Thread: Massacre at Virginia Tech

We should ban chains, which would have prevented the gunman from stopping the students' escape from the classroom. If we had a ban on all handguns, then this murderer would have brought in legal rifles (with multiple clips) to kill (remember Colombind High School?) I have never seen a gun shoot without the help of a finger. No law, whether banning guns, poison, or herion, ever has stopped a crime.

Originally Posted by ST

хм, вроде это не так просто, пристрелить человека (даже если он угрожает тееб пистолетом)... по крайней мере так показывают в фильмах
Всысле, трудно с морально\этической точки зрения, а не с физической.

Работает закон больших чисел - в здании университета несколько сотен вооруженных людей. Пусть даже из них 10% способны открыть ответный огонь. Получается - несколько десятков (хотя, думаю, таких гораздо больше). Это в фильмах в человека выстрелить сложно. В жизни бывает гораздо проще. Да и пойдёт ли преступник на подобное преступление, зная, что одноклассники могут открыть ответный огонь?
В порядке бреда, конечно, но идея повсеместного обязательного вооружения может сработать. Правда возрастёт количество несчастных случаев от неосторожного обращения с оружием. Но это уже другая сторона медали.

I couldn't give a damn what laws Americans choose to live under, and what justifications they use for those laws, that's entirely their business, but I thank my lucky stars I grew up in a country whose laws allow me to say that I've never even seen a handgun, let alone held or fired one, that I have never heard of anyone I know using one, or having one used against them, ever.

I'll take the right to not even have to think about guns over the right to bear one any day of the week.

Originally Posted by scotcher

I couldn't give a damn what laws Americans choose to live under, and what justifications they use for those laws, that's entirely their business, but I thank my lucky stars I grew up in a country whose laws allow me to say that I've never even seen a handgun, let alone held or fired one, that I have never heard of anyone I know using one, or having one used against them, ever.

I'll take the right to not even have to think about guns over the right to bear one any day of the week.

Idealistic dreams. Besides, boys have always had some strange fascination with weapons. I think it's something in their blood. In every culture in all times boys have been playing with toy weapons, be that a wooden stick to represent a sword, or a toy bows, spears, and a little later - pistols, guns, rifles, etc. And don't blame toys manufacturers they just respond to the demand.

Originally Posted by Ramil

Idealistic dreams.

How so? I was describing reality, as I experience it in the UK, not a wishlist of how I'd like things to be.

Originally Posted by Ramil

Besides, boys have always had some strange fascination with weapons. I think it's something in their blood. In every culture in all times boys have been playing with toy weapons, be that a wooden stick to represent a sword, or a toy bows, spears, and a little later - pistols, guns, rifles, etc. And don't blame toys manufacturers they just respond to the demand.

Absolutely, as a kid I played with toy guns, and as a teenager I played videogames with guns in them. I've never had any experience of the real thing though, because legally and illegally they are almost completely absent from life in this country, aside from a few (and it is a few) headline-grabbing incidents each year. I certainly don't feel like I am missing out though, exactly the opposite.

Originally Posted by scotcher

I've never even seen a handgun, let alone held or fired one, that I have never heard of anyone I know using one, or having one used against them, ever.

I find these words hard to believe. Literally I mean, that's why I called them 'idealistic dreams'.

Originally Posted by Ramil

Originally Posted by scotcher

I've never even seen a handgun, let alone held or fired one, that I have never heard of anyone I know using one, or having one used against them, ever.

I find these words hard to believe. Literally I mean, that's why I called them 'idealistic dreams'.

I don't know what motive you think I could possibly have for lying to you, but if you choose to disbelieve me there's not really anything I can do about it.

Originally Posted by scotcher

Originally Posted by Ramil

Originally Posted by scotcher

I've never even seen a handgun, let alone held or fired one, that I have never heard of anyone I know using one, or having one used against them, ever.

I find these words hard to believe. Literally I mean, that's why I called them 'idealistic dreams'.

I don't know what motive you think I could possibly have for lying to you, but if you choose to disbelieve me there's not really anything I can do about it.

Have you really never seen a handgun in your whole life?

Originally Posted by Ramil

Have you really never seen a handgun in your whole life?

Nope, not a real one. Well, certainly not in the UK. I suppose I must have seen holstered handguns at a distance when I've been abroad in countries where the cops carry them, but if I have it's never registered on my consciousness.

Originally Posted by Ramil

Originally Posted by ST

хм, вроде это не так просто, пристрелить человека (даже если он угрожает тееб пистолетом)... по крайней мере так показывают в фильмах
Всысле, трудно с морально\этической точки зрения, а не с физической.

Работает закон больших чисел - в здании университета несколько сотен вооруженных людей. Пусть даже из них 10% способны открыть ответный огонь. Получается - несколько десятков (хотя, думаю, таких гораздо больше). Это в фильмах в человека выстрелить сложно. В жизни бывает гораздо проще. Да и пойдёт ли преступник на подобное преступление, зная, что одноклассники могут открыть ответный огонь?
В порядке бреда, конечно, но идея повсеместного обязательного вооружения может сработать. Правда возрастёт количество несчастных случаев от неосторожного обращения с оружием. Но это уже другая сторона медали.

Идея очень даже ничего. Но её сложно реализовать. Лечи подобное подобным...

Originally Posted by scotcher

Originally Posted by Ramil

Have you really never seen a handgun in your whole life?

Nope, not a real one. Well, certainly not in the UK. I suppose I must have seen holstered handguns at a distance when I've been abroad in countries where the cops carry them, but if I have it's never registered on my consciousness.

Does that mean that policemen in the UK are unarmed?

Originally Posted by Rtyom

Originally Posted by Ramil

Работает закон больших чисел - в здании университета несколько сотен вооруженных людей. Пусть даже из них 10% способны открыть ответный огонь. Получается - несколько десятков (хотя, думаю, таких гораздо больше). Это в фильмах в человека выстрелить сложно. В жизни бывает гораздо проще. Да и пойдёт ли преступник на подобное преступление, зная, что одноклассники могут открыть ответный огонь?
В порядке бреда, конечно, но идея повсеместного обязательного вооружения может сработать. Правда возрастёт количество несчастных случаев от неосторожного обращения с оружием. Но это уже другая сторона медали.

Идея очень даже ничего. Но её сложно реализовать. Лечи подобное подобным...

Я вот думаю, было бы меньше жертв в театре на Дубровке, если бы хотя бы половина зала была вооружена?

Хотя нет, в панике, перестреляли бы больше друг-друга. Тут нужно не только вооружить всех, но и наличие навыков обращения с оружием и этики его применения у каждого. Иначе - будет только хуже.

К слову - я за то, чтобы ношение оружия было разрешено в России. Всё-таки склоняюсь к мысли, что пусть лучше меня потом будут судить трое, чем четверо - нести.

Originally Posted by Ramil

Does that mean that policemen in the UK are unarmed?

Yes.

The vast majority of them anyway. There are armed police at airports and government buildings, though this is a very recent development. There are also armed response units dotted around the country for when they are needed, which is rarely.

You never heard Robin William's joke about what the police in Britian shout at fleeing criminals?

"Stop, or I'll shout "Stop" again!"

What are they holding in their hands then?
(Strictly speaking they are military, but still - that things do look like weapons)

(or maybe they are plastic toys too. made in China )

These do look like cops:

The first are not police of any description, they're soldiers, and come from any one of a dozen or so Guard regiments, which otherwise act as infantry regiments in the British Army.

An unarmed army would be a bit of a stretch

The second image is most likely from outside one of the potential terrorist target government buildings I mentioned earlier, probably in central London. The two mounted police won't be armed in any event.

Originally Posted by scotcher

An unarmed army would be a bit of a stretch

I wish every nation on Earth had unarmed army :sigh:

Originally Posted by Ramil

Originally Posted by scotcher

An unarmed army would be a bit of a stretch

I wish every nation on Earth had unarmed army :sigh:

That's an interesting point.

Perhaps all Iran, North Korea, Iraq, Libya et al have to do to justify their weapons programs is join the NRA

Originally Posted by DDT

Apparently the killer was here on a Student Visa issued in Shanghai, China. Police think that he planned the operation well before and that he called in two bomb threats several days ago in order to see how the cops would respond. He chained the doors closed in the building from the inside so that students could not escape and cops could not get in.

They are saying now that the shooter was Cho Sieng-Hui, a 23-years old Virginia Tech student from South Korea.

Could this have been prevented? Check this out:
http://www.sodahead.com/poll/1483/?prom ... UAodOxcaBg

It also appears that among the student males there were no heros. They seem to have done exactly what the killer told them. Many students appear to have been told to line up along a wall and wait to be shot, which they did.

The only hero so far, is a 76 year old Jewish Professor who had lived through a German concentration camp during WWII, as a boy. The Professor blocked the doorway of the classroom with his body and told the students to escape out the window.

It is unclear at the present but it seems that none of the male students stayed to help the Professor subdue the killer. They ran and left the professor to die alone.
Somehow this doesn't surprise me as I look at today's soft bellied American youths. There was no, "watching each others' back"!

Poor man.