Catsix, STFU!

The BBQ Pit
41

[QUOTE=Weirddave]
Only difference is that yours is a fantasy,as are so many of your posts. Mine is well within the realm of possibility, even probability.
[/quote]

So you say, as someone who was not there.

I strongly suspect that the students who were shot barely had time to register what was happening before they were killed. Their first instincts were probably to cower to the floor. I can only imagine their panic. Sure, maybe if one of them had a gun, the carnage could have been averted. Or maybe one more person would have gotten killed. None of us are really in the position to handicap unseen events.

We’re talking about people who, due to their age, probably wouldn’t even be eligible to carry a gun, even if the campus allowed them. But let’s say that guns were allowed and under-21s could carry. The idea that these kids would be carrying around loaded guns strikes me as being almost as fanciful as a seeing-eye-lion. Maybe your experiences with college students differ from mine.

42

[QUOTE=Weirddave]
Only difference is that yours is a fantasy,as are so many of your posts. Mine is well within the realm of possibility, even probability. I happen to know that Virginia is a state that respects the First Amendment and will freely issue CCPs to qualified citizens-except you can’t carry on school grounds, which deprives law abiding gun owners of the ability to defend themselves at school.
[/QUOTE]

Of course, if guns weren’t so easy to get, maybe the gunman would’ve had to use a knife, or something.

Just sayin’.

43

[QUOTE=you with the face]
So you say, as someone who was not there.
[/QUOTE]

Clearly, all these ‘if only I was there with my gun’ sorts picture themselves as James Bonds - cool and calm in any situation; easily able to draw and aim a gun perfectly and kill the villain in the midst of chaos and panic. Yeah right.

Note to twits: that’s what happens in movies. Real life ain’t nearly that easy and you ain’t 007s. :rolleyes:

44

[QUOTE=Weirddave]
I happen to know that Virginia is a state that respects the First Amendment and will freely issue CCPs to qualified citizens-except you can’t carry on school grounds, which deprives law abiding gun owners of the ability to defend themselves at school.
[/QUOTE]
At least we can be grateful that Virginia respects the First Amendment right of citizens to worship the gun of their choice.

45

I hesitate to get into a gun control argument. But I hate this argument that if someone else had a gun, it would all be OK. Yeah, that’s just where I want to be- between a gun-wielding psycho…and a total stranger wielding a gun. How do I know the stranger even knows how to fire the damn thing or has any idea what to do with it? You can’t guarantee me that everyone who has a CCP really knows what they are doing. And I don’t particularly want to get caught in the crossfire.

I second Lightnin’s comment - we should be looking at how the killer got the gun, not why everyone else didn’t have a gun.

46

There are times when I’m convinced this board is, in fact, far too left-leaning and sensitive. This is one of those times. catsix decried the violence, just like everyone else. She just put a different spin on it. BFD.

47

Sorry for the double-post but I just c&p this from the other thread:

Firearm laws in VA

And you’re going to tell me some stranger in VA is going to have a CCP and I should trust him? That I should think that someone who has the monetary resources to buy a gun also knows how to use it? Bullshit.

48

[QUOTE=you with the face]
We’re talking about people who, due to their age, probably wouldn’t even be eligible to carry a gun, even if the campus allowed them. But let’s say that guns were allowed and under-21s could carry. The idea that these kids would be carrying around loaded guns strikes me as being almost as fanciful as a seeing-eye-lion. Maybe your experiences with college students differ from mine.
[/QUOTE]

And if they were eligible to carry guns, why would they think they needed to? That’s what makes this such an awful situation-- you’re supposed to be able to go to classes at school and not worry about getting shot. Maybe that’s an increasingly naive POV, but most college students wouldn’t bother to have a CCP, and if they did, likely wouldn’t have had their guns anyway. Thus it’s kind of a pointless argument IMO.

49

I would fear that with a university of approximately 25,000 students ( number seen here About | Virginia Tech ), if all of them were walking around carrying guns, the number of deaths and injuries that would come about from careless gun handling and fights spiralling out of control could in a few years easily surpass the death toll of today’s attack. Over time they are probably safer to have a relatively gun-free environment.

50

And in a related note, Jack Thompson has already appeared on Fox News, claiming that the shootings can be blamed on video games.

51

[QUOTE=Rubystreak]
Maybe that’s an increasingly naive POV, but most college students wouldn’t bother to have a CCP, and if they did, likely wouldn’t have had their guns anyway. Thus it’s kind of a pointless argument IMO.
[/QUOTE]

I manage to leave home without my cellphone all the time, and I’ve needed that infinitely more times than I’ve needed a gun.

52

[QUOTE=Arnold Winkelried]
I would fear that with a university of approximately 25,000 students ( number seen here About | Virginia Tech ), if all of them were walking around carrying guns, the number of deaths and injuries that would come about from careless gun handling and fights spiralling out of control could in a few years easily surpass the death toll of today’s attack. Over time they are probably safer to have a relatively gun-free environment.
[/QUOTE]

nobody’s advocating that everybody run around armed. I fully agree that high rates of common gun carrying in everyday situations would lead to more hot-headed shootings, give people the means and they’ll do something stupid. The point is merely that NO students, including ones who ARE qualified, good shots (maybe even ex-military who have been under fire), etc, are carrying, except for the gun-toting madmen. Again, I’m very careful to vet this position with my above point about increased CCPs leading to more gun deaths, and that CCPs in particular should be very carefully controlled, but I wouldn’t advocate a complete ban either.

53

[QUOTE=Weirddave]
Because I can guarantee you that whatever scenario you concoct to take on a person with a gun while unarmed yourself will be unlikely, far fetched, improbably and far, far likelier to end with your death than subduing the gunman. It’s not impossible, no, neither is surviving when the plane you’re flying in blows up in midair, but it’s unlikely, and I’ll guarantee you that whatever the scenario you do come up with, your odds of surviving will greatly increase if you do possess a weapon.
[/QUOTE]

By the power of Google I shall bring forth data.

It is hard to say how poor your chances are as I know of no relevant source, so lets do a search and see with what we come up with. In order to find people who try to disarm shooters I am looking up: “school shooting” hero. That should give us what we are looking for, I will illustrate all the ones I find that are at all relevant (for example, not involving law enforcement taking the shooter down).

1) Fifteen year old brings gun to school, starts shooting when confronted, taken down by unarmed faculty. One dead and two wounded. No word on if the injuries happened before or after they went after him, so it is hard to say how it went for them. They definitely won out though.

2) Kid brings in gun for some vengeance and the principal takes him down but pays with his life. Other unarmed teachers finish restraining him. Only the principal is hurt.

3) Columbine. Teacher tried to stop it, was killed, and accomplished nothing.

4) There are a couple here, but only one I found where and unarmed person attempts to stop the violence. A teacher struggles with and chases off a student who had the gun out and was threatening others. One shot fired, no injuries.

5) A student shoots two others and an unarmed teacher disarms him. Teacher uninjured.

6) Kid shoots six others with a rifle, then pulls out a handgun. Assistant Principal talks him down without even having to physically restrain him.

So, we have six instances on the first two pages of the search. In four the unarmed person is able to stop the tragedy and make it through. In one they stop it and die in the process, and in the last they die without stopping it. Though this is entirely unscientific I think it begins to show that it is not as completely far fetched as you believe. People just don’t expect you to try and stop them, they expect you to run away and get shot in the back while fleeing. I agree it is probably pretty dumb to charge in at a shooter when you are unarmed, but it can and does end these situations with much less loss of life.

Though your odds of winning probably go up with a gun, so do your odds of hitting someone else, or other people mistaking you for the shooter.

54

[QUOTE=enigm4tic]
I wouldn’t advocate a complete ban either.
[/QUOTE]
Is there a complete ban on carrying guns on the campus now?

55

[QUOTE=enigm4tic]
I fully agree that high rates of common gun carrying in everyday situations would lead to more hot-headed shootings, give people the means and they’ll do something stupid.
[/QUOTE]

The data do not necessarily back up your position.

Regards,
Shodan

56

[QUOTE=Ogre]
There are times when I’m convinced this board is, in fact, far too left-leaning and sensitive. This is one of those times. catsix decried the violence, just like everyone else. She just put a different spin on it. BFD.
[/QUOTE]

The OP and the first person to respond are both politically right-leaning.

57

In this particular instance, an expedient far more effective than any pro-gun or anti-gun measures would have surely been alerting the campus after the police were called in on the first shootings, the ones in the dorm. Most of the killings were in Norris Hall, where the shooting didn’t start for another two hours, give or take a few minutes.

58

[QUOTE=Arnold Winkelried]
I would fear that with a university of approximately 25,000 students ( number seen here About | Virginia Tech ), if all of them were walking around carrying guns, the number of deaths and injuries that would come about from careless gun handling and fights spiralling out of control could in a few years easily surpass the death toll of today’s attack.
[/quote]

You may be right. You may be wrong. We’ll never know.

The worst part about these arguments is the necessity to bandy about hypotheticals. I can state unequivocally that if there were no guns there would be no gun deaths. While rosy in outlook and absolutely 100% correct, it has no basis in reality and is impossible to boot, so it really doesn’t make sense to raise it as a hypothetical. It is possible to raise a reasonable objection without making absurd arguments, and while I respectfully disagree with the viewpoint that guns should be banned I can also understand and appreciate the argument without cursing people out or coming up with some “What if?” scenario to fit my viewpoint. I am content to let the argument stand on its own merits.

I am inclined to agree for the most part, with one proviso. That is that people who have been properly vetted by the Federal government to own a gun and have been properly vetted by the local law enforcement agencies to carry a concealed weapon should be allowed to. I have never been entirely certain why we exempt some places and not others from the right to possession. I understand the “what about the children?” argument, but children do not go to universities. They are adults. Since possession of a handgun is limited to people over 21 anyway, I don’t understand the objection.

Weirddave, the Amendment you are thinking of is, of course, the 2nd Amendment, not the 1st. Not a big deal, but it is an important distinction.

With regard to the OP, I agree that it was not an appropriate place to raise the objection. But as others have said, it was an inevitable topic of discussion, so that’s really my only beef. Unfortunately, as the OP said, raising the right point at the wrong time does not do justice to the argument you are espousing and only arouses the ire of people that disagree with you, making them less likely to be amenable to your opinion in the future.

59

Immaterial. It’s their Constitutional and legal right under Virginia law to do so. It should not even be a question for debate on campus. A student exercising his or her rights in regards to carrying a CCP should not even be an issue for campus regulations.

That’s why your right to be armed should never be infringed. No matter what the situation, this is an unsafe world. Your safety, and that of your loved ones and possessions, is your own responsibility. We have institutions in place that are supposed to help with these things, but really, the world is not a different place than it has ever been. There may very well come a time when either you have the means to defend yourself, or you die. It should be the right of every human being to defend themselves if it is necessary to do so.

If you were talking about California, I might agree, but I’d expect the percentages would be different, say, here, or in Blacksburg, VA.

60

Didn’t the students have chairs? Why didn’t they use the chairs to defend themselves?

My gun proponent high school chemistry teacher used to say that if you ban guns for killing people then you should ban chairs (or bats) too since you can kill people with a chair as well. So apparently ease and killing power with chair = ease and killing power with gun. Of course, I never saw him with a chair strapped to his hip. I’ve never really understood gun proponents equating the ability to kill with household items. If it’s true, then you don’t need a gun to protect yourself, just use what’s handy. …Oh, but you pick the gun… so it must be different…

Oh, and I am not a big anti-gun nut, but if you are a gun proponent, I just find this line of thinking to be a poor argument. So, if you are pro-gun, please don’t tell me that someone could have cause just as much carnage with piano wire. Yes, I know you can kill someone with piano wire, but would you choose to carry piano wire for protection? No? Then don’t equate killing things with piano wire with guns.