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in other relevant news
May. 23rd, 2007 01:19 pmmostly i'm thinking of ![[livejournal.com profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
scothen_krau, but the rest of you should read this too.
scothen_krau, but the rest of you should read this too.
when i first looked at the news story, the Virginia Tech massacre had already eclipsed the UT sniper shootings in 1966. now it's the worst mass shooting in US history, with 31 dead including the gunman.
the majority of my friends are pro-gun. i've heard all the arguments in favor of guns being legal at least once for every person who died today at VA Tech. plenty of you are reading this post right now, and look, i'm sorry. i see your POV, i really do. and i've tried to agree with you, but i can't, because i believe that anything we can do that would make this kind of thing less likely to happen is a good thing.
yes, i know you can pull out lots of statistics to support your side of the argument. so can i. and i wouldn't trust any of them, because taken out of context, statistics are meaningless, and there's a lot of context involved in crime statistics. nevertheless, based on what i've read, i'm pretty well convinced that making these weapons illegal would ultimately reduce the amount of gun-related violence per capita.
i also know we could all stand here yelling till we were blue in the face and never get any closer to consensus (don't even start with the 'what if another student had a gun too'), so i'm disabling comments on this post. i'm not here to discuss; i'm just saying what i think. if you want reasoned debate, take it to your own LJ. (cry censorship and you will be mocked mercilessly.)
my sympathy goes out to all those affected by this incident -- the victims, their families and friends, and all the innocent bystanders whose lives have been changed forever just because they happened to be in the vicinity. events like this affect every one of us on some level -- who can read this story and not think about gun laws? -- but most of us will forget about today's deaths in a few days or a few weeks, consigning them to the history file and moving on.
it won't be that easy for the people who were there. whichever side you're on, spare a thought for them, and consider how we might be able to prevent this from ever happening again.
the majority of my friends are pro-gun. i've heard all the arguments in favor of guns being legal at least once for every person who died today at VA Tech. plenty of you are reading this post right now, and look, i'm sorry. i see your POV, i really do. and i've tried to agree with you, but i can't, because i believe that anything we can do that would make this kind of thing less likely to happen is a good thing.
yes, i know you can pull out lots of statistics to support your side of the argument. so can i. and i wouldn't trust any of them, because taken out of context, statistics are meaningless, and there's a lot of context involved in crime statistics. nevertheless, based on what i've read, i'm pretty well convinced that making these weapons illegal would ultimately reduce the amount of gun-related violence per capita.
i also know we could all stand here yelling till we were blue in the face and never get any closer to consensus (don't even start with the 'what if another student had a gun too'), so i'm disabling comments on this post. i'm not here to discuss; i'm just saying what i think. if you want reasoned debate, take it to your own LJ. (cry censorship and you will be mocked mercilessly.)
my sympathy goes out to all those affected by this incident -- the victims, their families and friends, and all the innocent bystanders whose lives have been changed forever just because they happened to be in the vicinity. events like this affect every one of us on some level -- who can read this story and not think about gun laws? -- but most of us will forget about today's deaths in a few days or a few weeks, consigning them to the history file and moving on.
it won't be that easy for the people who were there. whichever side you're on, spare a thought for them, and consider how we might be able to prevent this from ever happening again.
i'm truly appalled (not surprised, but appalled) that the top news story everywhere i look right now is that Anna Nicole Smith died of a drug overdose. come on, people, this isn't news. was there really ever any question? and, for that matter, who cares?
feh. the media's priorities are fucked beyond belief.
feh. the media's priorities are fucked beyond belief.
