The "gun culture" is to blame for Virginia Tech

Actually, school deaths AREN'T more common than they used to be. Homocides in schools are down since the turn of the 20th century, not up.

Several factors make it appear worse.

1)The omnipresence of the media, because we know it when it happens now.

2)The fact that if someone does decide to go on a killing spree now there is no defense, because we've taken away any defenses. Back in the 40s it wouldn't be unusual to find guns in many schools for shooting, and kids often had access to weapons. They were trusted with them.

3) There's so many more people now, so it's going to happen more frequently just because of the 'nutjob' percentage. However, because there are so many more people your chance of being affected is still the same.

Why do we have more than other cultures? That's a valid question, and I think gun ownership is part of that. But the whole sum and totality of the gun argument isn't based on school shootings. And it's balanced by the fact that places with concealed carry almost always decrease, not increase, in crime.

I'd be curious to see if we have more mentally ill people, but it's hard to gauge that. We certainly have more psychologists, and we certainly have more drugs. That hasn't seemed to decrease people with mental problems, has it?

Finally, my gut hunch is that there's a lot of reasons, but some day in the future scientists will find out that some of the chemicals in our diet, while affecting most people only negligibly, might have thrown a few individuals biochemistry out of whack.

Nah. Guns are kinda frowned upon in schools most everywhere, yet we get the bulk of the shootings.

Why? Easy. It's the Second Amendment, really. Basically, when there is relatively easy, unhampered access to guns, irresponsible idiots can get their hands on them just as easily as someone who is a perfectly sane crack shot.

Does that mean we should toss out the Second Amendment? Nah. It's a damn good thing. But with that freedom comes responsibility. A responsibility that a hell of a lot of people simply don't have. And unfortunately, it seems as if people only get the whole "guilty actions of the few should not indict the many like-minded innocent" thing I've talked about before if they're part of that like-minded innocent.

So, you can either ignore it for the ignorance that it is, or you can nip it in the bud and say, "Hey, we did X, Y, and Z, but it still happened. Suggest some changes, and we'll give them due consideration, but in the meantime, consider that which you did and what you could have done that have nothing to do with us, and maybe try those in the future as well."

For every radical Islamic fundamentalist who blows himself up, there are a billion and a half who will never do any such thing. Why should they be lumped in with that one guy, hmm? Yet every day, we get the usual "Glass 'em" mentality.

Oh, I'd expect that it is because then, for better or for worse, the sorts of kids who would have ended up shooting up the joint would have either left or been kicked out of school long before ever getting to that point.

And while you could claim that's an issue with compulsory education, I'd argue that it's a far bigger issue with parenthood.

Hold on there.

Restrictions, checks, and laws are never going to stop those intent on breaking them, no matter what they're for - driving a car, killin' folk, anything. So, that's a convenient non-statistic.

Meanwhile, thus far, the only argument that I've ever heard against waiting periods and background checks that actually moves them beyond the realm of "simple annoyance" to "possibly dangerous" is when it comes to immediately necessary self-defense, which I acknowledge is kind of a dangerous sort of inadequacy. Otherwise, a lot of it just comes off as "Man, they won't give me my guns fast enough. I want them faster!"

And taxes and fees? Well, that's an entirely seperate issue, ain't it?

Well, that "logic" would be true if the only thing that had changed in the last hundred years was gun availability. However, life doesn't happen in a vacuum.

Or, maybe it's an indicator that it is a tragic, yet statistically unlikely event.

Doesn't mean locking up all the guns is the answer. But, and here's the kicker, it doesn't mean arming everyone is the answer either.

There is, I think, this misconception that it's basically leading the cattle to slaughter to not allow kids to have guns in school. But here's the thing - if someone is truly hellbent on killing someone, they'll make it happen, no matter how well armed that someone is. And if someone is truly hellbent on killing a whole lot of people, they'll figure out a way to make it happen. Humanity's been doing that for thousands upon thousands of years. The fear of death before accomplishing one's task, if anything, just results in much more sound planning.

Well, the anti-AW ban made it illegal and gave us a year to dispose, turn in, or disable. And since I am, as I profess, a law-abiding gun owner, I sold it to a gun show dealer for whatever I could get - about 1/4 its value. And to make it more aggrevating, NJ loosened the law a few years later, making it legal to own again.