Jump to content
The Emma-Watson.net Forum

Recommended Posts

For those who haven't heard or watched the news, there was a shooting that occurred a few days ago in the small town of Newtown in Connecticut.

 

It was reported that a man carrying two handguns rampaged through an elementary school Friday, killing 20 small children and seven adults. He then committed suicide. It was later revealed that the shooter (Adam Lanza) also murdered his mother and rumors of personality disorder started to surface.

 

It's certainly a very tragic event and our hearts go out to all the victims of this terrible tragedy.

 

I've been seeing and hearing people mourning the deaths of the children , but mostly there are concerns about gun control.

 

What are your thoughts in general?

Link to post
Share on other sites
  • Replies 59
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Honestly I am surprised this doesn't happen more often in the US considering the availability of guns.

 

OTOH there have been 2 or 3 school shootings here in the last 10 years despite relatively strict gun control. Our ratio of murders with firearms is much lower though.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Ugh I spent hours and hours crying I just... This article (some swear words, so maybe nsfw) pretty much describes how I feel about the whole thing just... ugh.

 

My views on these sorts of events are generally this:

 

- I don't like how the name of the murderer is used in media. I wish they wouldn't release it at all, because they do not deserve to have their name sensationalized. I'd rather remember the names of the poor little babies that were slaughtered in what should be one of the safest places in the world. I'd rather remember their families and friends and the hundreds of people their lives touched briefly.

 

- Gun control... oh god, the US is supposed to be this great country and WHY. I KNOW people can still continue to kill people but quite frankly... I live in Canada and I have no clue where to buy a gun. This decreases my chance of owning one BY A LOT. Especially an assault rifle. NO PRIVATE CIVILIAN NEEDS AN ASSAULT RIFLE. I know the whole "guns don't kill people, people kill people" thing, but I'd OBVIOUSLY prefer someone try to kill me with a knife than a gun. The same day in Asia a bunch of kids were stabbed... and that's awful, but THEY LIVED. THEY DID NOT DIE. The result would have been very different with a gun. How many times does this need to happen before something is done?

 

- Mental health... this is an important thing. I'm not saying that ALL mentally ill people will ask for help. But in the US it's literally almost not an option. A stay in a mental health facility costs OUTRAGEOUS amounts. One of the only ways to get someone put somewhere long term is to have them CONVICTED OF A CRIME AND PUT INTO PRISON. This is SO backward, when so many crimes could be avoided with proper treatment. Then the criminal system wouldn't be overloaded with these people who needed a different kind of help.

 

It's just all such a big mess, and my heart hurts so badly for the children and adults killed, and their families and friends. But my heart also aches for kind of everyone because... people are shot and killed every day. And yet it's often treated with a blase attitude, unless it's a massacre like this... Colorado... Columbine... but it really comes down to the fact that in the U.S. people are in terrible danger EVERY DAY and nobody is stopping it.

Link to post
Share on other sites

I have been a little sick to my stomach since this happened on Friday. Seeing the pictures of those little sweet angels is heartbreaking. I watched the service they aired last night. I really enjoyed how they included the different religions. I also thought president Obama spoke nicely.

 

I am so amazed with the bravery of the teachers who protected teir students. Such heroes.

 

My heart goes out to everyone why was hurt by this tragedy. There was a school shooting not far from where I live earlier this year. I remember how scared everyone was and how hard it was to move forward. I will keep all these people in my prayers.

Link to post
Share on other sites

My thoughts and prayers go out to the families of those killed and maimed.

 

 

 

Don't bring gun control into this, please. Guns are merely the tools, and the culprits are those who use them. Just the same day in China a man rampaged through an elementary school with a knife stabbing 22 children. Guns aren't the cause of crimes... that is all. I have 4 guns (2 handguns, a bolt rifle, and an assault rifle; with more to come) and I haven't (nor do I plan to) used them to take human lives. If anything, this will lead to a whole new argument of what can cause such tragic events. (The book Freakonomics is where I can start; and I can post the whole term paper I wrote about the civilian arms trade and how it is the primary scapegoat for any violent crime)

 

 

People are just crazy, honestly. I cannot believe how people can be so f'ed up in the head; no one deserves this. It's times like these which I second guess how human beings can still be superior in nature. There's a special place in Hell for people who commit acts such as these.

Edited by The Midnight Q
Link to post
Share on other sites

Sorry to double post.

 

 

- Gun control... oh god, the US is supposed to be this great country and WHY. I KNOW people can still continue to kill people but quite frankly... I live in Canada and I have no clue where to buy a gun. This decreases my chance of owning one BY A LOT. Especially an assault rifle. NO PRIVATE CIVILIAN NEEDS AN ASSAULT RIFLE. I know the whole "guns don't kill people, people kill people" thing, but I'd OBVIOUSLY prefer someone try to kill me with a knife than a gun. The same day in Asia a bunch of kids were stabbed... and that's awful, but THEY LIVED. THEY DID NOT DIE. The result would have been very different with a gun. How many times does this need to happen before something is done?

 

I remember when my friend's dad took us out shooting one day. He opened his trunk and what I saw were quite a bit of handguns (we were shooting at Dallas Pistol Club). I think maybe 12 different handguns. I commented on how many he has; he collects. Anyways the conversation went towards me asking how he got them and he said he's had them for quite a while. When he moved from the UK to Canada, he started building up his collection legally... in Canada. But when he and his family moved to the US, almost half of his collection were confiscated by Border Patrol/ ATF because they were not legal to own in the US. Knife vs gun.... murder is still murder, the mode of operation makes no difference.

 

Edited by The Midnight Q
Link to post
Share on other sites
Don't bring gun control into this, please

 

I can't see why not.

 

Especially since we're talking about kids/ teens here, it's much less probable that they will obtain illegal guns, rather than taking guns which just lie around after their parents have obtained them legally.

 

One of those school shootings in Germany was done by one kid whose took his parents' guns. In another case, a 17 or 18 year old took the guns he was allowed to keep at his house(he was in a shooting club). Another murder case was perpetrated by a teen who broke into his shooting club's building and simply looted the weapon's cache (it was a simple wooden cupboard).

Edited by Sacred_Path
Link to post
Share on other sites

sorry can't edit the above post anymore.

 

I'm not buying into the "guns don't kill people" rhetoric. It's like saying "radiation doesn't cause cancer, it's people building nuclear plants that aren't tsunami-proof!".

Link to post
Share on other sites

Again, if someone came at me with a knife AT LEAST I WOULD STAND A CHANCE. Who can stand up against an ASSAULT RIFLE?

 

Gun control is exactly that: control. It's not saying NOBODY CAN OWN GUNS. It's saying that there are STRICT REGULATIONS over who can own a gun and WHICH guns. There is no reason, EVER, to own a gun like the one used to slaughter these children. There's no way a gun like that would be necessary to incapacitate someone who was trying to harm you (not that I agree with that either, but for the sake of argument), and definitely not for hunting, which is what the majority of guns in Canada are used for.

 

Even if you had a mentally ill person on a rampage, if they DID NOT HAVE A GUN this would not have happened. Saying anything otherwise is a disgusting insult to the poor little babies that were massacred for NO REASON.

 

I think Dax Shepard said it best:

 

I love guns. I have several, but I would gladly get rid of them if it would help prevent anything like this from happening again.

 

Yeah and "Guns don't kill people, people kill people" is such BS because okay maybe people kill people BUT THEY'RE FAR MORE EFFECTIVE AT IT WITH THESE WEAPONS THAN THEY WOULD BE OTHERWISE. D:

 

And we won't even start with the second amendment, except for this quote:

 

Saturday Night Live 36x12

 

“When you talk about guns you always hear a lot about the Second Amendment and the Founding Fathers, and what they would say if they were here. Well, I for one think that if the Founding Fathers were here today, they would be super freaked out by cars. You can talk to them all you want about the Second Amendment, and they would just yell, ‘What are all these metal beasts doing rolling down the thoroughfare?’ And you’d tell them, ‘Those are cars’. And then you’d try to talk to them about militias and they would scream, ‘How can you speak of militias when steel dragons fly through the sky?’ And you’d say, ‘Those are airplanes.’ But even if they could wrap their heads around that they would eventually ask, ‘Why are all the slaves out?’ And they would think that. You can groan all you want, but they would think that.

 

And yes, the Founding Fathers wanted you to have the right to bear arms, but the guys who wrote that would pee through all eight layers of their pants if they saw what guns are now. In 1787 shooting a bullet was slightly faster than throwing one. If you wanted to be bulletproof in 1787 you put on a heavy coat. So with that in mind, I’m all about Americans having guns as long as they’re the muskets from 1787 that take forever to load.â€

Link to post
Share on other sites

Again, if someone came at me with a knife AT LEAST I WOULD STAND A CHANCE. Who can stand up against an ASSAULT RIFLE?

 

There was one case here where a student walked into his school with an axe and several knives (neither of which he concealed it seems). He was shot down by police (and survived). No casualties in that case.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Guys sitting here and arguing about guns and such is disrespectful to te victims of this horrible tragedy. Yes, something needs to change. But we should not focus our energy on arguing about fun control. We should focus on keeping the familie hurt by this attack in our hearts. We should focus instead on being a little bit nicer to everyone we pass by. You never know how your words can effect someone.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Guys sitting here and arguing about guns and such is disrespectful to te victims of this horrible tragedy. Yes, something needs to change. But we should not focus our energy on arguing about fun control. We should focus on keeping the familie hurt by this attack in our hearts. We should focus instead on being a little bit nicer to everyone we pass by. You never know how your words can effect someone.

True but guns factored significantly into this tragedy. Our hearts are always with the victims but you can't ignore the circumstances surrounding the tragedy. Look the US could ban guns but it's so engrained in American culture that it would be nearly impossible to get rid of them altogether. You could eliminate assault weapons and make them harder to obtain but there would still be a large black market for them. Many believe it's a constitutional right, which is highly debatable but this probably isn't the topic to debate it. The fact of the matter is, if someone wants to kill another person they will find a way of doing it. Guns make it a lot easier to kill multiple people in a short period of time, and as Ling pointed out you would generally have a better chance of survival if you fought someone with a knife instead of a gun. The problem is, odds are if a person really wanted to obtain a gun, they'd probably find a way of obtaining a gun, either legally or illegally. While I believe in stricter gun controls to make sure this type of thing doesn't happen very often I accept that as long as guns exist the potential for this type of tragedy will exist.

Link to post
Share on other sites

If we don't argue about it NOW, when will we, and how will we prevent future tragedies?

 

That's how it's happened EVERY TIME. The argument SHOULD have happened after Columbine, but everyone says "Now's not the time." Then there's Virginia Tech, the cinema in Aurora, and now Sandy Hook... It will KEEP HAPPENING UNLESS WE TALK ABOUT IT *NOW*.

 

Yes, some crazy people will still get guns. But if they have to jump through a few more hoops to get them, at least there's that.

Link to post
Share on other sites

If we don't argue about it NOW, when will we, and how will we prevent future tragedies?

Yeah, no disrespect intended but I think the victims are best served if people talk about how to avoid this in the future.

 

With the German cases bullying and social isolation seemed to be strong contributing factors, and IIRC that was also the case in Columbine, and in this case now. I think those issues should be talked about more in class. Psychologists are an option, but not everyone will go there willingly.

Link to post
Share on other sites

These tragedies didn't only happen because of guns. You both need to realize that. There are a lot of issues at hand here.

 

Believe me, I am all for gun control. However, I do not think that this is the place to be arguing about it. I think this should be a place for stories and well wishes to be shared.

 

I hate that all anyone is talking about is gun control. Yes, it is important. However, I wish people would focus more on the families and friends. We should be thinking of those little angles right now. I feel like people are just letting this gun control debate take over. Let us mourn the little ones for a few weeks and then start your talks. Its just not fair to them.

 

As someone who actually lives in the US and has been unfortunate to live near a school shooting, I just have a different opinion. I remember what it did to the families when 5 High School teens were killed by another young teen. I lived through it. Those families were not comforted by gun control talks. They too felt it was disrespectful. They wanted support and time to mourn the loss of their children.

Link to post
Share on other sites

As an outsider I don't really know the US gun laws, but isn't there a lot of things that would have to come before more restrictive laws?

What about more (armed) personnel in schools or people actually locking away their guns when they are not in use? The guns used didn't belong to the person who did it?

Anyway I think it would be hard to tell someone on the west coast who never got into trouble with the law to give up his guns because some some person on the east coast went nuts....

Link to post
Share on other sites

As an outsider I don't really know the US gun laws, but isn't there a lot of things that would have to come before more restrictive laws?

What about more (armed) personnel in schools or people actually locking away their guns when they are not in use?

 

I don't know about the US, but storage of weapons is actually part of the gun law here.

 

The father of one guy who committed a massacre at his school here got a prison sentence last year (on probation) because he had let his gun lie around. That's sort of questionable though IMO; a prison sentence for leaving your gun lie around is harsh if you look at it in isolation. OTOH, if we say he was complicit in his son's acts (or even causal to them) it seems pretty lenient.

Link to post
Share on other sites

The families, and many people from other shootings, are talking about gun control. And I bet ALL of them wish there was gun control before this happened.

 

NO, guns aren't the ONLY issue. The issue is also a health care system that does not allow patients who need help to be able to afford said help. I'm sure plenty of us have been close to similar violence. I've sat at home watching the news in horror as the school MY MOTHER WORKS AT has been in lockdown over a potential shooter. And yes, I realize that these are Canadian incidents. But thank god they don't escalate further because of our laws.

 

I don't think ANYONE is ignoring the people whose lives were lost. I've seen plenty of coverage of funerals, wakes and tributes. I've heard their parents talk. I've seen people make pilgrimages to set candles for them. We've even had such things in my city. But we can't let the issue slide. We need to remember the emotion and horror and pain we're feeling right now to realize how much we need these provisions in place to honour the memory of these kids, adults and anyone who has been the victim of gun related crimes, including those that don't reach the news at a national or international level.

 

As for "What about more (armed) personnel in schools"... well, you don't fight fire with fire. Pro-gun organizations use this argument a lot: that if everyone was armed people would be able to protect themselves. But the fact is, if everyone is armed then you just have the potential for MORE people to be injured or killed. Do you really want to be in a situation where a whole bunch of scared people are shooting their guns at whomever? Humans are not emotionally or intellectually mature enough to handle the responsibility of everyone having a weapon. :P

Link to post
Share on other sites

Chris, Armed personnel is schools is a terrible idea. I pray to G-D it will never come to that.

 

ling, we are going to have to agree to disagree. I did enjoy your use of "we" though seeing as you are not even from the US. I think that there should be more of a "we" in all these situations. Instead of such a separation between every country.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Well, Americans may not realize it, but Canadians know how everything that happens to the U.S. happens to us too. For the most part we share your economy, our soliders fight alongside your soldiers, your politics are our politics. So, it hurts us just as badly to see America hurt. One of the little girls, Ana Marquez-Greene, had lived in Winnipeg (Manitoba, Canada) until just recently. Her father taught a friend of mine at the University of Manitoba. So, yes, when it's an issue with the two countries it is undeniably an issue of what WE have to do to keep all of us safe.

Link to post
Share on other sites

I am pretty sure Americans are well aware of this fact actually. I am not exactly American although I was born here and have been living here for the last few years. I may not be the best judge, but Americans are not unaware as you make them seem. I also am not just referring to Canada and America working together. I meant it on a larger scale. That it would be nicer for all the countries to think more in terms of a "we". That's all. It was just a simple comment as to how it would be nicer if there were more of a "we" in this world and less of an "I".

Link to post
Share on other sites

Sorry to bring up more gun related talk

 

 

Let me lay down some facts:

 

As of 2009, the United States has a population of 307 million people.

 

Based on production data from firearm manufacturers, there are roughly 300 million firearms owned by civilians in the United States as of 2010. Of these, about 100 million are handguns

 

 

Based upon surveys, the following are estimates of private firearm ownership in the U.S. as of 2010:

 

Roughly 16,272 murders were committed in the United States during 2008. Of these, about 10,886 or 67% were committed with firearms

 

Think about it. Nations with very strict gun control laws such as the UK, Australia, and Japan have much lower gun crime rates than the US

Edited by Tomâ„¢
Link to post
Share on other sites

@Arie: Sorry, when I said "Americans may not realize it" I meant it more like... I don't know what Americans do/do not realize having not spent more than a day in America for 12 years.

 

Still, at the end of the day there's only so much "we" that CAN go into it. We (as in, the rest of the world) can offer condolences and support, and we can show you very blatant examples of what's worked for us in terms of attempting to solve violent problems, but at the end of the day we have no say in American government. It is very much up to the citizens of the U.S. to contact their representatives and let them know how they feel on the matter. I can preach about gun control and public health care all day but it won't make a bit of difference over there. :P

Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

×
×
  • Create New...