tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9864334.post1711278711243274498..comments2023-10-24T05:49:04.269-04:00Comments on The Chaliceblog: "All laws must be followed" examined.Chalicechickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07781469958573869914noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9864334.post-66845918561575395522007-04-18T09:49:00.000-04:002007-04-18T09:49:00.000-04:00Rather than being hyper-political, let's try our h...Rather than being hyper-political, let's try our hand at being human.<BR/><BR/>And let's try to examine what in society leads to tragedies rather than jumping to conclusions about gun control or pinning false statements on the President. We seem to have a habit of kicking someone when she/he's down which speaks badly of us.Comrade Kevinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11393718048145784837noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9864334.post-9259255419547197452007-04-18T09:29:00.000-04:002007-04-18T09:29:00.000-04:00Honestly, PG, at the time I wrote that I assumed t...Honestly, PG, at the time I wrote that I assumed the filed-off numbers meant the guns were more illegal than they turned out to be.<BR/><BR/>CCChalicechickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07781469958573869914noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9864334.post-80715064809697361602007-04-18T05:44:00.000-04:002007-04-18T05:44:00.000-04:00Even banning semi-automatics would not have helped...Even banning semi-automatics would not have helped. If you have two guns, as he did, you can always pick up the loaded gun before anyone could rush you- and they make quick-loaders for revolvers that are nearly as fast as loading a magazine into an automatic anyway. <BR/><BR/>You are absolutely correct about gun permits not helping, either, unless they actually carried the gun into class, which I cannot imagine any college allowing.<BR/><BR/>Any "lessons learned" here will be useless in future attacks- unless they turn the campus into a prison, anyone smart enough to be there in the first place will figure ways around the security. This is a human problem, not a security problem.Joel Monkahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10631333436948102576noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9864334.post-76395479096064908832007-04-18T01:37:00.000-04:002007-04-18T01:37:00.000-04:00While removing the serial numbers from guns is ill...While removing the serial numbers from guns is illegal, I'm not clear on how that's relevant to the crime. It's not as though there was much difficulty in figuring out which guns used in the crime, given that they were found next to the killer's dead body.<BR/><BR/>Politicization goes both ways. Some people are using this tragedy to criticize Virginia Tech for banning guns from the campus. When the Appalachian School of Law had a shooter several years ago, he was subdued by two students who each ran to their vehicles in the school parking lot and grabbed guns. Of course, he was of a more self-preserving bent than the Tech shooter; when faced with others' weapons, he eventually surrendered and he pled guilty rather than face the death penalty. Last spring a Virginia Tech student was disciplined for bringing a handgun to class, despite having a concealed handgun permit.<BR/><BR/>My own feeling is that if the killer locked people in with him, even having guns on campus wouldn't have helped unless people were carrying those guns and ammo with them everywhere they went, rather than just keeping them secured in their residences, offices or vehicles (which in my experience is the normal thing to do). From a gun policy perspective, banning automatic weapons would be about the best we could do to prevent such a massacre -- if the shooter had had to reload each time he fired, it probably would have been possible for someone to tackle him. And even this might not suffice for situations like Columbine with two killers who could have worked back-to-back.PGhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09381347581328622706noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9864334.post-26316099360485867972007-04-17T20:27:00.000-04:002007-04-17T20:27:00.000-04:00I was speaking of things posted on the bulletin bo...I was speaking of things posted on the bulletin board (paper and pushpins, not a BBS) at my congregation, All Souls Indianapolis. They were written by fellow congregates. We may be old-fashioned, but we still tack things to a cork-board wall at All Souls.Joel Monkahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10631333436948102576noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9864334.post-58124135195741640942007-04-17T19:43:00.000-04:002007-04-17T19:43:00.000-04:00(( My first thoughts flashed back six and a half y...(( My first thoughts flashed back six and a half years, to my shock at seeing the first UU reactions posted at church to 9/11 being political diatribes about our foreign policy)))<BR/><BR/>How were they posted at church?<BR/><BR/>The UUA Website had one comment from a few ministers talking about how our foreign policy was to blame, one comment saying that we would probably have to respond with violence and a whole lot of comments that just focussed on the awfulness of the tragedy. <BR/><BR/>CC<BR/>who practically memorized that website when the AUA used the ONE comment about how American foreign policy was to serve as an example of their complaints about all of UUism. <BR/><BR/>With such a poor understanding of polity, it's no surprise they couldn't hack it as UUs.Chalicechickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07781469958573869914noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9864334.post-47952162941886104642007-04-17T17:02:00.000-04:002007-04-17T17:02:00.000-04:00...that we are incapable of expressing human grief...<EM>...that we are incapable of expressing human grief and sympathy except through a political template? </EM><BR/><BR/>I guess some of us are.<BR/><BR/>I have deliberately avoided this story and that's no easy task for a guy addicted to the internet.Bill Baarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07095486926836836714noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9864334.post-16904163844058804012007-04-17T15:04:00.000-04:002007-04-17T15:04:00.000-04:00Thank you for this. A number of blogs are already ...Thank you for this. A number of blogs are already castigating the President for what he didn't say, including at least one UU blog that says, "...George W. Bush immediately used the tragedy at Blacksburg to reiterate that great American "right to bear arms"." <BR/><BR/>Logically, I could argue that this is not a gun control issue, nor a campus security issue, in that the shooter had planned this in advance, down to buying chains and locks to chain the doors shut before beginning... ask our soldiers returning from Iraq how difficult it is to stop a planned suicide killer.<BR/><BR/>But those are second thoughts. My first thoughts flashed back six and a half years, to my shock at seeing the first UU reactions posted at church to 9/11 being political diatribes about our foreign policy. My God, are we UUs really as corpse-cold as accused, that we are incapable of expressing human grief and sympathy except through a political template? I have accused us of being nothing more than the chaplain's arm of the Democratic Party, but I realise now that this is unfair to the Democratic Party- as I write these words, I am watching officials come together without thought of party in convocation to comfort the grieving, a more religious and spiritual reaction than some of the "religious" reactions I'm reading today.Joel Monkahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10631333436948102576noreply@blogger.com