This was originally titled "Why The European Media Can Kiss My Ass."
Mostly as a direct result of THIS.
Basically a diatribe about how the shooting yesterday in Virginia is a result of the culture and laws of America ALLOWING people to own firearms.
Now I am well aware that not everyone is a huge fan of firearms, and I respect this. I'm not a big fan of a lot of things, but it's not my place to tell other people not to do some things that are perfectly legal (or in some cases illegal, but going to happen anyways). But let's go into some of my favorite parts...
Brittan - "The Indepandant" wrote: "Despite the opposition of every police force in the land, Congress in 2004 allowed to lapse a 10-year federal ban on semi-automatic assault weapons, a particular favorite of violent criminals."
Of course, what these morons don't know about our laws can't hurt them. Or anyone else for that matter. The gun ban in 1994 banned cosmetic features, and limited magazine capacity to ten rounds. None of this would have changed anything about the Virginia shooting... The shooter used two firearms with (quoting a witness, the LEO's who responded, and cBS news), "multiple clips of ammunition." He had far more than ten rounds of ammunition, in multiple magazines (real word for a "clip").
Not that the gun ban in '94 did anything anyways. Quoting from a study, published in a Criminology journal in The Netherlands (not America, where we would be biased...): "We found no evidence of reductions in multiple-victim gun homicides or multiple-gunshot wound victimizations." (Journal Of Quantitative Criminology, v-17 N-1, 11-1-2004, p. 33)
Brittan - "The Times of London" wrote: "There is no doubt that access to rapid-action shotguns makes these events even more destructive,"
HE DIDN'T USE A SHOTGUN... But hey, why write a story AFTER learning those pesky facts...
France - "Le Monde" wrote: "This new tragedy presents a new opportunity for American public opinion to interrogate itself about a society which, as one of the students who survived Columbine said at the time, is very much responsible for what has happened."
This is total shit. Sure, we're going to take away all of the things that you can possibly harm yourself or another with... Knives are used in attacks three times as often as guns. Where's the cry for knife control? Cars kill (on average, every year) 10 times as many people as guns... Car Control? And he wasn't even AMERICAN, so how is our society at fault?
France - "Le Figaro" wrote: "legal changes were made to protect the producers and vendors of fire-arms from being held responsible for the actions of gun owners"
-A drunk driver hit me with a Chevy once... (True Story) I'm going to sue GM...
"while it is legal to carry a gun in 45 of 50 states, as long as the gun is not loaded"
-What they left out of this line is the words "in your vehicle..." It is legal to carry an unloaded gun in your vehicle. It isn't legal to carry a gun on a school campus in any state, even in your vehicle. The law here did nothing...
"At the end of 2004, the Republican-controlled Congress allowed a law to expire that prohibited the sale of semi-automatic and military weapons."
-And the shooter didn't use anything concerned by the ban, he used two handguns.
Italy - "Il Messaggaro" wrote: "an American suicide killer who, differently from Muslim killers, did not act out of religious motives but was driven instead by the unrest affecting broad layers of US society"
Funny, due to current reports, I would guess INSANE jilted lover. And more so, the guy was a South Korean National... Not even an American...
But my all time favorite-
Germany - "Bild" wrote: "Now we will probably begin discussing the overly lax gun laws in the United States. There, buying a machine gun is often easier than getting a driver's license."
-GIVE ME A FUCKING BREAK... SERIOUSLY...
In order to get a Class 3 weapon (industry term for machine gun), you have to have NO criminal record. Ever, for anything. Pass an FBI background check, twice, three months apart. Pay for NFA "Tax Stamps" to accompany your rifle (these are $200 a piece, and all C3 firearms require multiple "stamps" in order to be purchased). Then pay for your automatic rifle. These range in price from $5,000 to $25,000+... Is this easier than getting a drivers license? I don't think so.
And it's not that I do not feel for the families of the victims. I will always wonder why the school did not lock down the campus immediately upon learning of the shooting in the dorms TWO FULL HOURS before the rest of the violence began. If I hear that two people have been shot dead in the dorms on campus, I sure as hell would be canceling classes.
Why did those students and professors even have class yesterday, after the events of that morning?
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
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6 comments:
Gun laws don't solve the problems, they create them. Why did the Virginia Tech shooting turned into a massacre? Because no one could shoot back, that's why.
Bans will do nothing but allow any criminal with a single handgun to terrorize and kill a large number of people. No law can actually eliminate guns, it can only put them in the wrong hands. It's illegal to buy and sell drugs, it's illegal to climb the border fence, etc. Can we actually enforce all the laws? Not really, not even if we turn the country into a police state. No way. What we can do is to be better prepared for such incidents. Education. It's very easy to get a drivers license here, and we have 50,000 fatalities each year to prove that it should be a little more difficult. Gun safety education and licensing should be a part of high school education. Keeping the population unarmed don't seem to work.
"There, buying a machine gun is often easier than getting a driver's license."
They didn't say 'legally' buy a machine gun. But then, with all the traffic deaths, it must be easier to get a license.
Well, realistically, someone's not going to go on a knifing rampage. Or at least if they do, they probably won't do as much harm, unless they're a ninja with a gallery of throwing knives.
But if people with guns had been protecting the school... I don't know though, do we want to turn into a martial society? (Think Israel and blowing up abandoned packages in public places.)
Eve: And at the same time, do we need to take the rights of the overwhelming majority of law abiding citizens, to try and prevent criminals? Especially when, time after time, countries with total bans on civilian firearm ownership still have gun violence.
"If we make it illegal, the only ones doing it will be the criminals."
ok, let's start with it's "Britain"?
And this statement "countries with total bans on civilian firearm ownership still have gun violence" should include the line "but at nowhere near the level of the US" and point out that other countries which do have legal civilian firearm ownership (Switzerland for example) have much lower rates of gun crime than the US. Well, you should if you want to hold to the same levels of accuracy you are demanding of others.
Access to guns is one reason why there is such a high murder rate in the US and should be addressed. With the other reasons.
"If we make it illegal, the only ones doing it will be the criminals." Well, of course it does but having them legal doesn't seem to be such a stunning success does it???????
I don't like guns... they scare me. So I choose not to own one. But I don't want to stop other people from owning one. Free country shit, you know? That's what my husband is busting his ass for...
The guns aren't the problem, it's the shitty parenting problem, IMHO... which was rampant in England, too. My kids were in British schools for four years and the bullying problem was AWFUL. The Brits will admit to this, but they don't like to write about it much...
My husband is buying me a pink Taser C2, though... not a gun, thank you very much. But I could kick some serious ass...
;)
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