Text 11265, 67 rader
Skriven 2008-02-18 12:10:44 av Roy Witt (1:397/22)
  Kommentar till text 11177 av Robert Bashe (2:2448/44)
Ärende: Shootings in USA
========================
16 Feb 08 16:50, Robert Bashe wrote to David Drummond:

 DD>> It is a plot by the US anti-gun lobby.

 RB> No, but certainly bias by people who think there's a "quick fix" and
 RB> a single cause for all problems.

Actually, it is a plot. Not only by the anti-gun groups who wish these
things would happen more often, but by the media who play it to the hilt.
That's why you hear it all around the world. Fortunately, there are enough
people who know better than that here.

 RB> School shootings were totally unknown in my youth in Texas and
 RB> Oklahoma, and guns were even easier to get and keep than nowadays. I
 RB> got my first guns when I was 13-14 years old: a 22 rifle and a 410
 RB> shotgun. You could buy ammunition at the local hardware store.

A bunch of us in 6th grade used to take our .22 rifles and pistols to
school and keep them in the cloak room. They were out in the open where
anyone could have access to them. After school, we'd go to a stone quarry
and have a shoot out, blowing bottles to pieces.

 RB> I personally think the main problem here is one of changed attitudes
 RB> - the "Rambo" syndrome that arose after the Vietnam war - and the
 RB> widespread feeling that people have some kind of a "right" to
 RB> anything they happen to want at a particular moment, and similarly
 RB> the "right" to do violence to others to get it.

They can't help but be influenced by the movies, video games and TV
programs where they see this stuff.

 RB> Gun laws as strict as those in Germany presumably would halp curb gun
 RB> violence in the States, if only because spur-of-the-moment anger
 RB> would be less likely to lead to murder. But they wouldn't eliminate
 RB> the underlying cause, the attitudes, and until people realize that
 RB> and direct their attention to changing those attitudes, murders and
 RB> even mass murders are going to continue - if not with guns, then with
 RB> explosives, fire (arson) or poisons.

We got some relief from gun violence the other day. A disgruntled medical
patient took his anger out on the doctor who was treating him. He used a
butcher's meat cleaver.

 RB> I wish I could believe in quick fixes too, but I don't, nor do I see
 RB> any bright ray of hope on the horizon at this point - for any of us.
 RB> Not only in the States.

It's a big problem that doesn't seem to have any other answer but to take
away all of the law abiding citizen's guns, while leaving the rest in the
hands of the criminals. Law abiding people aren't the problem. If they
were, there'd be millions of shootings rather than the few we've had.

 RB> P.S. Metal detectors have already been installed at some German
 RB> schools in "difficult" areas.

We have that, plus, locker searches and body searches. All the metal
detectors do is give an alarm. Only a person with a firearm has a chance
to thwart the nut who is intent on using his gun to kill others. We have
armed airline marshalls, armed bank guards, yet there are no armed guards
in schools. Well, most schools. The problem areas do have them.

                R\%/itt



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