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Na Mi
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The China Post
Date
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2007-07-22
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Friday, April 20, 2007 - The China Post
A total of 32 people were killed Monday in a Virginia Tech campus building in the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history. The gunman, a student from South Korea, took down his victims in two attacks that were spread two hours apart. The tragic incident has sent shockwaves around the world.
We wish to express our sympathy to the victims' families and hope they will get all the help they need to make it through this very difficult time. The other students at the university should also be assisted so they can overcome the shock and grief they are suffering.
U.S. President George W. Bush has ordered flags flown at half staff across the nation. Speaking at a memorial service on the Virginia Tech campus, Bush said "it's impossible to make sense of such violence and suffering."
"Those whose lives were taken did nothing to deserve their fate," the president said. "They were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now they're gone -- and they leave behind grieving families, and grieving classmates, and a grieving nation."
At first it was reported that the alleged killer was a student from China. Later, however, police found the gunman was a fourth-year student from South Korea, described in the media as a "loner." Authorities said he was a legal resident of the United States. The suspect committed suicide after the attacks. Police said there was no evidence of any accomplice at either of the two attacks, but are exploring the possibility.
The shocking incident has prompted debate and discussion about the prevalence of gun ownership in the United States.
An Indonesian mother, according to a news report, bemoaned the availability of guns in the United States after learning her son was among those killed in the massacre, while South Koreans expressed shame and shock that the gunman came from their country.
"Why can people bring guns to campus?" the Indonesian mother said, recalling third-year doctoral student Partahi Lumbantoruan, who had such a promising future. The family had sold property and a car to finance his civil engineering studies.
The lax gun-control legislation in the U.S. is something on which people in many parts of the world don't agree. Here in Taiwan, gun control legislation is tough and gun possession is generally confined to law-enforcement personnel. The local Gun Control Act even bans the production of toy guns that could be converted into life-threatening firearms, or those bearing similarities to real guns in appearance, material, structure and trigger device.
The strict gun-control legislation here has without a doubt played an important role in preventing violent crime from rising rapidly.
In the United States, there is a powerful gun lobby, and legislators fear that advocacating stricter gun control would result in a loss of votes. Another reason why guns are readily available is the common American belief that in a free country, citizens should be free to own guns.
The slogan of the lobbyists is: "Guns don't kill people, people do." Well, that's like saying, "Bombs don't kill people, people do."
If restrictions on gun possession in the United States were stricter, the Virginia Tech shooting rampage -- and many other campus shootings that have occurred in the past -- might not have occurred.
Hopefully, this tragic event will lead to vigorous efforts in the U.S. to pass some sensible gun control legislation.
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Original Source: The China Post
<a href="http://www.chinapost.com.tw/archive/detail.asp?cat=1&id=107654&d=2007420">http://www.chinapost.com.tw/archive/detail.asp?cat=1&id=107654&d=2007420<a/>
Language
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eng
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Virginia Tech massacre an unbelievably sad event
china
gun control
gun ownership
guns on campus
legislation
prevalence of guns
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Document
A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Contributor
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Na Mi
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China Daily/agencies
Date
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2007-07-18
Description
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UPDATED: 11:01, April 18, 2007
Foreign politicians and media once again attacked America's "gun culture" yesterday.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard said tough legislation introduced after a mass shooting in Tasmania in 1996 had prevented the US gun culture emerging in his country.
After the shooting Australia imposed laws banning almost all types of semi-automatic weapons.
"We showed a national resolve that the gun culture that is such a negative in the United States would never become a negative in our country," said Howard, extending sympathies to the families of the victims at Virginia Tech University.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair and German Chancellor Angela Merkel also expressed their sympathies.
Britain's Queen Elizabeth II was "shocked" and "saddened," a spokeswoman for Buckingham Palace said.
Along with her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, the queen is set to pay a two-day visit to Virginia early next month to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the Jamestown Settlement, her first visit to the United States in 16 years.
Iran, at loggerheads with the United States over its nuclear program, spoke out against the killings.
"Iran condemns the killing of Virginia university students and expresses its condolences to the families of victims and the American nation," Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said in a statement.
European newspapers saw a grim inevitability about the shootings, given the right to bear arms which is enshrined in US constitution. In Italy, the Leftist Il Manifesto newspaper said the shooting was "as American as apple pie".
More than 30,000 people die from gunshot wounds in the United States annually and there are more guns in private hands than in any other country. But a powerful gun lobby and support for gun ownership have thwarted attempts to tighten controls.
"It would be vain to hope that even so destructive a crime as this will cool the American ardour for guns," the Independent newspaper said in a commentary.
Gerard Baker, a columnist for The Times newspaper, feared worse was yet to come: "The truth is that only an optimist would imagine Virginia Tech will hold the new record for very long."
France's Le Monde newspaper said such episodes frequently disfigure the "American dream".
"The... slaughter forces American society to once again examine itself, its violence, the obsession with guns of part of its population, the troubles of its youth, subjected to the double tyranny of abundance and competition," it wrote.
Campaigners in other countries where gun ownership is common expressed fears of a similar massacre.
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Original Source:: China Daily/agencies
<a href="http://english.people.com.cn/200704/18/eng20070418_367507.html">http://english.people.com.cn/200704/18/eng20070418_367507.html</a>
Language
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eng
Title
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'Gun culture' again target of criticism after killings
gun culture
gun ownership