'IF' People Had Guns To Protect Themselves There Wouldn't Have Been A Massacre.....

I keep hearing gun lobbyists touting this - that somebody would have taken out Cho.

What scares me is - if the gun lobbyists win their way - that conceivably I could be in a shopping mall, or a sporting event or even a college campus - and if there happens to be a deranged shooter - there would also be a bunch of other people pulling out guns and shooting.

One would hope that they would be shooting at the deranged shooter - but in the heat of chaos - perhaps some of these gun toters would be shooting at other gun toters - because they don't really know who the shooter is - but they just see a person with a gun.

Kind of a civilian version of 'friendly-fire'. Haven't police even made that mistake?

I don't want to be put in such a situation where gun battles can break out - because we have a bunch of gun zealots - concealing and carrying guns - so they could play 'rambo'. Am I anti-american?

Every bubba in every bar swilling beer oughto be armed. And if someone pisses him off just kill that person and anyone else who gets on his last drunken nerve. And if your wife pisses you off shoot her. If the coach doesn't put your kid in the game shoot him. The world according to the nra.

serves alcohol is illegal.

It's very likely that you live in a state where concealed weapons permits are required by law to be issued to anyone who passes a set of objective qualifications. Anyone you meet in a shopping mall or at a sporting event, maybe even a college campus, may well be carrying a weapon now.

There are still a couple of states where there are no permits issued, and a few where police or other bureaucrats have some discretion.

In Alaska and Vermont anyone who is qualified to own a handgun can carry it concealed.

Most states require at least some training before they will issue you a permit.

The "gun lobbyists" have pretty much won this one. Read and learn - http://www.packing.org

The killer was armed and had the element of surprise. With that you've got control. The chaos that was going on must have been unreal, why add to the mix more people with guns that look like the college students that were doing the killing.

The reason the cops are able to quell a situation is because they wear uniforms and you know who the bad guys are. If one college kid shoots another college kid that was doing the shooting, why wouldn't another college kid with a gun come in and shoot him, get the cycle kids?

:eyes:

These idiots view themselves as swaggering cowboy types who could shoot the antennae of a mosquito at a hundred yards. It may be true that even a few gun toters could have reduced the number of deaths, but I guarantee you that a college campus won't tolerate that bullshit. We've had a number of shooting incidents on our campus because some hothead got drunk at a party, got pissed off over some meaningless afront, and went to his car and came back firing. You don't need that kind of crap being an everyday event.

For the sake of argument, let's say that an armed student could have shot the gunman and saved lives (though I tend to agree with the scenario of the original post).

Think about this for a minute. First, we're talking about students. As mature as they might be, students are often under considerable stress in an already stressful environment. Add alcohol and drug use, competition (academic, emotional, athletic), relationships and their aftermath, depression and other mental health problems, and you have situations where the availability of a gun could very well lead to death or injury. Perhaps not 32 at a time, but one here, one there, across campuses throughout the US. Really, do you want armed students at frat events? (Okay, flame away if you like, but you get the idea.) Do you want armed students at the football games between fierce rivals? Do you want armed students who, like this guy and like the Columbine kids, are a few pickles shy of a sandwich?

Sure, an armed student might have come in handy in this instance. Or armed campus police who had not misjudged the situation. But in the heat of battle, so to speak, who knows what the results would have looked like, and, again, do we want to turn our universities into armed encampments?

knows that the very last thing you need introduced into that environment is guns.

I have never seen so many grow supposedly adult men fistfighting in one place. I went to one game (Baltimore vs. Pittsburgh) and I had to have seen 10 fights.

Add guns to that mix.

Where people shoot each other over bad Kareoke (not a joke, this really happens).

Yes, if someone else in the class had a gun, they would have shot Cho. But if everyone in the class has guns, there would be more senseless shootings.. PERIOD.