According to the report, the gunman said nothing, and no motive could be found. Tragedies such as this seem to be happening more and more often throughout the years. Before, an incident such as Columbine seemed like a single anomaly. Now, looking at wikipedia's list of notable school shootings, it seems as if we've had 6 in the past week, not to mention the "deadliest school shooting in U.S. history, the Virginia Tech Massacre. Maybe I just haven't really paid too much attention to news like this before, but that still seems rather high, especially compared to past years.
Gunman at Illinois College
Part of what worries me about this trend (obviously besides the increased danger in colleges and the deaths of the victims) is that they may turn the spotlight to gun control laws. Now, it seems rational that increasing gun control would decrease the violence, but from the statistics I found in past research, restrictive gun control laws don't have a positive if any effect on violence rates. Being a fan of firearms, I'm sure I'm a bit biased, but the evidence I find still supports my opinion. What do you guys think?
On a happier note... Happy Valentines Day!
(Is today a romantic holiday or "a holiday invented by greeting card companies to make people feel like crap") ^^
7 comments:
although it seems that more restrictive gun control laws may have no positive effect on violence, i'm sure that if gun control is raised enough, there can be progress made in terms of safety. Practically nobody has any use for two silenced handguns as shown in the picture, and therefore, average citizens should not be able to purchase them so easily. it is practical to have hunting rifles available, but beyond that, i dont think that people really need to have guns in their houses. i dont think that the bill of rights intended for people to be able to arm themselves to the teeth under the pretense of self defense.
On a related note at a closer proximity...
On last Saturday, February 9, 2008, Oakland held a gun buy back event at a location where Christopher Rodriguez, a 10-year-old boy, was paralyzed by a stray bullet while taking music lesson in mid January. State Senate President Don Perata initiated this event, although gun buy back program is nothing new; Oakland had a similar event last year too. The guns were melted down and put out of service.
This event was tainted by seven gun related deaths during the weekend of the gun buy back, though they do not seem to be unrelated, but not random as "they appear to stem from gang and drug turf warfare." These shooting increases the total homicide related killings to 20 deaths this year.
Some News Sources:
Gun Buy Back (ABC 7 News)
7 Dead During Gun Turn In (capoliticalnews.com)
Although it seems logical that restrictive gun control laws would help suppress gun violence, I came across an argument stating that gun control laws actual benefit criminals because a) law-abiding people are the ones most likely to follow gun control laws so these tighter laws would most likely only reduce gun possession among noncriminals (fewer armed victims) and b) there would be fewer resources to prosecute real criminals (a lot of police resources are spent on gun registration, gun law enforcement, etc.)
(http://www.ncpa.org/pub/st/st176/s176c.html)
So based on those arguments, I would say that tighter gun restriction is probably not a good move unless it is accompanied with another effective factor.
I am down to ban guns all together in the US. I don't use one, or own one, and I honestly don't see why anyone needs to besides Police Officers and the such. And for hunters, they are horrible to make a sport of taking the lives of living animals! Besides, even the legally owned guns, why do they need them? An alarm system is protection too!
To me i feel that some guns should be banned because they have no purpose for the general public. I feel that having a gun as protection isnt a bad thing, all an alarm system is going do is get the cops over there after awhile and what happens if it doesnt work, to bad for you. Also getting rid of guns for hunters is stupid since most hunters eat the animals they kill and dont just kill them for the fun. I dont see any difference between that and going to safeway to buy some meat. I might be biased though because i sparingly go to the rifle range but i feel that a restriction on all guns that Ryan points out would not be a good choice. And its a right we have to bear arms. It would just be unconstitional.
Banning guns altogether seems absolutely ridiculous to me. I see no reason anyone needs to watch TV, but we still have those, right? Banning automatic weapons makes enough sense (although, as that law stands right now, it's not too difficult to buy a semi and make it automatic), but banning normal firearms just doesn't make sense. They're helpful for self-protection, at least in your home, and they're used for sporting activities such as hunting or simply shooting at a range.
guns in homes i think are uncalled for. as ryan said, an alarm system works, and there are other weapons that are safer than guns. i think handguns should be completely banned from the general public. hunting rifles should have more restrictions on their sale and use. anything that will protect people more is best in my opinion.
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