Would gun control have stopped the VT massacre?
Good question and normally my reaction would be "probably not, because people who want to get guns will normally get them no matter what".
But in this case I have to say "maybe". As more background on this Cho character surfaces, it turns out he was a complete mental case with a trail of giant flapping red flags a mile long in his background. He bought the gun(s) legally from a gun shop in Virginia who apparently didn't do a thorough enough background check because it's really not needed. If the law was changed so that the person wanting to buy the gun had to wait 2 weeks and a thorough check needed to be carried out, Cho probably wouldn't have had those guns legally.
But would he have been able to get them illegally? Maybe not, being a student. If the law was different, would the shop have bothered with a background check or just made him sit it out for two weeks then given him a gun anyway? Who knows.
I think the biggest change could be making the gun shops accountable for not doing the checks. For example if they said they did, but didn't, and then a nut job like Cho went on a shooting rampage, the shop that sold the guns should be held accountable for not doing its job properly.
Of course my overall opinion is that guns in the hands of private citizens is a disastrous way to run a country and by and large, the US proves that point daily.
But in this case I have to say "maybe". As more background on this Cho character surfaces, it turns out he was a complete mental case with a trail of giant flapping red flags a mile long in his background. He bought the gun(s) legally from a gun shop in Virginia who apparently didn't do a thorough enough background check because it's really not needed. If the law was changed so that the person wanting to buy the gun had to wait 2 weeks and a thorough check needed to be carried out, Cho probably wouldn't have had those guns legally.
But would he have been able to get them illegally? Maybe not, being a student. If the law was different, would the shop have bothered with a background check or just made him sit it out for two weeks then given him a gun anyway? Who knows.
I think the biggest change could be making the gun shops accountable for not doing the checks. For example if they said they did, but didn't, and then a nut job like Cho went on a shooting rampage, the shop that sold the guns should be held accountable for not doing its job properly.
Of course my overall opinion is that guns in the hands of private citizens is a disastrous way to run a country and by and large, the US proves that point daily.
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