Stricter gun control needed for safety
Cho Seung-Hui should not have been able to buy a gun; however, he did. Not only that, but he bought a number of guns. The Virginia Tech shooter was suicidal and his mental state is well known.
This is a safe campus with no incidents of guns, since about three or four years ago. At that time, a couple of juveniles were loitering in the library when they should have been in school (not this school). One had a fake toy gun; however, since then there have been no reports of handguns.
On Wednesday of this week, a student brought a pocket knife to campus here at GCSU. However, it was assumed there was a gun involved. Later in the afternoon, news spread there was no gun involved.
However, if the individual in Wednesday’s incident at Sodexho had a gun, the situation would be another Virginia Tech shooter. All you need is a former patient of Central State or one of the five prisons (if they were arrested on a misdemeanor) in this town to drive a few miles to buy a handgun.
So why are mentally ill patients allowed to buy guns? The technology is constantly getting updated, it’s quick and easy to look up someone’s background. If you want to know about yourself, Google your name or ask for a background check on yourself from the Milledgeville P.D.
Yet, the owners of gun shops don’t check people’s backgrounds closely enough. Is it the stigma that’s attached to mentally incapacitated individuals such as Cho? He is just one of the many suicidal patients who can buy a gun and end the lives of 32 individuals.
It’s a scary thought to think someone could buy a handgun to kill someone else. However, by simply starting a bill in the State and/or U.S. House to do more thorough background checks on those individuals seem unstable to carry a gun of any sort, there could be a turning point. Gun control begins here. You can’t stop all Cho Seung-Hui’s , but it would be more difficult to have another Virginia Tech-type massacre.
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Posted by Colonnade Archives
on Apr 27 2007. Filed under Opinion.
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