Randy Cassingham's Blog

Posted by Craig, Minnesota, USA on April 20, 2007:

To Craig in Melbourne: I suspect that you are going with your feelings rather than reality. Since Australia and the U.K. banned firearms, violent intrusions into occupied dwellings have increased almost 53% and violent street crimes have skyrocketed. The criminals are now bolder because the citizens', oops, subjects' ability to defend themselves has been virtually eliminated.

In the U.K., you are likely to receive a stiffer punishment for defending yourself than will the criminal for perpetrating a violent attack upon you. Criminals now fear almost no one and *they will* have weapons. Laws and signs do not stop them prior to their criminal act(s). Laws only become a factor if the criminal is actually caught. And prosecuted. And convicted.

Law enforcement is not capable of preventing violence unless they just happen to be present and inclined to intervene. Banning firearms has only taken them from the hands of those who obey the law. You are responsible for your own defense. Protection could be in your hands now or sitting at the donut shop. When a gang of armed thugs crashes into your home, hold up a copy of the law and wag your finger at them.

I am a professional firearms trainer and have been for almost 40 years. I instruct courses that qualify my students to obtain permits to legally carry a firearm in up to 35 U.S. states. I am not aware of any of my students having been involved in a criminal act.

On a sad note, last Monday's events appear to have awakened the sheeple, many of whom have been sleeping since shortly after 9/11. Doubtless due to the VT incident, my upcoming classes are filling rapidly. I'm glad for the business, of course, but I curse the Virginia legislature for specifically disallowing students, faculty and staff the means to protect themselves. In their twisted imaginations, "safety" means no one has a firearm -- an inanimate object totally incapable of independent action. As with any implement that could be used as a weapon, the hands of the operator that will determine its use. An ordinary garden rake could be deadly. Should we ban them as well?

Leave the emotional baggage at the door and really examine the issue. It's not the guns, it's the criminals. Banning guns only affects those who are inclined to obey the law anyway. The criminals are, well, criminals. By definition, they do not obey the law. Cho appears to have been seriously disturbed and obviously motivated. If no guns were available, he might likely have used an internet explosives recipe. His choice of implements does not condemn the implements. What he chose to do with those implements condemns him.

Posted by Dee-Ann LeBlanc, BC Canada on April 20, 2007:

I don't get why people keep blaming drugs like antidepressants. As someone who's on them, I will point out that you go on them because you're already unbalanced. They aren't magic happy pills, you have to work with your doctor and adjust the medications and levels until they're right. And often meds work best with counselling.

It may be that a high % of people who do particular types of things are on antidepressants or similar drugs, but that doesn't mean the drugs are the cause of the problem. It means they were probably trying to get help and it wasn't fast enough, wasn't working well enough, wasn't enough to get them to quit with bad coping mechanisms, or whatever.

As far as guns go, I don't see how turning campuses into the OK Corral is going to fix the problem. Nothing simple is going to "fix" it. In this case, this kid really needed some serious help and wasn't getting it. It's hard to say whether he would have snapped regardless, whether it was from bullying, or what ... we may never know.

My own personal thoughts on why we have such a problem with violence in the US (yes, I'm in Canada but I'm from the US and still spend a lot of time there) is that it's a culture where the loudest "majority" (I use the term loosely) are more okay with allowing violent, gory movies to be shown than they are with allowing expressions of love to be shown. Add in a culture that idolizes Bart Simpson much more than Lisa, and a love of reality TV shows where bitchy, nasty, aggressive people are highlighted as the most desirable and it's really not hard to see that we've got a lot of problems to deal with.

And as a species, we've been murdering each other since the day that primitive 1 picked up a rock and discovered he could make a dent in primitive 2's head with it. For all of our trappings of "civilization," unfortunately we haven't gotten past the caveman with rock thing. As an optimist, I keep telling myself that maybe one day we'll manage it, but sometimes it's hard.

Donning flame-retardant gear.

Posted by Holly, NB Canada on April 20, 2007:

Personally, I think guns are bad, in the hands of either the bad, or the good. But until we can get rid of them, all of them, the good should have guns to defend themselves against those who would use guns for bad. However, I think that guns should be registered- and a record of who has what kind of gun kept. Why? Because, then if, say a suspected drug dealer was seen with a gun, a Police officer could ask for proof of registration and if it was not a registered gun, have a way to get a drug dealer off the streets. And reason to search him. I know this is a long shot, but it could happen. I also know I'm assuming a lot - like that having an unregistered gun would be punishable by jail time. This wouldn't have prevented the tragedy that happened on Monday, but perhaps the registration required people to say if they had been involuntarily committed for a psychiatric assessment (as Cho was) or things like that. I don't think that this would have stopped Cho, who could have used the knives he had(as seen, many many times on CNN this week) or a bomb. we'll never know how many lives something like this could have saved over the past hundred years or so.

Posted by Bruce, Gisborne NZ on April 20, 2007:

Questions are being asked about making laws more restrictive concerning gun ownership, and it would seem sensible to consider such questions. But questions are not being put about the nature of a society which produces people who will act like the murderer in the Virginia Tech massacre. After all, at the base of such incidents is a simple matter of the lack of self-control so prevelant in the lives of so many people.

In the past such self-control was schooled into people during their early life, partly through encouraging their concern for the welfare of society in general, and partly through an awareness of the damnation of their individual soul should they lose self-control in such a fatal way. Now, many people don't seem to fear damnation and hell. The concepts are glibly labelled 'fundamentalist' and ignored.

Similarly, the concepts of 'fairplay' and 'sportsmanship' and 'seemliness' are belittled by a society that seems to teach only one (invented) commandment: "don't get caught".

As for the law: why do so many people live under the illusion the law has much effect on wrong-doers? Don't they realise criminals are people who ignore the law; that's why we call them 'criminals'.

Posted by William, Florida on April 20, 2007:

The one reader had it exactly right, we teach kids and adults today that they are not responsible for their own well being, the government will protect you from bad people, bad decisions, everything. Just sit back and let the government handle it, you aren't capable because you haven't had the specialized training needed. What bull.

Two loads of passengers sat back and let their planes crash into the World Trade Centers, I am convinced because we have been taught to let the hijackers have their way, the government will come and bail us out. One group of passengers fought back, and even though the plane crashed, they went out as heroes and prevented further loss of life.

I firmly believe we are each responsible for our own welfare, we have to protect ourselves even if it means endangering ourselves. There is no way a long gunman could have withstood an entire school or even a classroom of students determined to stop him. Instead, except for one professor who sacrificed his own life to keep the doors closed, no one else I am aware of took a proactive action.

Your example of school yard bullies is an excellent example, our society is being taught not to even fight back when attacked.

Sorry for the rant, it is just frustrating how the illogical actions of so called "educators" and school administrators are allowed to continue unchallenged.

As far as ZT, even the cop on campus couldn't defend the school against anyone, since he is weaponless.

Posted by Rachel, Australia on April 20, 2007:

Interesting how no one has commented on how things like this could be reduced if there were better background checks. Why would anyone buying a gun at a show be any more trustworthy then some one buying it at a shop? Why do they have to go through less background checks?

Rather then banning outright all guns - have a better look at the people buying guns. It might take a week to do a proper background check, but what is a week compared to 32 + whatever the number of others that get killed lives.

I am a university student. I wouldn't feel safe if there were guns on campus. Its just too easy to pull it out in a fit of rage....

Posted by Jeff, Maidenhead UK on April 21, 2007:

Whenever what used to be known as a 'Columbine-style shooting' happens in the US, just about the first thing our newspapers and news programmes mention is the lack of gun control. I've always felt that it must seem odd to a visiting American how obsessed we are with this aspect but I'm beginning to think we have a point. Unless you are affiliated in some way to the criminal classes it is almost impossible to buy a gun for your own use outside a shooting club and even then the legislation is restrictive. This has meant that there are really only two incidents involving such gun rampage: Michael Ryan in Hungerford and Thomas Hamilton in Dunblane. Both Ryan and Hamilton were shooting club members and that is how they got their guns.

This is slightly simplistic I appreciate, but over here if a disaffected teenager loses the plot it is more likely he'll (it's more likely to be a boy) go on a self-destructive rampage whereas in the US the kid merely needs to pick up one of the firearms next to his bed and start the revenge process. There are angry teens all over the world but only in the US are they provided so easily with the hardware for getting even with the world.

The pro-gun lobby will probably wheel out good ol' Charlton Heston - now one of the best adverts the anti-gun lobby has.

Posted by John, Louisa, Virginia on April 21, 2007:

Literally hundreds of students and instructors were confronted by that young madman at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. In Virginia there is no statutory prohibition against carrying an otherwise legally concealed weapon on a college campus, only this particular school's policy. If only ONE of them had been armed, I have no doubt lives would have been saved. Even one fewer death would far outweigh any rationalized benefit of this policy.

Posted by Bruce, Nevada on April 21, 2007:

Institutions of all kinds do as much as possible to neuter their constituants. It is a power grab. People seek postitions that come with power, the more the better. So students are conditioned over time, don't do this, don't do that, until the default response of students is to do nothing. The institutions take on the burden of responsibility in their quest for authority, but that end of the deal gets ignored.

Bruce from N.Z. says, "Now, many people don't seem to fear damnation and hell. The concepts are glibly labelled 'fundamentalist' and ignored."

I say, it's not that simple. People have learned that these are tools of another institution, used to bring their constituants to heel. In the information age, the people hear all the stories of gross wrongdoing by clergy, and the credibility of those selling damnation and hell is shot all to... That, and realizing that the basis of those institutions is superstition only further discredits them. Another example of something for nothing, like so many layers of government that absorb tax money and provide nothing to benefit the taxpayer.

I believe that the mass murderers we are talking about are totally alienated by their institutions' foolish control mechanisms and failure to detect and respond to human needs. That does not mean that I don't recognize that killers are often insane, but I don't think it's impossible to see how they got that way. At V.T., that one was educated by some series of sources and events to believe some very perverted ideas.

Buying a gun potentially has serious implications for society. I think that gun sellers have a unique responsibility to insure that guns are not sold to nuts. The V.T. killer had a record that should have precluded him from acquiring lethal weapons. I know shop keepers are not policemen, but if they want to profit from selling guns, then they should shoulder the responibility of taking steps to protect the public.

Posted by Steven, Evansville, IN on April 21, 2007:

I am sure that if the U.S. had confiscated and destroyed every firearm in the country, like the UK and Australia, Cho would have found a way to accomplish what he did anyway.

He would have used an IED, a vehicle driven through a place of high pedestrian traffic, readily available chemicals to manufacture deadly gases, a crossbow, a ball bat and on and on. Not having a firearm would not have stopped someone as bent as this individual.

Maybe all schools should train and equip their faculty (not students) with handguns. This would ensure that there would be a "first responder" on the scene immediately, thus preventing any such event to spread to other areas of the institution and save many lives.

This one small act would go a long way in enforcing Zero Tolerance for campus violence.