[Mefustae]

As with Columbine and the many others in recent US history, the shooting in the news will undoubtedly lead to a resurgence in calls for stricter gun restrictions and regulation. With guns so ingrained in American culture such calls will most likely fall on deaf ears, but the issue is bound to be hotly debated for months to come. So, let's get in on that action in the finest tradition of the Meeting Hall:

Do incidents like Virginia Tech demonstrate the need for stricter gun control, or even across-the-board restrictions, within the US? Or would such a move simply prove unsuccessful and ultimately useless in the long run? Discuss.

[Goober5000]

Well, it was already illegal to bring guns onto campus.  What are we supposed to do, make it more illegal?

Personally I'm in favor of letting students defend themselves.  The gunman had a building full of unarmed targets cowering in corners.  If even a couple of those students had been armed, this might have been stopped sooner.

[Ghostavo]

Do incidents like Virginia Tech demonstrate the need for stricter gun control, or even across-the-board restrictions, within the US? Or would such a move simply prove unsuccessful and ultimately useless in the long run?

A stricter gun control would probably be less effective on the short run than on the long run. As you said, guns are so ingrained in American culture that right now it would encounter a lot of resistance. On the long run it would probably decrease the rate of such crimes.

[Mefustae]

Keep in mind Virginia has no registration or background checks involved in purchasing a firearm. Alarm bells are ringing, Willie.

[vyper]

Well, it was already illegal to bring guns onto campus.  What are we supposed to do, make it more illegal?

Personally I'm in favor of letting students defend themselves.  The gunman had a building full of unarmed targets cowering in corners.  If even a couple of those students had been armed, this might have been stopped sooner.

So you would advocate students having a fire-fight in their halls of residence? Exactly how well trained do you expect these kids to be?

[Nuclear1]

Keep in mind Virginia has no registration or background checks involved in purchasing a firearm. Alarm bells are ringing, Willie.

Not saying that there shouldn't be registrations or somesuch; that makes sense.  But banning firearms outright, that's just ridiculous.  If somebody wants a gun badly enough, they'll go to all sorts of measures to obtain one.  Therefore to ban firearms just disarms innocent people; lawbreakers don't abide by gun control laws.  Education in gun safety should be required, however.  It seems to work in Switzerland.

[MP-Ryan]

Stricter gun control will solve nothing - anyone with a serious desire to kill people is going to do it.  Firearms make it easier, but in many places, especially in the United States, it is a simple matter to acquire them legally or illegally.  In short, making it tougher for law-abiding residents to obtain firearms is not going to reduce the amount of crimes committed by guns.

Conversely, however, some control over who is able to obtain firearms does need to be in place.  Canada has a MUCH lower rate of death-by-firearm, suicide, homicide, or accident, than does the United States.  The reason for this is two-fold:
1.  Canada has a much less prominent gun culture, and Canadians in general are less likely to have an interest in firearms or own them.
2.  Canada has a long history (even before the idiotic Firearms Act and its now-defunct registry) of taking a greater interest in who is able to own firearms legally.  This does not curb illegal firearms possession.  It DOES address three things:
A.  The liklihood of unbalanced or dangerous individuals legally acquiring and possessing firearms is reduced.  The Firearms Act has marked a drop in domestic violence using legally acquired firearms.
B.  Improper storage or possession of firearms is limited; it results in fewer thefts of legal firearms.
C.  Legal firearm owners are registered (forget registering the guns themselves; THAT is idiotic).  Thus, legitimate firearm retailers have a criteria upon which they can sell their goods.

Bear in mind, none of these measures have a significant impact on criminal enterprise, especially gangs and organized crime.  They do reduce the number of accidents, however, and they also reduce the number of "He just lost it" shootings - a major factor in those events is immediate psychological distress, in which case removing the means to commit an act often reduces the liklihood of it actually occurring.

I'm not an advocate of gun-control so much as gun owner control.  US states need to start mandating a registration and licensing process for people who wish to possess any firearms - that is not to say this must be extremely difficult or demanding.  The idea is to stem the number of "questionable" gun sales from legitimate retailers, and actually confine illegal gun sales and possession to an undeniably criminal element.  This is essentially what Canada does, and I fully support it.  I've been through the licensing process.  I can legally possess and accquire any firearm which can be legally purchased or imported into this country.  It wasn't hard.

I noticed that some favor the idea of concealed carry on campus.  This is a sticky issue.  Yes, a trained individual with a concealed carry permit could likely have stopped this guy.  An untrained "hero" in a situation like this could get himself and more people killed (this particular incident is likely a bad example).  I'm on the fence when it comes to concealed-carry, but I don't think just anyone should be able to apply for it.  Some form of law enforcement or military training, or at least a course on emergency use, should be a mandatory requirement.

All this said, there is no clear solution.  The US has a very specific culture which favors self-defense in lieu of law enforcement protection, and so it is difficult to make specific suggestions which do not contradict the culture at its core.

[KappaWing]

Whoops, didnt see this tread when posting in the pub.
I think if they increase gun control, homocidal people will just find other ways to kill people.
Or if they were really determined they could get a gun on the black market anyway.
Just my 2 cents.

[Bob-san]

Whoops, didnt see this tread when posting in the pub.
I think if they increase gun control, homocidal people will just find other ways to kill people.
Or if they were really determined they could get a gun on the black market anyway.
Just my 2 cents.

Anyone who plans to get a gun can do just that, legally or illegally. What has wide-spread bannings of drugs done? It made it underground. Drugs are just as, if not more, now that they're illegal, versus when the drug was legal or pending ban. Don't even think that homicidal people will find other ways to kill people... they will simply acquire illegal weapons that make them even more dangerous than legal weapons.

I highly doubt gun violence will decrease with them outright banned.

[achtung]

Banning firearms basically takes them out of the hands of citizens who would use them for a positive purpose, and lets the people who are willing to use them in a negative manner run around practically invincible.

One good example of this being the shootings in which Charles Whitman held himself up on that Texas campus way back when.  As well as police coming to aid, many civilians that were probably better equipped also arrived on scene to aid in any way possible with their personal firearms.  Firearms do not have intent, they do not have personality, the person firing the weapon does.

Police forces are very effective, but they aren't perfect.  In many rural areas, and in some urban ones, it can take quite a while before police can arrive on a scene, and in that time lots can happen.  If I can neutralize the threat of someone trying to enter my home and harm me, my family, or to steal my personal belongings, I think I should have the right to defend myself from that threat by any means.

The only thing banning firearms does is move the market from the public market, where it can be controlled to some degree, to the black market.  Things such as background checks I think should be instituted, as these measures, if nothing else, show that someone is interested in obtaining a firearm.  Should the background check prevent them from obtaining it, officials now know who might try to get one from underground markets, and they can act accordingly.

Oh, and lastly, banning firearms will do very little to actually get them off the streets, as they are already well saturated throughout the country.

[jr2]

Bother, I knew this topic would be coming up...

[Polpolion]

They can't really do anything that wouldn't lead to more problems. . You can't eliminate them altogether (against the constitution for those not informed), so you're stuck with some insane restriction. People would keep the guns anyway. I'm not quite sure what the hunting gun laws are, but they certainly wouldn't give the guns up. It would lead to just more stupid arrests.

IMHO, just try and find the things that cause people to do them. Those are the real problems, because they can still use knives or almost anything else (to a smaller scale). Of course, require more effective lockdowns. I mean, seriously.

[jr2]

Ya, I agree.  Ever wonder what a person bent on destruction could do with a pickup truck in NYC to pedestrians?

[Mr. Vega]

Most of the people who have shot others probably weren't consistent psychopaths who stopped at nothing to get their hands on a gun. Rather they got really pissed off at someone, happened to have a gun lying around, and did something extremely stupid they would never have done if they didn't already own a gun. The whole "banning firearms lets only the murderers have them" is bull****. Yes, we might save some people from dying in a shooting rampage, but the total amount of shootings would decline significantly.

[jr2]

The situation you are describing is an anger problem, coupled with a lack of self-control (ie, discipline), and perhaps a psychological problem as well.  People with those kinds of issues shouldn't be allowed to own firearms.   Of course, if most people owned them, it would provide an effective deterrent in most cases, IMHO.

[Mr. Vega]

Or we could just not let anybody have guns, so we don't have to kill them to protect ourselves.

[achtung]

Or we could just not let anybody have guns, so we don't have to kill them to protect ourselves.

See though, that's impossible, so the next best solution is to let everyone have them by the logic I've seen so far. 

[Agent_Koopa]

Or we could just not let anybody have guns, so we don't have to kill them to protect ourselves.

See though, that's impossible, so the next best solution is to let everyone have them by the logic I've seen so far. 

By the logic you've seen so far. But now that everybody has a gun, the number of impulse shootings goes way up. If it's premeditated murder, neither gun control nor better-armed students would help, because as soon as he takes his gun out, the person's dead. All that can happen is that the shooter is himself killed. If it's a mass shooting, then the "give everyone guns" argument has some merit, but there aren't many of those. If it's an impulse decision to kill someone, say, in an argument, then if there's no gun there to shoot with, the attack is much less likely to be deadly. Of course, the enraged party could carry a knife around, but whatever.

[achtung]

In all honesty, I think background checks should be tougher, and some sort of psychological evaluation should be done.

The problem still persists though, that even though you could ban guns tomorrow, that would do very little to get them off the streets.  IIRC it's estimated that somewhere around 70 million are confirmed to own a gun in the U.S.  That's likely to be a low estimation.  How are those guns going to be removed from the black market that forms after a ban is enacted?

[Polpolion]

Or we could just not let anybody have guns, so we don't have to kill them to protect ourselves.

Why don't we make it easier for them and kill ourselves right now?