OxBlog

Comments:

when approached by the shooter bend over and kiss your A$$ goodbye

# posted by

Anonymous : 11:24 PM

If you're too angry to offer an argument to support your position, perhaps you should refrain from posting for a while.

# posted by

Anonymous : 12:30 AM

Taylor:

I do not see what your problem is. Texas revised its carry laws after a murderous rampage in a cafe.

I suppose you feel we need a moment of healing before anyone brings up the fact that just maybe 31 of the 32 dead might well be alive if just one person had a gun.

The gun control lobby is certainly not taking time out to allow for the healing process.

Do you remember one of the shootings in a school down south. A teacher stopped the shooter by running to his car and getting his gun. He might just have been able to stop even more killings if the weapon was a little closer.

# posted by

Anonymous : 1:39 AM

I have to have a license and insurance for my car.
I have to have a license and insurance for a plane.
I have to have a license for a boat.
I have to have a license for a ham radio.

So perhaps this is as good as any time for some Right Wing dumbfuck to tell me why we shouldn't require licenses and insurance on guns. And please don't include any paranoid fantasies about jack boot thugs in black helicopters.

# posted by

Anonymous : 4:10 AM

planes, cars, radios did not exist when the US Constitution was debated and ratified. To have a concealed carry permit in Virginia you have to show evidence of weapons training and have a clean record. I agree this is not the time for heated debate.

# posted by

Anonymous : 6:59 AM

There are those who have used this incident as an opportunity to pound the soapbox on their own political agendas whether that be a pro-gun or anti-gun stance. As usual, we treat the symptom of the disease but not the disease itself. We should be more concerned about the families of the murdered students than about silly rhetoric such as this.

# posted by

American Spectator : 9:51 AM

No, this is the right time. The only time we ever discuss abortion rights is before elections when the Right Wing trots it out as a wedge issue.

Why shouldn't we require licenses and insurance on guns? Davod seems to think that everyone should have a gun. Universal Death Coverage, if you will.

planes, cars, radios did not exist when the US Constitution was debated and ratified.

Planes, cars and boats are all forms of transportation. Radio is a form of communication and radio spectrum is a form of real estate.

# posted by

Anonymous : 10:35 AM

Anon, is this pre-emptive argument? "Davod seems to feel..." and "why shouldn't we require licenses?" but davod has not, in this thread, argued against licensing. It sounds like he supports the way that Texas changed their rules after a somewhat similar disaster: "To be eligible for a license to carry a concealed handgun, a person must meet the following requirements..." Licensing is evidently required. Davod, have you been arguing elsewhere that licenses should not be required? Such licenses are already available in Virginia; if I understand correctly, the reason that no faculty, no staff, no student had a gun is apparently a rule applying specifically to the campus.

(If that's wrong, please correct me.) If there were no guns in the world, then Cho would not have had a gun. If there were no guns in the US, then a little bit later we would find that only smugglers and illegal aliens had guns. If there are no guns on campus, then campus is a "soft target".

Anti-gun people and pro-gun people can each make reasonable remarks...most of us do accept trade-offs in this area, and licensing (e.g., a requirement of firearms training and at least a lack of criminal background) addresses some of these.

# posted by

Tom Myers : 12:01 PM

Tom:

You are correct. I was trying to make the point that if a licensed carrier had their weapon on site then the killer could have been stopped. In the school incident I mentioned I believe the killer gave up when confronted with someone with a gun.

There is a simple reason is such a rabid cry for gun control after an incident like this. The proponents know there is no way gun control can stop this sort of thing so their feeling of inadequacy compels them to scream from the rooftops.

# posted by

Anonymous : 12:23 PM

Davod, I agree that at least some of the dead would likely have been saved by the sort of law that it seems we both favor, but I don't agree about the motivations of gun control proponents. Consider: Cho's suicidal rampage might not have happened at all if he hadn't started by killing his (ex?)girlfriend, and he might not have done so if his guns had been just a little bit harder to get. I doubt that (he had two guns, after all; for whatever good or bad reason, he was serious about having guns), but it's very possible that this particular crime was precipitated by his having guns and it's at least remotely possible that a realistically more stringent kind of gun control would thus have kept the whole thing from happening.

The anti-gun people, I think, focus more on this rather remote possibility of achieving a genuinely good outcome, in which Cho would still be alive and gradually getting over his emotional storm. You and I, I think, agree that this would be good, but focus more on the less remote possibility of achieving a merely less bad outcome, in which Cho and his girlfriend and maybe a couple of others are dead. I don't think they're crazy, I just disagree with them.

The anti-gun people also look at the crimes which your rule and mine would allow: if there were more guns on campus, even if the licensing were done carefully, then sometimes they would be stolen and used to commit crimes. (The one time in my life that a gun went off in my face, it had been stolen by the adolescent who casually tossed it on the floor on which I was sitting. Bang. It missed me by accident, and no, I didn't report him; I just helped him fix the hole in the plaster, and tried to make my disapproval clear. He wasn't impressed, but he did grow up eventually.)

And of course we focus on the crimes which more stringent gun control laws facilitate. But it's not that they have no case. On balance, I think it's a weaker case, but ... hmm... "rabid"? Nah. Very few of either side deserve that.

# posted by

Tom Myers : 12:57 PM

"Right Wing dumbfuck to tell me why we shouldn't require licenses and insurance on guns. And please don't include any paranoid fantasies about jack boot thugs in black helicopters."

I wonder what this poster thinks abou the Patriot Act. I could be wrong, but I would imagine that he or she is against the Patriot Act because of the jack boot thugs in black helicopters.

# posted by

Anonymous : 7:42 PM

The Patriot Act was ill considered. I was against it because it gutted civil liberties and wasted money without effectively improving public safety. It was exactly the kind of overreaction bin Laden was hoping for. It was received on October 24, 2001 and signed into law on October 27. Thoughtful.

The 'jack booted thugs' line comes from NRA fund-raising literature sent to George Bush Senior. He resigned his Life Membership in protest and in memory of the members of his former Secret Service protection detail who were lost at Waco.

# posted by

Anonymous : 8:41 PM

The annonymouses here are at each others throats. Hiow about using a name it is less confusing for the rest of us.

Did the Patriot Act gut civil liberties or is this like so may liberal talking points, devoid of any substance.

# posted by

Anonymous : 11:03 AM

I enjoy the argument that the goal of bin Laden's attack was the passage of civil-liberty-gutting legislation.

Guess he really does hate us for our freedoms, huh?

# posted by

Anonymous : 1:33 PM

Yep.

# posted by

Anonymous : 12:53 AM

Then we'd better not do anything to compromise the right to bear arms, or the terrorists will have won!

# posted by

Anonymous : 9:50 AM

I think you meant 'collective right to well regulated militias.' The right to bear arm is a collective right, not an individual right.

See United States v. Miller or United States v. Emerson.

You might be hoping for Parker v. District of Columbia which is currently under appeal. But if stare decisis counts for anything, it will probably be overruled.

# posted by

Anonymous : 12:02 PM

You should read your own links, lest quotes from them like, "The Court engaged in an extensive analysis of the text and history of the Second Amendment and its attendant caselaw (including many state supreme court decisions), and it ultimately determined that the Second Amendment does guarantee individuals the right to keep and bear arms," show you haven't.

# posted by

Anonymous : 1:40 AM

You seem to have read without understanding. Perhaps this WSJ op-ed might be helpful. You can skip to the last three paragraphs.

# posted by

Anonymous : 8:55 PM