Shooting at Illinois College

[rebeccajo 14]

"The shooting was the fourth at a U.S. school within a week.

On Feb. 8, a woman shot two fellow students to death before committing suicide at Louisiana Technical College in Baton Rouge. In Memphis, Tenn., a 17-year-old is accused of shooting and critically wounding a fellow student Monday during a high school gym class, and the 15-year-old victim of a shooting at an Oxnard, Calif., junior high school has been declared brain dead."

http://news.aol.com/story/_a/gunman-opens-...S00010000000001

[almaty 19]

sad.....and just wrong ..

[Nizzy 1]

I went to Northeastern Illinois University. I had to look at the name of the school again when I read this last night. It was really close to our campus. It gives me chills. It could happen ANYWHERE. That scares me. I try to live my life normally but I am super paranoid sometimes. The other day I was at a store and someone walked in and I got this eery feeling. His behavior didn't seem right so I walked out. This story just adds to my paranoia.

[Ban Hammer 13,619]

I don't know that guns need to be outright/mostly banned like they are in the UK or anything, but I agree that there needs to be some serious serious overhaul to our gun laws :\ There's no reason it can't be a lot stricter,

like what, for example?

we have to give up certain rights. I mean I could say I have a right to run around naked on the streets (which I'd kind of like to do because clothes suck) and go in a store and get a butterfinger whenever I want and roast other people's pets on the street and all these things, but these are things I've kind of...let go so that we can all get along in a society.

you could say you have that right, but is it on paper as an amendment? nope......

I don't know, just the way it seems to me...I mean I've thought about if I want a gun or whatever, and I just really don't. Yeh sure if someone breaks in my house it might would have alleviated the situation but it might also just escalate it by giving the robber a weapon.

so don't get one. that's a choice you have, but if guns are banned that choice won't be available.

I also want to have more faith in people than that, which might be very naive - faith that just because someone breaks into my house doesn't mean it's actually the Devil himself and he'll rape and murder me and my entire family and neighborhood in the most horrid ways imaginable, etc. I don't WANT to live that paranoid. Charleston can get kind of bad at night and I walk around by myself a lot, so I've thought about getting mace or a taser before too, but really I just think it's much more likely to escalate the situation than help it. I'd just end up getting tased.

i doubt faith will help, nor is counting on faith what i'd call a dependable option.

I just think it's like the arms race - you get a gun so I get a bigger gun, and on and on until bigger nukes and everyone's worried about their gun ego or something. It's only when people agree to mutually give up some of their 'rights' that the race can actually end.

um no.

And for those that collect guns, just go...collect something else...God. I don't care.

because you said so?

[Ban Hammer 13,619]

Gun shows are particularly bad aren't they? Because isn't this how a lot of people get around the rules of having to go through paperwork and wait a few months before getting a hold of a gun, because I think gun shows qualify as private individual to individual sales where they don't have to do any of that. That's ridiculous.

that's correct, it is a private sale. i'd not be surprised if that loophole is closed soon. however, the seller is still liable in a civil case.

It's more than just a tool. It's a murder weapon, that's what it's become, it's a symbol of power and intimidation.

perhaps to you.

Hunting rifles and all that are fine I think, what guns were originally intended to be is fine.

what is meant by "all that" in the above? what were guns originally intended for?

But just like all commercial goods now the gun is about profit and about emotionally appealing to its potential consumers, and gun companies know that their biggest base of potential consumers are probably power-hungry or status-symbol 'thugs' from whatever demographic background, not hunters or farmers or people using it as a tool.

um, again, no. i'm not aware of gun companies targeting their sales to thugs.

My mom has guns, my dad has guns, my brother has guns. My mom and brother both have a concealed weapons permit. They're both pretty responsible people, about as responsible and mature as you can get really, but that doesn't mean that 1. I don't think there's some emotional vulnerability or unjustified paranoia behind their wanting the guns in the first place (and that this whole 'it's my right' thing isn't just a cover) and 2. that I don't think that there would be given contexts, and given situations, in which my mother or my brother would completely lose it and go psycho and just because they have a gun, get in some big trouble and end up with lots of dead victims. I think that can happen to ANYBODY. I don't want to step on anyone's rights but really numbers-wise, facts wise, I really just don't see any good enough heavy enough reason why anybody thinks it's a good idea to have such open gun access.

so they passed a course and a background check and that's still not good enough for you?

[AtlantiCat 0]

It's not the guns that kill people it's people that kill people.

If I point my finger at somebody and say "BANG," they won't drop dead.

No, but if you point your finger at somebody and say "BANG," and EXPECT them to drop dead, you are obviously in need of some serious counseling.

On the other paw, if you actually intend to kill somebody, it doesn't really matter whether you have a gun or a slingshot or a knife or a hacksaw or a rusty hatpin. Guns only make it easier, taking them away doesn't take away the psychopath's underlying need/desire to kill. With gun control, fewer people might die, but then the loonies might also find another way to do it, like poison gases or maybe walking into a crowded auditorium with a lit stick of dynamite. If people want to kill, they're going to find a way to do it, no matter what sort of control measures we put up.

I think we need to worry more about targeting the underlying issues that create such people in the first place, and not just try to take away the dangerous toys.

[Sister Fracas 5]

My cousin was in the lecture hall right next to the hall where the shootings happened. Thankfully we knew very quickly that she was ok. I don't know how the students get over things like this quickly or easily. How do they not go to lecture and think, holy sh!t, I could have been a victim of something completely senseless and seemingly random. And the worst part is never really knowing what was going through the shooter's mind.

Heal NIU Huskies, heal.....

Edited February 15, 2008 by Sister Fracas

[rebeccajo 14]

I can't get the image out of my head of a couple hundred young people sitting in a lecture all diving for cover.

I imagine my own son sitting there. I don't know why.

It makes my blood run cold.

[BelwinMills 0]

This is my hometown and you never think it will happen in your town. It was surreal here yesterday. I got off work and when I reached town it had just happened. I have never seen so many ambulance and police. Many of my friends attend this college and they are all in my thoughts. My cousin worked in that build and made it out O.K. I hope gun laws change soon.

[BelwinMills 0]