now, since some stupid old broad supposedly fell off the top and injured or killed herself, the entire thing is roped off and you can only look at it from, I assume, behind some stupid velvet rope. Even the in-shape, young tourists who could easily manage the climb up now have to stand around with the smelly old people and their cameras.
So yeah, some douchebag kills some people, now all gun owners should be penalized and have their hobby taken from them even though they're perfectly responsible and and taking them would have little to no effect on crime. Imagine that gun owners love their gear and sport just like you like riding, only also imagine that the consitution made special mention of MTBing and citizens rights to keep them.

EDIT: If anything, illegalizing them only empowers those criminals who obtain them more. As easily as drugs, aliens, etc. move in and out of this country, I can only imagine that illegal guns (which arent perishable or cant be used up) would find their way here and stay here quite easily.

manimal · Apr 17, 2007

Changleen said:
Making handguns and ammunition for them illegal would make it far harder to obtain for the average person, especially after a year or two.

yup. it worked wonders for pre-hitler germany. politicians/dictators love unarmed peasants.

$tinkle · Apr 17, 2007

Silver said:
No, they should be legal because it's pretty hard to shoot up 60 people with heroin without their consent...

coachella lasts for a week, right?

Gun control, shmun control

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