At 6/12/07 10:18 AM, dodo-man-1 wrote:
OK, um, yeah. In Virginia, where that V-Tech guy bought his guns, they don't have a form to fill out. Or any process at all. That kid just waltzed into some gun store, asked for some semiautomatics, and they gave them to him. And I'm not saying that the guns are the total problem. They should put you through a process that says, "Oh, sorry, you're mentally ill, we can't let you buy this gun."
Uh, they DO have to do background checks. And they didn't GIVE him the guns, he did have to pay for them after all. Excessive hyperbole isn't going to make what you say any less false. The problem was is that he was not recognized as mentally ill when he filled out the necessary paperwork. This a problem with the process; it just needs to be amended a bit to make sure mental illness shows up on the checks. We don't need to go berserk and ban handguns or anything.
"The fact that there is no control on these guns in most places leads to things like... oh, I don't know, the V-Tech rampage?"
I don't know, what if the other students had guns to defend themselves with, or what if there were more security guards?
One more question: do you think that if this guy was willing to break the law against murder 32 times, he's going to have a problem with illegally purchasing a firearm? Face it, even if handguns were illegal he could have still acquired a firearm; they are in such wide circulation that he could have just bought one off the black market.
Taking guns away from law-abiding citizens and just leaving the rest with criminals and the police/Army (which can't be in your house at 1:30 AM every day) is not a good idea. I think most people have guns like being able to defend themselves.