I don't know who makes me more sick, the pro-gun people or the anti-gun people. And of course Alternet just eats this stuff up. Unfuckingbelievable.

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"There's no guarantee, of course, that the reduction in assault weapons would've prevented this particular shooting -- I mean, it's just percentages and numbers, right?"

Easy enough to check for a JOURNALIST!!!! The dealer who sold it to him has been identified, hasn't he? Ok, use your Jschool skills to do something as simple as check the date he bought against the time the ban lapsed. If he bought it beforehand, obviously the ban didn't stop it.

But why would you want to do the research? I mean, its just dates and numbers, right?

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It's frustrating to listen to the bonehead news networks try and "debate" gun control. You can see how scared they are to tackle the issue. They get some gun nut on there, and that's their expert, and all they can do is repeat over and over again how if only more students had guns then this never would have happened! I saw them going on and on about how students should get concealed weapons permits and carry handguns around on campus.

Are they fucking insane? Does anyone seriously think that having a bunch of drunken and sex-crazed college students with concealed handguns is a solution to anything? Maybe it will help increase the number of rapes and accidental shootings on campus. How anyone can go on TV and say this shit with a straight face is beyond me.

Most European countries have far more restrictive gun laws than in the US. You have to show proof of need, undergo psychiatric evaluations, pass training courses, etc etc... In the US you just go in and flash a couple forms of identification, go through a basic instant background check, and you're good to go! Which method is better? I don't hear about too many shooting sprees in Europe, do you?

Somehow in the US a lot of people equate freedom with being able to own a gun. We have a constitution, great! Does anyone seriously think that the 2nd amendment was written so that every stupid fuck on the street could be packing heat? Can we at least agree that a few things have changed in the last 200 years and maybe we need to rethink our attitudes about guns?

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Using a 9mm Glock 19 & a Walther P22 as examples of "assault" weapons is ridiculous and counterproductive. The Walther is basically a beginners hand gun and the Glock will soon be the weapon of choice for virtually all law enforcement agencies. Lumping a couple of hand guns in with real assault weapons is counter productive and merely feeds the NRA & other anti-gun control freaks' agendas.

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The NRA is is a bunch Neanderthals who see ANY attempt to regulate guns as a threat . Charlton Heston addressed the NRA shortly after Columbine and said that he would not give up his gun until they pried it from his cold dead hands . I thought at the time from your lips to God's ears . These crazy bastards even fought any attempt to regulate cop killer bullets . Damn deer must have started wearing Flak Jackets .

The poster who pointed out the insanity of having students carry their guns on campus had it right . Just what is needed let's have drunken oversexed students roaming the campus with Automatic Pistols .El Rushbo takes that point of view and then there is my favorite empty headed Republican apologits Sean Hannity who decried the idea of the Anti Gun people using this tragedy for political purposes . This from a guy who defends an Administration that defends its failed Iraq Adventure with references to 911 .

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"It turns out that one of the two guns used in the Virginia Tech massacre, a Glock 9 pistol, had been banned by 1994's Federal Assault Weapons Ban, passed by the new Republican congress (by 1 vote) and enacted by Bill Clinton."

A Glock 9m would not have been banned under the assault weapons ban - only a clip that holds more than ten rounds. Minor point, perhaps, but when the first sentence of the article has a glaring mistake - not a good thing. As someone points out in one of the other posts, calling a Glock 9m an assault weapon is kind of rediculous. It is the handgun of choice for law enforcement because of its weight, ease of use, and safety features.

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While it is certainly possible for reasonable people to disagree on the finer points of gun control, i.e. what should be banned and where. This story takes some liberties with the facts.

Just because something was made illegal under the Brady Bill doesn't make it an assault weapon. In other words it hurts your case to refer to a Glock 9mm as an assault weapon. Also the Glock, as your own article points out, wasn't what was banned. This fact also causes your assertion, that the Glock 9mm is an "assault weapon", to hurt your argument even more.

In fact what was banned was the sale of NEW high capacity magazines. The Brady Bill specifically allowed the resale of existing high capacity magazines. So while the renewal of the Brady Bill probably would have reduced the chances of this happening, or at least mitigated the damage, your implied claim that it would have stopped this from happening isn't supported by the reality of the situation.

The reason that this tragedy occurred has much less to do with the availability of the weapons used than some of the fundamental flaws in our society. Specifically racism and classism, and the fact that our society not only continues to tolerate racist and classist behavior, it actively encourages it. Things are getting better in this regard but the reality is the majority of Americans feel these problems are in the past and that we (the people who point out they are wrong) need to get over it.

None of this make the shooters behavior acceptable or right, but it does make it inevitable. It also makes all of us more responsible than the gun industry or any one piece of gun control legislation. Perhaps its time we accept that responsibility.

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http://www.aapsonline.org/jpands/hacienda/comm8.html

Gun Control in Australia --- Chaos Down Under

Miguel A. Faria, Jr., MD

Last August, the rugged Aussie survivalist whose real life exploits inspired the "Crocodile Dundee" movies died in what then appeared to be a mysterious shootout with Australian police. A police sergeant was also killed in the incident. It was reported that Rodney William Ansell, the 44-year-old, blond haired Aussie, resembled uncannily Paul Hogan the actor who played his part in the movie and the sequel. Although Ansell was no angel and had had previous run-ins with police, he had been named 1988 Australian Northern Territory Man of the Year for inspiring the movie and putting "the Australian Outback on the map."

What motivated this shooting? In 1996, Australia adopted draconian gun control laws banning certain guns (60 percent of all firearms), requiring registration of all firearms and licensing of all gun owners. "Crocodile Dundee" believed the police were coming to confiscate his unregistered firearms. In Australia today, police can enter your house and search for guns, copy the hard drive of your computer, seize records, and do it all without a search warrant. It's the law that police can go door to door searching for weapons that have not been surrendered in their much publicized gun buy back program. They have been using previous registration and firearm license lists to check for lapses and confiscate non-surrendered firearms.

The problem began with the Port Arthur (a Tasmanian resort) tragedy on April 28, 1996, when a crazed assailant opened fire and shot 35 people. Australians were shocked and the government reacted quickly. Draconian gun legislation was passed in the heat of the moment. There are three major political parties in Australia: the center right (Liberal Party), the socialist camp (Labor Party), and the ultra left (Australian Democratic Party) --- which tilted the balance of power toward stringent gun control at the expense of freedom.

As a result of the ban, all semiautomatic firearms (rifles and handguns) are proscribed, including .22 caliber rabbit guns and duck-hunting Remington shotguns.

Writing in The Gun Owners (Jan. 31, 2000), the newsletter for Gun Owners of America (GOA), former California State Senator H.L. Richardson writes: "They outlawed every semi-auto, even those pretty duck guns, the Browning A5 and the Remington 1100s. They even struck down pump shotguns: the Winchester model 12 and the Remington 870...Do you own a Browning BAR rifle? Banned. How about a Winchester Model 100? Out of luck, all semi-auto hunting rifles were outlawed as well. They didn't miss a one."

Be that as it may, at a cost of $500 million, out of an estimated 7 million firearms (of which 2.8 million were prohibited), only 640,000 guns were surrendered to police. What has been the result? Same as in England. Like in Great Britain, crime Down Under has escalated. Twelve months after the law was implemented in 1997, there has been a 44 percent increase in armed robberies; an 8.6 percent increase in aggravated assaults; and, a 3.2 percent increase in homicides. That same year in the state of Victoria, there was a 300 percent increase in homicides committed with firearms. The following year, robberies increased almost 60 percent in South Australia. By 1999, assaults had increased in New South Wales by almost 20 percent.

Two years after the ban, there have been further increases in crime: armed robberies by 73 percent; unarmed robberies by 28 percent; kidnappings by 38 percent; assaults by 17 percent; manslaughter by 29 percent, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

And consider the fact that over the previous 25-year period, Australia had shown a steady decrease both in homicide with firearms and armed robbery --- until the ban.

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Australia, a semi-arid, isolated continent, and a vast nation-state, in many ways parallels the history of the United States. In the 1850s and 1860s, it had gold rushes and pioneering settlers, reminiscent of our own western migration. In World War I and World War II, it fought with the allies. Australia remained a subject of Great Britain until 1986, when the last ties with the British crown were dissolved. With only 19 million people, Australia has an impressive fauna that includes plenty of varmints, marsupials, dingoes (that wreak havoc on livestock), as well as large rats and other rodents. Yet, hunting has become prohibitively difficult for all but a handful of Australians with private lands and the usual connections. Now, the ban on firearms and the disarmament of ordinary Australians has left criminals free to roam the countryside as they please. Bandits, of course, kept their guns. Like in America, only the law-abiding, by definition, obey the law. Yet, the leftist Australian government has responded by passing more laws; in 1998 Bowie knives and other knives and items including handcuffs were banned.

Licensing is difficult. Self and family protection is not considered a valid reason to own a firearm. The right to self-defense, like in Great Britain and Canada, is not recognized in Australia, Like Americans, Australians loved and possessed firearms --- that is until the ban. Freedom has been extinguished. A way of life has ended. Please, don't tell me it cannot happen here!

Dr. Faria is the Editor-in-Chief of the Medical Sentinel.

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There has never bin a ban on that Glock. That boy had just bin for training i Iran by Al-Queda thats what Evan will claim next!

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Once again lies and distortions. The actual weapon, a Glock handgun, was never banned!

The ban was on what are called "hi-cap" magazines - one that will hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition. And the law was written so that those magazines manufactured before the ban were still legal to sell and own.

In any event, if the ban was still in place, the shooter probably would just have carried more magazines.

I am getting quite disillusioned here - I thought there would be much more responsibility in the reporting. Instead it seems to be just a springboard for blind, agenda-driven propaganda - exactly the same as the other side.

PS: I am both a life-long, registered Democrat and a life member of the NRA, which I don't think are mutually exclusive. I think about things instead of parroting pre-digested pap.

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I need help with definitions please:
the artical above says, "It turns out that one of the two guns used in the Virginia Tech massacre, a Glock 9 pistol, had been banned by 1994's Federal Assault Weapons Ban"
The article later says, "According to the law, a "large capacity ammunition feeding device," like the one used in the Va Tech shootings "means a magazine...that has a
capacity of, or that can be readily restored or converted to accept, more than 10
rounds of ammunition...".
So was the Glock 9 banned by the 1994 law or was a Glock 9 with a magazine with a
capacity of more than 10 rounds banned? Was a Glock 9 with a 9 or 10 round
magazine ok with the 1994 law? Which is banned, the weapon itself and/or the
magazine with a greater than 10 round capacity?
l

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The author is asserting that "assault weapons" are dramatically more dangerous than...I assume...non-assault weapons.

What is this guy smoking? Many assault weapons either use the same caliber, or exactly the same bullets as hunting and sporting weapons. Many of these guns shoot the same bullets as dad's elk gun or Bobby's varmint rifle.

Let's get a grip here people. Just because a gun, any gun, holds more than 10 rounds of ammo doesn't make it any more dangerous than a gun that holds 5 rounds. A bullet is a bullet and can do the same amount of damage regardless of what weapon it is fired from. The only thing that a larger capacity magazine does is allow you to go longer between reloads.

A person who has decided to go out and kill people is simply being efficient by bringing weapons that don't have to be reloaded as often...same as the cops or the military.

When a person is ready to kill another person, they will devise the most efficient way to take out as many people as they need to. It doesn't matter what weapons are used...the Iraqi's are now using vehicles for mass killing. Are we going to ban cars now after someone blows up a vehicle and kills a lot of people?

Apparently not...Timothy McVeigh used a van, and I don't see anyone trying to ban mini-vans...

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This article is filled with factual inaccuracies. The magazine, not the gun, fell under the law.

I would expect better journalism from AlterNet, especially in regard to the topic.

A good place to look for gun control laws and their effect on crime is Australia and South Africa. Crime rates there have spiked dramatically since gun control went into effect. Now, only criminals have guns and the innocent cannot protect themselves. Then again, people here in the US would rather base their arguments on specious facts and emotion rather than looking at hard data. Its sad.

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