Hey/Moment of silence

[Fenris]

Hey guys. Just a quick note to ask you to keep the folks at Virginia Tech in your prayers, on your minds, or whatever it is you do. Thanks.

[Karuka]

My b/f goes to that school...(he's fine, btw).

It's just way too close for comfort.

[Rith]

I've been watching CNN and MSNBC all day. It's sad that people even think to do this.

[Cyrus the virus]

I'm developing some rather strong opinions on gun control, but they're too radical to actually be considered as options. It almost feels as if there's no possible solution...

[Karuka]

Unfortunately, over here we have the Second Amendment to the Constitution, the latter half of which give private citizens the right to bear arms.

Things get hairy when you start messing with Constitutional rights.

*Rolls eyes*

My opinion is that only law-enforcement officials should be permitted to carry projectile weapons at any time, with exceptions for licensed hunters at recognized hunting grounds.

Then again, if we take away their guns, it is REALLY EASY to make explosives. REALLY. EASY. With stuff found in your cleaning closet.

I dunno...things are never simple.

And normally I'm all for right to bear arms. Today's just all wonky. ^_^;

[AdventWings]

Seriously, when I heard the news this morning (International News kinda travels slow when you're half way across the globe) I was like "WTF happened now?!" and kinda stood there like a statue. The world is a scarier place than it was yesterday...

Take away their guns and you'll get a helluva more creative killers on the loose. >.>

Seriously, I could think of ten different ways to create mass hysteria with just the things found at a local cafeteria... That scary...

But controlling the "weapon" will do little if the "mind" is already tainted... By stress, by paranoia, by fear, hate, propaganda, etc. Guns... they are only intruments of destruction. Controlling Gun Ownership can and will decrease the chances of things like this happening, but there will be other ways to cause havoc - some ways that we could never have thought of before.

Solution: Destroy all projectile weapons and allow people to fight only with eskrima sticks instead. Or better yet, barehanded. :p

[grim137]

This is truely a sad event. Though regarding my stance on gun control well its like the saying goes "if guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns" though I have problems with making stricter requirements for owning a gun or the types of guns that can be owned.

The thing given the three day law regarding the selling of guns in America (it basically says that if you buy a gun, the shop isn't allowed to give it to you until roughly three days after your initial purchase) which leads me to believe this was a planned thing. From what I can tell based on what little I've heard, he planned on killing his girl friend I think he just went crazy in the process and decided to kill several others as well.

Like I said, it was a very tragic event.

[Karuka]

I had Artifex do a query for me yesterday.

It basically said just that -- Geoff and Beorc reversed -- an ended romance.

Jara and Daeg -- Literally "harvest day."

Nied and Hagaal -- a necessary and unstoppable force

and Mann -- an individual.

It was planned. I don't know if he just intended one victim or a multitude, but it was planned.

[AdventWings]

Ah, how does one fathoms the human mind, when there are so many things that even oneself cannot understand within?

...OK, I'll shut up now. :p

[Rith]

Yes, it was planned. I think he just went nuts and started killing others. It's a shame 32 innocent people had to die because of his problems.

[Letho]

While it was a truly tragic incident, I for one am glad that nobody pinned it on "violent" computer games. Though there is still time. :P

[Artifex Felicis]

I've heard otherwise on the video game situation. Though it wasn't major.

Still, this sucks, and it made life a little sadder for a while. Hopefully nothing more will come of this for a while, so that we'll be able to recover from such a bad event.

[Fenris]

Recovery takes a long time.

When I was 8, in April of '99, I lived less than five minutes from Columbine Highschool. My family went there all the time to play in the park behind the school. It...it was nuts. It was crazy. My babysitter lost one of her best friends, and people from out of town would come to visit us, and they'd all want to go and "see where it happened" like it was a tourist spot or something. Eventually we moved away...had we not, I'd probably be going there. But this is like a bad dream happening all over again. I can't...I can't. I'm sitting here feeling tired, like I can't move. These things aren't supposed to happen. And after Platte Canyon, and the school in Pennsylvania, that just happened...

I don't know what to do anymore but pray. What are we doing wrong? We can take away their guns, we can install detectors, but people always find a way. The source remains, but no one can tell what that source is...

Pray hard, folks.

[Aryr de Morte]

The obvious way to utterly prevent anything like this happening is being searched everywhere you go, and the government doesn't have those kinds of funds, or so they say. It would make the world safer but much more inconvient, imagine the outrage then. Although it's very sad, I think that events like these open people's eyes to what really happens when you put a gun in anyone's hand. As for it being planned, it wasn't very well planned out as the man obviously went insane and killed many more people than should have died. With that said, I feel worst for the families that are victim to it. That's something no one should have to go through, especially a parent, seeing your child die seems like the worst pain I can possibly imagine.

Like I said, it's a definite eye opener which is what Americans need. Although, in a month this will be forgotten by everyone who doesn't live near or visit the sight. That's the sad part about it really.

[Ginx]

Yeah this a horrid event that I wish didn't happen. I really wish I could do more but I can't.

[Tiberius]

...For those who died.

Virginia Tech (http://collegemedia.com/) It starts at the bottom, and works its way up in cronological order.

Old news, I know, but I haven't seen anything here yet about that so I figured I'd start something.

[Dirge]

Agreed... I feel horrible about what happened up there and have everyone that's been hurt physically and mentally in my mind.

If I was a religious man I'd have them in my prayers.

[Of Free Will]

A Call of Duty clan member of mine had a brother killed. My sympathies go out to the families.

[hamnat]

May the souls of the dead henceforth rest in peace. Their suffering is now over, but so is their joy and happiness. They will be missed by those who knew them.

Why?...Why must people create such violence, death, and pain?

[Letho]

There was actually a thread already going on about this. I merged the two.

[Ithermoss]

What's frustrating, is that gun control won't do so much but prompt ghastlier murders, and make better criminals. Take away guns, and you can expect more clubbings, knife wounds, and curb stomp victims. Forensics can tell if someone fired a gun due to liquid paraffin residue, but a good ol' fashioned knife in the gut won't do so much but stain the clothes. Bullets can be matched to gun types. Someone can be stabbed or struck with just about anything, and dispose of it later.

It'd be -harder- to kill 30 people, yes, but it won't change the kind of person who's going to do that sort of thing. As disconnected from the reality of killing someone as shooting a gun really is, you might reduce the number of people who don't have the khutzpah to look someone in the eyes and eviscerate them But if someone's bent on actually running amok (in the true definition of the word), there's not a damn thing you can do when it comes to limiting their resources. People invent ways to kill other people, if their current means won't suffice.

[Serilliant]

And think of the true psychopaths, too. If I can't get a gun and I want to do a mass killing, maybe I'll just Google how to make a nice chemical explosive and wind up taking out/injuring even more people.

I'm not a big gun fan, but if someone really wants to kill a person/people bad enough, they'll do it. Take away the guns if you'd like, but the desire will still remain.

[Fenris]

yup.

A gun is a means to an end--an end determined by a source, a cause, that won't trip a metal detector, that police won't find when they search a person. When the means is removed without the source, another will be found to reach the desired end.

Cursed humans and their resourcefulness.

And this is where society runs out of solutions, for none that they have found can change the heart.

[Koran]

I like guns.

But I like swords better.

Anyone can use a gun to kill someone.

But to use a sword, takes a little more finesse. (Holding a sword sideways and holding your belt buckle to keep your pants from falling just doesn't look cool, and it's a good way to hurt yourself. :))

I don't think there should be any more gun control than there really is. The more rules you have, the more ways you have of breaking them. It's the natural order of things.

Like they say, you either can either learn from history, or just repeat it, over and over and over and over and over and over, etc.