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*Updated* Shooting in Virginia school (pg. 14)
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| Dupz |
| quote: | Originally posted by NeoPhono
Wow, there are always some amazing stories that come out of tragedies. It's too bad a tragedy has to occur before we hear about these people. There was a professor killed that graduated from Ohio State (where I go), who had three little kids. It's unreal how wide of an impact the death of *only* 30 or so people can have on a country of 300 million.
Getting back on my soapbox; as much as this hurts, I'm still not willing to let the dark side of humanity ruin the rights and freedoms for the rest of us. For every lunatic gunman there are millions who use guns responsibly. For every rape victim there are millions of men who would never dream of doing such a thing. For every motor vehicle accident where negligence played a part, there are millions of drivers who are safe and responsible. For every drunk who beats his family, there are millions who drink responsibly.
The ultimate downside of any right or freedom is that it can be abused. The question is whether those isolated cases of abuse warrant the removal of the right or freedom from the majority. The death of the innocent is the most horrendous price to pay for that freedom, but does not merit stripping the constitution of a right this country was founded upon.
Yes, I am a Libertarian, but no, I don't think *everything* should be legal. However, I do believe many things should be legal, and foremost, that liberty should not be exchanged for security. True freedom is inherently risky but I'd argue for a truly free state filled with risk over a safe state devoid of freedom any day. |
Look mate, I agree with you 99%. I'm very much a Libertarian myself.
I do believe that there is a time and place for restrictions on personal freedoms. I mean, we don’t let kids drive cars or anything of the such. We have a multitude of laws that tell us what we can and cant do, and for the most part they make perfect sense. There should be a law against things like murder or unlawfully repossession of someone else’s property, true? Where do we draw the line though?
Guns do have a legitimate place in society. Farmers, sporting enthusiasts and law enforcement are the obvious cases for the “for” argument. But why on earth do people need to own handguns and keep them at home. 9mm Glocks (or whatever they’re called) are nothing more than an implement to kill a fellow human being. If it were created for the sake of sporting, then ensure that it remains so. Keep them locked up at the club. Allowing any old fruitcake without a criminal conviction (yet) to obtain one is far too dangerous a risk.
The more these guns are in circulation the higher the risk that these “legitimate” weapons will end in the hands of would be criminals, and being designed with the intent of killing a human being… well…. Need I go on?
All I ask is to keep them under lock and key, and under registration.. at least restricting the chance of the weapons from falling into criminal hands (or those of a curious child)
Other guns, like rifles and the sort, have legitimate uses outside the sporting field so letting farmers keep a rifle to kill pests might very well make more sense than to have them locked up at the institution.
Guns have a definite place in society, but there is a time and a place… too few restrictions on the current gun freedoms is dangerous. Unhindered freedom isnt all it's cracked up to be... |
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| josh4 |
Of course, there are other theories. Thank you Fox News...
| quote: | Did the Devil Make Him Do It?
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
By Lauren Green
When unexplained violence takes center stage, we tend to turn to modern psychology to explain it.
But there is an alternative explanation, one that has been played out in film, stage and writings since the beginning of history.
Was Cho Seung-Hui schizophrenic … psychotic … manic-depressive? Or were the shooting deaths of 32 people, including Cho himself, at Virginia Tech University part of the ongoing struggle between God and Satan … good against evil … lightness and darkness?
Could Cho have been possessed by the Devil? Could that explain the massacre at Virginia Tech?
Dr. Richard Roberts, president of Oral Roberts University, shouts an unequivocal “Yes!”
“Based on what I’ve seen in the news," Roberts said in an interview, "there’s no doubt that this act was Satanic in origin."
Roberts added that he doesn’t know if it was Satanic “possession” or “oppression.” Possession, he said, occurs when Satan takes over a person’s life, and the person’s actions are dictated by demonic possession within. Roberts says he’s seen this type and has seen the Devil cast out of a person.
Satanic “oppression," on the other hand, is "that which comes against." "It’s not in a person, but is coming against them, trying to put evil thoughts in their minds,” Roberts said.
He said that the evil thoughts in Satanic oppression can be fairly innocuous, or they can be harmful. And the oppression can be in the form of fear, depression or discouragement, he said, because “Satan comes to kill, steal and destroy.”
Roberts says we’ll never know whether Cho was "possessed" or "oppressed," because the killer has died. But he did leave a note blasting everyone around him, calling them “rich kids,” and “deceitful charlatans,” and then blaming them, saying “you made me do this.”
Roberts describes Cho's writings as “just words,” and says words are one of Satan’s tools to bring about Man’s destruction.
In Judaism, however, there is no belief in a supernatural evil and no belief that demon possession is at the heart of what happened in Blacksburg on Monday.
Rabbi Peter Rubenstein from New York’s Central Synagogue, says, “… Every human has two inclinations, one to do evil and one to do good…. Our hope is the individual tries to access the inclination to do good. There is a balance." But, he said, evil is done "when we enter that other side.”
Rubenstein is convinced that Cho, who reportedly was taking anti-depressants, may have been sick.
"Every human being has the ability to control that kind of rage," Rubenstein said. "This is a person that lost contact with anything decent in their lives, including their own inclination to do good.”
It’s not only theologians who talk of evil. A new book by psychologist Philip Zimbardo, “The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil,” offers a perspective that may shed light on Cho’s inner demons.
"The Lucifer Effect" is based on the Stanford Prison Experiment of 33 years ago. It exposed how the prison environment creates evil and violent behavior, like at Abu Ghraib. It also explained the group or systemic evil that occurred under Hitler, communist regimes and during the genocide in Rwanda.
Zimbardo says there are prisons that are not confined to a place or building — emotional prisons of “normal” individuals that can create aberrant and evil behavior. Whether that prison is shyness, loneliness, anger or hate, it can grow and manipulate an individual into believing his only course of action is to break out, using any means possible, including violence.
In the case of Cho, he said, the “rich kids,” the “deceitful charlatans" and the women who rejected him may have been people he saw as his “jailers,” the wardens responsible for his emotional incarceration. Cho vilified them, found them guilty of great offenses and then methodically executed his warped sense of justice: the murders of 32 people.
Atheists don’t believe in the Devil or demonic possession, but there is some respect for the theological idea of evil. Michael Shermer, editor of the Skeptics Magazine, acknowledges Christianity’s take on Satan has a great deal of weight to it. “Religion figured out long before science the pervasiveness of man’s 'vil'side, that’s why they created so many rules," he said.
Shermer, of course, doesn’t believe in anything like demon possession. And surprisingly, he has an unlikely man who almost agrees with him: Rev. Robert H. Schuller, founding pastor of the Crystal Cathedral, who says he’s “not prepared to give the Devil credit for insanity.”
In addition to his theological accolades, Schuller has a background in psychology. He says of Cho: “I think it’s pure psychotic crack-up.
“I’m not denying that Satan himself could have been in this act. I’m just saying if he was, I’m not giving him credit for it.”
But the scenario of demonic possession fits neatly in the Christian paradigm. It says the whole of human existence is predicated on the narrative of man’s fall from Grace in the Garden of Eden, after Satan’s temptation of Adam and Eve, and that wherever there is good, there is Satan trying to destroy it.
The battle of good vs. evil in all of us is not a simple choice between two forks in a road, but a cosmic war being waged over our souls.
Says Dr. Richard Lints of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary: “The lesson, I think, is that when we don’t take our own evil seriously, we are much more liable to perpetrate acts of evil.”
Lauren Green is FOX News Channel's Religion Correspondent.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,266860,00.html |
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| TheDemon |
| Wow, the response from everybody has been overwhelming. :) |
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| M.Johan |
| quote: | Originally posted by Q5echo
this man, a Holocaust survivor, was killed as he barricaded his classroom door with his body while all his students jumped out of a second story window to safety...on National Holocaust Rememberance Day. Prof. Librescu, a true hero. |
Ok
how about the others?????????? |
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| NeoPhono |
Very interesting graphic from the New York Times as far as gun deaths in the US.
LINK |
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| Fir3start3r |
| quote: | Originally posted by M.Johan
:wtf:
There's a very stronge weaponry lobby in USA
for making rifles
its words is
“More gun control, less crime” |
Not strange at all actually.
There are lots of towns that have almost NIL crime with guns because everyone owns one.
In fact, I just finished reading an article the other day where in one town, it's manditory to have one and they haven't had one death due to a gun in 25 years! |
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| nrjizer |
| quote: | Originally posted by Fir3start3r
In fact, I just finished reading an article the other day where in one town, it's manditory to have one and they haven't had one death due to a gun in 25 years! |
Kennesaw? |
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| M.Johan |
No,u miss wrongly my words
Wat i mean from Q5echo is to focuss over all the victimes
not only one victim.
that's wat i mean. |
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| ResonantDrag |
| quote: | Originally posted by M.Johan
No,u miss wrongly my words
Wat i mean from Q5echo is to focuss over all the victimes
not only one victim.
that's wat i mean. |
what, should any post concerning heroism have a disclaimer along the lines of "the author of this post does not condone the 32 other deaths and in my book, they're all heros"?
everyone can agree that what happened was a tragedy. Q was just pointing out someone who in the heat of the moment, went above and beyond basic human nature by sacrificing himself to protect his students.
i don't think it takes the focus away from the rest of the victims, rather gives us an uplifting story through all the black. i'd much rather read that than some bs about what the killer did two weeks prior to the shooting. |
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