Absolutely, the law prohibited all the law-abiding students, professors, administrators, and maintenance personnel on campus from possessing a firearm.

Why do people have so much difficulty understanding this? If you have a room filled with 30 rational people and 10% (3) of them have a pistol, what is going to happen when one crazy person with a gun walks into that room and tries to kill people?

The only practical way to guard against a "crazy person" with a gun from committing a random attack, is to have enough reasonable people sufficiently armed so that such attacks can be stopped immediately.

I don't think VT's "gun free" zone has the weight of law. That kind of stuff does have the weight of law in OH. But in VA, you cannot be arrested for carrying openly or concealed (with a permit, if concealed) on property where there's a sign saying "no guns allowed". I ignore these signs regularly, but try to not patronize such businesses if possible. If someone who works at the establishment sees you carrying, they can ask you to leave and refusing to do so will get you in trouble for trespassing. But the gun is totally legal. You can also carry in the VA state capitol bldg. and any state gov't. agency other than a courthouse or school. VA has been pretty good about cracking down on cities and counties that try to pass their own more restrictive gun laws.

Oh, and I buy most of my guns by mail via the Internet nowadays. I don't have an FFL, so I have to have my FFL fax a copy of his license to the seller who then mails it to him. When I go to pick up the gun, my FFL has to call the state police who then run my driver's licese # through the NICS while I fill out paperwork. Takes about 10 min. for everything and costs $27 per transfer. VA's one gun a month law also has an exemption for CCW holders. I always try to buy one gun a month. When that exemption becamse the law, I could buy as many as I want as often as I want. So I've bought three in one month before, but haven't bought any since Feb. Oh, my dad gave me five more two weeks ago. But that doesn't count.

Noah i got the bong hit comment and thought it was great.

They do. Look what happenmed to Don Imus

Geesh guys.

The First Amendment is a collective right to be exercised by the press.

The Second Amendment is a collective right to be exercised by the military.

Why are the Ninth and Tenth Amendments so easily forgotten?

There were no violations of his first amendment rights there. He is not under penalty of law for what he said.

We have the right to say whatever we want, but we are responsible for the effects of our speech.

A very important point that many forget.

If the VT teachers and other students has weapons and knew how to use them (and had the guts), our immigrant friend would have been taken out with a much lower body count.

The Second Amendment is not a right granted by the government, but rather a right that individuals have that our Constitution prevents (rather unsuccessfully) our government from infringing on.

I do not want to follow countries like England and Australia that deny their citizens this basic, inherent, inalienable right.

Just exactly how is his residency status relevent? And it's VA, VT is Vermont.

VT is Virginia Tech for our purposes here.

+ 1,000,000

The only thing you failed to add in this perfect description is the people like this kid at VA. Tech ALL HAVE ONE THING INHERENTLY IN COMMON...............THEY ARE COWARDS TO THE HIGHEST DEGREE HUMANLY POSSIBLE........if even the slightest threat had been in the back of this kids sick twisted mind that even one other male or female student in this class had a gun he would have never hatched this whole sick plan. When he turned and shut that classroom door he knew in his sick mind that he was the ONLY one with a gun, i.e., the power to be the man he wasn't in the real world, and he knew that ALL of those hapless students were HELPLESS or he never would have done this. Do these psycho nut jobs ever stroll into a police precinct and do this crap. NO! Because they are COWARDS! He could not even face justice and capped himself first...

Of course, I realized that, absoulutley I did , no really, I did.:rolleyes:

Very interesting. One question I have is if those victims of these crimes were armed, would these statistics be lower?

Just think...If the perp had shot his last victim first, there would have been 32 fewer deaths.

I think the implication is there would be less ATTEMPTED crime, ie: less potential victims.

As a criminal who are you going to rob? A group of people you know to be unarmed or a group of people where one person might be armed?

Criminals look for easy opportunities.

I say lawful citizens get into a Cold War with criminals. We all know the concept of a Cold War. In this case it would be that the lawful civilized section of the population doesn't make a move on anyone becasue they are just that, civilized (and armed in my scenario.) And, the unlawful uncivilized criminal section (who are also typically unmotivated, cowards looking for an easy way out and never interested in a level playnig field) would be far less likely to make a move on the civilized b/c they fear what they are capable of and no longer see them as weaker than they. Crimes almost always = power trips. Rape is a crime of power, so are most forms of strong arm robbery, muggings, breaking and enterings, etc... The criminal feels he has the power and he doesn't fear you and therefore moves forward with the crime. Drug crimes where the criminal is either so hopped up he doesnt know whether to scratch his watch or wind his ass are also more easily dealt with if you are armed and criminals who are drug addicts and so Jonesin that they are driven to crime are also more easily dealt with in this scenario. Obviously a more heavily armed society is not a fix-all to the crime problem but I think it makes a helluva lot more sense than a far less armed society. Numerous crimes are stopped on an almost daily basis by lawful gun owners they just never make the news b/c it doesn't feed fears and b/c the liberal media doesn't want to promote such things. The gun owners are finally winning on the political front thought. Most Dems will no longer go near the issue after Gore lost big in the South and rural areas and the GOP put Senators in house almost solely due to their support of the right to bear arms.

Gun control may be a nice fantasy, and may work on paper, but it can never be a reality in the US.

There are an estimated 250 MILLION guns currently in the US, and we have porous borders thousands of miles to the north and south of us (east and west, too, for those that have boats), over which flow thousands of people, legally and illegally, every day.

So the idea that we can prevent gun related crimes by depriving criminals or would-be criminals of the ability to get a gun simply is unfeasible, even putting aside Second Amendment issues. If we want to try to lessen gun related crimes, we need to look at other, more realistic ways of doing it.

Since a registerd gun in the hands of a lawful and properly trained citizen shooting a would be criminal is not seen as a gun crime I would call that a pretty feasible and realistic way to lessen gun crimes.

Why is it that a few thousand firearm-related deaths a year (mostly suicides, BTW) is a major problem that can only be solved by banning guns, yet tens of thousands of auto-accident-related deaths a year is an acceptable price for the freedom to be mobile?

We don't have gun registration in VA - thank God.

Because there are far more hoplophobes in the world than motorphobes.

It's true. More lives would be saved if people were forced to use public transportation.

Yeah but then we'd have much more bus, train and air traffic increasing the odds of accidents that result in a high death rate so we'd have to ban public transportation and go back to horses and buggies which would result in casualties inflicted by horses and before you know it we'd all be friggin walking again until enough people stubbed their toes and they'd ban walking and then what?

I bought my last hand gun in VA and never killed a single person. Obviously, My gun must be stopped before it breaks free runs rampant.

[Here comes more sarcasm. The equivalent Gun argument with a different scapegoat.]

I can't believe these gun control advocates can be so wrong, clearly we need immediate discussion on banning South Koreans!

My ex-neighbor's employee was one of the VT kids that was shot. He was shot in the base of the neck and He is one of 2 that amazingly walked out of that classroom.

Although, he will never truly get over this, pea shooters are less destructive than the indiscriminate destruction of bombs.

A border that has proven to be breachable by every crimial endeavor, rum runners during prohibition, decades of drug runners, decades of migrant workers.

When you make things illegal it does not stop the demand, it makes the supply, use and psossesion of illegal.

It removes the registered law abiding reseller/manufacturer from the supply chain and turns it over to the criminals who are the ones that you are tring to protect society from.

Can I have another bong hit?

Why does that not make sense?

The UK banned guns. The regular police do not even carry them. The "SWAT" guys do but are required to call in for permission to use them.

Crimes involving guns has increased dramatically in the UK. So were are all these weapons coming from? A country the size of the UK can't control illegal guns coming in but we can?

Simple. Because mobility = commerce. Scary that you did not know the answer to that.

If a permit to operate a motor vehicle in this country were as difficult to get as they are in Europe, then.......

1) Less people would die
2) Less people would get hurt
3) Less automobile accidents would occur'
4) Insurance premiums would be much lower
5) Traffic congestion would decrease
6) Transportation costs would fall and
7) Road construction and maintenance costs would fall

Those are just the highlights. But of course, two other things would also be true:

1) Less cars would be sold and
2) Less gasoline would be purchased

So as you can see, we wouldn't want stuff like transportation safety and transportation ease and transportation costs to become more important than oil company and car company profits.

That's why we do what we do.

Arguments laced with emotion and the total and absolute lack of logic. In other words, fear. Even worse, the same arguments over and over again, thinking somehow that volume trumps calm, considered discussion.

When I lived in Texas I did not hear about many carjackings or ATM robberies. Heard the odd tale of some little old lady shooting somebody trying to rob her

It is in California. It is impossible to get a concealed carry license here. If you shoot someone, it has to be in your home and you must be in immediate fear for your life. If you shot someone climbing in your 10 year old daughter's window you would very likely do time in California.

Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

Benjamin Franklin

man with a gun= citizen

man with out a gun= subject

It is in California. It is impossible to get a concealed carry license here. If you shoot someone, it has to be in your home and you must be in immediate fear for your life. If you shot someone climbing in your 10 year old daughter's window you would very likely do time in California.


CA. doesn't count. It is basicially it's own socialist society. I heard it is even ran by some former Nazi who posed as a actor to get all the liberal pot heads in CA. to first think he was something that he is not then he plans to star his own 4th reich that is like a total flip flop reverse of Nazism called Swartzinism. I Swartzinism you first must cuddle with anyone before you could consider harming them and even then it stops and pinching and tickling someone till they can't breath.

Did you make it past the eighth grade with that English, which is worse than that of the guy you call a former Nazi?

The homicide rate in the United States of America is higher than that of other developed countries, with firearms used to commit 68% of the 14,860 homicides in the United States during 2005. Many more suffer non-fatal gunshot wounds, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimating 52,447 violence-related and 23,237 accidental gunshot injuries in the United States during 2000. The majority of gun-related deaths in the United States are suicides, with firearms used in 16,907 suicides in the United States during 2004.

C'mon, Supe; I know you love your big evil corporate America conspiracy theories. You missed this one by a country mile, though.

It's actually far simpler than you depict. It all boils down to our fundemental right to travel. A right so basic, so intrinsic to human existance, so flippin' obvious, that our Founding Fathers saw no need to even include it in our Bill of Rights. So while commerce is inarguably a part of it, it is cast in the shadow of this fundemental right. Gubmint can regulate commerce; we have given them the authority to do so. We have not given gubmint the authority to regulate our personal travel.

"The State" has no more authority to impinge upon this right than it does to impinge upon the right to arm one's self. They have no place in dictating or regulating our chosen means to do either. They have duped the public into believing that driving is a priveledge they grant to us. Wrong, wrong, wrong... it is the common and accepted means of personal conveyance in use today. They have no more cause to interfere in (read: regulate) that than they do your ability to take a walk. Because our chosen means of conveyance has become mechanized, gubmint has seized upon the opportunity to jump in and regulate it, convincing the masses they actually have the authority to do so.

There have been a number of court cases wherein citizens have challenged the gubmint's authority in this area and have won. Do a cursory search on "right to travel" for more information. The precedent is clear on this point. Yet, like gun control and gun laws, the people are woefully unaware of the relationship between us, the citizens, and the government we have established.

Gun laws and transportation laws have gone down a remarkably similar path of government interference in our personal lives. We have not given them the charter to interfere as they do; they have taken it for themselves. They have over-stepped the bounds of the authority we, the people, have granted them in both of these areas. Most folks don't even seem to realize that anymore. They expect to be regulated; they expect some authority (our government) to grant them "permission" to partake of the "priveledges" that that government owns, to be doled out at that government's pleasure. That is most decidedly not the relationship between citizens and our original government of the people, by the the people, and for the people intended by our Founding Fathers.

Jeff, while I agree with your position that we have allowed the government to operate outside of its intended boundaries Sup is also correct re: corporate greed and it's affect on us.

This country once had a much greater mass transit infrastructure than it does today. It was systematically and purposely dismantled. The initiative was led by GM, Firestone, Standard Oil and Greyhound were also in on the conspiracy.

Google "Taken for a Ride"

http://www.newday.com/films/Taken_for_a_Ride.html

http://www.culturechange.org/issue10/taken-for-a-ride.htm