Re:
I was not kidding. I'm glad to see you're remorseful, but an event like this shouldn't be used as means of example for such trivialities.
A problem this highlights, though, is Gun Control vs Gun Ownership. After listening to the radio, and what some obviously idiotic people think, it's become increasingly clear that the only way such a situation could have been prevented is through Gun Ownership. If even ONE of those students was armed, half those people might not have died. If the shooter KNEW one of them could own a gun, or even that the professor did, he'd have thought TWICE, THRICE, and four times about pulling that off. That might not have saved the purported Xgf, but certainly that saves 31 lives.
Everyday, people drive a more dangerous weapon, a car. And everyday people kill someone. Rolling around on 20+ gallons of fuel, with a massive object weighing at least 1 ton, no one stops to think of the weapons, should we "choose" around us that we have available to inflict harm. A gun is merely simplicity. You see it coming, and there's nothing you can do. It can be done from a distance. And it's "viewed" that only dangerous people have guns.
From what I've heard, and I know this will be altered, it was a Foreign Exchange student who found 2 handguns, illegally. The serial numbers were scratched down to nothing. If he can get them, anyone can. More oversite, more supervision is NOT what we need. We need a MORE active community. A more active body of citizens, who's willing to deter threats by their presence. That fat lady COULD be an asset to the neighborhood, grocery store, school system, and work place IF she were packing. She'd no longer be 300lbs, but she'd be trained and armed.
I fail to see how weapons in the hand of our citizens does anything but breed confidence, deter crime, and imbue a sense of patriotism. Nowadays we want to bury our heads in tv, go to work, come home, and go comatose on whatever food, drug, or booze is found around our homes. It's a sad day when there ARE things that can be done. However, what will come of this is that the police need to react faster, cameras will have to be installed everywhere, and lobbyists for gun control will now have another example of why guns should only be in the hands of law enforcement and the army.
With 6 billion people on this planet and more everyday, anomalies like this continue to exist. You can't eradicate that element from humanity. BUT, you can push it off, like taking vitamins daily to ward of disease, aging effects, and the cold, by arming and training your citizens. That's the cheapest, smartest, and safest way. I imagine VATECH see's their enrollment for 2007-2008 down significantly, with quite a bit of transfers, as well as parents demanding changes on campus. Few fathers would their daughters 100's, if 10, miles away. The only option would be to give her a body guard, or train her in martial arts and weaponry.
A-Unit