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Bald Pot Head

Well, I'm stoned and thinking about this week's tragic event at Virginia Tech.
My deep felt sympathy goes out to all who lost love ones. My thinking has been toward's what good could come of the situation if society could only learn:

1) Gun Control: What a farce the NRA is, something needs to be done to make it more difficult to purchase a hand gun. The rest of the world is laughing at us on this issue, and I for one agree with the rest of the world.

2) Mental Health: Another area that needs improvement. Beleive it from me(I had two children involved with mental health institutes during my life). I do not beleive any mental health institute ever helped my chidren(even though I could pay) and it sure doesn't look like they helped Seung-Hui Cho (who probably couldn't pay). The mental health institutes are amout making money( even if some of their employess really care about helping people),the busineess aspect gets in the way. Prescription drugs are fine though-they help the economy!!

3) The news media sucks. Showing all the video he left behind is only going to encourage others with similar mindsets to do similar things. Anything for ratings, to hell with what is good for the world.

And the bottom line conclusion while sitting on my patio getting stoned was...

There needs to be more love and respect in the world. I am in no way excusing what CSeung-Hui Cho. However, if somehow he could have had more love and respect in his life the tragic event may not happen. I remember what my grandmother once told me when I was being impatient with my children: "build them up, don't put them down" . My lesson from this week's tragic event is to be as good a grandparent to my grandchildren as she was to me. What was your lesson?

Time for another bowlful, looking forward to some good responses.

Respect,

Bald Pot Head

 

TheUnseenTruth

I can agree on all of the above points ;though #1 really got me.

The only thing one can do to secure firearms in all honesty is to make mental health records available to firearms dealers when they run an "Instant background check. Which, if you think about it would be next to impossible ; due to Doc-patient privacy laws.

As for mental care ; I know nothing of it in all truthfulness. Therefore it would be silly for me to comment on such a topic.

The media...ahhh yes the media. While they do have a duty to inform us of things , they really need to relax with the "So, how did you feel seeing your friends face turned into goo?" questions...really now what do they expect?

The bottom line for me personally is...We can't get rid of the NRA or guns (Which most Europeans think is a stupid thought...) that would merely lead to a big black market for foreign and local weapons...(Iraq, anyone?)


EDIT: Link doesn't want to work...Maybe we're lucky and someone nuked their website...

One more thing ; our fanatical inbred family of crazies (you know, the people who say "Thank god for IEDs,9/11,ETC" @ God Hates America -- Westboro Baptist Church Commentary on the USA ) are planning to go to the Virginia Tech funerals (As they did, and still do at coalition soldiers funerals) and protest...

...Am I the only one who's blood is boiling at the mere thought?

Good post bald ; good post.

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Originally Posted by goodgirl I think I will be stopping by the bunker tonight....I could use a little of what you are all serving.

sterbo

Hiding behind closed doors never helped anyone...

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Darque Pervert

Perhaps it's completely cliche, but the NRA's slogan makes perfect sense:
If we outlaw guns, then only outlaws will have guns.

Personally, I don't own a gun of any type. I don't hunt. I don't feel the need for personal protection where I live. I'm not in a high-risk job that would necessitate a firearm.
I do, however, fully support the right for law-abiding U.S. citizens of sound mind to own and carry a firearm.

Controlling guns won't make them any less available to those that want them. It will just push them into another black market, which will trigger more violence, more deaths and more fear amongst the American public.

I 100% agree. Although I don't think it's the government's responsibility to take care of the mentally ill. Frankly, the U.S. government couldn't manage to find its way out of a paper bag. I would love to see privatization of many government functions, as the private secotr can handle these functions far more efficiently and with far less expense to the taxpayer.

I'm all for a smaller government. Collect my taxes. Sustain an appropriate military. Enforce the just and appropriate laws. But otherwise, leave m the fuck alone!

I disagree.
The general public can do well to see the the mindset of this individual. If one person sees a similar behavior in another and takes steps to get that person some help because of comparisons made to Cho Seung-Hui that prevents even one more needless death, then the airing of that video has served its purpose.

Yeah, there is serious sensationalism in the news media. Yeah, they cater to whoever is paying to run ads on the network oor station. Yeah, the network's political or social bias comes out in the broadcast.
The fact is NO news outlet is without bias.
That's why I don't rely on a single source for news. I'll get the story from multiple angles (the liberal slant of CNN and Newsweek, the comparatively unbiased reporting in The Week and the neocon reporting of Fox, among others) and form my own conclusions and opinions.

Frankly, I want facts from the news and nothing more. I'm intelligent enough to draw my own conclusions from facts. What I find appalling is that the media outlets don't seem to want us to do that. They want us to follow their lead and buy Head On and a new Lexus and fall in step with their political leanings.


Sure we need more love & respect in the world. However, personal feelings aren't anything that can be regulated.
A government telling people that they will be happy is just as bad as putting jews into death camps or gassing your countrymen.

Sukhavati

Prohibition of guns will work no better than prohibition of drugs.

We must seek to understand what has happened in order to prevent its recurrence. The media, however, will only spawn more fear. The kind which has us watching one another for "irregular" behavior. If you see someone acting like this man did in the weeks, months, years prior to this unfortunate final end, would you know he was crazy? Would you be certain enough to turn another individual into the authorities?

Now we all know crazy in hindsight, but close up, anyone's life can seem insane. Yours, too. Have you ever been overwhelmed by emotions, your environment, and the events around you to such an extent that your actions were crazy? Could be considered violent? I think we all have been pushed to the point of breaking. Some break. Some bend.

Consider these words of Chuang Tse:

Those whom heaven helps we call the sons of heaven.
They do not learn this by learning.
They do not work it by working.
They do not reason it by using reason.
To let understanding stop at what cannot be understood is a high attainment.
Those who cannot do it will be destroyed on the lathe of heaven.

So tell me, how will we regulate crazy? Our thoughts are already at risk. Our actions already circumspect. I wonder how many people feel a twinge of fear, guilt, and uncertainty at posting publicly on a site such as this? How many would judge us as criminals for sharing our opinions here, even if there exists no proof IRL as to any wrongdoing? Are not our thoughts indicative of our actions?

Very gray areas. I am for less control, less regulation by government. More involvement on community, grass-roots levels. We cannot expect the government to fix this. We must become active in our communities. Aid those who are around us. And always seek to free the minds, souls, and bodies of those around us.

Turning in your neighbor won't necessarily help, but listening and caring might. The mental health field is littered with problems, but at times, it is a necessary evil.

(PLEASE NOTE: I am in no way suggesting that the incident in Virginia might have been prevented. I'm saying let's look forward, be more aware, and hope that we can help these clusterf**ks from happening in the future. Laws, metal detectors, or the removal of guns from society is unlikely to help prevent this in the future. We have to do the work to become better, more aware, more involved people. Incidents, like Virginia Tech or Columbine, have the unique capacity of momentarily illuminating our collective peripheral vision. I don't have any answers, but I love the fact that we are talking about it.)

Sukhavati

 

MickityMike

I too, am stoned.

Man, if one wants to kill a dozen people, and if one is also willing to trade one's life in the process, then well, even the US Secret Service has concluded that there's not a damned thing anyone can do about it.

*shrug*

It's a horrible damned shame, but there it is. There's very little anyone could reasonably do to prevent this sort of thing. Sometimes shit just happens.

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I'd be delighted to live in a country where happily married gay couples had closets full of assault weapons. - Glenn Reynolds

Z3BR0X

hmmm, not quite sure if i agree here. you see, in england....we dont HAVE that many arms dealers, the ones we do have sell shotguns to farmers, and only ones who have gone through strict saftey checks, background checks, their house has to be checked to look at secruity, and regular check-ups are made through out the time of possesion.

So no, that isnt the only thing you can do at all. The best thing America can do, is realise that you dont need a handgun, machine gun, semi-auto or fully auto to kill a dear or go hunting. and if its not for going hunting, why the bloddy hell do you have a gun at all?!?1

and if ANYBODY says 'self protection' then....well, be prepared for a full GreatBritish mocking.

Z3BR0X

LAFURNACE

Trying to make this country perfect or safer usally ends up taking away more of our freedoms.. Honestly i think that shit just happens sometimes and to deal with it. Don't go taking away all us other sane peoples' rights because of one person. All the news media really does is make things bigger then they are and make the world paranoid and panic. YES they shouldnt have been shot at school, but remeber thats just 20 someodd people that were effected. We dont ban unhealthy food or restrict food that kills people everyday do we? People are always going to kill people and it doesnt take a gun, a bomb could have done the same thing. What im trying to say is dont try fix the unfixable.

Buzzby

There are more than 100,000,000 guns in circulation in the US. Nobody knows where most of them are. Would you propose a house-to-house search to confiscate all of them?

Guns are as much part of US culture as wine is part of French culture. We have always had them. We always will. 0.2% of the guns in circulation have ever been used in a crime. Why would you want to punish the 99.8% of gun owners who have never used them to harm anyone?

Did you know that the worst domestic mass murder in US history (215 people) was perpetrated with five gallons of gasoline and a match?

Gun control only effects people who are motivated to obey the law. Anything that people want, they will get. Look at how well 70 years of marijuana prohibition has worked! I much prefer that criminals have to consider whether potential victims might be armed than to know that they are helpless victims.

I don't want anyone censoring the information available to me. It's bad enough that most news outlets are so biased that you have to look at several of them to get a realistic view of events. If they start censoring news "for my own good", where does it end? One reason we're in deep shit in Iraq is that the networks refused to air any dissenting opinions to the government's position in the run-up to the war.

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sterbo

If only 0.2% of the guns in circulation have ever been used in a crime then why do 99.8% of gun owners who have never used them need them?
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