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StrangerThan -> RE: Columbine....10 years after. (4/10/2009 7:47:51 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: slvemike4u
And what did you think of the editorial,after all that is the subject of the thread...not school bullying.
I think the editorial ignores the real issues and addresses the problems with a blanket approach that may reduce the actual number of deaths but not the violence. At the time, Columbine was an anomaly. Multiple killings no longer are an abberation. They're becoming common. Gun control might lessen the number of deaths but addressing this as a gun control thing ignores the underlying problems. It is treating the symptom rather than the disease. And if we don't address the disease, well, there are a lot more ways to cause mass death than a rifle or a handgun.
And in fact, many hunting rifles can function as a sniper rifle. It doesn't have to be some evil weapon designed for battlefield use. A standard 30.06 is the grand daddy of rounds in many ways. The basic 150 grain round you can buy in any gun shop is traveling close to 3000 feet per second straight out of the barrel and at 500 yards still is moving at over 1,600 feet per second. There are faster rounds on the market, more powerful rounds, but few as prevalent or as available or as cheap as a 30.06. The .308 isn't much more than a 30.06 cut down about half an inch. If that doesn't make much sense in terms of what bullets are available, think NATO rounds as the 7.62mm is basically a .308.
Guns have been around as long as the US has been a nation. What hasn't been around that long is frequent mass killings. Even the wild, wild west, where killing was common enough, missed this component if you except the treatment of Native Americans. Yes, there are examples. There always are. What there is not, is a consistently rising graph of folks who reached a breaking point and went out with no intention of anything else except slaying as many people as they could.
So why now? Well, that's the real issue, isn't it?
I think a more accurate discussion of the real problem would revolve around the why's, but that's just me. I'm not one of the I'm-ok-you're-ok people who think they can throw a blanket over a fire and it will go out, or who look to government to legislate everything in existence.
http://www.remington.com/products/ammunition/ballistics/ - all commercial rounds used in hunting situations. Assualt rifles are made for firing lots of rounds. Hunting rifles aren't. But in many cases they use the same basic bullets. The difference between a sniper rifle and a hunting rifle is little more than a heavier barrel with a more accurate bore. But again, I can shoot half inch groups with my 30.06 at 100 yards and consistently nail a heart sized piece of hanging steel at 400 yards. In other words, sniper rifle is almost meaningless in this discussion.
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