Virginia Tech shooting

[Adrian II]

You finished with an interesting point. The potential impact of a more Hobbesian character (I assume from your post that you are referencing the Hobbesian state of nature and not the social compact in response to it) to our culture on such events would be pretty clear.

In the first instance, I propose that we let Thomas Hobbes himself answer the point:

In the second place, I observe the diseases of a Commonwealth that proceed from the poison of seditious doctrines, whereof one is that every private man is judge of good and evil actions. This is true in the condition of mere nature, where there are no civil laws; and also under civil government in such cases as are not determined by the law. But otherwise, it is manifest that the measure of good and evil actions is the civil law; and the judge the legislator, who is always representative of the Commonwealth. From this false doctrine, men are disposed to debate with themselves and dispute the commands of the Commonwealth, and afterwards to obey or disobey them as in their private judgments they shall think fit; whereby the Commonwealth is distracted and weakened.

Leviathan, Chapther XXIX

[Sir Moody]

A lot of shots will annihilate even someone with body armour. You either hit another body part, or simply stun him by repeatedly hitting the vest, which will most likely still hurt him because of the energy involved.
Or you just bring bigger guns, RPGs and grenade launchers to get a higher level of security, he won't even be secure in a tank then.

actually not quite true - there was a case of a bank robbery some time ago (mid 90's i think) where the police responded - the gang were armoured in high quality full balsitic suits (the kind bomb disposal guys wear). The police were unable to injure any of the gang members who casually strolled, through a hail of pistol and shotgun rounds, to their car while spraying the police with drum fed ak47's - one even stoped while under fire to reload...

The police were forced to ditch their sidearms and shotguns and raid a local gunstore where they borrowed a load of m16's which were finally able to breach the armour and bring the event to a close - theres a video of the event somewhere ill see if i can dig it up - the incedent only proves against small arms (which is all these kids could carry) a well prepared attacker is next to immune

What we need are clearly autocannon towers which will automatically shoot at anyone carrying a gun. More realistically an armed campus police might help, but they should not end up being the first victims of a potential killer, because a smart one would ambush them first. Though generally stopping to leave people alone, as has been said before, would likely help a lot. A healthy family and social life plus some morals and values are the best things to make someone not do this. I think a lack of two of these already becomes dangerous.

i agree here an armed campus police would have drastically improved the situation and im a little shocked there wasnt one already


Edit

i was unable to find the video in question but i did find another incident where the police had a very hard time taking the suspects down because of heavy body armour - http://www.student.oulu.fi/~hmikkola/shootout.html

[Bijo]

nvm. please delete.