Anttech said:
I know what your country is about, I just don't agree with sacrificing the safety of the community for a totally selfish "right" Even though I understand the concept I don't think it works, yesterday was an example.
Honestly I am sure glad you, don't have a vote here. Selfishness doesn’t have a place in our community.
The only selfish person is the crazy one going on the killing rampage. You can't honestly be judging an entire country based on the actions of a maniac, can you? Lots of people get killed in car accidents every day too, and the occassional nut job goes out and intentionally runs people over in their car, should we prohibit everyone from owning cars because some nuts use them as weapons? There are people behind bars who have used far more mundane objects as weapons as well...baseball bats, pipes, hammers, scissors, steak knives, beer bottles. Based on your logic, we should prohibit all members of society from owning any of those either because some nuts will use them to hurt other people. We already have too many unnecessary laws based on the "one bad apple spoils the barrel" approach to legislation. Firearms are not just weapons used for killing other people, they are tools that every day citizens do own and use safely and for their intended purpose, just as they might own any number of other tools. People use them to hunt for food, ranchers use them to protect their livestock from predators. Yes, they are a dangerous tool, and like any dangerous tool, should be used with training, and some of the licensing requirements to ensure everyone who owns one has proper training could be tightened up, just as people should go through proper training and licensing to drive a car. That doesn't stop someone who does not have a license from getting in a car and mowing down pedestrians on a sidewalk. It doesn't stop the moron from cutting his own fingers off with a chain saw either, or from killing his buddy while using a nail gun. Wrapping everyone up in bubble wrap and putting them in bare, padded rooms so they can't hurt themselves with anything and not allowing them near anyone else so someone else can't hurt them with anything is not the way to deal with these problems. There are a lot of things that can be lethal when misused, but that doesn't mean they should be prohibited to protect everyone from the idiots and crazies.
People here are acting like this is a common problem happening all over the US, and I think those people watch too many movies and think they are real. As the news has been pointing out, the last time any of this magnitude happened on a college campus was in the 1960s with the bell tower shooter in TX. Someone so deranged as to go on such a killing spree, and with such planning (they are reporting that he had put chains on several of the exits from the engineering building so occupants could not escape) is a vast exception to the norm. We are a huge, densely populated nation with a free press. With so many people in the population, there will be psychos who inflict injury on others, and they will find a way to do it regardless of how many restrictions you put on access to weapons. And, when it happens, the press will report it, and will report it far and wide.
And those from other countries need to understand that the entire basis of this country is that our founders didn't like the way government ran where they came from and wanted something different, and those of us who choose to continue to live here do value our freedoms above all else. We don't want to be just like you. You are as free as your government allows you to be in choosing how your country is run and to demand whatever laws you want to have where you are. Likewise, do NOT tell us what laws we should or shouldn't have or what rights we should or shouldn't have in our own country. It is not selfishness to hold individual rights in the highest regard; it is the best way we know to protect the society as a whole from dictators who would trample the basic rights that are the basis of human dignity.
And, I think it is appalling that people are so busy strumping about on a political platform before the bodies of those killed are even cold, rather than being concerned for the victims and their families, classmates and co-workers. There are still students in the hospital in serious condition, still people on that campus grieving the tragedy, still people trying to piece together the details and motives of what happened.
As for what people should or shouldn't have done to prevent this or stop it sooner, it's far too early to be guessing about that. Facts and evidence still need to be gathered, and the puzzle pieced together. The first reports are not necessarily the most accurate. And, often in cases like this, there is nothing that could have been done. People seem to need to blame other people for not knowing someone was planning something like this, or making it easy to get access to the weapon of their choice, or for not stopping them sooner, but sometimes there are not obvious warning signs, no way to know someone is going to snap, no way to know how they will react, no way to know when, where or how they will do what they do. The only person who could have known and done something to change the course of events was the shooter himself. Pointing fingers and thumping chests isn't going to bring back the dead, or help the living victims recover and move forward. That is where the focus should be right now, in getting their lives pieced back together.
