For any of you who have heard about the shooting today at Virginia Tech, please pray for everyone involved. It's such a horrible tragedy and I can't even get my head around it. I don't attend VT, but I know people who do.
Please pray for the 30+ people who lost their lives and all those still in the hospital.
~Kristen
This is beyond sickening. Does anyone know if we have any members that attend this college?
Irene
I have no idea, but my heart goes out to the victims and their families.
When I heard this in the news last night, I was totally shoked! It's so awful and sad
It woke me up on my radio alarm this morning...
I was stunned to say the least...
not that I want to criticise the US
But I am grateful that here in OZ we have the gun laws we have, because it helps prevent such tragedies as this, that many unfortunate people face... my thoughts and prayers go out to all you who are suffering the consequences
I suppose that I might be overly cautious about sounding PC...
but I can get paranoid about being misinterpreted,
this next statement is of no connection to the US in particular (especially not 16 April, Virginia)
in OZ it is true that the criminal elements still have access to their weapons, but our restrictions on the sale of weapons have lead to this positive result:
In response to Port Arthur 1996, Australia increased her restrictions on all weapons (especially guns), we have had very few mass shootings like the tragedies both in Virginia and Tasmania (I want to say "none" but have not checked the stats, so cannot)
The restriction of weapons prevents such tragedies occurring due to the (forgive me for want of a better word) "tantrums" of the perpetrators. Regardless of your opinion of the shooters' mental state/health and mental capacities, in most cases these are not guns acquired through criminal means (based on the fact they were bought from shops legally, not on any responsibilities of the owners or their effective storage of the weapons, or who bought the weapons in the first place as it is arguable whether or not the mental health of the purchaser is currently assessed properly, this statement was based on the fact the sale of the weapons to ANYONE is LEGAL). As such, with restrictions on weapon sales in place, in most cases the shooters would not have any access to a weapon, and history would give us a very different version of events....
This statement is equally valid for all sorts of gun related tragedies, including ACCIDENTS from children finding daddy's gun... Gun related tragedies in cases of domestic violence... and other non-massacre tragedies
I know my statements go against your "right" to bear arms in the US. and the "Right" to protect yourself (I do believe in the latter, but Guns?????)
OZ has no official Bill of Rights, and human rights are not addressed in our constitution. the argument within the legal profession here is that in the US it was once a "right" to own slaves.... as such talk about "rights" depends largely on who writes the bill, and the establishment of our laws are very complicated (I don't quite understand them enough to explain)
thus my comments do not really come from a HUMAN RIGHTs framework
However, as I know there is debate in your country about the issue of gun ownership (e.g. NRA), I want you all to think of this as the upcoming debate is once again thrown into your lives from the media in response to this tragedy...
LBC
PS [correct me if I'm wrong re slavery or anything else (e.g. statistics...), but it was the illustration given to me by a lecturer of my course "Legal issues within Bioethics", on why we do not have a bill of rights like there is in the US (and I think only in the last couple of years the UK), the teacher teaches Law at A
Sydney university (not named for privacy reasons)
It has been said that guns don't kill people. People do. True, but when people have free access to guns, it makes it so much easier for them to kill other people.
Ann
Yeah, my hubby told me about this
So scary.
One of the things he said was that the killer apparently killed some people, then walked across the former ROTC (reserve officer's training corp; it's a military thing) field to kill a lot more. If VT hadn't gotten rid of ROTC, maybe someone there would have been able to stop this guy.
PJ
who tends to regard "gun control" as a synonym for "victim disarmament" (From 77-95, in states without right-to-carry laws, there have been 15 school shootings. In states that allow citizens to carry guns, there has been only 1 - from a University of Chicago study) but who is trying hard to avoid debating the issue
Yes, I heard it on the radio a few days ago. It's horrible.
About the gun thing, here guns are illegal (yes, i know, in a country full of hard drugs and prostitutes) and I have to say that I feel safer without them. Except for the occasional cop, I have never ever seen anyone with a gun. I have family in the States and I was talking to my uncle some time ago - he said that if he didn't have his gun on him, he wouldn't feel safe. But here, I don't even think about it because I assume that nobody around me will have a weapon. Another thing, I've heard about a lot of five-year-olds playing with daddy's gun and accidentaly shooting their sisters/brothers. That's another risk of people having weapons in their houses.
EDIT: sorry, I just saw that I repeated some things that beethoven had already said.