Anything to stop the shootings... except banning guns

SOME of those affected by the Virginia Tech university shootings were quick to direct their anger and grief not just at the gunman who killed 32 people, but also at the two weapons he used.

As students, their parents, staff and local residents struggled yesterday to come to grips with the deadliest gun rampage in modern US history, some said they hoped it might help control America’s constitutionally protected love affair with the gun.

“I thought about it (gun control) when I saw the weapons, and how easy it is to buy those guns,” said Chris Keats, 58, of Salina, Kansas, who attended a memorial service in honour of the victims on Tuesday.

The gunman, Cho Seung-Hui, had a history of mental illness and had been committed for treatment. But state law would have banned his handgun purchases only if he had been involuntarily committed.

John, a retired US Air Force officer and Virginia Tech graduate from Blacksburg, who declined to give his full name, lamented that Cho was able to legally purchase and use the easily concealed handguns.

He said would not resent the campus deaths serving to fuel a push for tighter controls on handguns. “I don’t mind the political ends, if they are good ends,” he said.

About one-third of US households reported having a gun, according to a 2001 government survey.

Although the US Constitution’s Second Amendment specifies a “right of the people to keep and bear arms,” debate over gun-ownership restrictions is a perennial political hot button. Groups that support gun rights are among the most effective lobbyists in US politics.

Al Gore lost the presidency in 2000 to George W Bush partly because he supported gun control.

Analysts said they expected the Virginia shootings to rekindle a national debate over guns, as the infamous Columbine high-school slayings did in 1999.