Comments from the World on the Virgina Tech incident.

Lets see what our friends across the globe are saying about us...

Australia
"Eleven years ago we took action to limit the availability of guns, and we showed a national resolve that the gun culture that is such a negative in the United States would never become a negative in our country."
—Australian Prime Minister John Howard, expressing sympathy for the victims' families and referring to the 1996 shooting spree by a man with a semi-automatic rifle who killed 35 people in Port Arthur, on the island of Tasmania. Australia banned most types of semi-automatic weapons after the incident.

So banning certain types of firearms reduces gun violence? Explain how. I love the disconnect from logic here of the belief that the elimination of guns leads to a mystical pacification of individuals with mental disorders. It also almost seems like people are saying that one death is understandable, but multiple killings from semi-automatic weapons is a horror. A single loss of life is a terrible thing. If you follow your own road of logic to its conclusion, outlaw ALL firearms. Don’t act like you’ve actually gone out and done something noble and good because you’ve kept some deluded suicidal maniac from taking out a small town and kept his death-toll in the single digits.

Asia
"We cannot but worry that [Cho's] shocking atrocity would implant a dark image [of] Koreans in to the brains of Americans and world citizens."
—Editorial in Manhwa Ilbo, Seoul, South Korea

I hope not, but its typical of Americans to look around for an ethnic group to hate, so I would be on the lookout for this as well. Looks like it’s your lucky day, middle-easterners! Breathe easy and wear those turbans with pride…oh..unless Cho turns out to be muslim. Then I’d hide. Bubba gonna find you. He got a terrible anger.


"Why can people bring guns to campus? How is it possible that so many innocent people could be killed? How could it happen?"
—Sugiyarti, an Indonesian woman who learned late Tuesday that her 34-year-old stepson, Partahi Lumbantoruan, was among those killed. The family had sold property and a car to finance his civil engineering studies.

I feel a great deal of sympathy for anyone who loses a child. People around the world believe in the ideal that is the American Culture. They expect their children to be safe here. I know that I feel we are one of the safest countries in the world. How can any atrocity happen? I do not have that answer.

"It's not a question of an Indian professor getting killed in the firing. This is related to the American gun laws. We can't do anything about it. It is something which has happened in the United States. They have got to change the law."
—K. Subrahmanyam, a former member of India's National Security Council. India has some 80,000 students in the U.S. One of the Virginia Tech victims was G.V. Loganathan, a 51-year-old lecturer at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, who came from Chennia, India.

First of all, anyone from India commenting negatively on the American culture should be ignored outright. Why don’t you go home and pass around some sandwiches in Bombay and keep your thoughts to yourself. India and Pakistan are poised to bomb each other back into the stone age with nuclear weapons and you want to lecture us on handguns? Malnutrition and AIDS kill more people in India than guns kill Americans. Plus you have a sharp and steady rise in religious related violence. Look in the mirror Subrahmanyan.

Its not the law, by the way, it’s the CONSTITUTION that would have to be changed. Keep your hands off my Constitution.

"[The shootings] underscore that fact that in the U.S., a tragedy caused by guns can happen anywhere.... We hope that this will not trigger race-related problems for Asians.... We like to see the U.S. government, Congress and the people strengthen gun-control laws."
—An editorial in the Japanese paper Asahi Shimbun calling for tougher gun controls in the United States

I agree. The only slight modification I would make is that the gun control laws are actually on the books now, they just are not enforced. Maybe if people would quit flying airplanes into our buildings we could get around to doing something about the criminal element in our society.

Europe
"Why, we ask, do Americans continue to tolerate gun laws and a culture that seems to condemn thousands of innocents to death every year, when presumably, tougher restrictions, such as those in force in European countries, could at least reduce the number?"
—The Times of London, in an editorial delving into the American psyche and the gun laws across the nation

Everything about this statement is ignorant. Id say there is a mental deficiency due to too much bangers and mash. We here in America are not in the habit of amending our Constitution based upon “presumptions”. Which European countries are we talking about exactly anyway? The ones formerly occupied by the Soviet Union, those formerly occupied by Germany, or Germany where until recently you could be arrested and tortured for looking at someone the wrong way? Explain please.

America = apples; Europe = Oranges.

Oh, by the way, gun violence in America is going down…Ill repeat that several times below as well…so we don’t need your help or advice Clive, Basil or whatever you name is.

"It is a delusion … to imagine that controls on their own will stop the rise of gun crime, and the killing that results … what is needed is a wholesale shift in the national culture—and that will take rather longer than an arms ban."
—Mangus Linklater, The Times of London columnist

Mangus is the MAN! And this is the point I agree with. Our culture needs to change to address the issue of violence and alienation. I don’t read a lot about disaffected guns leaping up off the shelves on their own kill people.

Serial killers generally don’t use firearms. Timothy McVeigh didn’t use a gun. Al Quaeda didn’t use guns on 911 (box cutters for crying out loud!). I see guns being used by battered wives to defend themselves, but a single drunk man can terrorize a household with his backhand, a belt and a bad temper. And yes, disgruntled boyfriends and husbands have shot their estranged wives and girlfriends, Im aware of that. But don’t think for a moment that eliminating guns would eliminate the problem. Address the cause, not the tools. That’s like saying if for some reason, painting offended you, you would outlaw paintbrushes. Doesn’t stop anything.

"There's only one real ‘freedom' in America—the freedom to kill one another… if guns weren't so readily available in the ‘land of the free,' this tragedy might never have happened."
—London's Daily Mail columnist Russell Miller

You’re a stupid piece of biohazard. I’d punch you in the face but your pansy-ass would sue me and Id end up in jail and paying for your kid’s education. I wish I had the freedom to kick the ignorance out of you, but I don’t. Look, any disgruntled kid with a gas can and a pack of matches can wreck unimaginable terror on a society. Guys like “Russell” always make me think they are trying to impress art-school pseudo intellectual womyn with their ultra-leftist drivel. Grow a pair and maybe you’ll get lucky with a real woman you dumb cockney fuck. "might never have happened?" At least have the courage to make a definative statement. Qualification= "probably a lot of bull-shite"

"There is such a high murder rate in the United States that even if you excluded the deaths caused there by the use of guns, their homicide rate would still be higher than ours. In other words, even if there were not a single gun in America, there would still be more murders and manslaughters than in Britain. Bringing gun control to America would not stop it being a country where a lot of people get killed."
—James Bartholomew, political commentator at the Daily Express in London

Sad, but true - somewhat. What the world tends to forget is our unique multicultural situation and the trend towards the disintegration of our inner-cities (where the overwhelming majority of the murders occur) that has been occurring since the 70s. What is widely overlooked is that most of America is safer than anywhere else in the world. This includes both crime rates and murder rates. Do the reading for yourself. Step into Washington DC, New York, Las Angeles, and yes…there are places you just don’t want to go! Just try to get yourself murdered in Maine though.

"[T]he response of many who wish America ill will have been gratuitous schadenfreude. They see a people who live by the gun also dying by it, be they Marines in Anbar province or students in Virginia…. How can American soldiers disarm Iraqi families of their weapons in Baghdad yet claim the right to arm themselves to the teeth back home?"
—The Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins

Interesting take on the situation. To my own spin on it: its interesting to me that we will criminalize a soldier who says he “cant kill” then demonize a civilian killer. Not that Im coming down on the side of the killer, but there is a disconnect there. Also, if you order the bombing of a bunch of brown people in another country, you are “making the world a safer place” and considered by some to be a hero. Ask an Iraqi who has lost a child to an American bomb what he thinks about Virginia Tech.

"In a country where ‘the right to bear arms' is written into the Constitution and where there are an estimated 192 million firearms, the problem isn't simply one of a particular interest group. After the tragedy, voices rose up to deplore the fact that professors and students are not authorized to arm themselves, since one of them could have neutralized the killer. With that kind of reasoning, America is not close to overcoming its violence."
—Excerpts from an editorial headlined "Tragédie Américaine," in France's Le Monde newspaper

I still love how it’s America America America when the kid was South Korean and presumably raised with South Korean mores. Anyway…what does a surrender-monkey like you know about defending himself? Maybe a little more American culture would have kept you from positioning your defensive cannons in such a way that they couldn’t be used when the Germans walked right around them. But what do I know? We have heroes that actually fought the enemy. Charles de Gaulle? How did that hiding in a basement treat ya? He’s only slightly more a man than your other great hero Joan of Arc and only because we think he may have actually had testicles. (inconclusive). I guess when you are in a situation where when you think of war you look to be saved by a 13 year old girl, American culture would likely confuse you.

"What is, for us, an archaism remains, for many Americans, a fundamental right, a right to remain armed, which is becoming more and more costly. That is the difference between us and them"
—Pierre Rousselin, from Paris's Le Figaro

Gun violence continues to decline in the US or by “more costly” do you refer to the effect inflation has on gun prices? What’s this “us and them” talk? Try that the next time someone invades you. I bet you wish you had guns when the Gestapo was rounding up your family. All of this “disarmament” talk only works in a culturally homogenous society with a well-established army.

"In France, we say everything ends in song. In the land of John Wayne, Charlton Heston and George Bush, a great partisan of the NRA, everything, individual anger, heartbreak, neighborhood disputes, quarrels between dealers or depression, ends in shootouts. That is why students die on campuses, without anyone, starting with Hillary Clinton, thinking to do anything much about it."
—Laurent Joffrin, writing in the French newspaper Libération

Huh? WTF? Sober up and get back to me.

"In Virginia at the age of 13, you can buy a revolver at a supermarket."
—From the Italian newspaper il Messaggero, in an article headlined Pistole Facili (Easy Guns). Italian newspapers carried extensive comments from Marina Cogo and Giancarlo Bordonaro, two 23-year-old Virginia Tech students from Milan. Cogo is returning home, vowing not to return.

Are you stoned? Let’s not clutter the debate with a lot of nonsense. Where TF are you shopping anyway? Besides, if I was from Milan, I doubt I would go back either. That’s like Paris Hilton saying she would never go back to Motel Six.

Africa
"This is a shocking event that highlights serious malfunction in many societies. We hope the necessary lessons will be learned in such tragedies that are now becoming a common occurrence in the western world."
—South Africa's deputy minister of foreign affairs, Aziz Pahad

Me too. Except that “common occurrence” line. Gun ownership and gun violence is going down in the United States.

"[The shootings are a] shocking reminder of the violence that lies so relatively close to the surface of not only American society, but also that of our own.... The Virginia Tech atrocity cannot be seen in isolation. Like in this country, shootings at schools, colleges and workplaces take place in the United States with appalling regularity. So routine have they become that, again like in this country, it is only the multiple shootings that attract headlines."
—Editorial from South Africa's Daily News newspaper

Define “appalling regularity”. What if I said that students in China were being run over by tanks with “appalling regularity.” I like how violence, civil-war and AIDs-ridden Africans feel like they can comment on us. How’d that Apartheid work out for you? Yeah, thought so.
I think Id pick America and our culture over Darfur. Huh? Whats that? I thought so. It just got quiet in here….

Israel
"[This] frays U.S. nerves at a time when violence has become an unwelcome guest in more and more American homes."
—From Israel's Jerusalem Post

From a country where citizens serve a mandatory stint in the Army and are equipped with gas-masks. Haven’t had a lot of suicide bombers in my grocery. How bout yours? We are the only thing that stands between you and complete annihilation by your enemies. Id keep you mouth shut.

Iraq
"It is a big loss for the American people and I think that this is a message from Allah to them to stop and think of what is happening in Iraq. Thousands of Iraqis lost their sons or fathers and all of this was because of the so-called American democracy being exported to Third World countries."
—Haifa Salim, a 34-year-old Baghdad housewife

Agreed. Well…not so much the “message from Allah” part, but I agree with the sentiment.


"I feel sorry that there are innocent civilians getting killed for no reason. We in Iraq have tasted this curse and we know how difficult it is to lose a loved one. [But] at other times, especially when I'm emotional, I think, 'Let the American people get a taste of what they brought us, death and tragedies and blood everywhere.'
—Khalid Mohammed, a 33-year-old civil engineer in Baghdad

Well put. Keep in mind too that Baghdad is under martial law and people die every day from violence and mostly from suicide bombs. You see, in countries where they have NOTHING, people can still find a way to kill each other. Violence is a kind of natural disaster. I think its one that we can do something about if we can try to come together as a nation and people, but you can just start writing laws and hoping it goes away. Its like trying to legislate away a flood. Instead, lets start building dams against violence and diverting waterways that lead to bloodshed. In other words, lets deal with the issue in a logical way.