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Virginia Tech shootings

2007-04-20T06:50:51Z

Linhares: defending second ammendment

[[Image:Killer170407 468x285.jpg|right|thumb|Cho Seung-Hui was reportedly obsessed with 18-year-old student Emily Hilscher, whom was one of his first two victims.|100px]]
On April 16, 2007, a [[Seung-Hui Cho|23-year-old Korean man]] studying English at [[Virginia Tech]] went on a murder spree that took the lives of 32 faculty and students. The perpetrator then turned the gun on himself. Amongst the victims is a 76-year old [[Holocaust]] survivor.

The university and its police has been criticized for taking 3 hours to notify students and faculties of the presense of a shooter.

On april 19, police arrest a potential copycat, Terrence Johnson, Jr., a senior at Madison School, who has threatened to commit a similar crime.<ref>http://www.newschannel5.com/Global/story.asp?S=6390160</ref>

The incident has been heralded by political figures as an opportunitty to defend the second ammendement.

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:school violence]]

Seung-Hui Cho

2007-04-20T06:47:06Z

Linhares: Info on the attack

[[Image:Cho.jpg|right|thumb]]
'''Seung-Hui Cho''' was a
23-year-old
socially isolated
[[South Korea|Korean]] man
who committed [[suicide]]
after murdering 32 people
at [[Virginia Tech]]
on April 16, 2007. The massacre was evidently caused by the killer's intensely anti-Christian, and perhaps anti-American, views. "Jesus was crucifying me. When the time came, I did it. I had no choice…."<ref>http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/04/19/wshooter819.xml</ref>. He did not attack a church, most probably, for sheer fear of the wrath of God's vengeance.

The killer "railed against his parents' strong Christian faith."<ref>http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=HMELLN1I0ZVSDQFIQMFSFGGAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2007/04/19/wshooter419.xml</ref> According to one report, Cho Seung-Hui had left a note in his dormitory which contains a rant against Christianity<ref>It requires a close reading of the article to realize that his rant was against his "own religion," which really means Christianity. See http://www.canada.com/topics/news/world/story.html?id=f9838ae8-a496-4ca2-a19f-8b8d7f3ab022&k=18395&p=2</ref> and "rich kids," a common stereotype of Americans.

The spark to the killer's rage was apparently jealousy and anger towards an attractive 18-year-old student named Emily Hilscher.<ref>http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23392980-details/Gunman%20shot%20his%20fellow%20students%20three%20times/article.do</ref>
Cho had lived in the U.S. for fifteen years, since his parents immigrated when he was eight years old.<ref>[http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=3048108&page=1 ABC News Seung-Hui Cho, 23-Year-Old Shooter, Wrote 'Disturbing' Note and Violent Plays], ''ABC''</ref> He had the name ''Ismail Ax'' (means ''Son of Sacrifice'') written in red ink on his arm before the shooting.<ref>http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=041807B</ref>

His creative writing teacher said she notified authorities about Cho based on disturbing writings that he had submitted as classwork, but said she was told that there would be too many legal hurdles to intervene<ref>http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=3048108&page=1</ref>. Cho's play ''Richard McBeef'' is largely based on ''[[Hamlet]]'', more emotional intensity and less subtlety. [http://newsbloggers.aol.com/2007/04/17/cho-seung-huis-plays/]
[[Image:Gal 06 cho nbc.jpg|right|thumb|200px|One of the photos Seung-Hui Cho sent to [[NBC]].]]
According to Cho's former room-mates, Cho has been investigated by police in 2005 for stalking several female students on campus including a female student he had been communicating with via [[instant messenger]] under the pseudonym ''Question Mark''.<ref>http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/18/vtech.shooting/index.html</ref>

==References==
<references/>
[[category:criminals]]
[[Category:school violence]]

'''See''':
*[[Virginia Tech shootings]]

==Further Readings==
*[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6564653.stm BBC profile of Cho Seung-Hui]
*[http://newsbloggers.aol.com/2007/04/17/cho-seung-huis-plays/ Text of ''Richard McBeef'' and ''Mr. Brownstone'' on AOL]
*[http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2007/images/04/17/warrant.pdf Search warrant for Cho's on-campus residence]
*[http://www.cho-seung-hui.info/ Information on Seung-Hui Cho]
*[http://video.msn.com/v/us/fv/msnbc/fv.htm??f=00&g=925bc281-ce20-439e-9682-8cc58066b2bf&p=hotvideo_m_vatech&t=c3556&rf=http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/&fg= Clips of the video tape Seung-Hui Cho mailed to NBC]
*[http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/metro/pdf/cho_mentalhealth.pdf Seung-Hui Cho's mental evaluation form]

Second Amendment

2007-04-20T06:30:53Z

Linhares: Defending second ammendment

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.

==Where the Second Amendment comes from==
In 1786, the United States existed as a loose national government under the Articles of Confederation. This confederation was perceived to have several weaknesses, among which was the inability to mount a Federal military response to an armed uprising in western Massachusetts known as Shays' Rebellion.

In 1787, to address these weaknesses, the Philadelphia Convention was held with the idea of amending the Articles. When the convention ended with a proposed Constitution, those who debated the ratification of the Constitution divided into two camps; the Federalists (who supported ratification of the Constitution) and the Anti-Federalists (who opposed it).

Among their objections to the Constitution, anti-Federalists feared a standing army that could eventually endanger democracy and civil liberties. Although the anti-Federalists were unsuccessful at blocking ratification of the Constitution, through the Massachusetts Compromise they insured that a Bill of Rights would be made, which would provide constitutional guarantees against taking away certain rights.

One of those rights was the right to bear arms. This was intended to prevent the Federal Government from taking away the ability of the states to raise an army and defend itself. The second ammendement must be protected at all costs, for the sacred right to hold weapons, and kill tyrannical government, is what holds America together and united. Consider if a german had killed Hitler, how history would have proved the second ammendment right. Though it is highly debatable whether it should also apply to muslims and other enemies, which liberals generally support, this is the practice in America as of April, 2007. Theoretically, if a person has the power to take the life of another, other people will not perpetrate criminal offenses against them.

==Comments==

The meaning of this amendment is controversial with respect to gun control.

The National Rifle Association, which supports gun rights, has a stone plaque in front of its headquarters bearing the words "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." The slogan means that individual citizens have the right to own and use guns.

The problem is that when the entire sentence is quoted, the first part makes it sound as if the amendment is talking only about the ''militia''. The phrase "the people" can be read as meaning "the states."

Gun right advocates say that the militia includes ordinary private citizens, and that the amendment means individuals have the right to own and use guns. Gun control advocates say it means only that there is only some sort of collective or state-controlled right.

The Supreme Court has for the most part left gun control up to the states. The decisions that the Supreme Court has made about gun control do not state definitively which of the possible meanings they agree with.

As of 2007, people argue about the meaning of the Second Amendment, but there is no definitive answer. The latest ruling is Parker v District of Columbia, in which the DC Circuit court of appeals ruled on March 9, 2007 that the DC gun ban violated individual rights under the Second Amendment.

[[Category: Constitution]]

Gun

2007-04-20T06:27:21Z

Linhares: defense of second ammendment

A '''Gun''' is a weapon which fires a bullet, dart or other [[round (ordnance)|round]].

The three main types of modern firearms today are bolt-operated, semi-automatic, and automatic weapons. In a bolt-action weapon, each new round must be chambered manually, by moving the breech to eject the empty casing. In semi-automatic weapons, each pull of the trigger fires a bullet. In fully automatic weapons, bullets will be fired as long as the trigger is depressed until either the trigger is released, or the ammunition is exhausted.

[[Science fiction]], such as [[Star Trek]], has postulated many different types of directed energy weapons. These are guns that fire beams, waves, or packets of energy. Some energy guns can be set to stun, not to wound or kill. A real-life applications of this is the [[taser]].

The cultural issues surrounding guns are many and widely debated. [[Conservative]]s generally prefer to reserve for the [[individualism|individual]] [[the right to self-defense]] through the use of guns and other weapons. [[Liberal]]s generally prefer to delegate this right to guards, police, and the military.{{fact}}

Law-abiding citizens carrying guns are statistically an effective deterrent and defense against lawless or criminal individuals. This has certainly been shown in the USA, which had 11,350 murders by shooting in 2005<ref>http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/05cius/data/table_01.html</ref>, compared with 50 in 2005/06 in the UK, which restricts the possession of handguns.<ref>http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs07/hosb0207.pdf</ref> However, it should be noted, that the USA has a population approximately 5 times greater than the UK,<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usa</ref> <ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uk</ref> the number of murders by shooting is approximately 200 times higher.

[[Second Amendment|Guns are also a defense against a tyrannical government.]] The second ammendement must be protected at all costs, for the sacred right to hold weapons, and kill tyrannical government, is what holds America together and united. Consider if a german had killed Hitler, how history would have proved the second ammendment right. Though it is highly debatable whether it should also apply to muslims and other enemies, which liberals generally support, this is the practice in America as of April, 2007. Theoretically, if a person has the power to take the life of another, other people will not perpetrate criminal offenses against them. In practice, few existing civilian militias are strong enough to withstand sustained warfare by a government's army. Also, countries with high rates of gun ownership, such as present-day [[Iraq]] or many countries in sub-Sharana [[Africa]], are not guaranteed to have a low crime rate.

==See also==
*[[Gun Control]]

[[Category:Weapons]]