Shooting spree in German High School

[Apache]

Originally posted by -dead-

Ahhh the impeccable logic - So we should forget about all weapon control altogether?:
When are sink/ knife/ gun/ hand grenade/ tank/ helicopter/ missile/ smallpox/ anthrax/ nerve gas/ nuke* control advocates going to realize the obvious?
A criminal is such for many reasons. Too many to list here. Is a criminal going to avoid getting or using a sink/ knife/ gun/ hand grenade/ tank/ helicopter/ missile/ smallpox/ anthrax/ nerve gas/ nuke* because...it's illegal?
*delete those items that you feel are too dangerous to be owned by individuals and/or governments like Iraq, Iran, North Korea, or that most evil of countries, (insert current local scapegoat here). Any similarity to feelings of hypocrisy that you may encounter are strictly coincidental.

Toad at least has a better point - people do all the actual killing and inanimate objects aren't to blame.
Some inanimate objects are however specifically designed to make it easier for people to kill said people - if guns are so innocent, why do all armies use them for the express purpose of killing people? Taking this a bit further: killing someone would appear to not be a "perverted" use of a gun - in fact in the case of guns & ammo designed for the military, any use of a gun apart from killing people should really be considered the "perverted" use.
If people were mature, rational, sentient and sensible, then I'd be much less opposed to them be armed. However people are far too often given to being outstandingly stupid and evil to each other, as Toad points out. Indeed the german kid mentioned above goes even further to prove the point. Another obvious point about guns springs up as well - the death toll of 18 people - could he really have achieved that armed only with a bathroom sink? I'm betting no.
So I feel that giving people the right to own guns is as dangerous and irresponsible as giving toddlers a bottle of bleach to play with (I can almost hear the National Bleach Association advocates now: "hey - only criminal toddlers will use the bleach to kill someone", "bleach doesn't kill toddlers, toddlers kill toddlers").

So the death of is more of a tragedy than the death of 1?

I don't follow the logic.

A toddler doesn't have the ability to reason. We as adults are supposed to.

[Shuckins]

The mere presence of guns in a society does not lead to violence.  Conversely, the absence of guns does not lead to security.  Switzerland requires its citizens to perform military service for a full year and then go on reserve status thereafter.  The citizens that are on reserve keep their weapons in their homes.  And yet Switzerland has one of the lowest crime rates in the world.

The presence of a large number of guns in civilian hands doesn't necessarily lead to a low crime rate.  Nor does it foster an increase in crime.  Rather it is a lack of self-discipline and respect for the law and the rights of others within a society that leads to such tragic incidents as Columbine.  

Those who would have more gun laws believe that handing the responsibility for their security over to the government is the best way to attain it.  But that is a false premise.  The government cannot protect you, everywhere, all the time.  Ultimately, the citizen bears the responsibility for maintaining his own security.  This fact is something that the Founding Fathers understood without reservations.  They were men who were intimate with firearms and their legitimate uses.  They attempted to create the best, most responsive, government that the world had ever seen.
In this they succeeded.  They were very proud of their creation.

Yet, they did not trust it.  Not entirely.  The great powers of a central government are too easily used for tyranny.

So, they wrote the embarassing Second Amendment.  If any of you doubt that they intended it to be used as a curb on the power of the Federal Government, then go back and look at some of their earlier writings on the subject.  Remember also, that they had also recently finished a war with a central government that they considered to be tyrannical.

Never would they have questioned a citizen's right to use a weapon to defend their families or persons, whether at home or on the streets.

I strongly suspect, there was not a single armed citizen within a mile of the school in Germany, except for the killer.  Not a single soul capable of defending their lives or the lives of the students and teachers slain by that maniac.

Our Founding Fathers would be aghast at such a situation.


Regards, Shuckins

[-dead-]

Well the way I figure it - the death of one person is a tragedy
the death of two people is two tragedies.... etc. etc.
I take it from your statement you feel that the world should be equally saddened by the death of one person as all the casualties of World War One? It's a noble aspiration, but it doesn't strike me as being very realistic.

[cynicism]Indeed to blend in with the rest of society, I should really say that the death of one person is a tragedy, while the death of over ten people is good television, and the death of over a thousand is a charity concert opportunity. Sad but true.[/cynicism]

[Toad]

I had actually qualifed for Naval Flight Training, had all the paperwork and physicals done and was due to get orders the following week.

However, over the intervening weekend, somebody in Naval Intelligence found out that my parents had indeed been legally married and I was thus disqualified.

Oh well, I was happy in the AF.

[midnight Target]

OK, I may be a liberal, but I'm not really in favor of gun control.

However, I have yet to see one relevent argument that shows how this tragedy may have been avoided if Germany had looser gun control legislation. Do you all really think a local citizen could have rushed in with his legally aquired handgun and saved the day?

C'mon, be serious!

I'm sure a citizen within 1 mile or 2 of Columbine had a gun.......where was the chickensh*t?

[Kanth]

Yes, yes I do.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/68044_shooting26.shtml

Kanthy

Originally posted by midnight Target
Do you all really think a local citizen could have rushed in with his legally aquired handgun and saved the day?

[-dead-]

Hmm As far as I can tell that news article doesn't prove the point at all.

A woman shot and killed an armed man who broke into her West Seattle home and began beating her roommate early yesterday morning.

No mention of her running off down to a school and killing someone who was shooting kids.... or is that story printed in between the lines of text?
Indeed the third paragraph seems to be arguing against your point:

Neighbors said they had no idea a shooting had occurred, some saying they thought the shots were merely backfire from one of the many cars traveling along the busy street.

[funkedup]

I can't believe you guys are arguing about gun control.  The real issue here is why the hell are teenage amazinhunks flipping out and murdering their teachers and peers.  It appears to be contagious, not just isolated to US culture any longer.  I wish people like this would just shoot themselves and save the rest of us the trouble.  Child molesters too for that matter.

[Dowding]

Western society sucks.

We should get back to something more wholesome like feudalism.

Mental health has been in decline in Western democracies for years. I don't think we are going to see an end to this stuff.

[Toad]

Feudalism?

Can I be the king?

I always wanted to be able to exercise that "droit du seigneur feature, myth not withstanding!

[midnight Target]

Originally posted by funkedup
I can't believe you guys are arguing about gun control.  The real issue here is why the hell are teenage amazinhunks flipping out and murdering their teachers and peers.  It appears to be contagious, not just isolated to US culture any longer.  I wish people like this would just shoot themselves and save the rest of us the trouble.  Child molesters too for that matter.

Exactly. Thats why I asked my question funked! This has nothing to do with gun control, and proves nothing for either side.

[miko2d]

Originally posted by Kanth
I think one answer is to make a gun that is useless unless  in it's owners hand.

 Good idea. The criminals will still use regular guns, but at least they would not be easily able eaily steal the guns from lawfull owners.

 Unfortunately all the electronic schemes are clumsy, expencive and ineffective. I am willing to have a gun or better yet a piece that would plug into a gun surgically implanted into my hand though.

 midnight Target: Do you all really think a local citizen could have rushed in with his legally aquired handgun and saved the day?
 Just try polling a gun on a bunch of children in Israel and see how long you will live...

-dead- - the guns/knives are so easy to make/smuggle/obtain illegally, that there is a great chance that a common criminal facing you may be armed with a gun or a knife (but not tank, helicopter, missile, smallpox, anthrax, nerve, gas or nuke). It is only fitting that a law-abiding citizen was able to defend him/herself with a reasonable weapon.

 miko

[Voss]

mT, do you think, perhaps, that the stringent gun control laws in place might have backfired in that everyone in the school and surrounding town felt secure that this situation simply could not arise? The U.S. has taken steps to actually protect our kids by violating individual rights (if minors can be said to have rights protecting them from search and seizure) by putting metal detectors and even officers in schools. I don't know, but I suspect, that Germany does not have this in place.

I don't think anyone can say gun laws are to blame here. In fact, if anything, it's the Government and the Laws of Germany that are to blame. The school system in Germany reflects the future of America, if we are to allow a pure Government education system with no options of home schooling. Currently, you can educate your kids at home here. You can bet that there are individuals that want to implement laws prohibiting home education. After all, only the rich can afford to due this, and thus allow rich children an advantage over their poorer counterparts. How can we, as a people, allow this injustice?:rooleyes:

If, you can follow my argument, you will find that eventually Government will control not only the education of our children, but their safety as well. It's an awesome responsibility that every extant system has failed to competently fulfill. Inevitably, the teachers become specialists in a single subject, poorly suited to judging an individuals needs, and ill-prepared to deal with non-conformists amongst their pupils. Thus, we have situations arising where an individuals needs are overlooked for the benefit of the group. Possibly, what this kid needed was some one-on-one counseling, a mentor, a tutor, and perhaps a great deal of TLC. Public schooling has never been able to provide this efficiently to every possible personality type. Certainly, it is too late to prevent this incident, but just as certainly gun laws were not the cause of the grudge developing.

No, the gun was not to blame. Humans tend to be creative in fulfilling their goals. This kid would have come up with some other way of exacting his revenge. The law failed him and his schoolmates, as it is not by its nature capable of protection. Laws cannot protect people. Laws can only be used to define the limits expected of everyone as a mass. The concept of writing more laws to prevent situations from arising is simply fluff.

[Shuckins]

Traveled all over Israel a couple of years ago.  While they have a lot of political violence to deal with they hardly ever have a Columbine type incident.

Several years ago, about the time they had that horrendous massacre at a McDonald's in California, two terrorists walked into a restaurant in Israel with the intention of killing as many patrons as possible.  They had a map that showed the locations of several more Jewish restaurants.  They obviously intended to hit as many of them as possible.  Needless to say, they failed.  The patrons of the restaurant shot one dead and captured the other.  Only two patrons were killed by the terrorists, even though they had the element of surprise on their side.

I was in a park in Tel Aviv one day when several classes of school children were present on a school outing.  Several of the teachers were armed.  Can you imagine the outcry if a law-maker here in the U.S. proposed legislation to allow teachers in our schools to be armed?  The Israelis are very practical in their approach to handling that type of violence.  They TRUST their law-abiding citizens to handle weapons in a sane and sensible fashion.

In the U.S., on the other hand, the opposite is the truth.  After years of news reports and propaganda, the average American citizen no longer believes that his fellow citizens can be trusted to handle a deadly weapon in public.  Whenever we have a mass shooting the only person in the building who is armed is the killer.  They will always find a way to get a weapon.  We can't keep an addict from finding a source of drugs.  How are we going to keep criminals and lunatics from obtaining deadly weapons?  Anything can be bought, no matter how hard law enforcement agencies try to prevent it.

To those who would argue that an armed citizen is likely to make a mistake in such a crisis situation and injure the innocent I would say consider the following fact:

According to statistics, a policeman responding to a domestic violence dispute in which he is forced to draw and use his weapon is FIVE times more likely to make a mistake and shoot the wrong person as a civilian who has to draw his weapon and defend himself in the same situation.

Regards, Shuckins

[Elfenwolf]

Originally posted by Toad
somebody in Naval Intelligence found out that my parents had indeed been legally married and I was thus disqualified.

Oh well, I was happy in the AF.

Toad, they were supposed to be legally married to EACH OTHER. Oh well, is spite of your disqualification from a REAL flight training program when we become a feudal state I will vote for you for king.