Acts of bravery amid the horror
Letters
<b>Wednesday April 18, 2007</b>
<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/">The Guardian</a>
We have heard the arguments for years regarding the modern-day relevance or not of the second amendment, which engrains the right to bears arms into the American constitution and psyche, and they need not be rehashed now. I am sure all readers are intelligent and well-informed enough to realise and accept that although they may have strong views on the rights of people to own guns, many others do not share that view.
But this argument should not be the focus of today's editorials, columns and letters. Nathaniel Hawthorne said that "A hero cannot be a hero unless in a heroic world", so let us today for once become a world that celebrates heroism rather than focusing on the acts of the wicked few. The bravery of students to carry their friends, their classmates and people they didn't even know to safety and help while under fire shows the acts of heroism that are still required in our world. Today it is them and their fallen colleagues that we should be focusing on, not the evil act of one person. We will focus on how to turn heroic acts into unnecessary acts tomorrow, but for today let's celebrate the lives of those who have once again been taken by the winds of fate and those who were willing to risk their lives simply because it was the right thing to do.
Let us tomorrow reignite the debate over gun ownership, and this time have a full and frank debate rather than the shouting match that has developed in past decades and led to a stalemate which only allows further acts of terror to plague our society, but just for one day we can put our differences aside and immortalise the all too soon forgotten heroes of our world.
<b>Michael Hunter</b>
Glasgow
It's really very simple. If you permit people to buy firearms they will buy firearms. If a person owns any kind of tool they are likely to use that tool for the purpose intended. Firearms have only one use: they are designed to shoot and to kill.
Don't quote in defence "the constitutional right to bear arms"; the constitution was written centuries ago, in a different world with different values. What about the constitutional right not to be murdered?
If an individual has a breakdown in response to the pressures they find themselves under, they could kill themselves. Give that person a gun and time after time we see a trail of corpses - Dunblane, Columbine, Hungerford, Pennsylvania, etc, and now Virginia Tech.
Personal ownership of lethal weapons has no place in a civilised society.
<b>Andrew Harris</b>
Hitchin, Hertfordshire
The second amendment reads: "Congress must not deny the states a militia. A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." The context was the "critical period" when the states were concerned over the possible tyranny of the federal government.
<b>Eric Liggett</b>
Carnforth, Lancashire
Neither the president of Virginia Tech nor President Bush even mentioned unrestricted gun ownership as a factor in this carnage in their public statements. The latter suggested prayer as a remedy instead. Maybe there is no connection between the availability and the use of weapons in Virginia.
<b>Laurence Mann</b>
London
Jackie Ashley would not have wanted her thesis on the media numbing-down of the daily carnage in Iraq (What matters is the blood in the sand, not Des Browne, April 16) to have been instantly proved in such a stark fashion. But the blanket media coverage of the killing of 32 students on a Virginia university campus does, by contrast, demonstrate perfectly her cry of pain for Iraq, where the daily death toll surpasses that of the American tragedy. What is, in the 21st century, the insane pioneer attitude to carrying and using guns - to protect yourself in a wild, unknown world - has also been translated to Iraq, where young, frightened American soldiers have been, on average, responsible for up to a third of Iraqi civilian deaths daily, according to Iraq's ministry of health.
<b>Dr David Lowry</b>
Stoneleigh, Surrey
<b>Special report</b>
<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/0,,759893,00.html">United States</a>
<b>Related articles</b>
25.10.2002: <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,819054,00.html">Captured in their sniper's nest</a>
25.10.2002: <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,818956,00.html">Dropped clues that led police to sniper</a>
25.10.2002: <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,819087,00.html">Rifle costs just $800</a>
<b>Useful links</b>
<a href="http://www.nra.org/">National Rifle Association</a>
<a href="http://www.vpc.org/">Violence Policy Centre</a>
<a href="http://www.handguncontrol.org/">Brady Campaign</a>
<a href="http://www.atf.treas.gov/">Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms</a>
Copyright Guardian News & Media Ltd 2007.
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Original Source: Guardian Unlimited
<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/usguns/Story/0,,2059479,00.html">http://www.guardian.co.uk/usguns/Story/0,,2059479,00.html</a>
Guardian News & Media Limited
2007-08-09
Adriana Seagle
Eve Thompson-Acting Permissions Executive Syndication;permissions.syndication@guardian.co.uk
eng
Ponderation over shock from US campus shooting rampage
UPDATED: 17:04, April 19, 2007
A total of 33 people, including the gunman Seung-Hui Cho, 23, were killed Monday at Virginia Tech University in the deadiest shooting rampage in modern US history. The whole of the United States is stunned and shocked, and so is the entire world.
At the time when people, full of sympathy, are plunged themselves in an extreme sorrow and grief, they cannot but naturally ask such a question: Why it (the shooting rampage) has been again occurred in the U.S., and again in on the campus? In fact, this is not beyond people's expectations, as it is neither the first tragedy, nor the last, because there are two reasons involved:
First, the Second Amendment to the US Constitution specifies that the American people are endowered with the "right to keep and bear arms", which cannot be encroached upon. So the sale and purchase of firearms are legal in the United States according to law. Consequently, a large number of American families possess guns. Approximately 200 million guns are owned privately in the U.S., which has a population of 300 million, note relevant statistics released by the US Department of Justice. It has been reported that Seung-Hui Cho, the gunman on the Virginia campus killings, bought his first gun, a 9mm handgun, on March 13 at Roanoke, Va. Gun store, and he timed the purchase of his two firearms to be far enough apart that he would not run afoul of the "one gun a month" law.
Why does the United States still not amend its Constitution to ban the use of firearms after a frequent occurrence of mass killings with guns? Almost every shooting rampage is followed by a nationwide debate on whether or not the possession of firearms should be banned. But bills for banning the ownership of guns will not be passed in Congress in the end. This, however, has something to do with the influential and powerful National Rifle Association of America, or NRA. Having a membership of some 3 million that includes arms dealers, rich hunters and firearms fans, the NRA has both money and the vote with a significant impact in both Congressional and presidential elections. Any amendment of the US Constitution has to be rectified with a two-thirds majority at both chambers of US Congress and, therefore, the rigid draft firearms banning code remains a "still born in the womb". And gun owners seem to have some kind of reason, alleging that it is the gunman not the gun that kills people and the guns themselves cannot massacre people automatically.
Second, every society is made up of all kinds of people, and an undeniable reality is that a handful of people do not have a "sound" or healthy mind or character and still a small member of people are somewhat in mental disorders. Once these people seize firearms, others will be exposed to an immense threat. Relevant statistics show that close to half the killers have mental problems of some sort and, so for the sake of safeguarding social security, it is a must to reduce or prevent their accesses to firearms. Just imagine how is it possible for the gunman in the campus shooting rampage in Virginia Tech to massacre so many people if he had only a sword or a knife, not two guns in hand?
Furthermore, to make an in-depth analysis of its causes, a kind of culture to adore the force has been fostered and spread in the process from the War of Independence in 1776 to the subsequent extension westward in the late 18th century and early 19th centuries. In the meantime, violence and bloodshed scenes have been kept flooding "cowboy" movies and audio and visual products based on high-tech Star wars. This has created notions in minds of kids to worship the force and resort to it to solve problems.
On April 20, 1999, two teenagers, aged 17 or 18, killed 12 fellow students and a teacher and wounded 24 others before taking their own lives at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. What they did was solely simulated and designed with meticulous care on audio and visual items to peddle or spread violence and crimes.
Seung-Hui Cho, a South Korean American student, has been in the U.S. from a very young age.
If he was in South Korea, a nation of his birth instead of the U.S., would a tragedy of such a scale could happen?
To date, the entire world has been mourning with a deep grief over victims in the Virginia campus killing rampage, and another round of debate for prohibition of firearms ban is in sight in the United States. If only the loss of 33 precious young lives on the Virginia campus will arouse the awareness and introspection of American statesmen. </b>
<i>By People's Daily Online, and its author is Li Xuejiang, a top PD resident reporter in the U.S.</i>
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Original Source: People's Daily Online, China
<a href="http://english.people.com.cn/200704/19/eng20070419_368006.html">http://english.people.com.cn/200704/19/eng20070419_368006.html</a>
Li Xuejiang
2007-07-18
Na Mi
eng
Don't Conceal This Debate
<p>Tom DeLay</p>
<p>Former Tennessee Senator and potential presidential candidate Fred Thompson had a very interesting article in the National Review on April 20th entitled, "Signs of Intelligence?" which dealt with concealed carry laws on the Virginia Tech Campus. In the article he writes,</p>
<blockquote>Still, there are a lot of people who are just offended by the notion that people can carry guns around. They view everybody, or at least many of us, as potential murderers prevented only by the lack of a convenient weapon. Virginia Tech administrators overrode Virginia state law and threatened to expel or fire anybody who brings a weapon onto campus...</blockquote>
<blockquote>...So Virginians asked their legislators to change the university's "concealed carry" policy to exempt people 21 years of age or older who have passed background checks and taken training classes. The university, however, lobbied against that bill, and a top administrator subsequently praised the legislature for blocking the measure.</blockquote>
<blockquote>The logic behind this attitude baffles me, but I suspect it has to do with a basic difference in worldviews. Some people think that power should exist only at the top, and everybody else should rely on "the authorities" for protection.</blockquote>
<p>To read the article in its entirety click <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OTIwYzMyZmQ1YzQ1MDNmZTMyYzQ1Y2U3YTU4YzNmNGE=">here</a> (and I would encourage you to do so because Senator Thompson makes a lot of sense on this issue).</p>
<p>I did some research on my own on the background of this Virginia Tech concealed carry debate and I found <a href="http://www.roanoke.com/editorials/commentary/wb/80510">this article</a> in the Roanoke Times submitted by a Virginia Tech graduate student during August of last year. Entitled "Unarmed and Vulnerable" it is written by a Mr. Bradford Wiles and it says this,</p>
<blockquote>On Aug. 21 at about 9:20 a.m., my graduate-level class was evacuated from the Squires Student Center. We were interrupted in class and not informed of anything other than the following words: "You need to get out of the building."</blockquote>
<blockquote>Upon exiting the classroom, we were met at the doors leading outside by two armor-clad policemen with fully automatic weapons, plus their side arms. Once outside, there were several more officers with either fully automatic rifles and pump shotguns, and policemen running down the street, pistols drawn.</blockquote>
<blockquote>It was at this time that I realized that I had no viable means of protecting myself...</blockquote>
<blockquote>...This incident makes it clear that it is time that Virginia Tech and the commonwealth of Virginia let me take responsibility for my safety.</blockquote>
<p>Given the horrific nature of recent events, Mr. Wiles' article has certainly become even more prescient and chilling. Would that Bradford had been in the engineering building that terrible day with the correct law in place - perhaps the tragedy may have ended very differently.</p>
<p>There are many who view supporters of concealed carry laws as fringe crazies who envision life as some kind of ongoing shootem' up western movie. However, statistics don't lie. Jurisdictions which allow responsible citizens the free exercise of their Second Amendment rights have lower levels of violent crime. Ask most incarcerated criminals whether they take into account existing gun laws in choosing their targets and where they will commit a crime and the answer is a resounding yes.</p>
<p>Call me a crazy if you wish, but I think this pro Second Amendment Argument of mine and others bears listening to.</p>
<p>Posted on Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 09:41AM by Tom DeLay</p>
<p>--</p>
<p>Original Source: <a href="http://www.tomdelay.com/home/2007/4/26/dont-conceal-this-debate.html">http://www.tomdelay.com/home/2007/4/26/dont-conceal-this-debate.html</a></p>
<p>Licensed under <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5</a>.</p>
Tom DeLay
2007-05-25
Brent Jesiek
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5
eng