My daughter is a student at UNC Chapel Hill and in fact is a member here, though she has only posted once or twice.

She lives right down the road from where that female student was murdered.

The police and the university are saying they think it was random...a carjacking.

Well, I don't know about that, but I can tell you that I would much rather find out that the murdered girl had been up to something and there was some connection between her and her killer; if it is random, then my daughter might be next.

This didn't use to happen in this country. Why is it happening now? I remember when I was an undergraduate, one of my friends had a genuine arsenal in his room. Sometimes, he and I and a few others would take his guns and go out in the country and shoot them. In those days, there were no campus killers running around.

Today, it is a federal crime to have a gun on campus, and killers are stalking the students.

Go figure.

Insanity is whats going on. Its the start of the year, and already there have been at least two school shootings, and a shooting at a Wendy's restaurant, plus the mall shooting at the end of 2007. Have these people lost their fscking minds!? (Don't answer that, it's rhetorical).

Anyways, I have to stop and think to myself. What could possibly be so horrible and life suck so bad for someone to take someone else's life along with their own. This may sound callous, but, if these stupid fscks are so intent on killing themselves, won't they at least have the common courtesy to just leave everyone else out of their petty issues, and just end their own lives? I.e. the guy at Virginia Tech, Mall, etc....

I fail to see how bad someone's life can be here in the States. Its not like they are living in some third world country or something. What could they be possibly lacking, in their measly lives, that they have to lash out at the rest of society for?

Clearly things have turned for the worse. Now when you have a gang that has a fscking arsenal more power than the police force and comparable to the S.W.A.T team, that scares the living shit out of me! I mean, for what purpose does a civilian need to have a semi-automatic firearm, or a fscking AK-47 ASSAULT-gun. The cops don't even have something like that.

I understand the right to bear arms, I personally don't feel the need for having a firearm, but as far as I'M concerned, there needs to be some more restrictions on what a civilian should be able to have. Sure, majority of firearms on the streets are stolen, but mostly stolen from gunshops. Again, I fail to see the point a civilian needs firearms that can fire so many rounds a second and/or fire at greater distances and possibly even pierce the body armor of a S.W.A.T officer!

Don't you remember Micheal Jordans father got killed at an interstate rest area a couple of years ago and not that far away either.

I'd say thats nothing new and and not that special to the US either.

The murder rate in the US is a bit high for a 'civilized country' but that is to be espected in a country where you can't smoke cigarettes for the health hazard but any psycho can get a gun.

I don't want to get into the gun thing but guns do kill people for one easy reason:
There's an argument between person A and B.Person B really had it with A.In other places fists might fly maybe even a knife get involved - more often than not nothing happens because having to pyhsically deal with violence is not something normally socialised people like a lot.
If all you need to do is pull a trigger....

In third world countries the chance of being killed at random is 'smaller' because there people usually kill about money - they have less.

In the end it really doesn't matter what you get killed about - you're just as dead either way.

I do not live in the USA,actually,I was just once in New York,about one year ago.I have made a few contacts during my visit and one of them was with the S.W.A.T. team,which was just a routine check,considering the job I was involved during that period of time,but,men,I will tell you,there was fear in their eyes,like I was some kind of terrorist who is going to kill somebody.At the airport,I was almost naked during check of my bags and me.All I wanna say is that America is nervous and frighten,generally speaking,of course.I can see reasons for that,but I don't doubt that it has some impact on overall situation in the country.On the tv program I was watching not so long ago,there was a statement that the country with highest average number of murders in Europe,per one year,is UK,and that number being around 700.That number in the USA for the year 2006 was 17,034.

The whole thread sounds like it's turning into some big anti-gun fest. Time to throw in some statistics.
Murder
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cr...ers-per-capita
(US ranked 24th)
assault
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cr...lts-per-capita
(US ranked 6)
Murder with firearms
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cr...rms-per-capita
(US ranked 8)
Police
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cr...ice-per-capita
(US ranked 34)

Strange I don't see the US as #1 on any of these. US is #1 in prisoners per capita, Not sure what that means. Maybe our prisoners are less competent and like prison more or something.

Now before we jump on the US is evil band wagon I think it would be helpful to ask is it just US people doing this in the US? Sadly it's not the case. The Virginia Tech shooting was by a South Korean, the Salt Lake Trolley square shooting was by a Bosniak.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_Square_shooting
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Tech_massacre

Taking a step back to the worry this is a new phenomenon sadly it is not.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...elated_attacks

Time to address some comments
So you feel we have too many rights? People are free and that is a bad thing? How about some restriction on the press? Right to assemble? Slippery slope buddy, slippery slope.
Law abiding people should not have anything that pierces body armor? (most hunting rifles will easily go through body armor)

I like to put holes in paper with one. Is there something wrong with putting holes in paper? Is there something wrong with the speed in which I put holes in paper? (getting back to the previous rounds per second comment) Is there something wrong with being able to do it at distance? And yes the cops have one also. Maybe your cops don't have a semi-automatic rifle but mine do.

The whole anti-gun movement is based off fear. The need to be my mother. The need to treat me like someone's child. The what if scenario. If you are comfortable dictating behavior admit it.

It's the media. This type of crap actually happens all the time. It's just with the internet and mass ways of communication, the media only reports on the gruesome negative stories that occur.

I moved last month into a new house. We picked the area cause it was quiet, lots of families with small kids (I have a two year old with another on the way), etc. Not two weeks pass by and a damn amber alert is made for a 5 year old one block over. Luckily it wasn't random and it was the father's cousin behind the plot to kidnap the kid and take to Mexico cause the father owed him a lot of money.

Kid was returned (or, dropped off in another neighborhood that night) cause the amber alert helped stop them cause they had good descriptions of culprits and car involved. Plus probably didn't help they were teenagers who snatched him out of the car with mother and daughter in front seat in front of their house in plain daylight.

Idiots I tell you and for what, police mentioned it was probably due to Father's drug habit and he owed cousin the money from that.

@ Blinker Fluid: It's not the ranking that matters - it's what countries are in the same league (right between Bulgaria and Armenia).

Besides that data can't be correct - one thing I know for sure is that Brazil has somewhere between 40.000 or 50.000 homicides per year and it doesn't even show up.

I read a poll that 99% of polls and statistics are not totally true.

guys, in Israel, where almost everyone is trained in use of automatic weapons, and there are really lots of young soldiers with guns going home for weekends, there is probably the lowest firearm crime rate in the world.

I am going to chime in here only to make a point. The Constitution gives us the right to bear arms in case we need to overthrow our government. It has nothing to do with hunting or killing one another. Remember folks, the Constitution was written by a bunch of men WHO JUST OVERTHREW THEIR GOVERNMENT. They wanted to make sure that if it needed to be done again, it could be. And NO, a state run militia was NOT what they meant (read my sig). They also knew that rights are NEVER taken from someone. Governments convince the sheeple that they govern that giving up their rights is for their own good, and little by little they are lost, never to be given back. This has happened in EVERY society in the history of man. People start a government in order to bring peace and stability to their lives. Slowly over time, the ones in charge forget the charter and start oppressing the people for their own gain, until the majority of those being governed have had enough and rebel, starting the process all over again.

I also do not believe that the violence in this country has anything to do with our rights to bear arms. We are now into the third generation in which fathers have mostly abandoned their children. Yes, I do believe that women can raise children effectively, but at some point all children will rebel, and it is much easier for a responsible man to put them back on track than a responsible woman (statistically, due to strength). I was raised by my mother alone, and yes there was a point in time that I had to be smacked down. However, my mother is a very strong woman. Most women are not like her. (Please don't read this as an attack on women, I have nothing but respect for any mother. The attack, if any, is toward irresponsible men.)

I would love to see what correlations are present in societal violence and children raised without their fathers. I would imagine it pretty high, but until such a study is done, I can't say.

You guys are a merry bunch overthrowing the US government - do the homeland folks know about this?

Rednecks vs. marine corps is definitely going to make the evening news.

Sorry - just couldn't resist.I am out of here.

Many such studies have been done. And the correlation is very high.

(I agree with Trickykid)

So here's a question, do we care what the rate is and do we believe them? Statistics are interesting and can be misleading. Can I prove that the number is correct? Can you say that doing X will influence that number?

Recent example. In 1994 the US implemented the Brady Bill, among other things it limited number of rounds per magazine, limited scary features of a firearm, restricted some guns by name, restricted importation of affordable firearms, waiting periods, etc.

Did this do anything to make the US safer?
http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm
It expired in 1998 (did that do anything to make crime worse?)

Another thing to think about.
Recently California banned 50 Caliber guns despite no instances of crime being committed with them. (most weigh close to 20lbs and are single shot). I could speculate to the reason, but the question is do you agree with taking away a second amendment right? What basis do you think this is a good thing?

Kind of funny how you don't see it on the news... Government conspiracy?

NEVER did I say I wanted to overthrow the government. I am smart enough to know that anything that replaces it would be just as faulted if not more so. What I am trying to do is educate the people of this country to NOT give away ANY of their freedoms, because they will not get them back without bloodshed (something I DO NOT want to see). There are causes to our problems, and those need to be addressed. Giving up our rights will NOT fix ANYTHING and will only result in us no longer having said right.

I have served this country, and I have seen other countries during that service. We have it pretty good (for example, we don't have 18 or 19 year olds taking assault rifles to the beach with them in order to prevent attack from foreign forces). The problem with Americans is that a large group of us are stupid an/or lazy. We are given free education that we throw away. We are force fed crappy entertainment and told it is news. We denounce our responsibilities because they don't make us "happy". We can't tell our kids that they need to work harder because it might lower their self-esteem. We abandon our children. We declare wars on concepts in an effort to fight our fears.

The problem I have is NOT with the government, it is with the people, who are stupid and lazy. The government I would keep. The only change I would even attempt would be what I am doing now, attempting to teach those willing to learn.