Daughter of slain professor calls for tougher gun laws
- Thread starter CBC News
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I've been enjoying hearing the pro gun organizations saying that if everyone had guns this would have not happened...
....noooo...I don't think so...
what PROBABLY would have happened is an old style, wild west shoot out where everyone would try to be the hero and innocent bystanders would get blown away in the crossfire.
What WOULD have prevented this is for folks to have seen the warning signs of a mentally ill person and taken some action to try and get him some help...and, make sure he wasn't near, you know...guns.
....noooo...I don't think so...
what PROBABLY would have happened is an old style, wild west shoot out where everyone would try to be the hero and innocent bystanders would get blown away in the crossfire.
What WOULD have prevented this is for folks to have seen the warning signs of a mentally ill person and taken some action to try and get him some help...and, make sure he wasn't near, you know...guns.
Yeah, I think the States could use better discrimination concerning their firearms laws. I also think Canada could benefit by actually enforcing the laws we had before the Gliberals mucked about with the issue.
Was there anyway of really preventing this? Isn't something like that event the cost of a free society? If they had psychological gestapo pulling people out of society, I guess it could be prevented, but is that a society we/they as a whole want to live in? Psych police interrogating people about what they're thinking in case they aren't good thoughts. No thanks.
I totally agree. As horrific as this was the chances of actually being a victim of such an incident are quite small. However, it still shouldn't of been so easy for him to get a gun. If you join the army they do quite a thorough background check. You have to have references that are not family. Buying a gun in the US is just a quick check and the incidents that suggested he might need help didn't even appear on his record.
No police, but it'd help if a couple psychologists made up a questionaire or something that every applicant for a license had to fill out. Some sort of screening besides the week-long cool-off period they have.
This fellow had enough information about him, on paper, to tell anyone he never should have had
a gun in his hand, at any time. I agree with you Kreskin, but in this case, there was worrysome
behavior, calls to police, and reports, all of which seemed to fall through the cracks.
a gun in his hand, at any time. I agree with you Kreskin, but in this case, there was worrysome
behavior, calls to police, and reports, all of which seemed to fall through the cracks.
I know what you mean, but these kind of issues are probably a dime a dozen for the police and psychologists. I can think of some who have posted on CanCon that, if they ever went looney and shot up something, we'd all be saying we should have seen the signs. Perhaps there can be better gun controls but a guy like him would likely have gotten his hands on something outside of the licensing routine anyway. Hindsight is 20/20.
Maybe he would have or maybe he wouldn't but it didn't have to be so easy. Also the harder it is for him the more chance of him getting caught before hand. For instance if he was trying to build a bomb his roommates might of tipped off the police. As for black market guns I don't know how hard they are to get. The guy didn't have many connections. He could have winded up trying to buy guns from a cop.
Those assessments, in that sort of detail, are after the fact, unless gestapo are interrogating people and any sign of a symptom. The science seems more of an art until it's crystalized with hindsight.
As I said earlier, if there was a questionaire written by behavioral scientists ( and I'm sure there are plenty of them) administered to applicants before a firearm is issued, it'd probably cut back on the amount of loonies acquiring firearms.
Um, I also posted those because I think the symptoms are handy to know. If I didn't know them beforehand, I probably woulda thought west was simply a jerk.
Um, I also posted those because I think the symptoms are handy to know. If I didn't know them beforehand, I probably woulda thought west was simply a jerk.
Those links are interesting and he may have had some of these symptoms. I think though that the paranoia and delusions played a much bigger role in his behavior.
I find the term anti-social behavior kind of offensive. Can't they call it something else? People are called anti-social all the time and it means nothing like this.