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We can't afford to be a nation of soft targets [VA Tech and Islamic Homiciders]
Newsday ^ | April 19, 2007 | James P. Pinkerton

Posted on 04/19/2007 8:01:05 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

Our civilization is under attack from a new kind of weapon: the suicide killer. Sometimes these killers explode bombs, sometimes they crash airplanes into buildings, sometimes they go on shooting rampages - as happened at Virginia Tech on Monday. Technology has made each individual potentially more of a menace to society, here and around the world. Not only do people have access to explosives and rapid-firing guns, but the specter of future infernal invention haunts us further. What new methods of mayhem will be concocted? The forces of peace and order are not equipped to deal with oncoming threats. In the United States specifically, presumptions about civil liberties and the right to privacy have greatly constrained our ability to deal with possibly dangerous individuals. On yesterday's "Today" show, Lucinda Roy, a creative writing professor at Virginia Tech, recalled her interaction with Cho Seung-Hui, the mass killer, describing him as "incredibly bizarre . . . one of the most disturbed students I have ever seen." And while authorities seemed alert to the ominous implications of Cho's behavior, they also seemed to have been thwarted from taking any intervening action. At a press conference in Blacksburg, Va., Virginia Tech police chief Wendell Flinchum itemized a string of incidents reaching back two years in which two students had reported Cho as a stalker. And yet, Flinchum and other authorities cited the privacy provisions contained within the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 as the reason they couldn't act more decisively. Did Congress and the president really intend, 11 years ago, to elevate Cho's "right to privacy" to such an absurd level? The police chief said he was having trouble gaining access to records on the previous incidents even now. Even after Cho murdered 32 people.

(Excerpt) Read more at newsday.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Editorial; Foreign Affairs; US: Virginia; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: 40yearsofliberalism; banglist; cho; dhimmis; islam; jihad; leftistsandislamists; liberalism; middleeast; muhammadsminions; muslims; pinkerton; rtkba; terrorism; vatech; virginiatech
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Pinkerton comes close but can't say it...we need armed citizens.
1 posted on 04/19/2007 8:01:08 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Pinkerton comes close but can't say it...we need armed citizens.

Right. An armed society is a polite society.


2 posted on 04/19/2007 8:06:56 PM PDT by rdb3 (There's no place like 127.0.0.1 (Get well Snowman!))
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
We can't afford to be a nation of soft targets

Uh, that's what all those $Billions in Homeland Security grants since 9-11-01 were supposed to shore up.

So, let's have an accounting of that. For starters, how much did VT and the state of Virginia get and what did they do with their distrbutions of Homeland Security grants?
3 posted on 04/19/2007 8:09:03 PM PDT by TomGuy
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Weakness breeds violence.


4 posted on 04/19/2007 8:11:37 PM PDT by Trailerpark Badass
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To: TomGuy

Those “Homeland Security” funds went to building municipal golf courses, biking trails, city halls, and a thousand other unrelated boondogles. We won’t take security seriously in this country until two or three major cities are vaporized....


5 posted on 04/19/2007 8:12:45 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet (Iran delenda est)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

As they say in Israel, “Drop your locks and grab your Glocks!” :^)


6 posted on 04/19/2007 8:14:43 PM PDT by claudiustg (I curse you, Rudy of the Giuliani!)
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To: TomGuy
So, let's have an accounting of that. For starters, how much did VT and the state of Virginia get and what did they do with their distrbutions of Homeland Security grants?

The same thing the levee boards did in Louisiana with all of the Federal taxpayer money they got over the years.

7 posted on 04/19/2007 8:16:39 PM PDT by dfwgator (The University of Florida - Still Championship U)
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To: dfwgator

I’ll bet Dr Laura is advocating self-defense martial arts training. I was shocked at journalist snearing at how Boy Scout training saved the life of the boy shot in the leg. I vote for more scouting and less environmentalism that sounds like it was designed by Heating and Air Conditioning men.


8 posted on 04/19/2007 9:13:25 PM PDT by ClaireSolt (Have you have gotten mixed up in a mish-masher?)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

I think we’re relying way too much on guns here. I have no objection to more people being able to be armed, but that alone is not going to protect us.

We have to have a “fight-back attitude” on a personal level. Somehow, we’ve lost that.

And we also have to be assured that, if we fight back, then we are not going to be attacked by our legal system for defending ourselves. If somebody had shot Cho just as he started out, I bet that person would be in jail right now. We’ve been taught to be passive and we have a legal system that protects the evil and crazy ones among us more than it protects the decent citizens.


9 posted on 04/20/2007 3:26:35 AM PDT by livius
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To: livius
If somebody had shot Cho just as he started out, I bet that person would be in jail right now.

1. Sure, if you caught him coming out of his quarters on his way to his first victims, but then (a) he hadn't shot anyone and (b) no responsible armed citizen would have confronted him unless he had his piece out.

2. Better to be judged by twelve than carried by six, especially in western Virginia.

10 posted on 04/20/2007 3:35:15 AM PDT by ExGeeEye (To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of the women.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Not only do people have access to explosives and rapid-firing guns, but the specter of future infernal invention haunts us further.

The only thing that makes my weapon "rapid-firing" is how fast my finger pulls the trigger...Not the weapon itself...

But the attractiveness of soft targets in this country are only going to get more so, if the reaction is to take away the choice (of those who wish to take on the responsibility) to arm themselves for their own protection...


11 posted on 04/20/2007 5:04:15 AM PDT by stevie_d_64 (Houston Area Texans (I've always been hated))
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To: stevie_d_64
But the attractiveness of soft targets in this country are only going to get more so, if the reaction is to take away the choice (of those who wish to take on the responsibility) to arm themselves for their own protection...

As someone who carries regularly, I see the "No Guns" signs posted on stores and restaurants.

OK, that is nice. They don't allow armed civilians into their store.

However, does anybody ask if this store or restaurant provides armed security? Does this store replace your personal firearm with an equal measure of security?

If the answer is "no", then the sign needs to be ignored. We will not be sheep herded into pens for a slaughter.

12 posted on 04/20/2007 5:14:10 AM PDT by Erik Latranyi (The Democratic Party will not exist in a few years....we are watching history unfold before us.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
I had some somewhat similar thoughts that day... And as I was listening to Fox News, I distinctly remember the whining of the news casters, AND that idiot Shepard Smith say the words "twenty year old child." WTF!!!! Between this nonsense, our so called leaders doing their best imitation of French Surrender Monkeys, and congress-critters crying on the floor of the house and senate, we're just BEGGING the terrorists to bring the war over here!

Mark

13 posted on 04/20/2007 5:37:29 AM PDT by MarkL (Environmental heretics should be burned at the stake, in a "Carbon Neutral" way...)
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To: livius; harpseal; TexasCowboy; AAABEST; Travis McGee; Squantos; Shooter 2.5; wku man; SLB; ...
livius wrote:

"I think we’re relying way too much on guns here. I have no objection to more people being able to be armed, but that alone is not going to protect us.

"We have to have a “fight-back attitude” on a personal level. Somehow, we’ve lost that."

From my personal experience in various exchanges I've had on the VA Tech shootings, both online and off, this brand of cowardice is rampant among the general population. Combine that with their absolutely slavish ideology that somehow, despite it's horribly apparent failings, the great god Government will still save them, and you have a nation full of soft targets. To suggest otherwise is to immediately be attacked in the most rabid, virulent fashion one could imagine.

Most people under age thirty are nothing more than a helpless herd of sad, angry, brainwashed sheep. I hesitate to call them "Americans". Over three decades of easy living and PC, warm and fuzzy, "nothing's worth fighting for" happy-crap, both in the schools and the mass-media, has yielded and expected result.

I'm sure their masters are very proud.

Just my view from the saddle,

Click the Gadsden flag for pro-gun resources!

14 posted on 04/20/2007 5:41:21 AM PDT by Joe Brower (Sheep have three speeds: "graze", "stampede" and "cower".)
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To: Joe Brower

Joe,
See Post #3 here http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1820459/posts
for the poster girl for precisely what you describe.

We ARE populated by millions of mindless myrmidons who are incapable of independent thought or action. NOLA was a textbook case.

America — the IDEA — is about over.

How sad that all those folks who died defending it for over 200 years died in vain.


15 posted on 04/20/2007 5:51:21 AM PDT by Dick Bachert
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To: Dick Bachert
How sad that all those folks who died defending it for over 200 years died in vain.

As long as a number of people keep the dreams of the Founders alive through their beliefs and their actions. America the Idea is not dead.

Add to that the hundreds of thousands of young men and women who have served so admirably in the GWOT and it leads me to predict a resurgance of The Great Experiment.

16 posted on 04/20/2007 6:21:52 AM PDT by AngryJawa ({IDPA, NRA} GO HUNTER '08)
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To: Joe Brower
"We have to have a “fight-back attitude” on a personal level. Somehow, we’ve lost that."

There's a "no sh*t" type comment for you...

We've lost that "edge" that allows a society to survive attacks from barbarians. We've become "too civilized", too willing to turn the other cheek.

It almost made me vomit to see one of Cho's victims Father sobbing on TV saying how he forgives Cho, how his daughter would have forgiven him, how we just need "healing"... Such a broken mindset. Such a desolate soul. FIGHT against evil. Rail against it. HATE it. It's okay for the GOOD guys to FIGHT back. It's MANDATORY in most cases. Being angry about things has its proper place. Denying it and stifling it is unhealthy.

And yeah... sometimes that means standing up to bad people and stopping them with violence. Not just common street trash, not just homicidal dirt bags like Cho, but even those bad actors in government.

Unless we get this figured out, the United States will go the way of Rome...

17 posted on 04/20/2007 6:46:31 AM PDT by Dead Corpse (What would a free man do?)
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To: livius
We have to have a “fight-back attitude” on a personal level. Somehow, we’ve lost that.

A nine year old child DID have a fight-back attitude. She saved the lives of her siblings. A gun would have made a big difference.

Best regards,

Mary Carpenter In Her Own Words about gun control:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K73pWPAYg0g

http://www.grnc.org/mary_carpenter_letter.htm

Mary Carpenter's letter to the North Carolina General Assembly:

All the gun laws you can imagine cannot change the heart of a killer and you know it.

Until man's heart is changed, we will be like sheep led to the slaughter without our weapons of defense.

May you stand before God and man as my two precious grandchildren's killer if you pass any more gun legislation that will make me a felon should I own a handgun or any other gun for that matter.

18 posted on 04/20/2007 6:49:11 AM PDT by Copernicus (Mary Carpenter Speaks About Gun Control http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=7CCB40F421ED4819)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
[... Our civilization is under attack from a new kind of weapon: the suicide killer. Sometimes these killers explode bombs, sometimes they crash airplanes into buildings, sometimes they go on shooting rampages ..]

The States and Cities that are DISarmed are most at risk.. those that are MOST armed are less at risk.. Looks like this is going separate safe places from more UNsafe places in the future.. Especially in Airplanes, Malls, other retail places.. Schools, Stadiums, and other Mass gathering places should be armed too..

19 posted on 04/20/2007 7:30:41 AM PDT by hosepipe (CAUTION: This propaganda is laced with hyperbole....)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Using this logic, we would place every school underground because on a few occasions in the past century a school has been hit by a tornado.

We all know that would be very illogical.

The bottom line remains the same. If just one person in Norris Hall was armed, the death/casualty rate would probably have been greatly reduced.

If Cho was aware that it was likely a student or instructor was carrying concealed, I doubt he would have attempted this in the manner in which he did.

There is a reason violent crime rates drop in areas where CCW is approved, and taken advantage of by the citizens.


20 posted on 04/20/2007 7:35:02 AM PDT by Badeye (Sally's not well? No kidding....)
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