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i cant believe the campus wasnt evacuated after the first shootings, absolute disgrace

When are the US going to get real and ban guns? No person has the automatic right to have the means to kill another human being. The US clearly do not care about individuals, only the massess, those that vote, but completely forget individual human rights. Nothing new there then

Where do you find these crazy gun nuts to speak on Newsnight?? (Phillip Van Cleave) I can't understand how 'more guns' could have solved what happened today.

My sympathies go out to all those affected, events like this sadden people all over the world. I also echo earlier questions of what happened, if there was a two hour gap between shootings, why was there no action taken in this time? What can be learnt from this?

Why does Gavin Essler feel the need to bolster his obviously strong personal views about gun control with references to "people in Europe" not understanding this or that about US gun laws, as if there were some monolithic "liberal" view throughout the continent. Many people in England would be content with the burglary rates in parts of the US rather than those prevailing here. And for all the tightening of controls after Dunblane, gun crime is worse now than ever. Yes to sensible laws (whether we yet have them is a question worth asking) but as one contributor said no law will prevent an evil man from committing the murder which is in his heart.

Where do you find these crazy gun nuts to speak on Newsnight?? (Phillip Van Cleave) I can't understand how 'more guns' could have solved what happened today.

My sympathies go out to all those affected, events like this sadden people all over the world. I also echo earlier questions of what happened, if there was a two hour gap between shootings, why was there no action taken in this time? What can be learnt from this?

The USA will be about as successful in getting rid of guns and weapons as they have been in Iraq! As the pro gun supporter said, you can never stop those with a bad intent from shooting people if they so wish.

As we have found in this country, the "Dunblane Ban" has certainly not prevented people getting their hands on guns, to "Tool themselves up" and take revenge on whomsoever.

As we all appear to be in "Shambolic mood" (over our hostages et al), it appears that the police we saw running around like headless chickens where in a similar mode of "Shambolism". Perhaps their "boss" would like to say sorry??
At least it has buried Browne's problem to a secondary news item and from tomorrow's front pages.

The USA will be about as successful in getting rid of guns and weapons as they have been in Iraq! As the pro gun supporter said, you can never stop those with a bad intent from shooting people if they so wish.

As we have found in this country, the "Dunblane Ban" has certainly not prevented people getting their hands on guns, to "Tool themselves up" and take revenge on whomsoever.

As we all appear to be in "Shambolic mood" (over our hostages et al), it appears that the police we saw running around like headless chickens were in a similar mode of "Shambolism". Perhaps their "boss" would like to say sorry??
At least it has buried Browne's problem to a secondary news item and from tomorrow's front pages.

Virginia Tech university shootings were outrageous..

30,000 homicidal deaths a year in the US,and only 200 shootings in the UK per year...

President Bush just needs to pull his finger out and totally ban weapons in the US and only allow members of the armed forces to use weapons to defend their country... Those shootings werent justified, just a shovanistic animal who gets off to making peoples life a living hell

Come on Bush.. go to war with yourself and sort your country out !!!

At least this one is a justified war

VIRGINIA SHOOTING-at Virginia Tech - a large university in the States. April 16, 2007.

I honestly do not believe that many of these actions of crazed people are actions of theirs alone.

Science has evolved to such states that ethics are being pushed aside concerning experiments with mind control. There exists communication systems that are microfilm sized. A thin stainless steel wire stuck into the cochlear canal is a crude cochlear receiver. The device can be installed instantly pushed under the skin. Ether and sodium pentothal are easy to obtain and use.

I understand that such a happening is not easily grasped because we are all taught to trust our government. Since this has been raised to your awareness. I mean to have you aware that such devices can be used to orchestrate a whole society or create a event to justify a unjustified war.

Well, if only life was that simple...If I'm not mistaken, I believe the gunman at VT was an Asian exchange student on a visa but regardless...Putting blame on a sitting president in the short time frame a US president serves is just dumb. Cultural change must occur in the US. BTW, Bush or the US Congress wouldn't be able to ban guns if they wanted to...

The antigun guy on the show last night made me cringe.
I could have played a drinking game with the number of times he brought up the tired old "think of the children" bit, and of course he immediately jumps in with assault weapons when they wern't used in this hideous event, nor are they really used to any meaningful degree in crime generally.
I live in London, let me tell you something, I could get a gun within a week and carry out this kind of attack if I was intent on doing it. The fact that guns are banned would have zero effect on people that do this.
No one's advocating arming children as he claimed... but the simple truth is that if a small handful of the professors and a couple of "adult" students (that would be allowed to carry outside of uni) had well regulated concealed carries, they might have "stood a chance".
I'd put it down to a cultural problem in the US, there are countries with gun laws where violence reigns, countries with lax gun laws where crime is low.
Finally we have to throw the size of the US population into the mix when we start throwing around pure figures detailing number of Homicides.
Conclusion? A terrible event, but I'd bet a good sum of money on the fact that were guns to become illegal in the US, these kinds of crimes would STILL occur, only with nothing at all to stop them... and there have been several instances of school shootings being cut short by concealed carriers.

The first thing the new Dodge City Sheriff does in the westerns to restore law and order is tell everyone to leave their guns on the edge of town. It isn't as the guy said in the report 'Give guns to the good people'.

The story of environmental disaster far away should remind us of the environmental disaster in front of us here regarding bees. How about plugging the national bumblebee survey 2007? Even drag martha back for a one off bee watch report?

Its one thing to merely ape the Daily Mail and try to leave Ambridge fuming. Another to offer people action plans and be a force for good?

Of course people in the UK and throughout Europe could track down a gun if they really wanted one. But surely you are missing the point...the simple fact that this is so much more difficult in the UK and mainland Europe i.e. you cannot simply go to a gun rally with your wallet, means that we are statistically much less likely to get shot.

How can you argue with the cold hard facts?

"The first thing the new Dodge City Sheriff does in the westerns to restore law and order is tell everyone to leave their guns on the edge of town. It isn't as the guy said in the report 'Give guns to the good people'."

We don't know if allowing over 21 year olds with concealed carry permits in the university would have made any difference, we know for a fact that "everyone to leaving their guns on the edge of town" or in this case, university didn't stop 33 people being slaughtered.
That much is undeniable.

Hi I'm the UK and when I heard on the news about this guy who had gone round shooting his fellow students currently the number of dead is 33 including the gunman himself with another 14 currently in hospital. All I can say is why did this happen.

I am thinking of all of the people either killed or injured in the shooting.

God bless you all and stay safe

"Of course people in the UK and throughout Europe could track down a gun if they really wanted one. But surely you are missing the point...the simple fact that this is so much more difficult in the UK and mainland Europe i.e. you cannot simply go to a gun rally with your wallet, means that we are statistically much less likely to get shot."

I'm in London, I could get a gun quite easily. If I wanted to kill people with a gun, or massacre people, I could get said gun.
Lets not forget that whilst crimes of passion are less likely to be commited with a firearm, you're more likely to end up stabbed or "insert weapon or body part of your choice".

"How can you argue with the cold hard facts?"
We can point to countries with tough gun laws with high gun crime or countries with lax gun laws with low gun crime.
This is cultural.
I'd have to say that if anyone thinks banning guns in the US would make a difference in this circumstance, they're widely off the mark.
There is something very wrong when people think that someone going out with the intention of killing dozens of people would have been stopped if only he would have had to spend a few days trying to buy an illegal weapon.

"This is cultural"

Please explain this. Culture is something that is denoting or deriving the ways of living built up by a group of people.. Just because they have lived with guns for so long does not make the situation right.

The reason that there are so many stabbings in this country is that kids can find knives and find them EASILY. Provide them with an accepted and easy route to buying a gun of any sort will surely escalate this problem to those that we see in the States.

Can you explain why gun fatalities are so high in the States if it is nothing to do with accessibility?

The NRA and others who defend the right to buy guns with no controls or checks on the owner, would be horrified if controls on driving cars without a valid drivers licence were abolished. A car in untrained hands can be fatal and if the car wiped out a bus load of people, just as effective as the young Korean at Virginia Tech.

When will they understand that the availability of weapons has a completely logical relationship with the number of times they are used against other human beings.

Should anyone care about the 30 people killed? Over in Iraq the same amount of people died EVERY DAY for the past FOR YEARS! Why should this 'tragedy' receive so much coverage, or is it that Arab lives are worth less?

Give all the good guys guns, all the nutters have them. How many lives must be lost before we are allowed to protect ourselves ?
If the killers are caught they may get 14 years in jail, they get out after 10 years and if they committed the crime at 20 they're out at 30 then have the rest of their lives to live.
What about the people and the family of the innocent people killed.

Complete maddness.