BellaOnline Forums News and Politics Current Events Omaha Mall Shooting - Gun Control Debate

Following the horrific shooting at a mall in Omaha, many are calling for stricter gun control laws. Others say that a person as troubled as this teenage shooter would have found a gun regardless of the law, and that the answer is not to rescind our Constitutional right. I'd love to hear some debate on this!

Also, check out the latest article on Current Events:
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Update: Colorado church shooting. An armed security guard shot & killed a man who walked into a church and started shooting. Authorities say she (the guard) saved 50-100 lives.

The Omaha mall was a gun-free zone, so security guards were not allowed to carry weapons. Authorities say had guards been armed, lives could have been saved.

This is a topic that I have always felt very strongly about as I own guns myself and I hunt and like to go target shooting also. My seventeen year old daughter does too. Taking away the rights of honest citizens to own firearms never deters the bad guys from getting them. There is a reason it's called a black market.
People always find ways of getting what they are not supposed to have, it's only human nature, but a scary thought all the same.

It also shows the stupidity of the human race. When bad things happen which is just the way life is, and one person is responsible for taking human lives, why is it that all of a sudden, we need more gun control. Everyone in America wasn't standing there pulling the trigger. One person was.
The gun does not have a life of it's own. People pull the trigger. And having more gun control or taking away people's rights to own firearms does not in any way make your kids safer on the streets and that is the reality of it.

As a resident of the UK, I can only go by what I see in the media and on TV, so I am sure I cannot give a strictly accurate response, given that I have few facts, and those I have are probably distorted.

First of all, we have to look at the fundamental reasons as to why situations such as this one appear to be on the increase.
We'rwe talking the 'glamorous' projection of violence in films available to everyone and anyone, such as in films like MI 1/2/3, Resevoir Dogs, and many more, that if I mentioned them all, the list would never stop... The goodies usually win, and the baddies usually lose. Just like real life.

Secondly, the mental attitude, health and state of the perpetrators of these crimes. More than one situation has come to light, where the young person involved had a mental state that was seriously questionable. What, as a society, are we doing to produce such young men? And as far as I know, the perpetrators have, without exception, always so far been men or boys....
Thirdly, I agree in part with the above poster.
it takes a finger to pull a trigger, until then the weapon is just a conglomerate of metal and plastic parts...

But from my own personal point of view, I cannot fathom out the workings of a mind, who trained in design and technology, actually sits down at a drawing board, and thinks of, and designs a piece of equipment that is purposefully intended to do as much damage to another living being, as efficiently and destructively as possible. They wilfully sit down and devise the means of killing something or someone.

This is what I can't figure out.
What kind of mind would actually want to do that?

If there were no more weapons ever designed, manufactured and produced for distribution, well, that would be a start...

A toast to the weapons of war:
may they Rust in Peace.

Just my penny for my thoughts....

We technically do not have a right to bear arms as the Constitution reads. The forefathers were speaking militarilly(sp?) when they wrote this Amendment. They were talking about the states' individual rights to have an armed militia.

I guess that is a matter that will be decided before the Supreme Court coming up soon this year.
This argument has been a long standing one for a long time and up for many opinions and variations.
To each his own, as they say. But nonetheless, there is nothing wrong with a person owning a gun for hunting, for sport, etc.
or just to protect themselves.
Where would we as U.S. citizens be if we are totally disarmed and never allowed to own a firearm? We would be under totalitarian rule with no way to dispute anything and anyone who thinks otherwise is a fool.

Excuse me....The Uk has no such gun laws, and we're not under 'totalitarian rule with no way to dispute anything'....
In actual fact, the disintegration of our society here, is being partly blamed on our own country becoming 'Americanised'....
America is of course one of the most wonderful countries in the world, and one of the most powerful - but unfoprtunately, as they say, "With great Power comes Great Responsibility".... The insiduous influence of films, lifestyle, negative social attitudes (gang wars, rap, hoods,) that has come from the USA to the UK has done a great deal to erode our National identity and pride. When I meet young English boys, wandering around wearing their trousers (pants, to you) round thir hips, shufling along with their baseball caps on back to front, their hoods over their heads, making weird gestures with their hands and talking in AN AMERICAN ACCENT - " Yo whassup man, wha's goin' down, who you hangin with, brother? You dude I like yo [censored], be my dog man, be my dog, yaw'll" and they're from Dunstable..... Jeez! What on earth is going on?

'Postcode' wars (zipcodes, that is) and territorial gangland killings in London alone, have risen sharply here in the past two years....too many deaths this year of young teens getting caught up in disputes about simply where they live....

Guns and knives? "Right to bear Arms?" As someone said earlier, that has all been taken out of context.
Look at your Young, America. see how they are driving the Love of God out of the Nation, and replacing it with Fear and Violence.
Then tell me that Anarchy has not already hit your land....

Alexandra, that is the best written one I have seen yet and it did have me laughing. Because of your description of the boys and their language, which actually is true and you can find it even in the remotest native villages in Alaska. That's very true. We have it here. We're always mentioning about how they have forgotten their peoples' ways and adopted the ways of the hood and they dress the part too.
As for all of this on the right to keep and bear arms, and as I said, so many opinions and everyone is entitled to their own. I do not believe that gun control will have any effect on young americans. More laws and more restrictions do not stop crime, and it doesn't lower it either. There is a reason they call them criminals because they go around the laws and restrictions and do whatever it takes to get weapons. Yes, the UK has it's own laws, but they are an entirely different entity from The United States. And yes, the U.S. has it's fingers in all the wrong spots and should focus more on it's own people. That is true as well.
But the reality is that disarming honest Americans is wrong....
Just as is the freaking out of schools because a child brings a pair of nail clippers to school. To many people took all this terrorist stuff to a level of extreme paranoia.
Gun Control is wrong and there is no way on this planet that anyone will persuade me otherwise.
Just look at Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and Khumer Rouge regimes and how a tyrant and his evil will was forced upon an unarmed citizenry and many innocent lives were taken because they did not have the right to protect and defend their lives or the lives of their neighbors. Life is given to you by God and only God can take it, so with that in mind, why is it wrong for a person to defend themselves by whatever means up to and including private firearms? Here in Alaska, firearms are prevelant because a majority of our villages hunt to provide a subsistence lifestyle for their families. Do not look at an inanimate object, ie. firearms. Look at the reasons why people do the things they do. No faith in God, no pride in country, and bleak outlooks for the future, substance abuse, the list goes on and on.............

Guns are in the hands of the wrong people.