VT
There is nothing sensible to say about Virginia Tech. Naturally, we can rehearse the same old arguments about gun control, but we already know that America has an addiction to guns and won't get treatment.There is no deeper lesson but that kids bully each other, form gangs and make each others' lives a misery, and misery will sometimes strike out and hurt others. Not that anyone deserves this outcome: not the shooter, not his classmates. We cannot unravel any of this shit until we unravel ourselves, make of ourselves the world we could have.
There is nothing sensible to say but to express sympathy for the victims, children cut down by a bewildering hatred, an unbearable sadness for their parents and the communities they were part of.
posted by Dr Zen @ 9:17 am
10 Comments:
America has an addiction to guns and won't get treatment
Those in American who are opposed to gun control, will claim that if VT had not a campus wide ban on guns then the number of deaths would have been lower as some of the students would have been carrying guns and been able to defend themselves.
alt.guns for a laugh, if you like banging your head on the wall.
My days of headbanging are gone. A moron and his opinion are not easily parted though, so rich sport is probably to be had in that group.
Great succinct post. I have had a hard time today arguing with those who say *more* violence is the answer.
boots sez:
I think gun control is not the point, there are many ways to kill people both individually and in groups. Guns are obtainable everywhere by those who have snapped, and blaming gun control or lack thereof is contra-productive; I have no guns, but if I decided that I needed a gun and they were not readily available, it would take perhaps two days to make one in my machine shop.
The point, at least in my view, is that people are driven to a place where mass murder seems something to consider, and beyond that, act out. Why the hell is that? What has the human race come to that individuals reach that state?
I blame most of it on stress. One must do a, b, c, and so forth to fit into society. Not all of those things are palatable to everyone. Society has made itself into a rigid mold, and rigidity leads to the possibility of breakage.
I've not followed the story. I don't expect it to be different from its predecessors. Someone felt the need to scream "I CANNOT DO THIS" in an extremely loud voice. Death and pain are the result.
Society will continue to place material contributions at the fore, and stresses will not be reduced by that agenda. Continuing events of this nature are unavoidable, and eventually society's response of increased security in the form of rigidity will, at least potentially, drive it to a state of total collapse.
Individuals have the potential of being very fine beings, but society is nothing more than a mob led by those greedy for wealth, status, and so forth. It's a losing game, I've chosen to sit it out in the boonies.
So you could make a gun capable of firing hundreds of bullets without falling to pieces, within a couple of day? 1) How many people have such facilities? 2) How many people have the ability? 3) Where do you get the bullets? The fact that it takes time would probably be enough for tempers to cool.
Caused by stress!! Caused by an idiot without the life skills to deal with his own problems without resorting to mass killing.
Caused by a hot head with easy access to guns.
boots sez: You got it all figured out, do ya "anonymous"? Take away all the guns and no problem, eh? People will just put up with all the crap without fighting back in any way, right?
You said, "Caused by an idiot without the life skills to deal with his own problems without resorting to mass killing."
There's the problem hidden in your own words. Required life skills. The skills required to succeed in society. That doesn't go away with the guns.
Guns mean shit. How hard do you really think it would be to sneak up on a security guard and disarm him if you didn't mind leaving a little blood laying around? Not hard at all. History shows that a disarmed populace will fight with whatever is at hand -- pitchforks, shovels, anything -- if sufficiently pressed. There are ways of killing dozens or hundreds with nothing more than a few dollars worth of commonly available materials. Guns may be convenient, but they are by no means necessary.
The means for violence can never be removed, but the motivation for violence need not exist.
I think it would be much easier to remove guns than "motivation for violence". Right now in America a person with a history of mental illness can buy a gun, as long as he/she doesn't have a criminal record, and even if they do, they often go unchecked. You don't think there is a problem with that?
And another thing. Have you ever sneaked up on a guard and disarmed him? It requires time and effort, and more importantly, it gives a warning to the people around. As for pitchforks and torches, they are instruments of a lynch-mob which still won't kill 32 people in a span of a few seconds. I mean, a pitchfork is not an automatic weapon, for fuck's sake. If you want to kill someone with a pitchfork, you have to work on it much harder than pushing a trigger.
What you're saying is "guns don't kill people, people do" - the same bullshit the NRA says every time something like this occurs. What I'm saying is, the gun certainly helps. How many countries with strict gun control had shootings of this nature?
boots sez:
"I think it would be much easier to remove guns than "motivation for violence"."
I think doing things the easy way is not going to solve the problem.
"How many countries with strict gun control had shootings of this nature?"
So far? Do you think the phenomenon is at its conclusion? I don't.
Unfortunately "real life" has taken all the things I've not gotten done yet and grouped them up right in front of my face, so I'll not be checking here frequently for a while. Later certainly, but even a few days makes it annoyingly difficult to find where one was in these blogger things.
As for pitchforks and torches, they are instruments of a lynch-mob which still won't kill 32 people in a span of a few seconds.
No, but there's always fertilizer, fuel oil, and a handy U-Haul.
Probably would have cost him the same too.
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