In the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings, the media has questions. Really stupid questions.
They also have conclusions;
In the strongest editorialized image of the day, German cable news broadcaster NTV flashed an image of the former head of the National Rifle Association, the US gun lobby: In other words, blame rifle-wielding Charlton Heston for the 33 dead.
And, they have “experts”. This one predicts copycat killings – as though the Virginia Tech shooter came up with the plan all on his own.
On CBC’s The National last evening, we learned that school shootings were the result of – wait for it – the Iraq war. How many potential guests did CBC news sift through and reject in order to come up with one willing to conform to that ridiculous script? (If someone can isolate that special bit of insight for Youtube posterity, let me know … Update – No-Libs has it now.)
Another example of pervasive, uncorrected inaccuracy – “This is media malpractice and what many would consider willful deception.”
You can use this thread for other links or observations as to how media is covering this story.
Before I gave up watching the news about this as being too inane for words, the one thing that struck me was how much more intelligent, poised, cautious and sensible 99% of the interviewed were than the interviewers.
Are you are you hero? (to the guy who blocked a door with a table)ans: ” No, just scared and lucky ma’am”
Very next question: “Did you know any of the deceased?” (She’s asking a nervous 19yo kid this on live national TV: Decency? decency? anyone?) ans: “I don’t know …”
Never mind all the finger pointing: Dear god …the facts aren’t in and we aren;t sure whether there’s one shooter or two and people are blaming the police the university…
Disgusting display of stupidty, cupidity and lack of critical thinking and ignorance by the media.
Kate said; “On CBC’s The National last evening, we learned that school shootings were the result of – wait for it – the Iraq war. How many potential guests did CBC news sift through and reject in order to come up with one willing to conform to that ridiculous script? (If someone can isolate that special bit of insight for Youtube posterity, let me know.)”
I’m downloading the video now. I’ll have a clean clip for you within a few hours…
ET, Eugene, Kevin Jaeger, et al. Thanks for your confirmation that the MSM don’t live in the real world like the rest of us. CBC aside these professionals all seem to be a brick short of a load… Well perhaps a couple of bricks. CBC hacks on the other hand wouldn’t know how to form a line-up for a one-hole outhouse.
Antenor said…CBC hacks on the other hand wouldn’t know how to form a line-up for a one-hole outhouse.
Depends….Is the hole on the left or right?
“Has Kookie Cukier been given her unfettered cbc platform for gun control yet??”
Oh yes, Sammy, she has. Heard her this morning pulling into work at 7:30a EST, although on Toronto AM640 and not the Mother Corp.
It was very convenient for Wendy that these 32 innocent people were slaughtered to help her instruct the listeners that Stephen Harper is taking us down the exact same path with his attitudes towards the gun registry and gun ownership in general.
I’ve never heard a more loathsome, self-righteous excuse for a human being as this woman. She is utterly without a sense of shame or decency. No tragedy is too great for her to exploit posthaste for her own political ends, apparently.
mhb23re
“Oh, come on. The campus is 2,600 acres and has 26,000 students. It’s small city.”
Okay, I give it …have it your way it was an impossible tast…funny how the cops were able to do this in other disaster sites like NOLA or other campuses….but hey, if it makes you feel good to defend the indefensable , knock yourself out. 😉
ET said: “Are you seriously suggesting that each and every time a single shooting occurs, that the police must assume that the same individual will necessarily go on to a random massacre? Prove it.”
In a campus or large public venue this should be the natiral assumption in a post 9/11 world.
Look I’m not dissing the local police force…I’m sure the local TAC team could have intervened and prevented many deaths had they been alerted early enough…I have issues with the doughnut chomping campus cops who’s bad/poor/unprofessional judgement and made all the wrong assessments of the situation and gave both time and opportunity to the killer.
“Has Kookie Cukier been given her unfettered cbc platform for gun control yet??”
Oh yes, Sammy, she has. Heard her this morning pulling into work at 7:30a EST, although on Toronto AM640 and not the Mother Corp.
I worked with this female person during the 1980’s; even though my standards are fairly broad, she is in no way attractive to men. I think, and I’ll admit this is only speculation on my part, that her hatred of guns is based on part by her rejection from men.
No, wlmr – I’d suggest that it’s you who is defending the indefensible.
It isn’t that shutting off the campus is an impossible task; it’s that it’s irrelevant. There were already thousands of people on campus, both those who had already arrived and those who, also in the thousands, actually lived on campus.
Shutting off the campus would not have stopped the massacre.
Equally, gun control laws would not have stopped it. Legal or illegal gun ownership has nothing to do with a psychotic action.
Even, reviewing his papers, and deciding that he was ‘troubled’ and sending him to counselling would not have stopped a psychotic breakdown.
Furthermore, we cannot MAKE an individual take counselling until and unless they have already committed a crime. To do so before, would move us into state-engineering of citizens – and the uproar over that would be enormous. That is, imagine if your child came home from school and said that the teacher thought his essay was ‘too violent’ and that he must take counselling.
And, counselling in itself is no guarantee of preventing a psychotic attack.
For what it’s worth, I recall my own minor run-in with a paranoid schizophrenic in one of my classes. I first noticed her, when she self-described herself to me as a ‘native’; I had my doubts. Then, she wrote, constantly in my classes. I can understand a few notes during lectures, but – this was strange.
And then, term exams. I found out what she was writing – over and over, it was ‘kill, kill, kill’. And ramblings about nothing..and more ‘kill, kill, kill’.
I told her I couldn’t mark her paper.
I sent her paper to administration with a note about my concern; our president was an ethically and I’d say, intellectually ‘challenged’ feminist liberal. Result? Nothing. No reaction.
I then got in touch with Security. Security told me, at first, that they knew about her and that there had ‘been violence with her’ before. Then, he immediately recanted about the violence and told me that the violent acts weren’t committed by this woman. No- even though the violence was committed by someone with the same name, same age, same appearance – heh, heh- this student in my class was not ‘her’.
Now- why was Security denying the truth?
What did Security tell me to do with a student who was clearly very ill? They told me to have another student sit at the back of the classroom, and if there was ‘any trouble’, this student should run out, and find a phone, and call Security. They would then come over to the classroom. Imagine how long that would take?
I told them that I was not going to do this; I would not put my students at risk. And – went to the THIRD section of administration – the Dean, and asked that she be removed from the class. This was finally done.
But note – I found out that I had a seriously disturbed individual in my class. I notified the two top levels of administration, and nothing was done. Indeed, Security lied to me about her identity – and downplayed any potential threat she might have posed to the students. I had to deal with it entirely on my own.
So- remember, life doesn’t function like a well-oiled machine.
ET (phone home??) said:
“there is no way that the police would know that the first shooting was not an isolated incident. It was not an unprofessional assumption. To assume immediately that one incident would mean a catastrophic next incident is the basis of hysteria and mob-uproar.
Are you seriously suggesting that each and every time a single shooting occurs, that the police must assume that the same individual will necessarily go on to a random massacre? Prove it.”
law enforcement agencies are trained in risk assessment. a key tenet of which is that when a shooting occurs in a public venue, if the shooting involves multiple casualties; it is to be treated as a “human targeting event” and not as a “criminal investigation”. as such, the police involved are certainly guilty of an “unprofessional” assumption. taking police training in risk assessment out of the picture all you need is common sense…something that was sorely lacking in this event.
one pertinent question would be: where did this guy get these guns??? i’ll hazard a guess: at the local gas station!!! the goal of rational policymaking would dictate that to attempt to prevent these events in the future, our societies must make it more difficult for psychopaths to procure firearms.
Good ‘ol Captain.
From Capatin’s Quarters:
Update with pertenent info on the goblin. I hate being right but he fits 3 of the 5 criteria I speculated that are a pattern with these nutters,
He telegraphed his intentions with weird psycho behavior and
He had serious behavioral outbursts where authorities suggested he get help
He was delusional ( something about being Ismail’s axe and killing “rich kids”.)
From the Captain:
Ismail Ax? (Updated)
The Virginia Tech shooter had a history of odd behavior, and his professors had gone so far as to recommend him for counseling, the Chicago Tribune reports this morning. Seung-hui Cho left behind a note that blamed the “debauchery” of “rich kids” for his shooting spree, and had the words “Ismail Ax” written on his forearm when he died:
The suspected gunman in the Virginia Tech shooting rampage, Cho Seung-Hui, was a troubled 23-year-old senior from South Korea who investigators believe left an invective-filled note in his dorm room, sources say.
The note included a rambling list of grievances, according to sources. They said Cho also died with the words “Ismail Ax” in red ink on the inside of one of his arms.
Cho had shown recent signs of violent, aberrant behavior, according to an investigative source, including setting a fire in a dorm room and allegedly stalking some women.
A note believed to have been written by Cho was found in his dorm room that railed against “rich kids,” “debauchery” and “deceitful charlatans” on campus.
Cho was an English major whose creative writing was so disturbing that he was referred to the school’s counseling service, the Associated Press reported.
No one is sure as of yet what the phrase “Ismail Ax” means. It appears to be a reference to Abraham/Ibrahim, in which Ismail and Abraham take an axe to the idols of a temple as part of his conversion to monotheism. Is this a cryptic reference to Islamist or Christian radicalism? It certainly suggests one of the two
(…)
Other than that, it seems rather clear that Cho had a reputation as a disturbed loner. Once the first shooting occurred in the dorm, one might have presumed that VT officials would have considered that reputation as a security risk and locked down the school — and perhaps have gone to Cho’s room to see if he was still there and where he might have gone, if not.
w3.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/
UPDATE: KILLER’S DISTURBED WRITINGS!
Featured on the smoking gun blog:
3w.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/0417071vtech1.html
“” Virginia Killer’s Violent Writings
Play told of pedophilic stepfather, murder of 13-year-old boy
APRIL 17–The college student responsible for yesterday’s Virginia Tech slaughter was referred last year to counseling after professors became concerned about the violent nature of his writings, as evidenced in a one-act play obtained by The Smoking Gun. The play by Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old English major, was submitted last year as part of a short story writing class. Entitled “Richard McBeef,” Cho’s bizarre play features a 13-year-old boy who accuses his stepfather of pedophilia and murdering his father. A copy of the killer’s play can be found below. The teenager talks of killing the older man and, at one point, the child’s mother brandishes a chain saw at the stepfather. The play ends with the man striking the child with “a deadly blow.””
A blog well written by Professor Pierre Lemieux in Quebec (yesterday) about gun control.
I recommend the read, particularly for Wendy Cukier, Canada’s MSM go to gun priestess.
mhb said:
“”Has Kookie Cukier been given her unfettered cbc platform for gun control yet??”
Oh yes, Sammy, she has. Heard her this morning pulling into work at 7:30a EST, although on Toronto AM640 and not the Mother Corp.
It was very convenient for Wendy that these 32 innocent people were slaughtered to help her instruct the listeners that Stephen Harper is taking us down the exact same path with his attitudes towards the gun registry and gun ownership in general.
I’ve never heard a more loathsome, self-righteous excuse for a human being as this woman. She is utterly without a sense of shame or decency. No tragedy is too great for her to exploit posthaste for her own political ends, apparently.
mhb23re”
pot…kettle…black! perhaps not you personally, but every commenter on this site has used this tragedy as a means to advance their political arguments for the right to bear arms. absolutely disgusting!!!
Joe Molnar: Pierre Lemieux’s site is a good read anythime (shameless plug) 😉
He is particularly literate on the finer details of gun control and gun control laws in Canada.
The final item in the school nutter pattern emerges in the VT killer’s profile:
From ABC:
“Investigators believe Cho at some point had been taking medication for depression, the Tribune reported.”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Ahh there’s the final connection with a majority of the rampage shooters. On a psychotropic drug…which have a proven history of inducing psychotic reactions.
canuckistanian – right now – stop with the ad hominem. What’s your point of ‘phone home’? Those are my initials. Do you have a problem with that?
Your assertion is meaningless. The first killings were two people; that is absolutely not indicative of a ‘human targeting event’.
Provide proof that this person got his guns at ‘the local gas station’. And how is a society going to stop someone from obtaining not merely a legal, but an illegal gun? How? It’s pompous nonsense to ‘make it more difficult’. How? Oh, and are you saying that we will have identity cards identifying ‘psychopaths’?
wlmr – are you now saying that the campus police KNEW, absolutely knew, that the first shootings were carried out by Cho? How did they know that? By the way, Cho’s bizarre play has overtones of a famous play with the title of Oedipus Rex. And Othello. And Lear.
No, canuckistanian – people are not using the tragedy to advocate gun ownership; people are debating how, if, whether, such events can be controlled by society.
Guns are obviously a variable in this situation and that means that one must decide whether/not a state can control guns in that state. And, whether/not control of guns is not merely possible, but whether/not such control would have made such a massacre impossible. So far, the conclusion seems to be that state control of guns is both impossible – and, even if it existed, it wouldn’t have stopped this massacre. Next question?
canuckistanian said…”one pertinent question would be: where did this guy get these guns??? i’ll hazard a guess: at the local gas station!!! the goal of rational policymaking would dictate that to attempt to prevent these events in the future, our societies must make it more difficult for psychopaths to procure firearms.” @ 3:36 PM.
And just how do we do that? Lock up all the “percieved” psychos? And who is going to pay for the thousands of jails required to do this? Sitting here typing this right know,I am a “suppossed” sane person who would not commit murder. Oh yeah? Who says so? If you showed up on my doorstep tonight threatening me,or worse,my family,you would not survive.So this makes me a psycho?
He then posts….”pot…kettle…black! perhaps not you personally, but every commenter on this site has used this tragedy as a means to advance their political arguments for the right to bear arms. absolutely disgusting!!!”
So we are not allowed to stand and voice our disagreement with a truely certifiable nut case like Cukier? And when did you become my little commisar buddy?
From the Chicago Tribune:
BLACKSBURG, Va. — The suspected gunman in the Virginia Tech shooting rampage, Cho Seung-Hui, was a troubled 23-year-old senior from South Korea who investigators believe left an invective-filled note in his dorm room, sources say.
The note included a rambling list of grievances, according to sources. They said Cho also died with the words “Ismail Ax” in red ink on one of his arms.
Ismail being Abraham’s illigitimate son, born to his wife’s slave, Hagar, from whom Mo claims decension.
ET said:
“canuckistanian – right now – stop with the ad hominem. What’s your point of ‘phone home’? Those are my initials. Do you have a problem with that?
Your assertion is meaningless. The first killings were two people; that is absolutely not indicative of a ‘human targeting event’.”
ad hominem, ad hominem…get a sense of humour. the point: ask steven spielberg.
the first shootings involved four people, two dead, two injured. when multiple people are killed in a public venue, law enforcement officials are trained in risk assesment to assume that it is a “human targeting event”. just thought i would educate you so you didn’t keep going on like a fool about “hysteria and mob mentality”.
The Thirty Years’ War, the War of the Austrian Succession, the War of the Spanish Succession, the Napoleonic Wars, The Franco-Prussian War, World War I, the Russian Revolution, World War II including the Holocaust, The ethnic cleansing in the Balkans — yeah, gotta get some of that European culture with their gun control — ’cause we don’t want no violence.
Canuckistanian –
No, I’ve commented on this thread, but haven’t pushed any personal political views for that reason. I noted Cukier’s opportunistic scoring of political points in the wake of this tragedy, but I’m not about to stoop to her level by rolling in the same mud bath right now. Perhaps I was a bit harsh in that last post, but the 60 second soundbyte was uncalled for, and more than a little disgusting.
Apart from the simple fact that with emotions on both sides of the fence running high at this time (thereby making lucid debating of the issue difficult), I think it’s in poor taste to use this tragic incident to make political hay before the victims are even interred. That includes both the pro and anti gun control crowds, BTW. Wendy Cukier is a more strident example of a political opportunist, and certainly her exemplar of human compassion should be held as a moral compass for nobody. However, those who are likewise crowing that VT’s decision to ban concealed carry and the fact that the students weren’t packing heat to defend themselves are somehow to blame for the massacre are – frankly – not worlds apart in the compassion and empathy department from Ms. Cukier, IMO.
Another poster noted here (and quite wisely, too) that when you view the world solely through a political lens you tend to suck the humanity out of people. I think many people of both right and left political stripes are rather close to doing this regarding the Virginia Tech shooting. Those who died yesterday weren’t pawns in some right/left debate to justify or condemn gun control, they were sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, friends, and perhaps even parents, too; it is ultimately disrespectful to them and the survivors to disregard the fact that 32 innocents are no longer with us to focus solely on political agendas, less than a day after the tragedy.
There will be time enough to yell at one another about gun control or registries, and about arming or disarming society in the next few days or even weeks; why not call a temporary armistice over the partisan bickering and save some time and thought for the victims and their families?
Just a thought.
mhb23re
Right on, DrD, the last time the Euroweenies had guns they used them on their neighbors and leveled the place twice to the ground in the past century. Better they don’t have them.
Ask a Frenchman if they feel that secure when they are accosted on the train or torched in their car if the French police, pc hampered and demoralized, are going to be there for them real fast? Or perhaps, at Beslan or the Moscow theater could armed citizens have done a better job than the state?
Sorry, mhb, you can hold two thoughts on this tragedy, feeling deep sorrow for the victims and their families, and, debate the issue of gun laws without one negating the other. I feel that if that campus wasn’t a restricted “gun free zone”, there might have been a chance, and it has happened, that someone could have retrieved their gun – desk, car, campus apt. – and taken a crack at this guy, the cops were late and useless.
Got the video clip up from last evening’s National: http://no-libs.com/?p=1617
re: pun’dit
As far as I know the U.S. does have the highest per capita gun ownership rate in the world, and many of our cities have high murder rates compared to other major world cities. However, that does not mean there are not European cities that have similarly high murder rates.
While the U.S. does have high murder rates our overall crime rate is drastically lower than other countries – take England for example. Burglaries while people are home is much higher, and since England passed stricter gun control laws (I think it was ten years ago) the use of guns in violent crimes has skyrocketed. Why? because criminals who are intent on getting guns will still get them – and now that honest citizens can’t have them the criminals don’t have to worry about being shot back at.
I’m not a gun lover, and I see pros and cons to letting people easily obtain firearms, but I think in the case of VA Tech if some of those kids had a gun on them a lot of lives would have been saved. According to VA state law they could have a concealed weapon – it was school policy that did not permit it.
An editorial from a Virginia Tech student:
It was at this time that I realized that I had no viable means of protecting myself.
Please realize that I am licensed to carry a concealed handgun in the commonwealth of Virginia, and do so on a regular basis. However, because I am a Virginia Tech student, I am prohibited from carrying at school because of Virginia Tech’s student policy, which makes possession of a handgun an expellable offense, but not a prosecutable crime.
I had entrusted my safety, and the safety of others to the police. In light of this, there are a few things I wish to point out.
First, I never want to have my safety fully in the hands of anyone else, including the police.
Second, I considered bringing my gun with me to campus, but did not due to the obvious risk of losing my graduate career, which is ridiculous because had I been shot and killed, there would have been no graduate career for me anyway.
Third, and most important, I am trained and able to carry a concealed handgun almost anywhere in Virginia and other states that have reciprocity with Virginia, but cannot carry where I spend more time than anywhere else because, somehow, I become a threat to others when I cross from the town of Blacksburg onto Virginia Tech’s campus.
Read on…..
http://www.roanoke.com/editorials/commentary/wb/80510
pundit – I disagree with your attempt to link mass murder to only the USA; it happens elsewhere, indeed, everywhere. People are not unique in psychological makeup.
Most certainly, the Islamic fascist bombings in Europe, Asia and Africa are mass murders.
The same for ‘ethnic cleansing mass murders’ carried out by guns, in Darfur, in Bosnia, in Russia, in Chechnya. And the gang wars in L.America and so on.
Canuckistanian – ad hominem isn’t negated by telling me ‘it’s humorous’; it isn’t and you, not Spielberg, are the one using it.
Two deaths does not prove that the individual is going to move into a massacre. Your argument is spurious. Is this number a rule for Step 2, the supposition that the agent will then move on to mass murder?
Again, psychotic behaviour is extremely difficult to define, predict and control. You can’t send every individual who writes a violent story, whether it be about Hannibal Lector or Star Wars – to be confined to an asylum. What about rap music and those ‘writers’?
All these shootings on campuses seem to have a similar profile. Deranged idiot(s) traps students in classrooms and methodically shoots them. They are trapped and though some like the student who pushed the desk against the door are able to thwart the attack others aren’t so lucky.
Let me ask a question of a lot of you that seem to have security or military experience. Would it be impossible to have a Mossberg pistol grip shotgun locked in a case like a fire extinguisher but with keypad access that a teacher or student trained in handling firearms would have access to in each classroom? In addition why are not the classroom doors steel and able to be locked? The responsibility of this person would be to lock the door of the classroom and defend the students within until help arrives.
As several of you have mentioned once a criminal knows he may get his head blown off if he attempts to enter a protected area he is unlikely to do it.
There are certainly holes in these suggestions that you could drive a truck through but would it be at all feasible? If I was a student I would welcome the opportunily to fight back.
Comments
WL Mackenzie: I believe you’re wrong (in your 11:42AM post), in the following way:
The killer was by what I’ve read permanent resident alien, and thus could legally purchase firearms.
As he was over 21, he could, assuming an otherwise clean legal record in the relevant areas, purchase his pistols with perfect legality.
Citizenship is not required, just permanent resident status or the like. (IE, not on a temporary visa.)
David: I imagine doors aren’t lockable to keep someone bad from locking students in, or to keep students from locking themselves in to cause trouble. Hell, the fire code might prohibit it.
Again, psychotic behaviour is extremely difficult to define, predict and control. You can’t send every individual who writes a violent story, whether it be about Hannibal Lector or Star Wars – to be confined to an asylum. What about rap music and those ‘writers’?
ET – wrong on the first. The DSM clinically defines psychosis with s/s that are blatant and universally agreed upon. If you are diagnosed with a major mental illness – schizophrenia, bipolar, the course of the disease coupled with a lack of treatment predicts psychotic episodes in your future. Treatment of acute psychosis is very effective with meds. The trick is to get the actively psychotic into treatment fast and involuntarily when needed.
You are dead on…. You can’t send every individual who writes a violent story, whether it be about Hannibal Lector or Star Wars – to be confined to an asylum.… or we’d have the majority of adolescents locked up. The criteria clinically, what’s age appropriate, what’s the intent/plan/ideation as harmful to self or others. People generally do reveal what they are thinking and what they are planning. It’s a myth that they don’t, which is my concern that opportunities in the encounters with this guy were missed.
He may have been a narcissistic jackass or an acutely delusional major mental illness, we owe it to prevention to figure out if he slipped through the cracks, having presented to mental health where the right questions weren’t asked. We have laws allowing us to detain the dangerous.
Having said this, if I had a gun and had been there, I would have used it on him during his rampage. This isn’t about excuses, it’s about clinically figuring out who these people are so we have some chance at making mental health better and the public safer.
David, unfortunately there’s no truly practical means to completely thwart the rampages of a determined, methodical killer. Guns, liberally salted around campuses and public places which are only intermittently occupied, locked or otherwise, would be prohibitively expensive and an invitation to theft. These events are incredibly rare; I can’t count the number of car accidents I’ve passed, but I’ve never been near a shooting rampage (not counting gunshot victims I’ve treated in hospital). The best defence, I believe, lies in demistifying firearms, having more citizens exposed to military training (cover from view vs cover from fire, counter-ambush drills) in reserves, cadets, whatever and trusting duly qualified citizens to have firearms available as they see fit. Beyond that life’s about playing the odds. Hope you’re not beside the wacko when he goes off.
Wouldn’t we all love to prevent murder. I’m sure Adam and Eve didn’t want one son to kill the other. However there really is no way to keep people safe. Its not the prevelance of guns or the absence of guns that bring about malicious death. There is nothing we can do except act quickly to stop the killing as soon as it begins. This of course requires morals, courage and moral courage and indeed that might be the short coming we all have. Do we have the wisdom to know when to step in? We will never know until we are faced with the situation. From experience I can say that the wisdom I speak of comes at the instant it is called upon. A man standing beside me pulled a hunting knife and held it to the throat of his ex-wife. Several of us grabbed him, separating him from his knife and dragged him outside where he was restrained for 20 minutes until the police arrived.
penny, I’d never hinted people shouldn’t have different thoughts on this tragedy. That’s a given for everyone – me included.
My point was that the Cukiers of this world tend to break into a sweat whenever something like this occurs, as it represents to them valuable and immediate political leverage for their pet causes rather than tragic loss of human life. And it’s no more acceptable for those on the right to behave similarly by using this issue to push anti-gun control politics at this point in time.
Hey, penny, I’m a gun owner, so I bet you can guess my sentiments on gun control, the disarming of Canadians by the left, and the importance of not entrusting one’s personal well-being wholly to the state. However, the need to forcefully debate those issues – for me, anyways – has dropped in immediate priority due to the terrible human loss of yesterday. As I said above, time enough to vigorously discuss these issues in the near future.
mhb23re
“As several of you have mentioned once a criminal knows he may get his head blown off if he attempts to enter a protected area he is unlikely to do it.”
Unless he doesn’t give a damn about what happens to him, as was the case with this particular individual, or a suicide bomber. People who don’t fear the ultimate consequence can slip a lot past the goalie.
W.L. Mackenzie and Sigavald @ 11.42am and 7.24pm.
I believe the U.S. Constitution protects the rights of all people in the U.S. equalily, unless specially noted, like in the requirement to be elected president, where you must be a born american. This would include the right to bear arms, regardless of citizinship or legal standing in the U.S, “notwithstanding” the right of individual states to limit access to firearms.
I’m quite certain.
It’s very good to read these many well thought out comments today… my heart goes out to these murdered people, and especially their families left behind.
I hate it that the CBC uses this type of event to move their own demented political cause forward. All it would take is 1 individual to stand up and fire back… to stop the madness.
nothing convincing to explain why this bloodlust seems to have permanently set up house in the lower 48.
For starters mass shootings aren’t that common in the US:
http://volokh.com/posts/chain_1176746946.shtml
It’s rare, statistically rare in a nation of 300 million, and it happens in other countries or you haven’t dug through the MSM crap to get to those facts. Nice MSM type hyperbole with “bloodlust” though. Ever try googling for rational information and perspectives?
It is surprising that anybody catches what’s on CBC. As per rating week of April 2 to 8, of top 30 shows CBC rates #2 and #30 only because it’s HNIC. CBC is all but irrelevant.
CTV news in 16th place.
The government should really sell the CBC to the highest bidder. Won’t happen though.
There is no politician in the past, the present or the future of thousand years that will have guts to do it.
It would not cost us @ 1B in taxes and the paper pushers would be collecting taxes from the revenue of a public company. Remember, public company does not mean owned by the taxpayer through government.