I don't know about anyone else, but I think that obtaining a weapon while weapons are banned in the US would be a much faster and easier process than the however many weeks of waiting you have to wait to buy a gun and whatnot. Black market guns would just be finding someone (not that hard), paying cash, and then going about on your killing spree way. Just because it's banned and illegal doesn't mean it's nearly impossible to find or get ahold of. All you have to do is just know ONE person who knows a person who knows a person, etc. I don't think we're ever going to agree on this issue, so I think I'm just going to bow out of this one. My opinions are known, and "debating", if you can call it that, over this issue is largely meaningless.
And I disagree. Having things like this wouldn't abolish school shootings altogether, obviously, but they would cut down on them. The part about a 45-year-old with a flashlight is hyperbole. As we've seen with the student at the John Kerry conference, campus police have been authorized to carry tasers. You can't tell me that tazing a gunman wouldn't stop him from continuing on with his rampage. Hell, to an extreme, having actual guns would work. They are trained professionals. Security video obviously isn't going to stop someone from shooting up a classroom, but what if he got away? Would the cameras not prove useful in identifying the suspect? Metal detectors are self-explanatory, I don't need to get into this. Yeah, the operator can be killed. But they would prevent someone who's trying to sneak guns into the building from doing so, if they weren't planning on killing the guard. Again, this wouldn't abolish school shootings, but these security upgrades wouldn't hurt in terms of preventing them.
I understand that, but what I mean is, the kid, who gets up in the mornings, feels like shit or is angry over something, and grabs his parents gun and goes to school and shoots up the place. If the parents didn't own a gun, those particular shootings wouldn't happen. And Casey, don't look at this as us arguing or anything, I'm honestly quite respectful of your opinion, and you very well may be right.
Haha, OK, i misunderstood. However, since most north Americans do not agree that weapon banning is a solution, what do you think is the reason behind all this gun frenzy (I don't think it's just guns, as well) and how can it be solved, more or less? Maybe it's a difference of mentality, but the whole thing with weapons being extremely available, everywhere, to everyone, is pretty insane to us foreigners.
visit any bigger city in the uk and i can guarantee it would be relatively simple to aquire various illegal things. then again, it's different here, as opposed to practically everywhere else in europe. and i hate it.
If a kid is deadset in his ways, he could come up with the money. And the whole idea of a the black market is that you get various illegal things for cheap. Unless it's like a nuclear bomb. It's simple. You can't solve this. Banning weapons only creates a more bloated black market for weapons. Not banning them lets people obtain a license and a gun whenever they feel like it. And you can't exactly stop a school shooter from shooting up a school, because to everyone else, he's just a kid with problems. Maybe the best solution isn't one that should be implemented everywhere, but maybe all it takes is for one person to talk to this fictional person and calm him down. Basically, you can't stop it. This is America, that law has been in place since America was founded, and it's not going to change. The reason the US has more shootings than anywhere else is because weapons are on every corner in a poor neighborhood, just like there's a liquor store on every block in the ghetto. That's the way the government wants it. Population control and blood money.
Yeah, we're mostly discussing what should be done, not what's going to be done. Otherwise, I fully agree. There are kids with problems all around the world, and they can illegally buy a weapon, but the fact that it's hard for a kid to do that means that most of them will simply vent their anger with much more "conventional" ways.
What intrigues me is the fact that it happened inside a school premises. Murders occur here too but I've never heard of one taking place inside an education premises.
I can't comment on the Netherlands, since I don't live there. I only know how it works here. As for you, Phantom Duck, I'm talking about what could be done too. Which is basically nothing. Even Mark said that banning guns would create more problems. There's not a solution beyond that, and when your solution creates more of a problem, then you know you're fucked. Sorry.
@ Casey: I agree with about everything that you have said. See, in the VA Tech shooting, I lived like 2 miles from where that kid bought the gun. He was set out to get that gun, and if guns were banned he could have still gotten it from a black market. The black market would probably sell it to him cheaper than the gun store did, which means it would be easier to obtain a gun without a license than with one. Banning guns will cause more problems than there already is. Weed is illegal here but I can get it VERY easily, all I have to do is talk to this guy.. and presto. I don't do any drugs but I still know where to get it. Apply this to destroying the right to bear arms, and then you'll have the same exact problem, it'll be easier to obtain, rather than having to apply and wait, you'd have it almost instantly. What I'm basically trying to say is that banning guns in the USA will not solve much problems. Murders, Serial Killers, Gangster, will all have easier access to guns, not including the people that just snap all of a sudden. All they'd have to do is call up their local "Gun Dealer". just like people here go to their "Drug Dealer" for their needs. But I agree that debating this issue is kind of useless, there's always people that are going to think otherwise and that banning guns is the solution, no matter how many facts and consequences you throw at them.
Solution? Nobody should be able to purchase guns unless they are the police, or if they're from the army FFS.