eBay's Ill-Timed Lifetime Achievement Webby 316
theodp writes "eBay CEO Meg Whitman will accept a special Webby Lifetime Achievement Award next month on behalf of the eBay Community, which has 'permanently changed the way people connect, discover and interact with each other.' Perhaps by then, people will have forgotten how eBay enabled buyer 'Blazers5505' to hook up with sellers like 'oneclickshooting' just weeks before the worst mass shooting in modern US history, prompting eBay to issue a gun-parts-don't-kill-students-guns-and-ammo-do statement that showed little evidence of its celebrated commitment to social consciousness. CEO Whitman, who received $11.1M last year for her leadership efforts, has kept a low profile since tooting eBay's trust-and-safety horn for Wall Street analysts two days after the Va. Tech rampage."
Nice flamebait (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Nice flamebait (Score:5, Funny)
You just don't get the big picture! If they were hungry, then they'd have been more occupied with trying to eat and they wouldn't have been able to commit their crimes!
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Re:Nice flamebait (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Nice flamebait (Score:5, Insightful)
The Spoon Companies are next (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Nice flamebait (Score:5, Funny)
Ebay didn't kill anyone, sheesh
In all fairness, the submitter didn't imply eBay killed the students, he's only implying that Meg Whitman killed them. :)
Re:Nice flamebait (Score:5, Informative)
Look at the "editor". kdawson again. He's responsible for more troll and flambeiat crap than anyone else on slashdot. What I want to know is why they gave him editor powers - and why he stall has them after he blatantly abuses them time after time to promote his agenda? This article is from a personal log here by Theodp (again, seems to be a kdawson fave), and is so poorly written and poorly reasoned that its obviously carp. If kdawson keeps falling for this and posting irrelevant crap, they need to get rid of him as an editor.
If I want to red this kind of specious attack on capitalism, ebay or guns, I can go get it at indymedia or daily Kos.
Hey KDawson, keep it up, you'll enter Katz territory soon. Everyone: I advise tagging stories like this "kdawsontroll"
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Re:Nice flamebait (Score:4, Insightful)
The only blame anywhere in this whole tragedy lies on Cho. Anyone who makes it out to be someone else's fault or to spread the blame around is a fool. It really doesn't matter who legally sold him something, he made a plan and went out and killed 32 people.
To follow some of your (and a lot of other people in this nation) logic, then the person who sold him the shoes he was wearing as well as his socks, underwear, pants/shorts, shirt, and hat are partially to blame as well. Or who has been selling him food during his time of planning? What about the postal workers that took his mail being sent to NBC? What about the environmentalists that allowed there to be clean air, because if he had lung cancer it might have stopped him...yes, that sounds ridiculous because it IS ridiculous.
I guess the hope is that somewhere in the process of buying weapons or weapon accessories someone could have seen what was coming and done something
Seen? Have you ever sold anything on Ebay? I'm a gun owner and I've purchased items off of Ebay. So if I buy a magazine for my handgun there should be someone from Ebay checking on me? Or if I sell a magazine on Ebay, I should do some background checks on the people who are purchasing from me? And here, I thought
Laughable (Score:5, Insightful)
Cho bought holsters and empty ammunition clips off of eBay, something they stated while refuting the rumors that any actual ammo or guns had been purchased. eBay expressed their regrets that any item purchased on their site was related to the shootings in any way, and contacted law enforcement and offered their assistance. How is this not committed to social conciousness?
Who are we going to crucify next in our crusade against anyone and anything that might have contributed to the VA Tech shootings?
Oxygen?
-"Law enforcement officials confirm that Cho Seung-Hui was seen to have been breathing during the video sent to the NBC. It is unclear what role the earth's atmosphere may have played, but the investigation is looking at every angle.
'We can not exclude the possibility that oxygen in the earth's atmosphere had a catalytic effect on Cho,' chief of Police Jurkfashe Eidjit stated to the press, 'We will be investigating this very thoroughly.'"
Shoes?
-"In the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings, police discovered numerous articles of clothing, including shoes, in the dorm room of Cho Seung-Hui.
'We are deeply disturbed by the presence of these articles,' investigator Stew Piddington stated, 'It is clear that Cho surrounded himself with many horrifying items, such as shoes.'
Companies such as Nike, Reebok and New Balance deny the claim that shoes had any influence on the shooter."
Or how about NBC?
-"In a shocking new development, CNN reports that the Virginia Tech shooter, Cho Seung-Hui, exclusively watched MSNBC.
'We've said for years now that MSNBC is a corruptor of our youth,' a CNN spokesman stated at the press conference, 'But now we have definitive proof.'
MSNBC PR representatives were quick to deny the corrupting influence it had upon Cho, but public opinion has turned against them. The MSNBC offices were burned down by an angry mob this morning in a display of solidarity with the mourning families of Virginia Tech.
'We can't let evil institutions such as these continue to propogate messages of violence and hatred,' one of the crowd stated, 'There's no telling what might become acceptible in our society if these unethical businesses aren't stopped.'"
Seriously, there were a lot of factors involved in the shootings, but trying to attack ebay as though they had personally furnished Cho with his weapons is ridiculous.
I hate to say it.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, it's one thing to specialize your content for a particular audience, it's quite another to "pander" to them.
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Re:I hate to say it.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I still highly enjoy slashdot but I have to say, I've noticed myself at times...buying into the world view too much. That is to say, I read slashdot and I feel like everything is going wrong--big corporations getting more powerful, government getting more powerful, losing civil liberties, everywhere in the world (not just Europe, but China, Iran, etc too!) being better than the US, etc etc. A large portion of things posted here now seem to become some kind of an anti-SOMETHING. Cellphone technology becomes a fight over why America is so backward, etc etc etc. It's kinda damn depressing.
And then I read other news, and you know--talk to other people who don't just self-flagellate all day--and it's kind of eye opening. I don't know if it's me or slashdot, but it's been feeling to me lately like the slashdot editors especially are those bitter, negative, unhappy kids in highschool who blame everyone else but themselves for their unhappiness and hate the kids who AREN'T unhappy the most (all the while totally sure of their superiority).
I don't know, maybe I'm just rambling..
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It is
They are
It is
You are
They're not
It is
You are comming to a sad realization, Cancel or Allow?
Re:I hate to say it.... (Score:4, Insightful)
I know a lot disagree with Michael Crichton over his environmental views, but his real point in that argument was not that global warming was a problem to be ignored or no problem at all. Instead his argument was that the "State of Fear" has engrosses our society and allowed this establishment, which he labels the Political/Legal/Media establishment, to make us into a bunch of scared children seeking a "father" that will save us. This can easily lead to a totalitarian state where the quest for "safety" overrides common sense and "political correctness" outweighs the truth. One where we seek safety in the arms of government and media and lobbyists and lawyers.
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It would not surprise me in the slightest if the editor's spelling problems, dup posts, Roland posts, inflammatory posts, etc are 100% deliberate. Kind of like the quote I can't remember about how people go to the symphony as much for the mistakes as the good things.
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The more people that click on the Comments sections, the more ad impressions get served, and the more money Slashdot makes. The more inflammatory the article, the more people will click on the Comments section.
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It is a dangerous road. Think of the children.
Re:I hate to say it.... (Score:5, Insightful)
This submission is really raising the bar on that front. We already knew that he got gun parts off of eBay, and this submission adds absolutely no new information to the discussion. I really don't care what some random Slashole thinks about Cho getting some of his stuff off eBay. I can form my own dumbass opinions, thanks.
Re:Laughable (Score:4, Insightful)
I live in Virginia, know several engineering students at Tech, and have friends who were in that building that day, I know students of the teachers that died, and I know people who lost friends in the massacre. It hit me pretty close to home, being so near to everything and everyone, so I am by no means downplaying the events that happened that day.
I was just bothered by the way this summary completely shifts the focus from the article, and turns it into senseless eBay bashing.
Re:Laughable (Score:4, Funny)
It's not you... (Score:3, Insightful)
You're not the one in danger of downplaying the events at Virginia Tech. I just can't decide whether it's a eBay hater using the shootings as justification, or a gun hater using eBay as an excuse to spout off. In either case it's a rather c
Re:Laughable (Score:5, Funny)
If you want to be an investigator, changing your name from something that starts with "stupid" is a good first move.
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eBay expressed their regrets that any item purchased on their site was related to the shootings in any way, and contacted law enforcement and offered their assistance. How is this not committed to social conciousness?
Sadly a company that only cares about profit, might have done exactly the same thing when that profit depends significantly on public opinion. Although I don't wish to suggest that eBay is that mercenary.
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Re:Laughable (Score:5, Insightful)
Please don't only post things you heard from somewhere without doing some further research actually closely looking at the language.
In case you forgot it:
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
Having studied this type of legal language, it is saying that a well regulated militia is necessary and furthermore as a consequence the right of the people to bear arms must not be infringed. The first comma denotes a pause while the second denotes a separate idea. The right of the people to bear arms is a separate idea, that flows from the need for a well regulated militia. There is nothing remotely in the language that requires them to be a member of a militia, but to have one the people must have arms anyway. The first part is there simply to provide a further reasoning. It was already assumed that all people should have the right to bear arms and that simple point was not really questioned much if at all.
If you can't real it correctly you can't understand it correctly, and obviously you can't.
Human nature in action. (Score:5, Insightful)
Both are cases of fear of those that are not like you.
I will bet big money that the person that wrote the summary really hates all guns. I am also willing to bet they don't hunt or shoot targets for fun. There for their mistrust of anyone that has anything to do with guns. They are all gun nuts waiting to shoot up a school. They are differnt from them and are not to be trusted.
BTW I really am not a gun person. I don't hunt or own a gun myself.
The school board members probably don't game. They know that the kids at that shoot up the school in Colorado played violent video games and that the young man that shot up VT made maps for a violent video game. They may or may not know that they where not of VT. They may also know that the September 11th terrorists used a video game "Flight Simulator" to practice their attack. People that play violent video games are differnt from them so they do not trust them.
BTW the last FPS I played I think was Quake. I am not really into FPS but I do love Flight Simulator. I also really dislike games like GTA. I find them distasteful and will not play them myself.
It is easy to hate the stranger. Those that are not like you. It is dangerous to trust the stranger. These are rules that go back to the cave man days. What scares me the most is most "Open minded" people have this exact same view but they just don't see it.
I have no idea how we can get rid of this trait. It is the core of racism and all other forms of prejudice. Probably the best we can ever hope to do is to admit that we all have it and to not let it rule our lives.
The simple truths are just this. The vast majority of gun owners will never shoot up a school. The vast majority of gamers will never shoot up a school.
The real questions about the VT shooting are a lot more harder.
Why didn't the laws on the books stop him from buying the gun in first place?
And the really sad question is just this.
What in his life made him so unhappy that this seemed like a good idea? How can a person feel so unloved and alone that going around and killing a large group of innocent people and then killing himself is a good idea?
Where where his friends
Ebay has no blame or guilt in this.
While we're on the subject (Score:5, Funny)
What total garbage this is ... (Score:4, Insightful)
If the jerk didn't get a gun, he would have just run over a crowd with his car, or he would have built an ammonium nitrate bomb. Evil and crazy men will do evil and crazy things.
Quite frankly the situation might have been ameliorated to some degree if concealed carry were legal on college campuses (VTech). Then a legally carrying civilian might have been able to stop some of the slaughter.
Why the Ebay smear?
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While I'm none too sympathetic with gun control... (Score:3, Insightful)
... I also have a hard time signing on to the idea that having one or more armed students shooting it out with Cho would have led to a better result. I think it highly likely that the student body would have ended up caught in the cross-fire, with no good way to escape, and no easy way for the police to figure out who were the bad guy(s). Among the possibilities: Cho bursts into a classroom and begins shooting the students. An armed student begins returning fire. Then a third armed student, hearing this, en
Are They Hypocritical? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's the same thing with cigarettes and cigars. I can't buy tobacco products on ebay, but I can buy a butane lighter. Is this inconstancy on Ebay's part? Nope... anyone can buy a lighter, but you need to be 18 to purchase cigarettes.
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Re:Are They Hypocritical? (Score:4, Informative)
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wow (Score:5, Interesting)
And yes, e-bay, the gun maker, the steal worker, and the gun did not kill. Cho did. And he could have done more had he made IED and used them. Are you going to stop selling gas or other fuels for that potential?
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What does that matter? (Score:2)
Mea Culpa (Score:2)
Dear editors... (Score:5, Informative)
Yup, same guy [slashdot.org]. If it's necessary to give him a soapbox, perhaps you could at least remove the dishonest framing of these pieces as news?
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Wow, that's a trollish summary (Score:5, Insightful)
Admittedly, EBay has problems. But EBay didn't shoot anyone in Virginia.
Furthermore, they didn't cause Cho to go haywire. The fact that they made it easy for him to get magazines is not a problem -- it's a sign of how the internet has changed how people interact with eachother -- which is exactly the reason why EBay got a webby.
Mediums for exchange of information and property are not bad. People who use them for bad purposes are bad.
Arguably the dumbest ./ topic ever (Score:5, Insightful)
It's the truth, though (Score:5, Insightful)
The same thing happens with gun law restrictions. Do you really think that if this guy wouldn't have been able to buy ammo on Ebay that he wouldn't have gone on a shooting rampage? He would have just found a different way of doing it, whether it be with a hunting shotgun, a sword, or a fertilizer bomb. Keep in mind that while I'm in favor of concealed carry, it doesn't mean I think that people should be able to access semiautomatic firearms without a significant (1 month?) waiting period.
I know that comparing the shooting to a system being hacked isn't all that accurate, but I'm trying to make a generalized point. There are many things out there that have both good and bad aspects, but that doesn't mean that we should focus only on the bad and ignore the good. Doing so is shortsighted and kneejerk, similar to all the save-the-children and ban toothpaste from airplanes crap. Be consistent in your criticism of this stuff.
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And the Webby for Snarkiest article summary goes.. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:And the Webby for Snarkiest article summary goe (Score:2)
Moral Indignation 2.0 (Score:2)
As long as Meg delivers the profits, there are no problems.
If you feel strongly the other way, then maybe it's time for you to participate in our government and change that?
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Let's ignore any good that guns make possible (Score:3, Insightful)
Nothing is wholly good, or bad, except possible people who try to claim something is wholly good or bad. THEY are wholly bad.
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Change you analogy to pools (Score:2)
It can't not be argued that pools are needed, or hard to get rid of.
Yet they kill more children then firearms.
Just Imange... (Score:2)
It just doesn't work like that.
What about all the other crooks they stopped? (Score:2)
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Note to self: (Score:5, Insightful)
anti-gun nut summary (Score:3)
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I can't be the only one who knows responsible gun owners who have never shot anyone. I also know irresponsible gun owners who have never shot anyone, but will probably eventually shoot themselves while drunk - if they don't drunk-drive into a tree or blow themselves up on July 4 first.
By the way, I've owned gun holsters before and I've never owned a real gun - I was a cowboy for Halloween when I was 9. I didn't need clips, though - I used
Ugh (Score:2)
This article should be quashed (Score:4, Insightful)
submitter has an axe to grind (Score:2)
Really don't see the big deal (Score:2)
There's no tracking.
Hell, I know military guys that get a lot of their stuff from ebay. This is mindless yellow journalism. How the hell was ebay to know, or the seller for that matter, that the buyer was going to use these perfectly legal items for bad?
And the webby's cool too.
Next article (Score:3, Funny)
This spin is absurd and irrational (Score:3, Informative)
The real agenda of the person who wrote this spin is to say, "Guns and any associated parts are bad. If you deal with weapons in any way, you are evil. Therefore, eBay is evil because it doesn't have the policy I want it to have."
Individuals have to take responsibility for what they do, and the rest of us have to keep a sense of proportion about how we react to the actions of crazed lunatics. Statistically, somewhere in the neighborhood of 120 people have died in this country in car accidents in the last 24 hours, but nobody is stupid enough or irresponsible enough to suggest that the utility of car travel be taken away from everyone else because of these deaths. Bad things happen sometimes in life. Sometimes we can't control all of them. We will NEVER have a completely safe world -- and it's not going to made perfect by following the panicked political agenda of those who insist that the rights of millions be destroyed (especially when their favored course of action wouldn't even save lives).
David
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Citation, please.
Individuals have to take responsibility for what they do
Again, citation?
Bad things happen sometimes in life. Sometimes we can't control all of them.
Jesus, what planet are you from? I'm getting sick and tired of people using Slashdot as their personal soapbox for spreading their crackpot delusions.
Hey, awesome (Score:5, Insightful)
It is well known that eBay does not know its buyers and sellers. It cannot filter out scammers and fraudsters. Expecting it to filter out murderers is even more insane -- so insane that I can only speculate that this is not what the poster even has in mind. I assume, then, that the poster's complaint is that eBay allows these items to be listed in the first place.
Apparently, the poster is extremely fond of gun control. That's fine. You're entitled to your opinion. Choosing to capitalize on a tragedy to motivate a witch hunt in the name of your ideologies is another matter entirely. eBay allowed listing of these parts in full and complete compliance with state and federal laws -- laws which eBay has, in general, gone above and beyond the call of duty to satisfy.
This witch hunt smells to me of exactly the same bullshit we went through after 9/11, when people looked for anyone and anything to blame, and when highly questionable "solutions" were pushed through the legislature with little thought or caution. And now after Va. Tech, we've got the usual crowd of people utterly unable to accept a world in which tragedy is a reality, attempting to blame anyone and anything for allowing this to happen. eBay gets blamed for allowing Cho to purchase magazines, even though these magazines were readily available elsewhere. Video games get blamed for allowing Cho to "train" for the murder. And, of course, the right of the People to keep and bear arms gets blamed for giving him the freedom to own firearms in the first place. Of course, the second amendment is hardly the only victim in the aftermath of all this: the first amendment has also suffered considerably, with people getting arrested for having highly laughable "warning signs," like violent writing.
Frankly, these school shooting do not scare me. I fully accept that someday, it could be me among the dead in such a tragedy -- or my wife, my sons, or my daughters. But, eventually, my name will be among the dead for one reason or another. I refuse to live what days I have left, be it 100 years or be it a week, gripped in fear about when the curtain will drop on my life. And so what scares me far more than school shooters and terrorists are the people who are unable to do this; people whose fear is so profound that they will not only undermine their own lives in a futile attempt to stop death, but they'll demand that you undermine yours as well, ironically by undermining the very rights that literally millions of people have voluntarily stepped into the line of fire to protect.
So, in conclusion, I do not find Cho to be a terribly threatening in the grand scheme of things -- not nearly so threatening as folks like Jack Thompson or, apparently, the author of this post, who attempt to inflame the matter with laughable policy suggestions that curtail our freedoms and do nothing to maker us safer.
eBay is entitled to their social conscience (Score:2, Insightful)
We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are.
-- Anais Nin
Take it in a different direction... (Score:3, Insightful)
What about American and United airlines?
How far will the polemics go? There's fair laws for the posession of guns already.
People need to stop focusing on the things and start helping those who are ill. It's obvious that Cho was mentally ill. It looks like many people did try, and some attempts were successful. But really - let's get wicked and blame the people who are, in my mind, really at fault:
1. The university knew he was in deep trouble - several teachers and students reported many, many problems with the poor fellow. Why was he still there?
2. The family weren't informed or simply ignored (I would assume) a huge number of problems in their son.
3. The mental health community, Doctor's, Counselors and Psychologist apparently didn't follow up on Cho.
4. Perhaps the insurance company was at fault here? Did they pressure the mental health workers to "get him well" without a thorough investigation?
Really - guns, while they were the final horror of this situation - had little to do with why Cho went *snap*.
Typical Liberal BS (Score:2)
Shut Up Already (Score:3, Interesting)
Social Consciousness (Score:2)
Nice spin, submitter.
Last night for dinner I cut up some lettuce with a chef's knife, then later used a shovel to plant some flowers. Others have used those tools to kill people and bury the body, so I'm glad the hardware store I bought my stuff from didn't have any Social Consciousness, otherwise they never would have sold those items.
Whoa whoa whoa (Score:5, Insightful)
If some people want to ban guns, their path is clear: an ammendment to the Constitution. They are perfectly welcome to try getting such a thing passed.
speaking as a gun control advocate (Score:3)
Seriously, this is fucking trash.
Misplaced hatred (Score:5, Insightful)
How is the VT event in any way remotely relevant to this Lifetime Achievement award, or - for that matter - how is the Webby award even newsworthy?
Gunbroker.com is ebay for arms and ordnance. (Score:5, Informative)
This is an eBay-like setup for people to sell guns across the internet. Before the anti-gun hyperventilators (like the submitter) start, guns can only be shipped to a Federal Firearms License holder (or a C&R, but that's a special case that I won't go into). You then go to them and have a federal background check performed on you, and you pick up your gun.
Many computer nerds I know often buy rare machineguns this way. (no, not semi-auto Democrat-newspeak "assault weapons", real belt-fed working machineguns like MG-42s and M2HBs as well as full auto assault rifles like the M16)
Occasionally, a 105mm howitzer (includes 20 rounds free!), RPG, or 20mm anti-aircraft cannon will show up on gunbroker as well. Yes, private citizens can easily own WORKING assault rifles, frag grenades, machineguns, howitzers, smart bombs, and anti-aircraft cannons. No legal citizen-owned machinegun, mortar, bomb, howitzer, or grenade has ever been used in any crime. Ever.
It's also interesting to note that there's no explicit regulation prohibiting you from owning, say , a nuclear-armed cruise missile - it's just you can't find anyone willing to sell them to you.
What a trollish summary. (Score:4, Funny)
Moral Outrage (Score:3, Insightful)
A little more biased please? (Score:4, Interesting)
Seriously, Ebay has changed the way we interact. Why are we quibbling over this? Oh yeah people want to shame ebay for this and blame it on anyone other than the student who commited the murder. They didn't tell him to do it, they didn't pull the trigger, this is one sale out of a couple million?
Ebay and the founders deserve this award, hell they deserve another award for taking an idea from the dot com bubble and making a couple billion dollars off of it (kudos to them for that). Trying to throw dirt on them now is petty as hell, and Kdawson needs to figure out if he wants to keep posting biased and muck racking summaries or if he wants to actually post interesting news.
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Re:No, false (Score:5, Insightful)
See you later folks, I'm off to go steal music through the tubes.
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Quibbling perhaps, but illustratitive (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a stupid thread inspired by a stupid press article on a stupid subject. eBay is not in any way responsible for facilitating lawful commerce in lawful products. Cho bears sole responsibility for his insane rampage, nobody has to share the guilt with the possible exception of whoever made the decision to keep his court judgement of mental unfitness out of the instant check system. But even there it is doubtful he could have been prevented from going on a killing spree, there is always homemade explosives, poison gas, car bombs, black marget weapons, etc.
Re:Quibbling perhaps, but illustratitive (Score:4, Insightful)
Why is it that a certain segment of the gun-owning populace immediately jumps to the conclusion that there's some grand-scale movement to try to completely ban guns every time limitations on gun ownership are brought up? I think the great majority of the country (even the blue states) is okay with gun-ownership in the hands of responsible adults, but there should be certain barriers before being allowed to purchase a gun. Psychological evaluations (especially for a license to carry a concealed weapon), a background check, and a mandatory waiting period without any gun-show loopholes seem perfectly reasonable to me. It's not something I feel particularly strong about, but I also don't see any reason guns should be 100% easy to obtain.
They are also highly likely to be unstable people projecting their own instability onto the public at large.
Well, that's certainly an interesting, completely unfounded statement...
Re:Quibbling perhaps, but illustratitive (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is it that a certain segment of the gun-owning populace immediately jumps to the conclusion that there's some grand-scale movement to try to completely ban guns every time limitations on gun ownership are brought up?
A death (of our rights to own firearms) by a thousand cuts is still a death...
Put another way. Take a personal liberty away in one swoop and people will complain. Slowly erode it over a period of decades and the 'shortsighted' among us will say "it is just a little cut, get over it". Then you wake up one day and realize that it is all gone and wonder to yourself how you got there.
"Those Who Would Sacrifice Liberty for Security Deserve Neither." -Franklin
Re:Quibbling perhaps, but illustratitive (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, I don't want to be treated like a criminal every time I buy a new gun. Waiting periods for people who already own are equally stupid: as I said, I own 20 guns. Believe me, I could do any nefarious thing you're trying to prevent with my existing collection.
Computers can be used in crimes too (hacking, and even OMG teh terrorism!?!? these days). Would you feel it justified if you had to go through a psych eval, background check, and 3 week waiting period every time you bought a motherboard?
Lastly, there is no "gun show loophole". It's a myth. Every dealer at a gunshow has to perform background checks just like they would in a store. PRIVATE sales at gun shows don't have to do these, but then again private sales don't need them anywhere (at least in gun friendly states - there are exceptions), gunshow or not (as it should be. If I want to sell a gun to a friend then there's no reason the government should get involved in that).
Re:Quibbling perhaps, but illustratitive (Score:5, Informative)
Gee, I dunno.
http://www.controlarms.org/ [controlarms.org]
http://www.bradychamppaign.org/ [bradychamppaign.org]
"If it were up to me,I would tell Mr. and Mrs. America to turn them in--turn them all in." -Dianne Feinstein
Re:Quibbling perhaps, but illustratitive (Score:4, Informative)
Why is it that a certain segment of the gun-owning populace immediately jumps to the conclusion that there's some grand-scale movement to try to completely ban guns every time limitations on gun ownership are brought up?
Maybe it is because there is.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/april2007/2 00407banguns.htm
http://www.gunscholar.org/gunban.htm
http://vgoc.org/VGOCNov04.pdf
Re:Quibbling perhaps, but illustratitive (Score:5, Interesting)
> movement to try to completely ban guns every time limitations on gun ownership are brought up?
Oh I dunno, perhaps because there IS such a grand scale movement? There were only two things certain when the VT shooting story broke, that Sarah Brady was racing to the closest sat uplink and that it would be a mad scramble to see who would get to interview her first. Sen Schumer was even honest enough to admit he still wants more gun control but that since the Democrats have figured out they lose seats every time they try it that he wasn't going to start a new push and hose the chance to take the White House. So yes, they still want our guns; they just want the White House more.
> I think the great majority of the country (even the blue states) is okay with gun-ownership in the hands of responsible adults, but
> there should be certain barriers before being allowed to purchase a gun. Psychological evaluations....
Oh that makes me feel so much better. No I don't have the inalienable Right to Keep and Bear, but if I'll submit to hours of abuse at the hands of some government hack, pay out the ass, and generally jump through as many hoops as it takes for the last pantiwaist to feel 'comfortable' I'll be granted a License to buy a weapon... after I agree to keep it unloaded and locked away in a vault.
Listen up cornholio, that sort of unreason just doesn't fly. The 2nd is either just as much part of the social contract or the 1st won't hold either. Hell, look how much abuse #1 has been taking lately at the hands of the same preening pansy elitists. No, ordinary people aren't safe to be entrusted with Free Speech, only the government can decide who can speak near elections.
Or how about we just recast your silly statement:
I think the great majority of the country (even the blue states) is okay with media licenses in the hands of responsible adults, but there should be certain barriers before being allowed to purchase a purchase a newspaper or TV station. Psychological evaluations (especially for a license to blog or post anonymous), a background check, and a mandatory waiting period without any Internet loopholes seem perfectly reasonable to me. It's not something I feel particularly strong about, but I also don't see any reason media licenses should be 100% easy to obtain.
After all, the pen IS mightier than the sword... or the gun. Dan Rather with a gun might could cap one or two people before he was gunned down by the police as the mad dog he is. But with a irresponsible lying Pen he damned near got to pick the leader of the Free World. Tell me guns should be licensed while irresponsible journalists are free to operate without the slightest safeguards against the danger they can present to society.
But in the end it comes down to two competing visions of what society should be. In mine government derives it's just powers from the People. The People are generally sane, trustworthy people who are capable of self government. I trust my neighbor with a ballot so I have no problem with trusting him with a gun cabinet. And then there is the vision of the gun control gang.
Re:Quibbling perhaps, but illustratitive (Score:5, Insightful)
Only because of the eternal vigilence of the NRA, Gun Owners of America, etc. Personally I resent feeling obligated to pay the NRA $35 per year to have them remind congresscritters that there are consequences for attempting to violate our "SELF EVIDENT, INALIENABLE RIGHTS." In a sane world it would be the least of our problems. But we live in a world where Democratic Socialists are allowed to roam freely, teach our children, vote and even hold elective office. Sooner or later we have to come to the sad realization that allowing people who are philosophically opposed to representitive government to participate in one is suicidal. We have avoided the end product of that mistake that other nations have suffered (one man, one vote, one time) by some miracle, but one must wonder for how much longer our luck can hold.
> It is very difficult to kill someone with a pen. A gun, on the other hand...
There are a few hundred million people in shallow graves around the world who's ghosts would like to shout at you and call you unprintable names... but they are dead so I'll just call you a fool. A gun is only a tool, it is the hand that holds it that is important and that hand is moved by a mind. Who controls that mind controls the gun, and it is words that control (hearts and) minds.
> Do you really want mentally-ill violent ex-cons able to buy guns legally?
No. But since I don't want mentally ill violent criminals on the streets in general I could care less whether they can buy guns. If they are in mental hospitals or prisons the point is moot, and if they are on the street whether they kill me with a blunt instrument, a legal pistol or one bought from their drug dealer is of minor importance since the common thread there is I'm dead.
On the other hand, once an ex-con has completed his probation/parole/etc they SHOULD be restored to full citizenship, including the right to bear arms and vote. If the idea isn't that they have repaid their debt and are a ready to be a member of society again we should be keeping em in prison.
> If not, then those who aren't mentally-ill or ex-cons will have to agree to submit to certain checks to
> ascertain which group they belong to.
Ok, how about a compromise. Showing a voter registration card should be sufficient proof of fitness to buy a weapon since a ballot is more dangerous. After all the insane/etc aren't supposed to be voting either. So instead of building two parallel systems why not just the one? Oh, I forgot, violent felons and illegal aliens need to be able to vote because they tend to vote for Democrats.
Democracy vs Republic vs 2nd Amendment (Score:3, Interesting)
Remember that we are not a Democracy, we have a Constuitional Republic based on the idea that we have inalianable rights. Now with that out of the way we come to the core of your argument. Could We The People, acting through our elected representitves violate the 2nd Amendment? No. That is why we have a Constituition, to prevent us from descending into mob rule. If we were really hell bent on such a wicked and s
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
A magazine is enclosed. All the bullets are inside of it. These are the things you see on TV.
A clip is a length of metal retainer that bullets slide onto. It holds them in a row and feeds into (my opinion) antiquated weapons. Picture: http://www.swissrifles.com/ammo/comparison.jpg [swissrifles.com]
There are also belts (like rambo used) and drums (which
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
There's now rumors that maps of American schools have been found on computers in Iraq owned by terrorist cells. We may very well see a large-scale attack on our schools soon, thanks to our policy of disarmament, which obviously worked so well for the single madman at VT.
Re:ebay? Ugh. (Score:4, Funny)