Hard News: Awful in more than one way
256 Responses
First ←Older Page 1 2 3 4 5 … 11 Newer→ Last
-
I wasn't me - didn't see the one-month mistake but it reinforces my WTF point about the possibility of Koreans in the States now being targetted in revenge attacks.
-
Tristan:
Bloody good idea, but I'd be even more impressed if the NRA used it's considerable lobbying clout and grassroots organisation to start pressuring legislators to put their weight behind proper enforcement of the gun regulations already on the books. You don't have to be an anti-gun nut (to coin a phrase), to have you blood run cold at another story where some killer ended up with a firearm because someone didn't bother doing the background check, didn't file the paperwork, just didn't give a shit...
-
It! It!
Gimme that edit button Russell...
-
The fucker follows and drives up besides me - hand on his police issue shotgun in the car.
gun-toting cops are just like that.
i asked a cop in oz about height restrictions to get into the force (he was maybe 5'8?).
he put his hand on his gun, and asked me to repeat the question...
-
Matt Drudge's link text for a story that says this:
Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old senior majoring in English, arrived in the United States as boy from South Korea in 1992 and was raised in suburban Washington, D.C., officials said.
Is: POLICE: Campus killer is Cho Seung-Hui, 23, native of South Korea....
-
-
a blogger at National Review on line is wondering why the kids weren't brave enough to rush the guy
I am not surprised. Whenever something like this happens, rightist commentators sneer at the bystanders for not doing as Chuck Norris would have done. These people live in a fantasy world informed by action movies. I would be surprised if any of them had ever been in such a situation.
In reality, when guns are fired and bombs explode, the smart thing to do is get out of the way fast. The actions of the student and lecturer at Monash were exceptional.
-
Timothy McVeigh? The Atlanta Olympic bomber? IRA bombings in the UK? Attempting to blow up a nightclub full of "promiscous women" (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/5016274.stm)? The nail bomb killings in the UK? That's just off the top of my head.
And all of them were terrorists who carried out well planned, meticulous attacks with deliberate agendas and careful selection of targets - the exact opposite of random mass murders like Aramoana and Virginia-Tech.
-
And, Kyle, you can reduce any debate to its lunatic fringes while emotions are (understandably) sky high. I personally don't think political posturing over open graves is constructive let alone in anything less than appalling taste.
Well that wasn't political posturing, it was "hey look at a couple of messed things I heard related to this news". Political posturing is "man, they should ban guns in the USA, look what people do with guns."
But today and tomorrow and the following days are precisely the time to talk and think about gun control laws. Lots of countries, as people have pointed out, have taken steps following gun massacres, to improve their gun control laws.
I don't think the US will do that now, but when someone runs rampage with a weapon who's sole purpose is killing people (as compared to animals or targets) that they got for $500 in five minutes with one form of ID and an 'instant police check' which took less than a minute, at a gun fair, leaving 33 dead and more injured - sounds like a good time to talk about gun control to me.
Saying 'people are dead, we shouldn't talk about how this has happened now' is like saying 1968 is a bad year to talk about US involvement in Vietnam, because My Lai just happened and we should respect the recently dead.
Philip Alpers hasn't been on Fair Go for about 20 years.
No, but it was like a blast from my teenage years. It's like wandering down the streets and seeing Dougal Stevenson!
-
rodgerd could have used Columbine as an example. But even though the victims of Aramoana and Virginia-Tech were random the events themselves were planed and had an agenda.
I think rodgerd was saying that these rare events are not really where the problem of gun violence lies in the US and even with effective gun control that's not going to stop the most determined people causing events like this.
With all the talk of Cho Seung-Hui origins not much attention is being paid to the fact that he was both young and male.
-
one form of ID
I think I might have this detail wrong. Two forms of ID. And a cheque book (which apparently counts as a third there).
-
Sounds like it was pathological jealousy combined with easy access to guns...
-
wasn't me - didn't see the one-month mistake but it reinforces my WTF point about the possibility of Koreans in the States now being targetted in revenge attacks.
Sorry, it was Mark E who spotted that.
This may have been posted already, but Salon reports that Korean students are now 'fleeing' the V-Tech campus.
Personally, I think they have a better chance of being met with understanding and compassion on their own campus than out in the rest of America.
-
It does strike me that if the students had had guns, then the following might have happened:
- gunshots ring out across campus
- various students start stalking around the place with guns drawn
- said students spot each other and assuming the other student is the perp, open fire
- an all-against-all shootout develops
- several thousand wingnuts die in the crossfireI'm convinced - all american wingnuts should have guns and as many rounds as they can carry! We need more natural selection..
-
I smell a media beat up here... any pogroms against the Koreans would be directly caused by sensationalist reporting.
-
I don't find the "they can't solve the problem cause there's too many guns now" argument very compelling. Oz solved a similar problem quite easily. You make the licensing tough, make having an unlicensed gun illegal, and offer an amnesty period. You could even offer cash. Then you start enforcing those laws strictly. When having an unlicensed gun is a crime they can be confiscated with impunity. Any time a suspect is searched the guns are confiscated.
The real problem is the constitution and the culture.
-
any pogroms against the Koreans would be directly caused by sensationalist reporting.
I dunno. Remember that after Steve Irwin died, people in QLD were hacking up stingrays in revenge. There are some really, really stupid, tribal-minded people out there.
-
Assuredly that would work Ben, but there is a sizable sector of the population that doesn't want all that extra gummint.
They are soaked in gun culture and they like it. -
Heh, arguably less gummint is needed to deal with armed crooks all the time! As you say, the culture of popping caps is deeply ingrained. I don't know if it's a majority, but it's certainly a very, very vocal (and well armed) minority.
-
3410,
For an interesting look at America's violence culture check out Top Gear s09e03
-
I dunno. Remember that after Steve Irwin died, people in QLD were hacking up stingrays in revenge.
myth, apparently. can't find the source now, but I recall reading that - after Irwin's death - a few dead stingrays were found in Queensland with their barbs removed. Apparently this is pretty common (they get sold for whatever weird medicinal purposes), and the media jumped to the conclusion that the killings were 'revenge' motivated, particularly after some Aussie marine biologist said something along the lines of "__if__ these were revenge killings, then people are pretty bloody stupid" which the media decided to interpret as "these killings were revenge motivated".
-
s09e03
bittorrent search ready. nice.
-
Top Gear s09e03
is that the one where they paint the slogans on their cars? It gets very frightening very quickly.
-
This guy got the president to visit his campus. Now that's power.
One of these days it's going to be an expat New Zealander going gun-crazy over there. And all our movies and music and mountain-climbing and even Kevin Roberts would not make Aotearoa so famous. Kiwi travellers in the USA would no longer have to sigh and say "It's near Australia and we do speak English". We would be "on the map".
Er, add profound life/media/Andy Warhol-type comment here to finish.
-
I think rodgerd was saying that these rare events are not really where the problem of gun violence lies in the US and even with effective gun control that's not going to stop the most determined people causing events like this.
We're always going to have crazy people in our society and they'll always do crazy things. Incredibly, the worst school massacre in US history was back in 1927 and guns had nothing to do with it.
But guns make wiping out a bunch of people incredibly easy. As a clumsy analogy it's like leaving a big ol' glass of poison on the floor of a kindergarten and refusing to move it on the grounds that 'the kids will just find some other way to hurt themselves'.
Post your response…
This topic is closed.