Guns still easy to get one year after Virginia Tech massacre

Monday 14th April, 06:25 AM JST

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frontandcentre at 02:37 PM JST - 14th April

Today's cherry is telling us that guns are easier to get now more than ever and that's the way Americans want it.

That's the conclusion I would draw from your commentary as well, funnily enough. Plus, if the poll was a straight choice, it would seem rather unfair not to be able to answer 'both', and a wish for respondents to see new laws passed could just as easily be a wish for laws further liberalising gun ownership rather than making firearms harder to acquire.

Still, the selective use of facts seems to be a method employed to argue both sides of this. The fact remains that Cho acquired guns and murdered 32 people. No editorial writer made THAT up, unfortunately. It seems perfectly illogical to support laws that make such events more likely in the name of some misunderstood, outmoded and thoroughly abused constitution 'freedom' that has no relevance today.

Ban ammunition sales, perhaps?
jambon at 03:14 PM JST - 14th April

“We need safer bullets” - Jocelyn Elders
rtrhead1 at 03:41 PM JST - 14th April

He wouldn't have had the guns if someone was doing there job. Didn't he have some well documented mental problems that were labelled as possibly violent? He was a nut, no one care, look what happened. I myself would like to own a gun. I enjoy going to the range and shooting. It is very relaxing to go to a range, put a paper (or can, or bottle, or other in animate object) and just shoot it. I would like having one in the house knowing that if someone were to break into my house (which happens every country, every day) I would have the means to protect my family with something other than my bare hands. So you know what? Those of you who are anti-gun for whatever reason, I hope no one is counting on you to defend them should the need arise, because they will be sorely disappointed.
skipthesong at 04:56 PM JST - 14th April

Didn't he have some well documented mental problems that were labelled as possibly violent?" Saying that and preventing him from studying there would be considered discrimination.

To the people who think guns are easier to find, I can say this, when I first moved to NYC, guns were easy to get provided if you had no criminal record . Now, you can't buy a gun in NY. Several other states too have had guns prohibited.

Lastly, if any of you think had this guy not purchased a gun legally, what is your proof he wouldn't have gotten one illegally? YOu can do that in Japan.
SuperLib at 05:33 PM JST - 14th April

front I am all for a 100% complete ban on all guns in the United States. I always have and I always will. I think I've stated the same on just about every shooting or gun related thread that JT can find and print.

It's a very serious topic, so I take exception to a French organization distorting the facts to create a "sexier" mental masturbation piece for anti-Americans to salivate over. It's just so obvious that this is for-profit journalism.
skipthesong at 05:52 PM JST - 14th April

super lib: I am on the same page as you. I could careless if guns were banned tomorrow as long as I seen much more effort at reducing crime than I do now.
Betzee at 09:59 PM JST - 14th April

It's just so obvious that this is for-profit journalism.

You would prefer state-censored a la Pravda?

As for the contention that Americans want existing laws better enforced simply demonsrates how little respondents thought things through. (Plus the question is poorly phrased, like who's going to answer "I don't want existing laws better enforced"? It's what is known as a "leading question.")

Bottom line: you can't arrest people for crimes they might commit. Cho made two legal gun purchases and the police were supposed to know this individual they'd had no prior contact with was going to commit a massacre?

I'm not surprised the American public has backed away from gun control. There have been so many shootings the news of another one simply elicits weary resignation rather than outrage. This was not the case as recently as the 1980s.
rtrhead1 at 10:18 PM JST - 14th April

I'm not saying that he shouldn't have studied there. What I am saying is that he had a history of mental problems that BY LAW PRECLUDED HIM FROM OWNING A GUN! The ones who sold them to him didn't care to do their jobs and enforce the law. I don't care where he studies. That's his right.

As for those who want a complete ban, go live somewhere else. Don't you dare tell me what I can, and cannot do. You want to have a gun free society, go live in Japan (assuming you're not already here), or most any other Asian country that outlaws firearms. If you don't like that America allows people to LEGALLY own guns, stay out of my country. Just don't push YOUR beliefs on the rest of us law abiding folk.
Betzee at 10:52 PM JST - 14th April

rtrhead1, Some have identified the problem as being "The Americans with Disabilities Act" which makes it difficult for public universities to expel students suffering from obvious mental illness. Far from being indifferent, several faculty did go far beyond the call of duty in trying to help this very troubled young man. But he was far beyond the point where "tea and sympathy" would change his highly conspiratorial view of the world.
SezWho2 at 11:09 PM JST - 14th April

SuperLib,

In your response to frontandcentre I don't see your version of a bottom-line statement characteristic of an editorial. That should be fairly easy to do. It would start like this: the news editors are saying that (insert comment here) and that (insert agent here) should (insert action here). That would be an editorial as I understand them. Your comments tend more to point to sloppy reporting than to editorializing.

But let's look at your comments. It is true that the statement that guns are as easily available here as ever was offered without support. For that there are some possible explanations which do not involve ulterior motives. For example:

(a) people who live wherever "here" is accept that statement to be true. When we comment that Americans like apple pie, we do not tend to give supporting data; or

(b) the data actually show that in some places, possibly even in the DC area, there is a diminution of availability presumably due to a tightening of controls. (As always, however, we have to remember that a tightening of controls does not in itself guarantee results.) However that diminution may be so slight that it cannot be judged to be statistically significant and that it is even insignificant when those places are considered in aggregate with other places. This also touches on your comment about mixing and matching.

As for the Gallup poll results, statistics always have to be interpreted. It doesn't strike me as particularly telling that more people favored stricter enforcement in 2007 than in 2006. Even when you add that in to the mix, the result still seems to support the power of the pro-gun lobby and the NRA, which I think was the point. It seems to me that the pro-gun lobby is resistant to new legislation and is busy selling the notion that what is needed is more guns but with stricter control.

The article may be sloppy and badly written but I don't see it as being unfair and it is certainly not an editorial.
Badsey at 11:21 PM JST - 14th April

NYC: you can own a handgun if you get the permit, but the permit is almost impossible for the average person to get. = only politicians or celebrities get handguns in NYC.

This guy passed the background check.
redacted at 11:22 PM JST - 14th April

"...statistics always have to be interpreted."

Statistics on gun violence in America are never interpreted, the Left has seen to that. To do so is to be denounced as "racist."
SezWho2 at 06:51 AM JST - 15th April

redacted,

Statistics on gun violence are frequently interpreted. Interpretation of statistics may change according to whether one is on the "left" or on the "right"--whatever those terms may mean. But there is scant, if any, connection between racism and the interpretation of gun violence statistics.

You seem to be more interested in taking gratuitous swipes at your mythical bogeyman, "the Left", than you are in saying anything of value.
SuperLib at 01:14 PM JST - 15th April

"The article may be sloppy and badly written"

Agreed.

"I don't see it as being unfair"

I do, and I'm not too concerned if you don't agree.

"it is certainly not an editorial."

I said that I withdrew my claim of it being an editorial in a previous post.
SezWho2 at 09:48 PM JST - 15th April

SuperLib,

Attaboy. And I'm not too concerned if you're not too concerned. I think this rather nicely frees us up to blather our individual opinions without being very concerned about analysis.