How do we prevent another massacre like the one at Virginia Tech on April 16, 2007?

Question

some are calling for gun control, would that have helped?

Answer 1

eliminate guns & pull the sticks out of everyones a**es so that we're all nicer to each other!! haha one can only wish.....

Answer 2

No, more gun control won’t help.

Virginia Tech was a gun free zone, and I wonder how many of the 26,000 students of Tech were off-duty policemen? Police officers, who COULDN’T carry their guns onto the campus! A campus that the Virginia Tech administration said, repeatedly, that they could not secure.

Now I ask you if more gun control would have done ANY good. Did it really matter to the shooter if he bought his gun legally or illegally? Yes, this shooter followed the rules, but he didn’t have too. I could buy a gun in New York City, a city with some of the toughest gun control laws in the US.

Maybe more police? Well, during the LA riots people flocked to the gun stores to purchase a firearm and were told they had to wait, meanwhile the police did NOTHING to stop the looting, the robberies and who know what else. The police don’t have to provide you with ANY assistance at all the Supreme Court said so.

The shooter or any criminal for that matter doesn’t follow the law. The shooter at Virginia Tech broke the law by bringing a gun onto the campus.

Gun control and gun free zones just make the criminal’s job safer and easer. Most criminals LOVE gun control they already have their guns or can get them, if you follow the law what do you have? A phone, 911 and wait for help. In a major city 10 minutes, and if you live in a rural area you can wait for HOURS (no I’m not kidding some counties, where I live, have one or two police for the whole county and if they are on one end and you are on the other, well you’re in for a long wait). How many people could someone shoot in 10 minutes? Note in a gun free zone NOBODY else has a gun to stop the shooter, not the off duty police, not law abiding citizens, they follow the law. So the shooter was free to shoot people at will with no fear that someone would shoot back.

Those for gun control need to realize that criminals don’t follow the law, only law abiding citizens do. So, gun control doesn’t keep the guns out of the hands of criminals only out of the hands of law abiding citizens the very people we should let have firearms.

But, how do we stop another Virginia Tech, sadly we can’t. People who are out to kill and hurt people will find a way. If they can’t or won’t use a gun, how about a car? Instead of going around campus shooting people what if he waited until classes got out and drove a car into the crowd? Would we have car free zones?

Bad things happen and we must hold those responsible to the fullest extent of the law. And I don’t want to hear how badly they were bullied, or how poor they were or they didn’t have friends, etc. Many a law abiding citizen was bullied more, was poorer and had fewer friends, the fact is that a person is control of their actions, they choose to break the law an should be held responsible for their actions, but to take rights away from law abiding citizens will never make you safer.

Ben Franklin said it best. “Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

Answer 3

I have been waiting to write or say this because the tragedy at VA Tech shouldn't be political. Unfortunately there are people using the tragedy to advance a gun control agenda. In my opinion this tragedy is not a case for gun control but rather a case against it. A free society cannot be defenseless since everyone wants to be safe. And we cannot place the entire responsibility for our safety with our police departments and be both safe and free. The result of law enforcement being capable of protecting us all at all times would be, in the very least; a massive, socialist, tax and spend government due to the cost, or at worst a police state.

This campus was a "gun free" zone, that makes it a felony to posses any deadly weapon on campus, as a result the law abiding people were like sheep*, innocent, harmless, and VERY defenseless. When a determined and evil person, regardless of the tool he uses, decides to kill law abiding people, a gun free zone becomes a killing field. When the wolf started killing, the sheep needed a defender, a sheepdog*.

Freedom and safety are always a balancing act. But rather than giving up our freedom with such tragic results, why shouldn't we fight fire with fire? Why shouldn't we be able to use our constitutional freedom to protect "life liberty and the pursuit of happiness"? Why shouldn’t a brave man like Liviu Librescu (a holocaust survivor who was killed while blocking the door as the gunman tried to enter, allowing his students to escape out the windows) had another option to stop this killer, how many more lives could have been saved? As I exercise my first amendment rights here, it seems so clear to me that this is what the second amendment was designed to do. Provide a solution to the constant struggle of freedom and safety, giving good people the ability to defend themselves and each other. Benjamin Franklin said: "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety". Even in the face of such a tragedy, we cannot let down the American ideas and principals of liberty and freedom; too many have sacrificed to much for that to even be an option.

So from now on, when I here the catch phrase “gun free zone” I refuse to be seduced by the feel good thoughts of a safe utopia where our kid can go to learn. But rather I will remember the “gun free zone” at VA Tech on April 16, 2007.

*I highly recommend this article, the philosophy it articulates can be applied not only to this tragedy but many other issues especially the war on terror. http://hobbes.ncsa.uiuc.edu/onsheepwolvesandsheepdogs.html

Answer 4

both tighten safe practices at school campuses and subject the scholars to random pat-downs, dorm-room searches, and metallic detectors (that isn't %. up the ceramic guns made through Glock and different manufacturers) OR decontrol the gun administration guidelines and allow scholars to guard themselves. Unconceal those guns. If Cho knew the youngsters and instructors had the skill to hearth back and promises up him, he don't have attacked. Terrorists with a message will continuously %. on the susceptible and defenseless. they don't desire a honest strive against.

Answer 5

You can't prevent it. Sad but true. We will always have sick people who end up doing these things, the majority of them might be stopped before something like this happens, but one is going to slip by now and then and that's just the way it is. This isn't a perfect world and it never will be.

Answer 6

Why not look at the REAL problems here instead of trying to find a easy way out why not look at what is on the movies and TV it is like KILLING class we have no regard for human life hollywood has made killing like it is so natural and easy someone with even a slightly loose screw feels it is normal behaviour!! We can take away guns which is WRONG why not start educating our kids the RIGHT way and take the crap off the TV and airwaves (RAP) and start teaching a little regard for human life!!!!!

Answer 7

You can't. People have free will. The stricter the gun control the more crime we have. Check the stats. Besides we have a constitutional right to have guns. If we take away that will we take away the freedom of speech or religious freedom?

Answer 8

Massacres like this are common in the USA. If one asks himself/herself, why it is common in the USA, and not in Russia, for example (there, massacres were carried out by terrorists-not by fellow students), I think the most logical answer would be: Because people in the USA are used to its presidents, other politicians and mass media justifying wars of aggression, rather then finding humane diplomatic solutions to disputes with other countries. Can anyone give me some other explanation to the question of why this happens over and over again in the USA-not in Russia? As far as I know, there is not tighter gun control in Russia then in the US.

Answer 9

STOP BULLYING each other. This guy already had issues, it didnt help that he was bullied in school. That fed his rage and he let loose the only way he could think of.