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Seung-Hui Cho ( /?t?o? s??'hi?/; January 18, 1984 – April 16, 2007) was a senior-level undergraduate student at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University who killed 32 people and wounded 25 others on April 16, 2007, in the shooting rampage which came to be known as the "Virginia Tech massacre." Cho later committed suicide after law enforcement officers breached the doors of the building where the majority of the shooting had taken place. Cho's body is buried in Fairfax, Virginia. Born in South Korea, Cho arrived in the United States at the age of 8 with his family. He became a US permanent resident as a South Korean national

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Originally posted by Wulfenstar:
"Remember that guy who tried to go on a shooting spree without a gun and everyone just stomped his @ss?."

Remember that guy who tried to break into someones house, armed with a pistol, intent on killing, robbing, raping the owners and the homeowner shot him so full of holes?

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But who is to say I didn't?

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Never had to use it, thank God

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Originally posted by pizmobeach:



Then we agree - guns in houses = good, outside = not so much.
Look around you, I barely trust my fellow man when he's unarmed.

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Originally posted by Wulfenstar:
What does that have to do with anything, other than to try and score some points?

To answer your question, I would have shot back.

But who is to say I didn't?

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Originally posted by AnthonyT:
I don't think your fear of me is a good reason for me to be disarmed.

This incident is a tragedy. It happens to involve a gun. It is not about a gun.

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Originally posted by AnthonyT:
Hello Wulf,

I always lament it when I find myself on the same side of an issue as you.

I know it makes me look bad to have such allies.

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Originally posted by AnthonyT:
http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/latest_news.php?nid=36135

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35995544/ns/world_news-asia_pacific/t/stud
ents-killed-china-knife-attack/

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/china-news/kindergarten-shanghai-killi
ng-taixing-children-34455.html

http://www.chinapost.com.tw/international/europe/2011/08/16/313539/6-p
eople.htm

Hello,

It's really not about the gun. A gun is just the tool of murder this man had. You can murder, even mass murder, with other tools.

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12 attackers with guns would kill 84

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Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
Damn threat ate my post.

I agree with pizmo. Guns have been invented and improved upon to make them more effective weapons. That is why you don't get modern armies that only use knives. Of course people can kill others in many ways. They can use their bare hands if nothing else is available, but the gun will make it easier and that is its purpose. To make killing easier.

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March 23, 2007 by Marko Kloos
why the gun is civilization.

Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force. If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under threat of force. Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that’s it.

In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact through persuasion. Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction, and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to some.

When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force. The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gangbanger, and a single gay guy on equal footing with a carload of drunk guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender.

There are plenty of people who consider the gun as the source of bad force equations. These are the people who think that we’d be more civilized if all guns were removed from society, because a firearm makes it easier for a mugger to do his job. That, of course, is only true if the mugger’s potential victims are mostly disarmed either by choice or by legislative fiat–it has no validity when most of a mugger’s potential marks are armed. People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young, the strong, and the many, and that’s the exact opposite of a civilized society. A mugger, even an armed one, can only make a successful living in a society where the state has granted him a force monopoly.

Then there’s the argument that the gun makes confrontations lethal that otherwise would only result in injury. This argument is fallacious in several ways. Without guns involved, confrontations are won by the physically superior party inflicting overwhelming injury on the loser. People who think that fists, bats, sticks, or stones don’t constitute lethal force watch too much TV, where people take beatings and come out of it with a bloody lip at worst. The fact that the gun makes lethal force easier works solely in favor of the weaker defender, not the stronger attacker. If both are armed, the field is level. The gun is the only weapon that’s as lethal in the hands of an octogenarian as it is in the hands of a weightlifter. It simply wouldn’t work as well as a force equalizer if it wasn’t both lethal and easily employable.

When I carry a gun, I don’t do so because I am looking for a fight, but because I’m looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded. I don’t carry it because I’m afraid, but because it enables me to be unafraid. It doesn’t limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those who would do so by force. It removes force from the equation…and that’s why carrying a gun is a civilized act.

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Originally posted by AnthonyT:
Hello,

Obviously. As tool using humans, we have built killing machines that exceed the capacity of the knife. But since there is more than one way to skin a cat, we should broaden our gaze.

As a child, I used to get 'homework notices' for failing to do my homework. These were slips of paper explaining my naughtiness to my parents. If my parents saw these slips, I would be punished. So I used to hide them, destroy them, throw them away. To my child mind, this seemed like an adequate solution to the problem.

As it turned out, there were other methods for the teacher to reach out to my parents, and I was eventually punished anyway. The respite was temporary, and the tranquility was an illusion.

I do not mean to say that killings and homework have anything in common.

But the thought process that says removing the homework notices will solve the problem has a lot in common with the mentality that says removing the guns will solve the problem. Not to mention that once established, "Remove the tool" can go on to reach ludicrous levels. After guns, then knives, then anything that can possibly be a weapon. Till all law abiding citizens are empty handed.

Removing guns is a crutch that serves only to place the weak at the mercy of the strong. This is a good arrangement for the strong. Not so much for the rest of us.

In my opinion.

--Anthony

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Originally posted by Wulfenstar:
"Remember that guy who tried to go on a shooting spree without a gun and everyone just stomped his @ss?."

Remember that guy who tried to break into someones house, armed with a pistol, intent on killing, robbing, raping the owners and the homeowner shot him so full of holes?

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Originally posted by Niki2:
I notice, as usual, this becomes an "all=or-nothing" argument. Does anyone here really want to take away people's guns? I sure don't.

Can anyone debate this on the middle ground...

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Originally posted by Fremdfirma:

And that is OUR responsibility, collectively, as human beings and fellow travellers, not no government, not no business, OURS, each and every - and we failed it.

It ain't simpler than that.

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Originally posted by AnthonyT:

Removing guns is a crutch that serves only to place the weak at the mercy of the strong. This is a good arrangement for the strong. Not so much for the rest of us.

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Originally posted by Niki2:
I notice, as usual, this becomes an "all=or-nothing" argument. Does anyone here really want to take away people's guns? I sure don't.

Can anyone debate this on the middle ground, like say, maybe people shouldn't have semi-automatic weapons with thirty-round clips or something? I know Wulf can't, his NRA-sodden mind sees any attempt to put ANY limitation on guns as a horrendous infringement on EVERYONE's gun rights, so I'm not addressing him. I'm talking about the semi-reasonable people here, and I ask: Is there not a middle ground?

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No one wants to take all the guns away from people.

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since they rarely announce themselves

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Originally posted by AnthonyT:

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since they rarely announce themselves

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Hello,

People with weapons frequently announce themselves when planning to do a bad thing. They usually say, "Hey, look, I have a weapon, and I want to do this bad thing."

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Originally posted by AnthonyT:

This is also true in shooting rampages, where even if they don't say the words, they still manage to broadcast their intentions quite loudly.

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Originally posted by AnthonyT:

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No one wants to take all the guns away from people.

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Hello,

Actually, some people do want this. I wouldn't be so concerned otherwise. People do want this and people have stated they want this and people work to achieve this.

Even some of those who graciously allow that I should be able to own a gun admit they'd prefer if I didn't actually carry one around.

Some would prefer to limit what sort of gun I should carry, of what caliber, of what capacity, of what COLOR AND SHAPE, of what MELTING POINT, etc.

If I knew that all attempts to control my ownership and carrying of guns would end at a competency test and a license at the local DMV, then I'd be very happy with that arrangement.

In any event, the point I made when posting the knife attack articles has clearly been lost by some here.

It's to show that the problem is not the gun. It's the guy who decides to commit mass murder. It's the society where people wake up and say, "Hey, I'm going to kill as many people as I can today." And it's the idea that they can do these things because they can find large groups of people who are defenseless.

When you take away weapon X from good people, bad people will either continue to acquire weapon X or proceed to weapon Y to do their dirty deeds.

And weapon Y can be surprisingly more effective than you'd thought. The real weapon, as always, is the man with murder on his mind.

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Prisons have strict gun control. If only the rest of us "free" people did.

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Yet in all of these scenarios I've yet to read about an armed citizen stopping the event. Curious.

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Originally posted by AnthonyT:

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Prisons have strict gun control. If only the rest of us "free" people did.

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Hello,

I suppose the difference between us is that the above quote horrifies me, and you see it as an ideal.

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Originally posted by pizmobeach:

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Originally posted by AnthonyT:

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Prisons have strict gun control. If only the rest of us "free" people did.

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Hello,

I suppose the difference between us is that the above quote horrifies me, and you see it as an ideal.

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I actually don't, that's not me saying that, but in any event I believe the writer was being facetious, using irony to make their point.

Scifi movie music + Firefly dialogue clips, 24 hours a day - http://www.scifiradio.com]

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Originally posted by AnthonyT:

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Yet in all of these scenarios I've yet to read about an armed citizen stopping the event. Curious.

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http://www.ktvn.com/Global/story.asp?S=8378732

Hello,

It does happen sometimes.

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Originally posted by AnthonyT:

Apologies. I didn't realize you were quoting the comments you disagreed with.

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Originally posted by pizmobeach:
And yet it doesn't happen - it's a beautiful sentiment but we'll all be dead and buried before our society ever reflects that kind of generosity at effective levels. There's the trope about "there's no truly unselfish act." Since I am stubborn and hell bent on being contrary at times I tried to find a completely unselfish act I could perform. I may have had it wrong but on each attempt I was thrown back, denied, and left cold. In one particular case when trying to help a relative, I was even rebuked, "you just want to gloat." I was there to help but they saw it as my taking pleasure in their pain, the exact opposite of my intentions. So I am putting "the intervening to help others" on hold.

In terms of guns making a more civilized society? So more police with guns then? or at least police as they should be. I agree with gun advocates when they say that a large part is "the person with the gun" and I don't trust some guy who's been to the range and never had any more training to make those life and death calls, not around me. It's never that clear cut, situational training has a real purpose. Zimmerman??????

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Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
[As for firearms and training, I have stated repeatedly that I would much prefer someone with the training but not the weapon, than the weapon without the training - and I have no particular issue with the idea of making said training and proof of skill a mandatory requirement for ownership, I simply do not trust the Government to be directly involved in the process because they have proven, over and over, that they cannot be trusted with it - I would rather settle for manufacturers and dealers making and enforcing such a requirement in exchange for indemnity from lawsuit...

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