Roseburg, Reeling From Massacre, Finds Security in Gun Ownership
Source: NY Times
ROSEBURG, Ore. A week has passed since J.J. Vicari huddled underneath a desk while gunshots exploded in the classroom next door. Now, he is thinking about guns. Not about tightening gun laws, as President Obama urged after nine people were killed at the community college here. But about buying one for himself.
Its opened my eyes, said Mr. Vicari, 19. I want to have a gun in the house to protect myself, to protect the people Im with. Im sure Ill have a normal life and never have to go through anything like this, but I want to be sure.
Mr. Obama plans to visit Roseburg on Friday to meet the grieving families of yet another gun rampage, but many people here are bristling at his renewed call for stricter gun laws. In some ways, the rampage at the college by a 26-year-old student, Christopher Harper-Mercer, has actually tightened the embrace of guns in a rural town where shots at rifle ranges echo off the hills and hunters bag deer and elk through the fall.
Some families touched by the violence and students who fled gunfire said they now feared that the kind of bloodshed seen inside Classroom 15 at Snyder Hall, Umpqua Community College, could happen anywhere. Some said they were planning to buy guns. Others said they would seek concealed-weapons permits. Others, echoing gun advocates calls for more weapons on campus, said the college should allow its security guard to carry guns. A few said they thought that stricter gun control laws could have averted the massacre.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/08/us/oregon-roseburg-shooting-umpqua-community-college.html?_r=1
If you ever wondered about the cultural divides in America regarding guns, here is evidence of how wide that gulf can be.
upaloopa
(11,417 posts)louis-t
(23,309 posts)Look at the title. Does it say "Some people in Rosenburg are embracing firearms" or does it say "Rosenberg". The title would indicate the decision to get more guns is unanimous.
louis-t
(23,309 posts)It seems, though, that cooler heads say "figure out a way to keep criminals and the mentally ill from getting guns", and reactionary, fearful people (and include those that make a ton of money selling guns) say "give us more guns".
hack89
(39,171 posts)there is irrational hysteria on both sides of the issue - unfortunately they are dominating the conversation.
louis-t
(23,309 posts)And they get shouted down very quickly (and viciously) by the "more guns" people.
hack89
(39,171 posts)Darb
(2,807 posts)Not.
hack89
(39,171 posts)not
GGJohn
(9,951 posts)PatSeg
(47,649 posts)who say "ban all guns", but I can't say I've ever heard that, other than gun owners claiming that Democrats or Obama will "ban all guns".
The only "reactionary" response I'm hearing is from the NRA and the extreme right.
hack89
(39,171 posts)there are a multitude of such posts here.
I've been here long enough to be selective about what I read. Certain subjects at DU are ones I try to avoid. Meanwhile, I have not heard that reaction anywhere else.
maxsolomon
(33,432 posts)So I'll buy in to the rhetoric that a gun will protect me in the unlikely scenario that I am in another mass shooting, and thereby just exacerbate the problem.
To me this is evidence of despair, of being at wit's end. You get a gun because you don't know what else to do about the situation. Fuck it; if you can't beat em, join em. At least I'll FEEL like I have a chance.
Simply too many yahoos with too many guns. I'm amazed there's only 30K deaths a year from them in a nation full of such reactionary thought. And 2/3 of those are gun owners who murder themselves with the very "tool" they bought for protection.
PatSeg
(47,649 posts)People are justifiably scared and very frustrated that nothing is being done about the problem.
JustADumbFireman
(59 posts)Ferretherder
(1,446 posts)........................no.
rockfordfile
(8,708 posts)Thanks to the republican party and the NRA.