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Virginia Tech Report Cites Privacy Law Problems

Posted by samzenpus on Thu Jun 14, 2007 04:04 AM
from the pass-the-buck dept.
Privacy News
RickRussellTX writes "A panel of Bush administration officials, including several bureau chiefs, concludes that confusing privacy laws contributed to the Virgina Tech shootings. The report claims that confusion over student privacy and medical privacy laws "has limited the ability of these officials to prevent the kind of violence that occurred at Virginia Tech.""
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[+] Games: Games Had Nothing To Do With V. Tech Shooting 99 comments
GamesIndustry.biz is reporting that an inquiry into the Virginia Tech shooting in April of this year has revealed no connection whatsoever to videogames. The shooter's lack of interest in violent gaming was widely reported among game news sites at that time in the year, despite the exploration of the idea on cable television news. The official report, filed with the governor of the state, lays that 'motive' to rest. From the article: "The report, which includes a mental health history of the shooter, Seung Hui Cho, notes that during his childhood he had 'played videogames like Sonic the Hedgehog,' yet 'none of the videogames were war games or had violent themes.' This flies in the face of statements made on Fox TV news by Jack Thompson in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, which laid the blame for the incident firmly at the door of videogames."
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  • Is it just me (Score:5, Insightful)

    by JamesRose (1062530) on Thursday June 14 2007, @04:10AM (#19502575)
    Or Does that translate as "We're going to review privacy policy" which is bush talk for "We're going to remove any of your rights to privacy under the name of virginia tech and anyone who complaigns is helping the murderers. Just a thought.

    I know I'm being very pessimistic, but it's necessary with this goverment, they removed my rights to be anything else.

    • Re:Is it just me (Score:5, Insightful)

      by clickclickdrone (964164) on Thursday June 14 2007, @04:18AM (#19502611) Homepage
      You hit the nail on the head. As another poster noted, you can't stop this sort of thing. If you have x million guns in circulation and population/y disafffected people, it's going to happen.
      What this is instad is the government spotting an opportunity to shove through some more legislation that at any other time would be unpalatable but can be got through on a tide of 'we must do something!' sentiment from Joe Public.
      I suggest everyone watches the 3 parter BBC program 'The Power of Nightmares' which while primarily about the West's handling of the rise of Islamic Fundementalism, it does show clearly how the governments around the world manipulate public opinion in an alarming way to get to an endpoint they desire.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by dintech (998802)
        it does show clearly how the governments around the world manipulate public opinion in an alarming way to get to an endpoint they desire.

        But what I can't understand is why they want to get this endpoint in the first place. Why does the state need so much control when it can so easily be voted out within 4 years? It just doesn't make any sense.

        • Re:Is it just me (Score:5, Interesting)

          by clickclickdrone (964164) on Thursday June 14 2007, @06:08AM (#19503121) Homepage
          It depends how paranoid you like to be. If you take the long term view there is an argument that people in power want to keep that power and if it needs to be done in stages ie. voted out this time, back in next time, so be it. A scared population is a compliant one and if there's no bogyman, it's a good idea to invent one. You'd really need to see the program as it's quite a complex series of steps to get to where we are now.

        • Re:Is it just me (Score:4, Interesting)

          by smitty_one_each (243267) * on Thursday June 14 2007, @06:17AM (#19503165) Homepage Journal

          Why does the state need so much control when it can so easily be voted out within 4 years?
          Precedent.
          As you slide the Overton window [wikipedia.org], people become acclimated to whatever arguably wrongheaded idea you want to implement.
          Just to drop an example, it is practically impossible to float a serious policy question along the lines of "should the federal government tax the income of individual citizens?".
          Regardless of your opinion of whether a more states-rights approach would make sense the IRS is here to stay. "The savage civil servant's beady eyes"[1] glow with pleasure at the thought of shaping public behavior through tax policy. The change of administration, like a shift of wind at sea, has no effect on the current below the whitecaps.
          However, Al Gore's little internet invention may become a feedback loop to restore some liberty, if http://porkbusters.org/ [porkbusters.org] has any impact.

          [1]http://www.google.com/musics?lid=8yCLpO47IjD&ai d=SJuXU29t9uD&sid=SiGK3i_JPcK [google.com]

        • Re:Is it just me (Score:4, Insightful)

          by grassy_knoll (412409) on Thursday June 14 2007, @10:06AM (#19505651) Homepage

          Why does the state need so much control when it can so easily be voted out within 4 years?


          Bill Hicks [wikiquote.org] might have been onto something:

          "I'll show you politics in America. Here it is, right here. "I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs." "I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking." "Hey, wait a minute, there's one guy holding out both puppets!""

          It doesn't matter that the politicians are voted out every 4 years if someone else, representing the same interests, is voted in.

      • Re:Is it just me (Score:5, Insightful)

        by bl8n8r (649187) on Thursday June 14 2007, @06:42AM (#19503317)
        > If you have x million guns in circulation and population/y disafffected people, it's going to happen.

        If you have x million disafffected people in circulation, it's going to happen.

        Guns have little to do with motive. Motive is what should be dealt with; if the goal is to keep this from happening again.

          • Re:Is it just me (Score:4, Insightful)

            by fyrewulff (702920) on Thursday June 14 2007, @07:06AM (#19503467)
            Yes, but how many armed robberies were commited with other weapons? Knives? Swords? Bats? Hand? etc?

            Removal of gun crime != removal of overall crime. It just shifts it to other categories.

            • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

              by EMeta (860558)
              I would personally rather see lots of bat crime rather than a little gun crime. Unless you're extraordinarily big, or rather unlucky, you have to really mean it to kill someone with a bat. Or even a knife for that matter. With a gun you just have to be distracted.

              And as far as swords go, how much cooler would it be if we had sword toting bad guys instead of gun toting ones? If our nightly cop dramas (or mob dramas) had lots of guys pulling katanas or rapiers at each other?

              But on a more practical lev

              • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

                by CasperIV (1013029)

                I would personally rather see lots of bat crime rather than a little gun crime. Unless you're extraordinarily big, or rather unlucky, you have to really mean it to kill someone with a bat. Or even a knife for that matter. With a gun you just have to be distracted. And as far as swords go, how much cooler would it be if we had sword toting bad guys instead of gun toting ones? If our nightly cop dramas (or mob dramas) had lots of guys pulling katanas or rapiers at each other? But on a more practical level,

                • He really should've known that. I mean, come on, who hasn't heard of the Sumo Killings of 1985?

                  The worst part is that the killer is still at large.

                  *badum-ching!*

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by n3tcat (664243)
      If this were a perfect representative democracy, we'd not have to worry about this. Basically they would say "The laws were too sketchy. We're going to make things very clear in favor of privacy, but with defined lines to allow the government to know exactly what it can and cannot do."

      However with the past few years having been as bad as they were, I wouldn't be surprised if something similar to what you are suggesting comes true.
    • is that this is really a VERY rare thing to occur. And yet, it is certain that W. will use this to pry open the laws to allow the feds to see more about us (think patriot act) and he will be backed by both major parties. Few will have the courage to stand up and say that this is lose of rights is not worth the numbers of freak occurrence. And yet, these same ppl will use the argument that 1000's of American lives and 100K of Iraq lives was worth getting rid of Saddam. And overall, America will fall for it.

    • Nope, not just you: Re:Is it just me (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 14 2007, @05:16AM (#19502883)

      Or Does that translate as "We're going to review privacy policy" which is bush talk for "We're going to remove any of your rights to privacy under the name of virginia tech and anyone who complaigns is helping the murderers. Just a thought.

      I know I'm being very pessimistic, but it's necessary with this goverment, they removed my rights to be anything else.


      Actually, you have it pretty close. It is House, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) and other working on a bill in the house to collect medical/mental health records of ALL people, not just gun owners.
      see http://tinyurl.com/23cgqn [tinyurl.com]

      Under the bill, states voluntarily participating in the system would have to file an audit with the U.S. attorney general of all the criminal cases, mental health adjudications and court-ordered drug treatments


      Yup, a nice large federal database of anyone who has ever had a mental health issue.
      So now anyone with a mental health issue who needs help will be forever in a federal database. This will only DISCOURAGE people who need help from seeking treatment.
      How will this make us safer??????

      PLEASE please please call your congress critter and let them know you appose this...
      This is about your rights, stand up for them.
      Thank you

      • This will only DISCOURAGE people who need help from seeking treatment.

        No. This database will hold information from "mental health adjudications". When you choose to go see a pshrink, or check yourself into a clinic, that is not an adjudication. When the cops talk you down from a ledge and Baker Act you for 72 hours, and you are ordered by a judge into a treatment program, that is a mental health adjudication. This bill cannot discourage the seeking of voluntary mental health care.

        • "When you choose to go see a pshrink, or check yourself into a clinic, that is not an adjudication. When the cops talk you down from a ledge and Baker Act you for 72 hours, and you are ordered by a judge into a treatment program, that is a mental health adjudication. This bill cannot discourage the seeking of voluntary mental health care."

          Maybe the guy on the ledge was up there because he didn't understand this distinction, and would rather be dead than in another database.

  • prevent? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by joe 155 (937621) on Thursday June 14 2007, @04:11AM (#19502581) Journal
    "has limited the ability of these officials to prevent the kind of violence that occurred at Virginia Tech.""

    You can't prevent this sort of thing. It really is impossible. Unless, that is, you want to start treating people who haven't committed a crime but seem a bit "different" as criminally insane. But you'd have to lock them up forever, because if you steal someones life and then let them go... well, he'd be more pissed off than ever before - if he even could do something like these shootings you should bet your arse this would trigger it off.

    I suspect that the response will be what we can usually expect from pretty much any government though, "this generates bad headlines, "THINK OF THE CHILDREN!" generates good headlines regardless of the consequences, therefore we should do the whole think of the children thing to an even greater degree". And if they do remove a large section of privacy from people - especially if they go as far as to interfere with doctor/patient privacy - then you can expect more shootings as people who could have been stopped with help and support are forced back upon themselves.

    • Privacy law problems?? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by olden (772043) on Thursday June 14 2007, @04:45AM (#19502755)
      Agreed. Blaming, even partially, "privacy laws" for this massacre is just plain dishonest.
      (if anything, the problem with privacy laws is that they're facing extinction)

      Snippets from a news report written shortly after the tragedy:
      "A medical examination found that (...) [Cho's] insight and judgment are normal"
      "Although Cho's writings were disturbing, mental health professionals say the student's behavior didn't reach the threshold that would have demanded more aggressive intervention."
      "You can't do anything unless there's imminent risk that's somewhat foreseeable to take away someone's civil rights"
      (source: http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/19/student.counselin g/ [cnn.com] )

      Seems clear to me that no sharing of medical information with law enforcement would have helped here.

    • Re:prevent? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 14 2007, @05:04AM (#19502833)
      You really want to stop something like this? How about actually stepping in when you see somebody picking on someone they perceive as "different"? How about forcing schools to mete out real punishment for bullying? How about trying to reach out to those who get picked on?

      I'm not condoning Cho's actions, but you know something that both Cho and the Columbine shooters had in common? They all were picked on by popular kids so the kids could feel better about themselves, and the schools either explicitly or implicitly condoned this behavior. I used to be picked on all the time in elementary and middle school(fortunately in my own high school those immature people who did that were crowded out by more mature people, but I realize this is the exception rather than the rule) and you know what, it really, really sucked. Not to mention I was going through a lot of other problems, much like Cho was. Most people find creative outlets for their pent up anger, but some cannot. The best thing is to make them realize that the world isn't full of arrogant assholes, but alas this is America, where the arrogant assholes reign supreme(look at the White House and most board rooms)....

      • Re:prevent? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Dragonslicer (991472) on Thursday June 14 2007, @06:33AM (#19503267)

        For example, the article points out that he was supposed to be denied a gun due to his psychiatric diagnosis but the info was never forwarded from Virginia to the federal database.
        If there are already laws that would have prevented the person from legally purchasing a gun, why is the government focusing on passing new laws to remove even more citizens' rights instead of doing something to enforce the existing laws?

  • well (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mastershake_phd (1050150) on Thursday June 14 2007, @04:17AM (#19502603) Homepage
    Complicated privacy laws have left education, health care, and law enforcement officials confused about what they can legally tell one another concerning dangerous and mentally ill people, and that confusion has limited the ability of these officials to prevent the kind of violence that occurred at Virginia Tech, according to a federal report released today.
     
    Well should everyone who acts a little bit out of the ordinary end up on some list? Should their picture be in every squad car? Sure its easy to say, hey this kid was weird and unstable and someone should have seen it, but people say that about a lot of people. Freedom is dangerous and living in a police / nanny state isnt any safer / more desirable.

  • diagnosis (Score:5, Interesting)

    by symes (835608) on Thursday June 14 2007, @04:24AM (#19502641) Journal
    Cho had barn-door schizophrenia, from what I've read no one would doubt be had some pretty serious mental health issues. However, there will always be schizophrenics in the community and a great number will do nothing more serious than a bit of mumbling, etc.. Spotting the very few who will become violent (having had little of no prior history, a very rare breed) and pose risk to others is enormously difficult and takes a great deal of experience. Coupled with the problems of getting it wrong, basically curtailing someones future, stigmatizing them indefinitely, etc., when they haven't actually committed a crime I can understand why clinicians are reluctant to act without very definite evidence this person will harm others. So with Cho, I can understand why no one did anything...

    The issue of prohibiting access to firearms is moot - if he hadn't had access to a gun he probably would have used a sword, or a knife, or burned a few buildings down, etc.. The point is, he was dangerous and the only reasonable form of prevention would have been to remove him from society - but the risk of false positives probably means all the hand wringing in the world will not stop another Cho.

    • Re:diagnosis (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Cadallin (863437) on Thursday June 14 2007, @05:20AM (#19502899)
      The Virginia Tech shooting may have been unpreventable, but that doesn't mean that our mental health system in the USA isn't shit. There were definitely signs that Cho was dangerously unstable, with the potential for violent behavior. Another thing I think is amazing is how often schizophrenia goes undiagnosed, at least in my area. I have a personal friend who works in the Public Defender's Office, he has very little psychological training, a Psych minor as an undergrad, but he regularly encounters clients who have a simple diagnosis of Depression, that just interviewing them, he can tell something much more serious is wrong with them (apparently, a client who has difficulty focusing on an interview because he's "talking to the voices" is a very good sign, imagine! These are clients that have seen multiple counselors, and none of them noticed anything!). He then requests a Psych eval from a Clinical Psychiatrist, he has a very good success rate at guessing what comes up in diagnoses.

      It is frightening to me that these people just slip through the cracks, with some of them caught by somebody not even in the field. It angers me because I think society has an obligation to take better care of these people, if only for the safety of society at large.

      • Re:diagnosis (Score:4, Informative)

        by vorpal^ (114901) on Thursday June 14 2007, @05:47AM (#19503023) Homepage Journal
        Keep in mind that some high-functioning schizophrenics are likely to deliberately lead mental health professionals to believe that they are not schizophrenic because of the possible consequences. My best friend works in mental health, and they are very adamant that their "clients" take their medications, which often have very distressing and unpleasant side effects. For a schizophrenic who is able to lead a moderately productive life, the medications will probably be worse than the schizophrenia itself, and thus they may seek to hide their condition.

  • Privacy and Violence Linked (Score:4, Funny)

    by Nymz (905908) on Thursday June 14 2007, @04:25AM (#19502647) Journal
    For example, linking to a private story that requires registration with the NYTimes could make anyone violent. On the up side, at least it's FREE EXCLUSIVE ONLINE ACCESS!!!

  • Chris Rock makes more sense than this (Score:5, Funny)

    by Seiruu (808321) on Thursday June 14 2007, @04:42AM (#19502735)
    Chris Rock: Bigger & Blacker (1999) (TV)

    Chris Rock: [On the US school shootings] Everybody is wanting to know what music were the kids listening to, or what movies were they watching. Who gives a fuck what they was watching! Whatever happened to crazy? What, you can't be crazy no more? Should we eliminate crazy from the dictionary?

    Chris Rock: Everybody is talking about gun control. Got to control the guns. Fuck, that, I like guns. If you've got a gun, you don't need to work out! Cause, I ain't working out. I ain't jogging. No, I think we need some bullet control. I think every bullet should cost five thousand dollars. Five thousand dollars for a bullet. Know why? Cos if a bullet cost five thousand dollars, there'd be no more innocent by-standers. That'd be it. Some guy'd be shot you'd be all 'Damn, he must've done something, he's got fifty thousand dollars worth of bullets in his ass!' And people'd think before they shot someone 'Man I will blow your fucking head off, if I could afford it. I'm gonna get me a second job, start saving up, and you a dead man. You'd better hope I don't get no bullets on lay-away!' And even if you get shot you wouldn't need to go to the emergency room. Whoever shot you'd take their bullet back. 'I believe you got my property?'

  • That Old Familiar Feeling (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nobodyman (90587) on Thursday June 14 2007, @05:27AM (#19502931)
    Shortly after a national tragedy, the Bush administration is telling that it's that pesky notion of "privacy" that is getting in the way of protecting American lives. Had those privacy laws been "made less complicated", such a tragedy never would have happened. Or so they say. However, per the article

    After having made suicidal comments in December 2005, Mr. Cho was ordered by a judge to receive outpatient treatment on campus. But his condition does not seem to have been tracked afterward, and he does not seem to have received any treatment when he returned to campus.

    Cho's treatment wasn't tracked or enforced due to Budget constraints. Privacy laws had nothing to do with it. In fact, privacy rights are only an issue now because the state panel panel investigating the tragedy wants access to Cho's records.
    Its work has been hampered, however, because Mr. Cho's medical and academic records are protected under state and federal privacy laws and because relatives of the victims have threatened legal action against the panel for not permitting them to participate in its investigation.

    In other words, privacy laws only became a sticking point after the fact. Relaxing privacy laws would have done nothing to prevent this tragedy.

    Once again Bush hides behind dead bodies to conceal his effort to destroy civil liberties. I swear, this man hasn't a single shred of human decency. Not a shred!!!

  • The state of Mental Health in the USA (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Stalyn (662) on Thursday June 14 2007, @05:57AM (#19503059) Homepage Journal
    I think what this incident reveals is the disastrous state of Mental Health in the United States. Mental illness is poorly understood by the public at large and trying to get access to health care for treatment is very difficult. Cho had many of the symptoms of a major mental illness yet he did not receive proper treatment. If anything his peers and teachers only worsened his condition by isolating him and feeding his paranoia.

    Also if a person is eventually diagnosed trying to get the right medication and therapy without health care insurance can be a daunting task. While many of these people need immediate care, applying for public services is a very difficult and long process. Sadly I think this report will not result in a better Mental Health system but rather a system that profiles and stigmatizes those who suffer from mental illness.

  • Confused, or looking for a power grab? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by davidwr (791652) on Thursday June 14 2007, @06:33AM (#19503273) Homepage Journal
    Were the laws really unclear, or were they just "inadequate?"

    It's one thing if the laws are unclear or ambiguous. Clarify them so the original intent is clear.

    On the other hand if you are trying to "close loopholes" remember those "loopholes" are there for a reason.

    If a few dozen deaths every few years is the price for medical privacy for the millions who have mental illnesses, it's worth it.

    To put things in perspective, many more people are killed each year by drunk drivers, yet there's no move to ban recovering alcoholics from driving. As any AA member will tell you, tomorrow could be the day they fall off the wagon.

  • Ok, the article, IMO, was crap (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bryan1945 (301828) on Thursday June 14 2007, @06:45AM (#19503335) Journal
    It barely talked about privacy. More about budget constraints. Little follow up after initial treatment. And short of putting this guy behind bars, I fairly doubt that therapy would have helped this kid.

    I really feel for VaTech. I was at Penn State's main campus when some nut went nuts and shot at a bunch of people. Luckily it was done in the biggest open area at PSU (HUB lawn) and it was around 6 AM or so. We (Penn Staters) got lucky. VaTech didn't.

    There are privacy laws, but I believe almost all of them if there are indications of suicidal or homicidal behavior in the subject. The article mentioned that this guy had already tried to commit suicide. To me, it seems that overburdened "officials"/"therapists"/whatever just pushed him through the system just to reduce backlog. Of course, there is not a lot of background yet, so.... I dunno.

    But why does the Prez and Congress need to get into this? Why, PUBLICITY and PROTECT THE CHILDREN! (asswipes, politicians, not the children) Big national event, now it is time for the useless slugs in DC to mug for the camera. Apparently a whole bunch of different people knew about this wacko, but no one did anything about it. So if they (medical folks) had a big pow-wow, they would have a big "Oh geez, he may need help" ("but is it in the budget")? As if any single one of them couldn't figure out he probably needed a bit more help. You have to have a single point of saying toss him into an institution. Ever watch a trial? 2 shrinks, 1 on each side, opposite opinions. How is communication between groups going to help? They'll spend even MORE time arguing with each other. And probably more for ego than actual disagreements.

    Anyway, to summarize, this really has nothing to do with privacy, all about how the health field is overburdened, how the field is pushing poeple through, and all about politicians wanting to puff their chests.

    But, hey, just my 1/4 of a hogshead.

  • One major problem IS the guns... (Score:3)

    by gweihir (88907) on Thursday June 14 2007, @08:03AM (#19503937)
    Of course you can kill people by other means. But not in these numbers. Ever tried to murder 40 people with an axe or a kitchen knife? Does not sound to probable, does it. People can fight back successfully against other weapons, they can gang-up on the weapon wielders, police can immediately go in to stop the attackers (they have guns after all) and it takes real effort to kill somebody with other weapons.

    Guns make it possible for people without commando-training to kill a lot of others in a short time and with little effort. Because of this amplification property, guns are direcly responsible for, say, 80%-90% of the deaths in mass shootings. Maybe more. This fact is conveniently glossed over by the gun nuts. Sure, "Not guns kill people, people do". Exactly right. But guns make it far, far to easy to do it in the large.

    Of course guns are not the only problem. If you marginalize a large part of your population, many will kill themselves, and some will just decide not to go alone. There is a price to pay for dropping those that have bad luck or are not too capable like trash, as US society does.

    • Re:Privacy shcmivacy (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Affenkopf (949241) on Thursday June 14 2007, @04:44AM (#19502745)

      No. Free circulation of guns contributed to the Virgina Tech shootings. These kind of things just don't happen in countries that have sane gun laws, privacy laws or not.


      Really?
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erfurt_massacre [wikipedia.org]
      Blaiming guns for crazy people is just as wrong as blaming privacy laws.
      • Too add to that: it wouldn't be as if crazy people haven't used other methods that were equally or more destructive. Yes, a guy with a gun is worse than a knife, etc... but what about a bomb?

        How about if Mr. Nutcase decides he's going to find some instructions online, then grab a bunch of fertilizer and make a little home-made explosives, then plant them near a gas pipe or something else in a building full of those he dislikes (or a random target, insane people don't make rational decisions after all). Woul

    • Re:Privacy shcmivacy (Score:4, Insightful)

      by maxwells_deamon (221474) on Thursday June 14 2007, @04:48AM (#19502771) Homepage
      Really. What country has sane gun laws? Japan? Australia?

      I am not saying US gun laws make sense 100% but in this case I think they can not be blamed.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spree_killer [wikipedia.org]

    • Re:Privacy shcmivacy (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Speedracer1870 (1041248) on Thursday June 14 2007, @05:16AM (#19502877)
      Yes, yes... While you're at it, please take away the rest of the Constitution. Free speech can be dangerous; it may hurt someone's feelings. Maybe if someone on the campus had a gun they would have popped a cap in him and lives would have been saved. THINK OF THE CHILDREN!
      • Maybe if someone on the campus had a gun they would have popped a cap in him and lives would have been saved.

        Yes ! The lone hero would have shot the crazy gunman, just like in the movies !

        On the other hand, if there had been dozens, or hundreds, of terrified and confused people with guns on the campus, the shooter wouldn't have had to shoot anyone himself. Just create a scare and watch everyone shooting anyone else who has drawn their gun (or whom they suspect to have drawn a gun, or might draw a gun).

          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by Dunbal (464142)
            It is a social problem.

            Yes, people will always try to kill each other.

            However your chances of surviving a hit with a blunt object, or a stab with a knife, are FAR greater than surviving a gunshot.

            In countries with tight gun control, overall violence is pretty much the same. Mortality, however, is FAR lower.

            Yes criminals will have the guns. Even if you take the guns away, they'll have knives, or SOME sort of weapon. After

              • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

                by Dunbal (464142)
                So, if you're that victim... guess it just sucks to be you, eh?

                      Yes it does. And if you rewrite the laws and create a police state, people will STILL get killed. So please, don't use this as an excuse to "change the world".

    • Re:Privacy shcmivacy (Score:4, Insightful)

      by davmoo (63521) on Thursday June 14 2007, @05:28AM (#19502933)
      Really?

      Would you please explain to me why, then, London England is having a problem with a rise in shootings? Guns are *far* more controlled there than in the US, so they should have no problem, right?

      A proper and complete reply to your post can actually be stated in just two words...

      Horse shit.

    • No. Free circulation of guns contributed to the Virgina Tech shootings. These kind of things just don't happen in countries that have sane gun laws, privacy laws or not.


      You're right. Over here, where we have sane gun laws, kids just cook up home made bombs instead.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by MollyB (162595) *
      The first sentence of your post appears not to actually be one, at least I can't find the predicate [wikipedia.org].

      But the reason I'm replying is that you seem to have an omniscient view of how to fix gun violence. You posit unlikely scenarios in place of reasoned argument. I shiver to think what would happen if government tries to "protect" everything and everybody from every imagined danger. Have you heard of the Law of Unintended Consequences?

      I'm still marveling over the idea of an "unreloadable-by-the-owner handgun".

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Kymri (1093149)
      The idea of an 'unreloadable by the owner' gun is ludicrous. For one thing, how on earth are you going to expect the owner of this 'wonderful' piece of technology to be able to get enough practice to be able to reasonably hit what he needs to? After all, he's only got ten shots before he has to go back to town!

      That and, if it's only reloadable by a factory/technician/expensive-and-heavy machine... how do you unload it to render it safe, perhaps for storage? If you're going in to town because you used it

    • Re:Slashdot Asplode (Score:5, Insightful)

      by bwalling (195998) on Thursday June 14 2007, @07:19AM (#19503551) Homepage

      Tell me again why "personal" information should not be "free" as in speech?
      Because we have a right to privacy. It's real and it serves a real purpose. In case you missed history, people in power have a strong tendency to abuse that power and the population needs means to protect themselves from that. It's the reason we were given the right to have guns. It's the reason the government can't just collect private information and go trolling through it at will. We've been lucky so far in that the courts don't seem nearly as crazy as the politicians. Sometimes the courts are crazy, but the politicians are crazy pretty much all the time.

    • Imagine this (Score:5, Insightful)

      by OzPeter (195038) on Thursday June 14 2007, @07:42AM (#19503749)
      1. Gunman comes to your location and squuezes off a few rounds.
      2. Random student A sees this happens.
      3. Random student B is around the corner and only hears it happen.
      4. In the name of pubic service random student A whips out his large caliber hand gun and squeezes off a shot at the Gunman, wounding him/her
      5. Random student B now comes around the corner with guns drawn and sees both Gunman and Random Student A with smoking handguns in their hands, and the Gunman suffering from a wound.

      Questions:

      1. Who does Random student B shoot at?
      2. Whats sort of lawsuit would Random Student B face for killing Random Student A?
      3. Students A and B are teenagers. How excitable are teenagers?
      4. How does the response scale up from 1 Gunman and 2 Random Students, to 1 Gunman and 50 Random students running around with guns? Note that the majority of the students will be acting independently, but multiple students acting together has been a tactic used in a previous school shooting.
      5. What does law enforcement do when confronted with this situation? (Hint: See question 2)
      6. Given studies have shown that even trained soldiers can have trouble firing at living humans, why should non-military trained civilians suddenly be able to throw aside all qualms about doing so? Or should first person shooter games be required study when getting a gun license?
      7. Assuming that all people now carry guns to protect against rare forms of crime (ie school shootings), how will turning all civilians into people wth no qualms about killing change society? In your reply compare/contrast shootings with other more common forms of anti social behaviour such as "road rage'.
         
      • Nice straw men we've got lined up here ;-)

        Q1. Who does Random student B shoot at?

        A1. No one. It's my opinion that when confronted with this situation RS B will either save his own skin or (at most) call 911 from his cell. You don't normally see people running to join in a bar fight and those folks have all had a couple of drinks and aren't using deadly force against each other ;-)

        Q2. Whats sort of lawsuit would Random Student B face for killing Random Student A?

        A2. That depends on whether a reasonable person exercising due care would have killed RS A. If RS A had his gun pointed in RS B's direction it would be reas

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