Guns don't kill people, PEOPLE kill people?

Question

but having one sure do help.

If that Virgina Tech student didn't have a GUN to kill all those innocent students. Would we be talking about guns today?

Answer 1

Guns are illegal on college campuses in VA, so those students were perfectly safe.

Answer 2

There is absolutely no reason why a single person outside the miltary should have a gun.

You don't need a gun for protection. You need strong police, a decent government, morals and the support of a good neighbourhood to combat crime.

You don't need a gun for sport. Hunting isn't a sport. Hunting is pretty much a joke. A real sport is training yourself physically to compete against other people. Having good aim to kill a stag at a distance is a pathetic excuse for sport. Hey, I can drink cola through two straws without spilling any! Does that make me a sportsman?

So what reason is there for guns? None. In the UK, there are really strict gun laws. Poor policing and bad government decisions on jailing teenagers (so many murderers get off with manslaughter, and short sentences because prisons are full) has resulted in a surge of illegally-acquired guns and gang murders. If you're found with a gun, you should get life imprisonment immediately, and children should be educated at an early age what will happen if they're found with weapons.

Bring back chain gangs, I say.

Answer 3

It's like letting the genie out of the bottle -- once guns became readily available, there was no way to prevent people from having them. And while you are correct that guns don't kill people, PEOPLE kill people, having easy access to a gun makes it easier to do.
What's the answer? There doesn't seem to be a ready solution. Turning universities and high schools (and junior high and elementary schools) into prison-like settings where everyone in the building must pass through a metal detector, everyone is subject to random drug testing, everyone must have a psychological profile to pick out those who are apt to go ballistic -- these are all retrograde steps because as soon as you put one control or condition in place, someone figures out a way to get around it. Or comes up with a new weapon that hadn't been figured in the original equation.
If that Virginia Tech student didn't have a gun, he could have found another way to kill all those people. He could have done it with poison gas, with toxins, with plague spores -- there are a hundred different ways he could have done it. The problem was with the student, not the means by which he delivered his deadly rage.
What can we do to recognize and help people when they get into a state like that? Did any of his friends, neighbors, acquaintances, ever notice anything 'wrong'? Probably. But given the way our society operates, you can't call the psycho police on a 'hunch' and say you think someone needs watchiing, or needs help. We need to find a better system to reach disturbed minds before they explode into uncontrollable rage.

Answer 4

Sure, guns are dangerous, just having one around is dangerous, but that isn't why the student went on a killing spree. Now, It may just be me, but I feel like if he hadn't had a gun, he would have found another way to kill (don't get me wrong, he could definitely murder more with a gun than something else).

Guns aren't what cause insanity, or severe tendencies toward violence. The entire problem in Virginia Tech can't be blamed on the gun. The student had a problem, and whether or not he had a gun couldn't change that.

Answer 5

Guns don't kill anyone until they're used by people for that purpose. They're tools that can be used well or badly, depending on the user. People kill people really. They may use guns, knives, axes, scissors, clubs, ropes, etc. for that purpose.

Answer 6

Even if the gunman used a hammer, guns would eventually be brought up because the word "weapon" would come up. That seems to be synonymous with "gun".

People kill people with the help of weapons. Back in the day, people just beat each other to death. What happened to that?! Not that anyone should go around randomly choking people, but point is, cowards use weapons.

If you can't kill someone without help, you really should find something else to do.

Answer 7

I believe its all by choice. If your going to buy a gun you are responsilbe for it. I do think that they may need to start doing phycological tests on people before they are allowed to buy a gun. No matter how messed up in the head people are it is never okay to harm anyone. And by choosing to kill someone with a gun I feel its people killing people. Maybe if we killed with kindness we might live happier. It won't ever make sense of why we have to harm a human being. So i really don't have an answer for your question but this is my opinion.

Answer 8

Instead of saying that we should ban guns, why don't we encourage more responsible people to take classes and earn a concealed weapons permit? I submit that if there were MORE, rather than less, responsible people carrying firearms, crime of all types would drop substantially.

Imagine if one in every fifteen people carried a concealed weapon. Consider what the outcome of the Virginia Tech massacre could have been if just two of those students were carrying a firearm.

All crime would go down! If one in every fifteen people carried a fire arm, all criminals would think twice before committing a crime. Consider the rapist, or the thief, who knows that there is a one in fifteen chance that his/her victim is carrying a gun.

Look at the States with the lowest crime rates vs. percentage of gun ownership. Being from Utah about 80 percent, or more, of my neighbors own at least one firearm. There has not been a robbery in my neighborhood in years.

When reflecting on the Virginia Tech massacre I was suddenly very grateful to know that one of my close friends carries a concealed weapon.

It is not a matter of being macho, or tough. It is a matter of being able to protect oneself in case of a crisis. It is for events like the Virginia Tech massacre that the second amendment was written. We as a people must be able to protect ourselves when something like this happens. Taking away our guns WILL NOT help.

Answer 9

No, we wouldn't be having this conversation. However, making guns illegal isn't the answer. Crack, Cocaine, Marijuana and Meth are all illegal, but people find a way to get them anyway. The same would happen if guns are outlawed. What happened was a tragedy, and I can only believe that noone ever wants something like this to happen again, but the answer isn't outlawing guns.

The man who did this was clearly a mentally disturbed individual, and he clearly had the will, and the drive, to find a gun, legal or otherwise. Had guns been illegal this shooting still would have taken place. What needs to be done here is to improve school security, and to improve the way we interact with others. The shooters creative writing teachers suspected that he was having mental issues, and refered him to counselling. It was here that this massacre could have been avoided, if he had been properly taken care of and monitered, we could have prevented this shooting.

Answer 10

I'm 15, but I still have an opinion on this. Its the person with the will to shoot the gun or light the wick or press the button that kills, not the tool used, however so it may help accomplish the murderer's task. Believe it not to be the person who kills but the tool, but the whole point that im trying to make is, it doesn't matter who or what killed those people, all that matters is that in the future we can prevent what may happen similar to this. Take extra steps, protect your own families, things like that, ya know?

Answer 11

Probably not, however, the underlying problem is not the gun, it's the acceptance of violence as a solution to our problems. Every time daddy tells little Johnny it's OK to beat the crap out of someone for perceived slights or threats, every time a bully is allowed to be a bully without consequences and every time the weak see that it is OK to be terrorized by the strong, we shall re-enforce the belief that violence is a viable solution to life's problems. This man took it to the extreme, but States have been doing it for millennia and despots for as long. The Holocaust was no more unique among terrible acts than Stalin's pogroms or the Khmer rouge or Tieneman square or...... . The question is why do we find this so shocking? We train our little tykes to fight for what's right....with fists and guns.