need help

[vincent chang]

First of all I am glad there are some fellow real americans out there who believe in the right to bear arms. It is what keeps us free and unafraid to speak our minds, no matter what the consequences. as they say, god made man, but sam colt made them equal. in other words, there are fewer bullies out there when people are packing iron and you dont know who may be carrying. As for my suggestion to take up archery. it is purely a sport, like playing darts. to suggest that archers go around shooting people is absurd. People do go deer hunting with bows and arrows in South Georgia in order to get a head start on the hunting season, and it is safer and more sporting than rifles. I would never shoot any animal unless it was for my personal consumption. after all, we eat chickens and beef dont we? Is it any less humane to be shot by a hunter or zapped by a butcher or killed by kentucky fried chicken? Sure you have gun control in England and places like that, but people still find a way to knock people off. Look at Dodi and Di, They were not shot, but possibly knocked off in a car "accident" I guess an English court will decide on that now that mr fayed has put pressure on the court system there. Another way to have a gun in Thailand is to become a school teacher. I hear if you are a school teacher in the Muslim south, you can get a gun to protect yourself from your own students! I knew that teaching credential would come in handy someday. We americans need to get together in Hua Hin someday. I know we get a lot of hostility from the brits out there sometimes for no good reason. Just because most of them are anti gun does not mean we cant even talk about it. The royal family are big hunters aren't they? I guess the upper royalty class can get away with things that the commoners cant even think of doing. God Bless the USA>

[vincent chang]

Hi Name Taken. I found a good English speaking Attorney named Pop over in Pattaya. (Edited. No links please) . They helped me sue my new zealand real estate developer and got me a half million baht judgement which they are now collecting. they charged me a 20 percent fee but it was worth it to get even with the bad guys. maybe he can help you too. he seems to know a lot about importing things from the usa as well as he builds custom motorcycles as well and is helping me bring some harley engines over to thailand to build some really cool bikes. Good luck guy.

[nevets]

ITS BAD ENOUGH HAVING GUNS IN THE HANDS OF THAI,S WITH OUT HAVING CRASSY AMERICANS WITH GUNS IN THE KINGDOM IF YOU WANT YOUR GUNS PLAY WITH THEM IN THE GOOD OLD USA. AS I SAID ONLY CARRY WOT YOU ARE PREPAIRED TO DO THE TIME, FOR AND THAT WOULD BE MY FISTS THEY WOULD BE ENOUGH, AT LEAST THE APONENT WOULD BE ALIVE IN MOST CASES NEVER KILLED ANY BODY IN DEFENCE OF MY SELF AND DONT NEED ANY WEPONS . YOU WILL SAY THE GUN IS ONLY FOR SPORT BUT THE TEMTATIONS TO YOUS FOR VIOLENTS AGAINST OTHERS OR AN ACCIDENT IN THE HANDS OF A CHILD IS A MAGER FACTOR. THE RIGHT TO BARE ARMS IS WOT THE ARMY IS PAYED FOR AND I MEAN REGULAR ARMY .

[nevets]

P.S. CAN YOU EMAGINE A GUN IN THE HANDS OF VINCENT CHANG

[vincent chang]

people get beaten to death all the time in barfights with just bare knuckles. One of the reasons I moved here was to get away from all the guns in the usa. but have found that people can be just as violent and use other means of killing off one another. but with all this hostility being vented towards me, I feel some kind of weapon is necessary for protection and possible deterrent against people like the above. I dont mind you guys arguing a point, but you all dont seem to open about different points of view. freedom of speech and freedom of the press is a couple of things americans stand for, the right to express an opinion is also one of them. If we have to arm to defend those rights, then so be it. Last I heard Britain was in Iraq as well, and Canadians in Afghanistan, so the usa does not have a monopoly on military adventurism. I am sure when those places are pacified, you all will move in and open more bars there as well, or move there to retire when you get priced out of thailand as well.

[vincent chang]

It is illegal to carry a weapon on your person, even in america without a special permit. many people own a weapon for home defence. I am not a big tough guy and in a barfight, it is seldom one on one. I dont get into fistfights, too dangerous. I would rathar just shoot the bastard if he broke into my house or was threatening my person. I have had one situation where just reaching for the gun caused the other 3 attackers to back off and nobody got hurt. Deterrence is the best defence. Look at the cold war, billions spent on both sides, and in the end , no one got really hurt.

[matthew80]

Vincent, I am confused. In one post you are proud to assert that the right to bear arms makes all Americans "equal". In a subsequent post you say that you moved to Thailand to escape the "guns". On a general note, I am mystified as to why Americans hold their "gun rights" so dear to them. Sure, it is in the constitution, but it was written in at a time when the country was new, largely unsettled, and under threat. It made sense then. Doesn't now. How many gun related deaths happen each year in the USA? Accidental or otherwise? I would suspect the annual number is in the thousands. That to me, is the real and continuous act of "terrorism" that your great country must endure.

[Wanderlust]

It is illegal to carry a weapon on your person, even in america without a special permit. many people own a weapon for home defence. I am not a big tough guy and in a barfight, it is seldom one on one. I dont get into fistfights, too dangerous. I would rathar just shoot the bastard if he broke into my house or was threatening my person. I have had one situation where just reaching for the gun caused the other 3 attackers to back off and nobody got hurt. Deterrence is the best defence. Look at the cold war, billions spent on both sides, and in the end , no one got really hurt.

So would you have actually shot those attackers if they had called your bluff? Or if one of them had a gun, what would you have done if they had pulled it on you?
The big problem with mass gun ownership, and armed police, is that rather than be a deterrent to carry guns to the criminals, it makes them 'need' guns more, and also provides a ready supply of them as the chances are that if they break into someone's house when it is unoccupied they will find a gun somewhere. I read that in a government survey they calculated that there were 275 million guns in the USA, with one in three households having at least one gun, and 40% of those were handguns. However the survey stated that they could not give a definitive figure because gun registration is not legally required countrywide, although some states require it! I'm assuming the gun lobby are against gun registration, but why would they be? About 30,000 people die every year from guns, just over a third of them being homicides; why should the terrorists bother with any attacks on the USA when Americans are killing themselves at a rate unimaginable by even Bin Laden?

[nevets]

Vincent. i rest my case , your own words say it all.

[Winkie]

Roundup: Gunman kills 32 at venerable US school

By AFP
Blacksburg, Virginia
"This is an emergency. This is an emergency. Take shelter indoors immediately. Stay away from windows and remain inside," loudspeakers blared across the 1,040 hectare campus, which had been closed off.

Student Tiffany Otay will long remember the chilling sense of dread she felt as she huddled with classmates in a room at Virginia Tech University while death stalked the hallways below.

"I guess everybody was like freaking out, hysterical," Otay told CNN after a gunman, apparently acting alone, struck down 32 other people before dying himself in the worst school shooting rampage in US history.

"At one point we heard screaming because people were running out of the building and at this point, we were all kind of frightened," Otay said. "Who knows if the shooter was going to come up to the next floor?"

Blood, confusion and panic filled the campus of the venerable southern university on a blustery spring morning as the gunman first opened fire in a dormitory than re-surfaced two hours later in an engineering studies hall.

"This is an emergency. This is an emergency. Take shelter indoors immediately. Stay away from windows and remain inside," loudspeakers blared across the 2,600-acre (1,040 hectare) campus, which had been closed off.

The chaos was captured in dramatic cell phone video footage that picked up the clatter of bullets fired in the attack, far deadlier than the notorious 1999 shooting rampage at Columbine High School in Colorado.

Television showed heavily armed police rushing across the grounds under a light snowfall and a fleet of ambulances pulling up while students huddled for safety, furiously exchanging e-mails and text messages.

A student who identified himself only as "Paul" posted on the web an account provided by his girlfriend Kate who was in class in Norris Hall when the gunman burst in and sent students scrambling for cover beneath the desks.

"He then shot at the class somewhere between eight to 12 times and then left," Paul said, adding that Kate was hit by a stray bullet in the hand. But she and another student managed to barricade the door.

"The gunman came back and tried to get in, but because of the barricade couldn't and proceeded to shoot at the door at hip level, while Kate was, and the other classmates were, at ground level," Paul said.

Kostayne Link told the Roanoke Times newspaper she was headed to a class in Norris Hall when some 15 police cars passed by with their sirens blaring, followed by two ambulances and a team of police commandos.

"We heard a couple gunshots and we started running," she said. "Everyone was sprinting away. There were literally, like, 300, 400 students just running away from the site. They just told us all to get going, and we started running."

As the magnitude of the carnage became evident, the campus community, relatives and friends started to pull together. Student Matt Waldron got a phone call from a friend in another fire zone -- Iraq.

"He's a soldier over there, just making sure that everybody is okay," Waldron told CNN. "I'm sure today everybody got a lot of calls from their family and friends, concerning the situation. It's a tragedy."

Little is known of the gunman who carried out the assault other than vague references by some students to him as Asian looking. Authorities confirmed he was not carrying any identification, and there was no word on how he prepared and carried out the attack.

But fingers were already being pointed at the gun culture prevalent in the state of Virginia and in particular at Virginia Tech University which is home to a proud tradition of military cadets.

School authorities set up counseling centers for students to help them recover from the emotional shock of what university president Charles Steger called a disaster of "monumental proportion."

But for students like Tiffany Otay, recalling the ordeal of Norris Hall, the healing will take quite a while.

"I really don't want to go back to campus anytime soon," she said. "Especially to that building."

[big jimmy]

After these tragic shootings I hope Vincent and Big A are proud of their right to ' bear arms '..as Vincent said..it "keeps them free'.........free to slaughter innocent kids and ruin decent families lives. ...never a truer word was said Vincent..I hope your kids are safe......

[Big A]

Freedom has its price.

The 2nd amendment rights in the US have as much to do with a lack of trust in our own government as it does with deterrence and self defense.

The shootings are tragic, committed by a crackpot loner who found it easy to obtain guns in my country.

Vigilance is the operative word here.

I still stand by my rights and convictions.

[Wanderlust]

Freedom has its price.

The 2nd amendment rights in the US have as much to do with a lack of trust in our own government as it does with deterrence and self defense.

The shootings are tragic, committed by a crackpot loner who found it easy to obtain guns in my country.

Vigilance is the operative word here.

I still stand by my rights and convictions.

Big A,
How many more of these types of incident need to occur in your country before you will acknowledge that the problem isn't that the USA has more crackpot loners, not that people are less vigilant, not to do with not trusting the government, not to do with self defence and definitely (and statistically proven) not to do with deterrence. The problem is that there is NO CONTROL ON GUN OWNERSHIP. End of story.

[DawnHRD]

Freedom has its price.

<SNIP>

I still stand by my rights and convictions.

Can you honestly say, Big Al, if your son or daughter were one of the dead in this tragedy, you would still unreservedly & wholeheartedly say the above?

If so, I certainly don't agree with you, but I for one, will bow to your principles and your individual right to express them.

[Big A]

I guess not without reserve.
If my son or daughter were victims that would be truly terrible for me as a parent. I feel for anyone who has this happen to them.

I am a victim of gun violence of sorts. While I was not shot nor did I shoot someone else, I was very closely connected to such a situation and was left with the aftermath of the situation having to pick up the pieces. Needless to say it changed my life. Actually there is more than one such incident.

Having already been through all that, I still feel the way I do regarding gun ownership.