Saturday, April 28, 2007

Letters: Guns are good

Sorry, Marie, the only 'crying out for help' that Cho was doing involved more ammo. We can probably have fewer of them, but we'll never completely eliminate the dangerous psychopaths among us. And as long as we tolerate so many who think like Mr Brunstein here, eagerly awaiting the chance to personally save the world using his hip-mounted manhood, we're manufacturing them faster than we can medicate them.

Update, 12:50pm: Link fixed.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Cho never spoke a word to anyone, even his roommates, wrote disjointed, violent rants, and was removed from the classroom to be taught separately by his english teacher. The signs were there, but in this pc society, his behavior was accepted by his fellow students.
Those who would like to blame guns for the behavior of psychotics
should remember the 1927 school bombing in Bath Michigan that took the lives of 38 students and 7 teachers and the Oklahoma Federal Building bombing that killed 168 children and adults.
Would Cho have thought twice about shooting up the Virgia Tech Campus if he knew some studnts might be armed? Obviously, we'll never know. The only thing we do know is that he was aware he would have no opposition from the unarmed student body.

Anonymous said...

"The only thing we do know is that he was aware he would have no opposition from the unarmed student body."

I'm by now pretty convinced that this may be all that gun fanatics do know, but the rest of us know considerably more about the dangers of reflexively spouting off the most banal crap whenever there is any possibility of getting in a dig. It doesn't even matter how stupid the dig can be.

So please don't apply to the rest of us the fact that you may know nothing at all beyond your observation. The rest of us just aren't that stupid.

Steven Ayres said...

Welcome Linda G.

I should say we also know with a pretty high degree of certainty that deterrence does not work on homicidal/suicidal psychotics. In this sense Cho did not make a choice -- his actions were dictated not by rational thought, but by brain chemistry.

Brunstein's thesis is that if other students or faculty were armed, they could have engaged in a gunfight with him and brought him down. (He neglects to expand on the additional damage likely caused by armed students on an annual basis, but there you are.) I don't think deterrence is his issue per se.

leftturnclyde said...

Hey anonymous ,you managed to slam Linda G by using her quote but ya never actually refuted it.Steven did
"I should say we also know with a pretty high degree of certainty that deterrence does not work on homicidal/suicidal psychotics. In this sense Cho did not make a choice -- his actions were dictated not by rational thought, but by brain chemistry".
. I feel this argument is flawed .Cho did make a choice. he chose the closest easy targets ,And when his 10 minutes of absolute power over life and death was about to be put to an end he took his own life rather than give that power over to the armed law enforcement officers that finally showed up. Check it out ..facing unarmed students bravely shooting away, facing armed law enforcement, bravely commiting suicide .

I cant help but notice the final irony . he continued to scare the hell out of most of the civilized world after his death by leaving the now infamous video tape.this guy may have been nuts. but he had an absolute understanding of what he was trying to (and Did )acccomplish. and here we are giving this sick bastard the kind of immortality he was looking for.
Sigh
anyway anonymous, would love to hear your thoughts on the above

Steven Ayres said...

It makes no sense to argue from any kind of rationality when you're tlking about psychotics. They simply don't live in the same world we do. In discussion of Cho's 'choices,' we know his specific actions more or less, but any attempt to ascribe motivations to them are speculation at best. Whatever they were, they were neither simple nor rational, so applying rational measures against them, such as deadly deterrence, is futile outside the realm of dumb luck.

leftturnclyde said...

I am not saying that he was acting from any kind of standard base kind of rationality that any sane person would have ,but we know that what he did involved a plan of action that was thought out in advance. he chose easy targets that he had a clear tactical advantage over. he locked the doors so no one could escape easily.This is not flawed brain chemistry in action .
anyway as I see it what it comes down to is this
A:armed students and or Teachers would have changed the out come of this incident in a positive way
or
B:Armed students and or teachers would have had either no effect or changed the outcome of this incident in a negative way.
Im goin with A
Im pretty sure youre a go'in with B
and I dont think that either one of us is likely to change veiwpoints in this life

Anonymous said...

Hey leftturnclyde, here's my response: there is no point in trying to debate or argue with gun fanatics because it is by now completely clear that the poor sods have very few neurons actually firing. I do admire this blog's proprietor for having the patience to do so though, but for many of us, the last 6 years were the end of many decades of tolerance and accomodation with the mouth breathing corrupt cretans who populate the modern Republican
party.

But, ok, I'll do it. Just once more, for olde times sake.

"In linda g.'s comment she says:
Those who would like to blame guns for the behavior of psychotics
should remember the 1927 school bombing"

We'll just note here that this horrific act was accomplished by someone with legal access to explosives. And the perp would not now have legal access to those explosives. Because they're illegal.

A suicidal murderer like Cho is more than likely to go the most efficacious route toward obtaining the tools for the devastation he intends to inflict. Leave aside the fact that because he was a known nutcase he shouldn't have been able to purchase guns in a normal retail outlet. Had he been turned away he could have just wandered over to the Prescott Valley weekend flea market and bought the deadly weapons of his choice. So here's another, more actual data based rephrasing of linda g's repulsive sentiments:

"Would Cho have thought twice about shooting up the Virgia [sic] Tech Campus if he knew that we would not be able to obtain a gun?"

And the answer, of course, we do know, the answer is "yes".

And this is the last time that I'm going to spend the effort edjucatin the invincibly ignorant on the child's play arguments that most of us who reside in the reality part of society find uninteresting except for the decidingly sad fact that so many people are confused by them.

What we have here, in 2007, is decisive evidence that the historically so-called Conservatives are really not Conservative at all. The freedom to own a gun is exalted before all else. And the anti-rational, anti-science, anti-democratic theocratic fascists, that the gun fanatics to a very high percentage supported, know they can manipulate the tiny minded people who have fixated their entire being on the right to own and display in any context whatsoever, whatever firearm they choose. The Republican fascists have manipulated them right into supporting the installation of a government system that is nearer to Soviet Russia, complete with party litmus tests for existence of a crime and who can prosecute the crime, than anything a true Conservative like Edmund Burke could approve.

And you know, we're sick of it. And many of us are not going to be nice about it anymore.

I should add that I'm quite deadly on quail and dove with the db 20 gauge that I've owned since a boy, and if there's any local hunter out there who'd like to go hunting this fall, and isn't a supporter of the current theocatic fascist government, let's get in touch. I know some very productive areas. I'm ok with Bushites up to the '04 election. Everybody makes mistakes. But if you voted Republican in '06, you're a pretty low human being, fully deserving of the Russian system you're inflicting on the rest of us.

Anonymous said...

Hooray! I get to correct a PC speech violation in my post! I'm so excited!

I said "cretans". Apologies to all Cretans, I have no beef with the Isle of Crete.

I also don't have any beef with developmentally disabled folk. But the people who have turned off their brains, and handed over their wetware to fascist politicians, as pro forma duty, as opposed to blood service duty, toward the Current Eternal Capaign For The Defense Of Freedom, Orwell style: those are *cretins*.

Steven Ayres said...

I appreciate and to a large extent share your anger, anonymous commenter, but I'd prefer that we avoid personal characterization of each other on this blog. Ultimately we all live together and we should be working toward being better neighbors.

Blogger allows for anonymous posting, and I've left that open in the interest of free communication, but be aware 1) that it can be easily abused by anyone, and 2) that you know who you are, but no one else does. Shooting from a blind isn't considered as sporting in blogging as it may be against quail.

Anonymous said...

"Shooting from a blind isn't considered as sporting in blogging as it may be against quail."

That's a pretty damn scurrilous accusation. On behalf of the hunters here I reject with prejudice the idea one would shoot quail and doves from blinds.

And I had hoped that the Prescott College sentimentality mental illness would not show up, but it did. Because that idea turns out to mean that we're all neighbors, even when some neighbors are calling other neighbors treasonous. I mean, it's just another opinion. So, you know, the most responsible of us need to go hang ourselves. It's the neighborly thing to do.

But I'll respect your sentiments, Steve, and not post again.

Thanks.

leftturnclyde said...

Gee anonymous,Im pretty sure that I didnt call you a traitor..and I didnt vote for any of the Bushes,or buy into the crap that has been flowing forth from washington for the last 10 years and if you count the Reagan Admistration longer than that or..
whats the use...
(sigh)
You may not post again but I bet you will lurk like most trolls so I will leave you with this

Have fun with the quail and doves ,they're darn good eatin and dont shoot back.

Anonymous said...

Gosh annonymous, you're so good with the sticks and stones that you make a pretty good arguement for an unarmed society.
Fact - Cho knew he would be shooting fish in a barrel.
Fact- Virginia Tech recently recinded their concealed carry policy so their students could "feel safe." Prior to this incident, whe some students were armed, there had been no gun violence on the campus.
As leftturnclyde pointed out, Cho's actions showed a level of planning and organized thinking. I did not see the video so I can't comment on that.
That's all we actually know. The rest is conjecture, and it's probably a safe bet that an unmedicated Cho, even if he had been deturred by an armed student body would have found another way somewhere, someday........