StrangeSox

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Apr 17, 2007 -> 11:37 AM) I think this is the best point made here. There are a lot of good reasons why people should be allowed to own firearms. But in this type of situation, even if a student had one, there is just as good a chance it ends up making it worse as making it better. How could this situation of an unhindered shooter killing at will be any worse than it was? Honestly, I don't see how armed resistance could make the situation yesterday worse.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Apr 17, 2007 -> 11:08 AM) They are use to that . . . ^--- Ranger fans LOL. It's too early to call it, but right now it looks like the Sox got the much better end of the deal.

QUOTE(Soxy @ Apr 17, 2007 -> 10:43 AM) IF some student had thought about it, yeah, maybe it would have been better, maybe it would have been worse. But, to be honest I doubt any student in a class that early would have thought about grabbing anything other than a pen and a notebook before dashing off to class. And as SSI71 pointed out (and didn't he used to be in law enforcement), the odds that someone in that panicked of a state could make that good of a shot, well. . . It increases the odds of taking out the shooter earlier above zero, as it was yesterday. QUOTE(Texsox @ Apr 17, 2007 -> 10:50 AM) The reason I should be allowed to own a firearm is I am not a criminal and use it responsibly. I do not believe more guns in the hands of average citizens and readily available will make us less violent. In fact, I believe just the opposite. Criminals don't give a rip about penalties and gun violence. Gang bangers all ready live in a world where a rival gang could drive by and take them out. Then you need to take a look at the statistics. Check out that book I posted earlier. violence is a societal problem and gun violence is but a symptom.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Apr 17, 2007 -> 10:34 AM) So they just mentioned well regulated militia being necessary, but it doesn't have any bearing on why they thought you should be able to carry a loaded weapon while grocery shopping or attending class. Like I said before, y'all aint taking my guns, but the constitutional argument and home safety when kids are involkved doesn't hold weight with me. Look at the verbiage. It doesn't state that you must be part of a militia. It gives a reason for giving people the right to own guns, not a condition. The rights still belong to individuals, not groups or militias.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Apr 17, 2007 -> 10:27 AM) Do you drop it when he yells drop it? You said if the guy doesn't drop, you will shoot. Should he shoot you if you don't drop it? No, I sure as hell don't. And if he makes a move at me, I fire. I will protect my own life (and the lives of my family) at all costs and above all others. Depends on how negligent you were. That's why we have courts to make judgments on individual cases. Is it in states with ccp? I'll take the fact that I'd rather be able to defend myself and the many, many situations in which the police just couldn't respond quickly enough (not their fault, just reality). Here's a book written by a statistician. He was trying to prove that less guns means less crimes. He completely changed his mind as he researched the book. http://www.amazon.com/More-Guns-Less-Crime...g/dp/0226493636 The right to bear arms is the right of the people, not of the militia. No condition is given that you must be in a militia.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Apr 17, 2007 -> 10:20 AM) Really. The government added the 2nd amendment against themselves? Yes. They were well aware of the threats of tyranny, having just staged a rebellion. The 2nd Amendment doesn't require a well-regulated militia by law for gun ownership. It says that well-regulated militias are necessary and therefore people have the right to bear arms. It does not say that you must be part of a militia in order to bear arms.

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ Apr 17, 2007 -> 10:17 AM) Guns at home for protection. Excellent. I have no problem. If you break into my home, you will meet the business end of a glock. But that has nothing to do with Jimmy at the library who has a 45 in his pants. Can you provide some stories where Jimmy at the library made matters worse in a deadly situation with another gunman? We have plenty of states with concealed carry.

I think there's still too much misinformation out there. We don't have the story straight yet.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Apr 17, 2007 -> 10:05 AM) When he yells drop it, do you? And what punishment, if any, do you deserve if you kill a good Samaritan? What laws are currently on the books in states with concealed carry? It seems like we have plenty of real-world evidence to go on instead of all of these straw-men fantasy events. When have rambo's gotten in the way of police? Killed the wrong person instead of the murderer? etc. etc.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Apr 17, 2007 -> 09:59 AM) Do you give the guy who just busted in the door a chance to shoot? Is he the shooter intent on killing you or is he a good Samaritan coming to protect you? thinkquick, you've been hiding in that classroom waiting for your chance. He's COMING FOR YOU! Save everyone!! People with concealed carry permits know how to handle a gun. They're not just a bunch of untrained boobs. What if some sort of police-style training was given in order to get the permit? Shout "drop it!" and if he makes an offensive-looking move, open up. So they can respond several minutes after the situation begins and after 32 people have been shot to death?

QUOTE(Texsox @ Apr 17, 2007 -> 09:54 AM) The only situation I can remember when a "good Samaritan" who was carrying, stopped a massacre like this was a few months back in Utah. Guess what? He was an off duty cop. There was also a case of a junior high principle retrieving his revolver from his car and ending a situation before anyone got killed, including the shooter. that was my question. When does situations like "a bunch of Ramo wannabes" ever occur in the states that have concealed carry? It seems like its a non-problem. 32 people took their chances with law enforcement yesterday and proved, once again, that police can't be everywhere at once and often just take too long to respond. People deserve the right to defend their own lives.

Serial numbers were filed off of the guns, maybe they weren't obtained legally.

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ Apr 17, 2007 -> 09:50 AM) You realize that this isnt as easy as you make it out to be. Take some 60m target practice, and slightly move your hand. You miss the target and it goes into the trap in the back. Now imagine someone is shooting at you, you hear bullets whistling by. Now can you line up your target, pull the trigger and hit the body mass. Because if you miss, your bullet now whistles by his body, and then continues on until its energy is depleted. Plus you realize that the guy had a bullet proof vest. So you want to take him down, we are talking about a moving head shot while he shoots at you. A sniper, or swat guy sure but its still a difficult shot. On the flip side, it'd make it harder for the murderer too. In yesterday's case, he knew he could just stroll around the building for several minutes until the police showed up and do as he wished. If someone were firing back, maybe he doesn't get to kill people execution style as easily and runs out of ammo sooner. The guy didn't have a bullet proof vest, either. It was a vest with ammo strapped to it.

QUOTE(BigSqwert @ Apr 17, 2007 -> 09:43 AM) Really? If that person pulled out their gun what if others thought that he/she was part of the shooting spree and they decided to shoot at that person. Wouldn't chaos ensue? How do you know who the good guy is when you hear shots being fired and you see someone holding a gun down the hallway? Do you just shoot at anyone holding a gun? It was a panicked situation. The victim would have pulled out their gun and hopefully neutralized the threat. Situation over. No one is going to then turn on the victim. QUOTE(Texsox @ Apr 17, 2007 -> 09:48 AM) Fixed. Or perhaps a murdering, psycho with a knife instead of a gun. One person sitting in a classroom firing back at the wacko who just busted in the door, guns blazing, is pretty distinguishable.

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ Apr 17, 2007 -> 09:42 AM) Bingo. I am for a persons right to have arms to protect their house, or to hunt. But conceal and carry is a dangerous mix. The average person doesn't have a gun on them when they walk around, so when tempers rise and maybe with the presence of alcohol how many fights will turn into gun battles. As a former law enforcement person I can tell you, if I had a call on a man with a gun and then came into a situation with a gun drawn and saw him. If he pointed it at me I would of killed him. How am I supposed to know that this is Jimmy the good Samaritan gun guy, versus the bad guy who just shot a bunch of people. I wouldn't. I can tell you this, no matter how man times you do it as an officer. The minute your gun comes out of your holster, your adrenaline pumps. But then again, maybe it was because I knew that the minute my weapon was pulled that something could happen at a moments notice. One bad move or bad decision on either my side or the other persons side could lead to tragedy. When does this ever happen in states with concealed carry?

QUOTE(Texsox @ Apr 17, 2007 -> 09:34 AM) I am certain you would feel safer that the paranoid guy who you just accidentally brushed into is now screaming at you and *might* be carrying a weapon. Of course you could pull out your gun to protect yourself. But then three other guys, who don't know if you're some wacko pull out theirs and we have a party! The true thugs know that honest people are hesitant to pull a trigger and kill someone. Texas executes hundreds, has a concealed permit system, and Texas isn't safer than any other state. Y'all ain't taking my guns, but hundreds of guns in that building would not have prevented this and may have made it worse. Tex, when does the situation you proposed ever really happen in states with concealed carry permits? As it stands, I'm completely defenseless against those thugs. They can do anything they want and I really can't stop them since they're armed and I'm not. Same situation yesterday at VT. And, really, saying "hundreds of guns" or "everyone has a gun" is just a straw man. Only people who wanted to take the time to get certified and spend several hundred or thousand dollars on guns and ammo would be carrying, not every single person.

That's just a flawed argument based on emotions and not reason. Besides, its not like they'd be handing out guns at the doors. Only people who really wanted to get CCW permits and pay several hundred dollars for guns would be carrying. Given the amount of armed robberies on campus here lately, maybe these thugs would think twice if they knew their victim my also be packing.

It's random from our perspective (and the police and administration's perspective), in that there's no way for us to have seen this coming. Not necessarily that it was unplanned.

QUOTE(jackie hayes @ Apr 16, 2007 -> 11:37 PM) This makes no sense to me. If something looks like domestic violence, you don't expect the shooter to go on a carefully thought-out killing spree in a classroom building. There's just no connection. (Assuming, of course, that this is the same guy.) That's the argument -- they thought the dorm incident was an isolated domestic violence incident during the initial stages. Maybe murder-suicide or something. So, given that, they couldn't expect the situation in the classrooms. QUOTE(IlliniKrush @ Apr 16, 2007 -> 11:26 PM) This will likely change the way colleges handle situations, and things may be overblown here or there, but I don't see a huge downside to taking proper (if not extreme, if that's how you want to look at it) caution. I think that's what we need to get out of this. Learn our lessons from the terrible tragedy and try to improve the system. But if you've got an armed, suicidal maniac on the loose, its going to be hard to stop him or her without deadly force.

QUOTE(IlliniKrush @ Apr 16, 2007 -> 10:43 PM) IMO, you are comparing apples and oranges. Canceling classes and keeping kids in dorms/apts/wherever isn't the same as closing local businesses or whatever else you want to do. Not to mention that the population, while as big, isn't as spread out as any of those listed towns, making it much easier to contact all involved. Hindsight is 20/20, but there have been school shootings all over the place in recent years. When 2 or more people are murdered in a dorm room and the gunman isn't caught, that means someone, likely a college student IMO, is out there with a gun and has the potential to harm others. Might as well be careful in this situation. If I were a student I would have expected to wake up to an email telling me there was a murder in a local dorm, we have no idea where this guy with a gun is nor what he might want to accomplish, so don't bother going to class and stay where you are. Something that simple. If nothing else happens, you missed a day of classes. If not, well... Should have sent a note canceling classes "due to an incident, details to be released later, remain indoors." But its still not all that easy to contact 30000+ people. Plenty of people don't check their emails or are away from their computers, especially during those times of day. Many students and professors would have carried on their day as usual and headed to class. And the population is still spread out pretty far, at least here. Campus itself is several square miles, and the size of area where most students live is pretty big. You're probably talking a 5 mile radius from the center of campus. That's a huge area.

QUOTE(IlliniKrush @ Apr 16, 2007 -> 10:11 PM) guns save life (dot) com Best site ever, good signage on the roadways too Roses are Red My Gun is Blue I am Safe How About You?

QUOTE(IlliniKrush @ Apr 16, 2007 -> 09:40 PM) 5 armed robberies? What places? Getting back on topic, until you have a gunman and you maybe understand the motive, you need to do something besides keep people in the dark. People can say they don't want people running around outside, but walking around outside and entering classes is putting people in harms way. They'll take every single precaution after the 2nd shooting, including arresting people of the media, apparently, and locking people in class rooms for 3 hours, but after a shooting in a dorm and you have no idea who did it, business as usual? I can't see how they were flawless here. http://media.www.dailyillini.com/media/sto...e-2827478.shtml Flawless, no. Especially in hindsight. But are they supposed to shut down whats essentially a small city due to what they believed at the time was an isolated incident? Does Chicago shut down several square miles and evacuate the area every time there's a shooting? After the second incident, you had 30 people dead and more wounded. Of course you'll take every precaution in that case.

The more I think about, the more I agree with the course of action that the school took. Was there any reason for them to believe that the first incident was anything but an isolated case? Why would they shut down this whole campus and incite this big panic before they could figure out the details of the case? U of I doesn't shut down every time there's an armed robbery (and there was 5 just the other weekend). A city doesn't shut down and alert every one within minutes or even hours every time a murder happens. Given the size of the school, its much like its own city.

They're waiting on ballistics reports to determine if it was the same weapon (and therefore shooter).

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Apr 16, 2007 -> 07:55 PM) I thought I was specific enough but i guess that's not good enough for some people. It's tough to explain, you can go listen to the interview on 670thescore.com it'll be under Boers and Bernstein/Steve Stone interviews. Thanks, I'll check it out. I never listen to the radio unless I'm driving, and seeing as how my car has a blown motor, I haven't been driving much lately.