If you're sick and have a fever, the doctor may only prescribe aspirin. If the fever continues to climb, and the doctor just continues to prescribe more aspirin, you should probably seek another opinion, since aspirin doesn't seem to be doing the job.

Passing gun control laws in the wake of such tragedies allows people to feel like they have done something about the problem. They want to do something fast and forget about it. Hopefully it will go away while they have their eyes closed. Unfortunately, that approach is rather like the doctor who continues to prescribe more and more aspirin for a rising fever. Discover the nature of the disease first, then determine and execute a course of treatment.

--Baloo

PS: Sol, we're waiting... .

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"The difficult part in an argument is not to defend one's opinion, but rather to know it."
--Andre Maurois
http://members.tripod.com/~Bob_Baloo/index.htm

And the situation's pretty much the same in the UK, which also has strict gun control laws.

How often does it happen in the US? Eh?

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*gasp* "The pictures...they're...coming...alive!"
-Abe Simpson, on the miracle of the moving image

*ahem*

Uh oh, pink elephants.

It seems an evident fact that people from the US have been programmed so well by their culture that they are no longer capable of comprehending the logic of gun control. I find this baffling, as does pretty much the rest of the civilised world.

Sure, in the srictest controlled countries some people will still find a way to get a gun and use it... But at least they have to make the effort to hoodwink a gun supplier or contact the criminal underground; not just wander up to their bedroom and pick up the Uzi their dad gave them for their fifth birthday so they could "defend themselves"...

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"I cannot live out that life.
That man is bereft of passion... and imagination!
That is not who I am!"

Besides, look at the problem with illegal drugs in the US...laws haven't stopped them from being sold or obtained.

Monty:

Wha? If anyone in the country is preprogrammed, it's the ones who DO want tougher gun control laws. They don't think about it, just go along with it. Like the asprin analogy. And another problem is that we don't enforce the laws that ARE on the books. There's a town in North Carolina where practically everyone owns a gun and displays it. Guess what. The murder rate is practically nil. The law-abiding citizins who have guns aren't the problem. The problem is people who obtain guns for the express purpose of breaking the law, and in their case, a law against having a gun wouldn't make any difference. A little known fact about criminals is that they tend to break the law.

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C/O
Mephistopheles, Cain, Brutus, Medici, Torquemada, Richelieu,
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Dis, The Nether Regions

OOOOOKKKKKKAAAAAAYYYYYYYY, how many of these school shootings have been done by professional criminals? You know, the sort that have underground contacts and can smuggle a gun around? *counts*

Okay, now how many have been done by someone who bought a gun whith his fags at the newsagents? *counts*

Ahhh, I see...

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"Obesity. Adiposity. Corpulence. Whatever word you use, it represents one thing: being a big fatass."

Answer #2. None.

You have no idea how much it irks me to be agreeing with Omega on this issue.

The thing I keep noticing about the people I encounter who are for gun control: They almost always tend to be Victims. Now, I don't mean victims of crime or victims of gun crime, as much as I mean people with a Victim mentality.. "Poor me, I could never possibly defend myself, so I'd better just give Mr. Criminal all my stuff and hope he just goes away." The problem with this mentality is that once you're a victim, you will be victimized over and over and over again. And you'll be too wrapped up in your victimhood to care about or even notice it. The criminal NEVER goes away. He knows an easy mark when he sees it.

Very often these are the same people who expect the government to step in and do everything for them.

BZZT!

A Supreme Court decision not so long ago even ruled that the police are not obligated to protect individual citizens. This is one of the reasons stalkers have a field day.. the police can't do anything about them until it's over.

As for this being Netherlands' first shooting, and therefore somehow being less... just you wait. See how/if your media plays it a lot. You think the US is the world's only powderkeg?

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Calvin: "No efficiency, no accountability... I tell you, Hobbes, it's a lousy way to run a Universe." -- Bill Watterson

2. Your theory is by training everyone to be all macho, heoric, and combat trained...we can eliminate all crime because the criminals will be too intimidated to commit a crime.

Newsflash!
By the same reasoning we could eliminate all war by giving every country well trained armies and the biggest nuclear weapons we can find. Maybe MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) will end all war.

Hello....it didn't. How many wars have we had in the past few years despite the increasing precence of nuclear devices?
Did India and Pakistan stop fighting once they both had nukes? No..they continued and are now fighting with greater risks.

Its the same thing with people, people make up nations, nations act like people do. (And before you start wondering what is my Hoover Dam or what is France's equivalent of a spleen...don't take a metaphor/simile too far...)

But it's likely to happen a long time after the next one in the US.

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"Obesity. Adiposity. Corpulence. Whatever word you use, it represents one thing: being a big fatass."