Student Massacre in Virginia Tech University

The news is just coming through of a student massacre in Virginia Tech University in Virginia, US. The full facts are not yet known, but it appears that there may well have been two separate shooting incidents on the faculty within hours of each other, and a death toll in excess of 31, plus wounded. It appears to have been the work of one man, who had 'emotional' issues.

Random Gun Killings Are Not New ....

 

Firstly: My commiserations to any family, or friends of the dead, or injured who may stumble across this blog. It’s both a national and personal tragedy on a scale that it’s hard for the unaffected to imagine. Coming as it did on the 8th anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre in Colorado (surely no coincidence), it’s a particularly vivid reminder of the darker side to the American dream.

There have been other such massacres in the past from the 1920’s through to 1966, when the day after killing his wife and mother, gunman Charles Whitman opened fire from a tower on the campus of the University of Texas killing 14 people and injuring 31 others.

It should also be remembered that even in less gun orientated cultures these sorts of massacres have occurred, similar shootings have happened - in Erfurt, Germany, in 2002, in Osaka, Japan, in 2001, and in Dunblane, Scotland, in 1996 - but they are far more common in America. There is also some suggestion that some of these non US killings are ‘copy cats’ drawing from the US events to “become famous”. 

 

A brief list of some of the more infamous school killings:

• August 1966: Charles Whitman kills 15 people and wounds 31 others from the top of a tower at the University of Texas campus in Austin, Texas.
• October 1997: A 16-year-old boy stabs his mother, and then shoots dead two students at a school in Mississippi, injuring several others.
• December 1997: A 14-year-old boy kills three students in Kentucky.
• March 1998: At an Arkansas school, two boys aged 13 and 11 set off the fire alarm and kill four students and a teacher as they flee the building.
• April 1998: A 14-year-old shoots dead a teacher and wounds two students in Pennsylvania.
• May 1998: A 15-year-old shoots dead two students in a school cafeteria in Oregon.
• June1998: Two adults are hurt in a shooting by a teenage student at a Virginia high school.
• April 1999: Student gunmen Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, kill 12 other students and a teacher at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, before killing them selves.
• May 1999: A student injures six pupils in a shoot-out in Georgia.
• November 1999: A 13-year-old girl is shot dead by a classmate in New Mexico.
• February 2000: A six-year-old girl is shot dead by a classmate in Michigan.
• March 2001: A pupil opens fire at a school in California, killing two students.
• January 2002: A student who had been dismissed from a Virginia law school kills the dean, a professor and a student, and wounds three others.
• April 2003: A teenager shoots dead the head-teacher at a Pennsylvania school, and then kills himself.
• May 2004: Four people are injured in shooting at a school in Maryland.
• March 2005: A 16-year-old Minnesota high school student guns down nine people before killing himself.
• November 2005: A student in Tennessee shoots dead an assistant principal and wounds two other administrators.
• September 2006: Drifter Duane Morrison takes six high school girls hostage in Bailey, Colorado, and molests them. As police close in, he kills one girl and himself.
• September 2006: A 15-year-old student kills his school's principal in western Wisconsin after telling another student "you better run".
• October 2006: Milk truck driver Charles Roberts shoots dead five Amish girls and himself at a school in Pennsylvania.
• April 2007: 31+, plus the gunmen (believed to be a student) die in a shooting incident at Virginia Tech University

This recent tragedy will no doubt raise the same old questions about gun controls in the US, and will no doubt lead to nothing much happening. I don’t presume to lecture anyone, least of all the US, on their rules on gun ownership, so I will restrict myself to some simple observations:

• People in the US are 33 times more likely to be murdered with a gun than people in England (where gun ownership is less than 5%).
• But the Swiss have a 95% gun ownership in the male population (for national defence purposes) … they really do practice the ‘right to bear arms in defence of the state’, and they have virtually no murders by gun.

This implies that it’s not simply the amount of guns available, but the mindset of the society that determines the use of guns in murders. It’s probably impossible to wean the US from guns simply because the idea of taking guns from the law abiding, whilst leaving them in the hands of those who are not, is neither equitable, nor sensible.

Therefore maybe the answer is to somehow address the culture of usage of guns. I would suggest that maybe, and I am no expert, that the following might make some difference:

• Make it a mandatory life sentence to hold an unregistered gun, whether on their person or in their house or property, regardless of whether it’s your gun or not.
• Make it a mandatory life sentence to carry or use a gun in pursuit of a felony, regardless of whether the gun is shown or used.
• Tighten registration of a gun by federal law so that known felons cannot successfully apply to hold a licence.
• Make it illegal for a minor to own, handle or have access to a gun.

It seems to me that this would not infringe on legitimate gun ownership or use under the constitution, but would make the illegal ownership, storage or usage a very much more risky proposition.

Even the most stupid of people are unlikely to carry, store or assist the holder of an unregistered gun, if it means prison for the rest of your life if you are caught. These sorts of measures might just change the culture behind the violent use of guns.

It’s certainly about time that the US law makers took some positive actions that might stop these kind tragic events, which as the list indicates a far too common for any healthy society.

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