Are gun laws strict enough?

Question

The assailant in yesteday's rampage obtained his weapon in a perfectlly legal manner, and not from black market "criminals". Would more severe gun laws be in order in this case, or should we look elsewhere to solve the problem? Can someone use a gun to kill if there are no guns available?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070417/ap_on_re_us/virginia_tech_shooting

Answer 1

Lets not fool ourselfs . If you took every gun from every honest citizen in the U.S. and banned any more from being made in this country would it make a difference . Hell no . Let me be honest with everyone reading this . I am an ex-con I will never hold any job that will pay very well I can never do certain things like get a gun lisence or even buy a gun again . It has been 22 yrs since I been released and 16 since I finished my parole . I have 2 shotguns given to me by my girlfriend for hunting with or girls and that all I want .
BUT if I did want a gun I would have to get one illeagaly and I could do it faster cheaper and get a bigger range of guns than I could at any gun shop . Laws are meant to protect the inocent and punish the guilty ( unless your Brittany Spears ) . No amount of gun laws will change what happened in any of the school shootings . The days of trusting your fellow man is over we must now rely on our basic intinct and watch out for ourselfs and our kids .
It is said that guns kill people . Look in your history books guns are only a few hudred yrs old . The human race has been killing each other since the begining of man . Go back through history ... guns, arrows , spears , knives , swords , clubs, rocks , and bare hands . Guns are only the new fast way to kill each other . Given time a new way such as a ray gun will come up then it will be that they need to be banned .
I think when we as a culture started to say "I want whats mine " and not " what can I do to help you " . Thats when we started going down hill . The truly sad thing is no matter how hard you try to see the bottom of the hill you can't .

Answer 2

There will always be guns available regardless of how strict you make gun laws. You could completely ban every form of ballistic weapon but criminals would still be able to acquire them on the black market. Stricter gun laws would not have prevented the killer in the VT tragedy from acquiring a weapon. If he was determined enough to actually perpetrate this heinous crime, he would have found a way to purchase one on the black market.

Narcotics are completely illegal and billions of dollars are spent on fighting them. Yet they're readily available to a person determined enough to get them.

Put a gun into every household in America and train the family living there to use it safely and crime would plummet. Criminals would be so much less likely to enter a home to rob or hurt people if there was a high likelihood of the people living there being able to defend themselves.

Answer 3

Do you know that every Swiss citizen is legally required to have his military equipment at home, including guns (M57 automatic assault rifles) and ammo ? They keep a very small army, but can mobilize the whole country in 2-3 hours !!! That's one of the reasons Switzerland was never invaded, and during WW2, Nazis were at war with the whole world, including US, UK, and Russia, they went 2000 miles east up to the gates of Moscow, but not in Switzerland, and please check where Switzerland is on the map...
Now, how many times have you heard about shootings in Switzerland ??? The gun crime rate is a small fraction of the American rate, and in fact it's so low that statistics are not even kept... The same for Israel, they all have guns, assault rifles, even machine guns at home, but you'll never see a Swiss killing another Swiss or an Israeli killing another Israeli...
I think it's a matter of EDUCATION and CULTURE, which lead to TOLERANCE and RESPECT for others. Forcing people to obey stupid laws and gun control is NOT the answer, that can only lead to rebellion and more chaos. Sane, responsible, educated FREE people do not have any reason to take a gun and shoot another human being ...

Answer 4

dont be stupid.. there are millions of guns and al of a sudden ther will be none?..... right..... lets look at it a different way, do you think south koreans should be outlawd or eraticated, and that will solve the problem?... how about glasses,,, the guy had glasses and if he didnt he wouldnt have been able to aim.... maybe we should outlaw guys under 6' that would have solve the problem also....get it yet?.... make any generalization you are taking the rights away from millions to try to prevent a crime in the terms you think of it in... think of it in another way and you will see it comes down to our culture, and the mental stability of one person...... oh!, just thought we could outlaw SK parents also since his did a sloppy job obviously...... wow!, where do all these gehnious statistic takers come from?

Answer 5

Laws are meaningless to the violent and lawless or people who snap.. The vast Majority of Firearms owners are responsible dedicated Shooters, Hunters, Collectors,Target Shooters.....The Minority who go on rampages are few and far between.. Are we responsible for those violent offenders and should we give up our firearms because of it?? NO, NO, NO.... Should we now pass more LAWS?? NO, NO, NO... Firearms are not the problem, a few people are the problem, laws are not the problem.. Its a people problem, not a firearm problem

Answer 6

Switzerland wasn't invaded by the Nazis because they had their own guns???

BWAAHAAAHAAAHAAA!!

That's the stupidest thing I've ever read on Yahoo Answers, and I've read some pretty stupid stuff.

Switzerland wasn't invaded because Switzerland HAD NO STRATEGIC MILITARY SIGNIFICANCE. They maintained official neutrality, and their country is a mountainous region that would really serve no purpose in invading.

Rest assured though, that if Hitler had WANTED to conquer Switzerland, he could have.

Answer 7

Minor detail. Someone like this walking pukeball yesterday that is willing to shoot 47 people isn't going to be bothered much by breaking your "more severe" gun laws.

Answer 8

He also had a history of mental illness and openly wrote terribly violent stuff.

Gun laws arent going to help if we dont learn to help people deal with their problems. Theyll just turn to other means,

Answer 9

what will gun laws do? we have people dying everyday from cancer, and we dont have ANY laws against cancer(maybe irrelevant but you get the idea). what is the point. if someone wants to kill someone, they will find a gun illegally. we need to protect innocent citizens who need to defend themselves

Answer 10

I agree with Moche, is seems all the sickos are over here killing people, they even come here from other countries to kill why? our society seems to bring up killers. Their aren't school shootings in other countries, why just ours.