Virginia

[rgraham666]

When I first heard about a concealed carry law, in Maryland I think it was, my first thought was, "Boy! The fun I could have with a string of fire crackers."

 

[Remec]

When I first heard about a concealed carry law, in Maryland I think it was, my first thought was, "Boy! The fun I could have with a string of fire crackers."

Evil, dat's jus' plain evil. Ah likes it. *nod*

 

[rgraham666]

Glad to be of service.

 

[Pure]

inexcusable

[...]....

 

[Pure]

inexcusable

the two hour delay after the first shooting, in letting students know.

after all, it was thought to be 'only a domestic dispute,' and the absence of the shooter, therefore nothing to worry about, since he's probably just killed the girlfriend and a bystander.

this suggests that the number would be not much greater than two had wise procedures been followed.

the image in the media is a young asian in boy scout ish attire, and a vest (for carrying ammo?).

i believe VA has no waiting period for purchasing any gun you please--correct me if i'm wrong.

PS. i can't forbear to mention that VA is apparently an example of 'well armed citizenry,' affirming their rights. yet no students --and maybe the campus police??--were 'carrying' and able to gun down the malefactor on the spot. i suppose they weren't quite well armed enough.

 

[mikey2much]

You can't find a silver lining here RR

Very sad news. The only bright spot is that the shooter is among the dead.

There is no bright spot here RR. There is only sadness, both for the victems and for the survivors who will lose freedoms over this in an effort to stop the 'next time ' from happening.

I am not cheered up by the fact that the guy who did this is dead also. It would be a hard thing to convince me that he wasn't a sick man who needed treatment that he couldn't afford, or that he wouldn't take. I can't help but feel that a few dollars spent on helping people who suffer from mental illness's could prevented this from taking place.

But then again you seem to take the side of strong goverment so maybe there is a bright side for you in this sad mess.

mikey

 

[Pure]

ABC news

Virginia Tech Killer Identified



By DAVID SCHOETZ, RICHARD ESPOSITO and NED POTTER

April 17, 2007

— We now know the identity of the killer at Virginia Tech.

He is Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old resident alien of the United States, as first reported by ABC News.



Cho is a South Korean national, a Virginia Tech senior majoring in English and the man who killed 33 people — including himself — on the Virginia Tech campus Monday.

Sources tell ABC News that Cho killed two people in a dorm room, returned to his own dorm room where he re-armed and left a "disturbing note" before entering a classroom building on the other side of campus to continue his rampage.

 

[TheeGoatPig]

This is tasteless. Even before the identity of the shooter was even known, Florida attourney Jack Thompson was pushing the blame on video games. I can't wait until he loses his license in the Florida Bar...

 

[Liar]

This is tasteless. Even before the identity of the shooter was even known, Florida attourney Jack Thompson was pushing the blame on video games. I can't wait until he loses his license in the Florida Bar...

So is Dr Phil, the attention whore walrus.

 

[rgraham666]

One of my local papers had this story under the headline 'In Cold Blood.' Which just goes to show how little we understand of this situation.

When I saw this headline, I remembered a thought in the forward of one of my copies of The Art of War.

The writer told how the Taoists regarded the 'ruthless man', as we regard the perpetrator of this act, as anything but ruthless. Ruthless implies a coldness, a lack of emotion. And the 'ruthless man' is anything but unemotional. The 'ruthless man' acts out of extreme emotion; fear, anger, hate.

The truly ruthless person, as the Taoists believe, is first of all ruthless with themselves. They look at themselves without emotion, and coldly cut out those parts of themselves that will bring harm to themselves and others.

If being ruthless was a trait we inculcated in ourselves and our society, things like this would, in my opinion, happen less often.

 

[3113]

Video games? They don't even know if he played video games, do they? Why don't they blame English lit, as that's what he was majoring in? Or being South Korean as that's where he was from?

 

[Sherry Hawk]

Video games? They don't even know if he played video games, do they? Why don't they blame English lit, as that's what he was majoring in? Or being South Korean as that's where he was from?

I'm quite sure they'll factor that in somewhere.

 

[jomar]

Video games? They don't even know if he played video games, do they? Why don't they blame English lit, as that's what he was majoring in? Or being South Korean as that's where he was from?

Or a psychotic break?

 

[FatDino]

The press is already surrounding his parents' house (quite a nice house, actually). He's in the US as an international student. South Korean students don't need visas to come study in US. Maybe they'll have more restrictions after this incident.

 

[oggbashan]

Video games? They don't even know if he played video games, do they? Why don't they blame English lit, as that's what he was majoring in? Or being South Korean as that's where he was from?

South Korea is already expressing concern that they and their citizens might suffer as a result of this.

Og

 

[3113]

Heroics...

Here is some of what went on yesterday. I think this is a better focus, seeing what courageous people did to save others, than trying to find out why a crazed shooter started shooting...editing and emphasis mine:

Two students told NBC’s “Today” show they were unaware of the dorm shooting when they walked into Norris Hall for a German class where the gunman later opened fire.

Derek O’Dell, his arm in a cast after being shot, described a shooter who fired away in “eerily silence” with “no specific target — just taking out anybody he could.”

After the gunman left the room, students could hear him shooting other people down the hall. O’Dell said he and other students barricaded the door so the shooter couldn’t get back in — though he later tried.

“After he couldn’t get the door open he tried shooting it open ... but the gunshots were blunted by the door,” O’Dell said.....

At least 26 people were taken to hospitals after the second attack, some seriously injured. Many found themselves trapped after someone, apparently the shooter, chained and locked Norris Hall doors from the inside.

Students jumped from windows, and students and faculty carried away some of the wounded without waiting for ambulances to arrive.

SWAT team members with helmets, flak jackets and assault rifles swarmed over the campus. A student used his cell-phone camera to record the sound of bullets echoing through a stone building. Inside Norris, the attack began with a thunderous sound from Room 206 — “what sounded like an enormous hammer,” said Alec Calhoun, a 20-year-old junior who was in a solid mechanics lecture in a classroom next door.

Screams followed an instant later, and the banging continued. When students realized the sounds were gunshots, Calhoun said, he started flipping over desks to make hiding places. Others dashed to the windows of the second-floor classroom, kicking out the screens and jumping from the ledge of Room 204, he said.

“I must’ve been the eighth or ninth person who jumped, and I think I was the last,” said Calhoun, of Waynesboro, Va. He landed in a bush and ran.

Calhoun said that the two students behind him were shot, but that he believed they survived. Just before he climbed out the window, Calhoun said, he turned to look at his professor, who had stayed behind, apparently to prevent the gunman from opening the door.

The instructor was killed, Calhoun said.

Erin Sheehan, who was in the German class near Calhoun’s room, told the student newspaper, the Collegiate Times, that she was one of only four of about two dozen people in the class to walk out of the room. The rest were dead or wounded, she said.

She said the gunman “was just a normal-looking kid, Asian, but he had on a Boy Scout-type outfit. He wore a tan button-up vest, and this black vest, maybe it was for ammo or something.”

The gunman first shot the professor in the head and then fired on the class, another student, Trey Perkins, told the Washington Post. The gunman was about 19 years old and had a “very serious but very calm look on his face,” he said. “Everyone hit the floor at that moment,” said Perkins, 20, of Yorktown, Va., a sophomore studying mechanical engineering. “And the shots seemed like it lasted forever.”

....Among the dead in Monday's shooting were professors Liviu Librescu and Kevin Granata, said Ishwar K. Puri, the head of the engineering science and mechanics department. Librescu, an Israeli, was born in Romania and was known internationally for his research in aeronautical engineering, Puri wrote in an e-mail to the Associated Press. Granata and his students researched muscle and reflex response and robotics.

Puri called him one of the top five biomechanics researchers in the country working on movement dynamics in cerebral palsy.

“My father blocked the doorway with his body and asked the students to flee,” Joe Librescu said in a telephone interview, citing e-mail he said students had sent to his family. “Students started opening windows and jumping out.”

 

[jomar]

South Korea is already expressing concern that they and their citizens might suffer as a result of this.

Og

That's too bad. It's not a Korean thing - it's a disturbed young man thing.

 

[R. Richard]

There is no bright spot here RR. There is only sadness, both for the victems and for the survivors who will lose freedoms over this in an effort to stop the 'next time ' from happening.

I am not cheered up by the fact that the guy who did this is dead also. It would be a hard thing to convince me that he wasn't a sick man who needed treatment that he couldn't afford, or that he wouldn't take. I can't help but feel that a few dollars spent on helping people who suffer from mental illness's could prevented this from taking place.

But then again you seem to take the side of strong goverment so maybe there is a bright side for you in this sad mess.

mikey

The guy who did the shooting was a student at the university. Obviously he could afford mental help if he wanted to.


My veiw here has little to do wjth strong government and mostly to do with resposibility. Why did the teachers in his classes not see that he was over the edge and about to 'go postal?' The shooter was in liberal arts classes and those are supposed to develop the whole individual. If the teachers in said liberal arts classes could not tell that the guy was a ticking time bomb, then they knew nothing about him. I have to wonder how they were grading him, if they couldn't see who he really was.

 

[Sherry Hawk]

The guy who did the shooting was a student at the university. Obviously he could afford mental help if he wanted to.

My veiw here has little to do wjth strong government and mostly to do with resposibility. Why did the teachers in his classes not see that he was over the edge and about to 'go postal?' The shooter was in liberal arts classes and those are supposed to develop the whole individual. If the teachers in said liberal arts classes could not tell that the guy was a ticking time bomb, then they knew nothing about him. I have to wonder how they were grading him, if they couldn't see who he really was.

Actually, R.R. one of his teachers did notice, and he was referred to the counseling center (and btw: "afford" has nothing to do with it - most campuses offer free counseling to those students who need it). After that referrel, I fail to see it as her resposibility.

Why not place the blame squarely where it belongs: on the guy who pulled the trigger, instead of on the school, the parents, the dean, the teachers, etc.

 

[FatDino]

The guy who did the shooting was a student at the university. Obviously he could afford mental help if he wanted to.


My veiw here has little to do wjth strong government and mostly to do with resposibility. Why did the teachers in his classes not see that he was over the edge and about to 'go postal?' The shooter was in liberal arts classes and those are supposed to develop the whole individual. If the teachers in said liberal arts classes could not tell that the guy was a ticking time bomb, then they knew nothing about him. I have to wonder how they were grading him, if they couldn't see who he really was.

The shooter was considered a loner so it might have been difficult to actually see he was needing help. His family has lived in the neighborhood for years yet no one really knows them. This kind of things is very common amongst international students. I know this because I used to be one. It's hard, extremely hard for them to open up. And not all professors can be observant enough to see through every one of his students.

As for the grading, do you really need to know the student in person to grade his papers fairly? I don't think so.

 

[Emperor_Nero]

The guy who did the shooting was a student at the university. Obviously he could afford mental help if he wanted to.


My veiw here has little to do wjth strong government and mostly to do with resposibility. Why did the teachers in his classes not see that he was over the edge and about to 'go postal?' The shooter was in liberal arts classes and those are supposed to develop the whole individual. If the teachers in said liberal arts classes could not tell that the guy was a ticking time bomb, then they knew nothing about him. I have to wonder how they were grading him, if they couldn't see who he really was.

Since when does being a student at a university make you able to afford anything. When I was in school, food was often a luxury, let alone affording any type of medical care (and unfortunately, mental health care is often not covered by health insurance, if you have that).

And as for teachers in his classes, his creative writing instructor had referred him for mental health counceling. They saw problems beginning to surface and did what they could to try and get him some help. But thanks to privacy laws, they were legally unable to see if he had actually followed through and actually even seen a councelor, let alone actually gotten any help. It appears he may have gone a few times, as there were prescription anti-depressents found in his room, but no one could force the pills down his throat if he wasn't taking them.

It's a sad, horrible situation and my heart goes out to everyone involved. But why as a culture do we always have to point fingers of blame after the fact. This was one sick individual, acting alone and they alone are to blame for what happened.

 

[mikey2much]

There were warnings about this guy

The guy who did the shooting was a student at the university. Obviously he could afford mental help if he wanted to.


My veiw here has little to do wjth strong government and mostly to do with resposibility. Why did the teachers in his classes not see that he was over the edge and about to 'go postal?' The shooter was in liberal arts classes and those are supposed to develop the whole individual. If the teachers in said liberal arts classes could not tell that the guy was a ticking time bomb, then they knew nothing about him. I have to wonder how they were grading him, if they couldn't see who he really was.

It seems that some of his teachers had reported his 'distrubing writtings" to the chair of their department. It will turn out the same as at Columbine, the truth was there but nobody paid it any attention.

Don't you agree that only a sick person would do something like this?
mikey

 

[FatDino]

It's a sad, horrible situation and my heart goes out to everyone involved. But why as a culture do we always have to point fingers of blame after the fact. This was one sick individual, acting alone and they alone are to blame for what happened.

Well, we do that because it's our way to improve our society. We try to find what's going wrong and maybe fix it. It works most of the time. That's why we've moved from civilizations to civilizations. I do agree that pointing fingers of blame in this case is unnecessary, but further investigation will help in the future, like in security, or on-campus communication, etc.

 

[The_Fool]

The guy who did the shooting was a student at the university. Obviously he could afford mental help if he wanted to.


My veiw here has little to do wjth strong government and mostly to do with resposibility. Why did the teachers in his classes not see that he was over the edge and about to 'go postal?' The shooter was in liberal arts classes and those are supposed to develop the whole individual. If the teachers in said liberal arts classes could not tell that the guy was a ticking time bomb, then they knew nothing about him. I have to wonder how they were grading him, if they couldn't see who he really was.

In this case, those indicators were noticed and partially acted upon. In others they are not. I have personally witnessed such an action from someone I knew well that had a similar meltdown with tragic consequences, but no loss of life. If that person had had a gun at the time though, I would be dead.

 

[Emperor_Nero]

Well, we do that because it's our way to improve our society. We try to find what's going wrong and maybe fix it. It works most of the time. That's why we've moved from civilizations to civilizations. I do agree that pointing fingers of blame in this case is unnecessary, but further investigation will help in the future, like in security, or on-campus communication, etc.

But that is my point exactly. No matter what you investigate, no matter what you change in security or communication, there is NOTHING that can stop one person bent on destruction that is willing to die in the process. NOTHING.

The only thing I've seen in the process that could seriously be changed is asking why there weren't locks on the classroom doors. One professor died baracading the door to protect his students -- why couldn't he just lock the door and hide himself? Not that locks save everyone, but maybe they save people who weren't unlucky enough to be in that first classroom.

Otherwise, let's be honest with ourselves. It might not be a national outcry like this is, but it would have been one heck of a local debate if campus had been locked down and commuting students sent away -- taking thousands of dollars out of the pockets of local businesses -- because of what appeared to be a domestic dispute. And that doesn't include the cost to the university in lost dollars and police overtime to actually lockdown the campus. I mean, I live in a town much smaller than the campus population of Virginia Tech and we don't lock down the town every time there's a domestic dispute, even if it involves gunfire. It's just not practical and there was no reason for the police to logically think it was going to progress to what it did. It's another case of easy to say after the fact and police should have acted on the worst case scenario, but in reality, it was just not practical.

As for communication, there was an email sent out to inform people of the first shooting. But when you are in class, on your way to class, studying off by yourself or driving to get to campus because you live somewhere else, you aren't going to see an email. And even if you did, how much would it change what you are doing. Do you risk missing a class on the what if? For the majority, probably not. And with a campus spread over a large area, how do you inform people? Do you want police cars rolling down the streets announcing on loud speakers there had been a shooting in a dorm? Just not practical.

As for advancing civilization, again, not likely. Civilizations change because one learns how to beat the crap out of another. The Greek civilization didn't fall because the Romans found a better way to live, they found a better way to make war. Same with the Phoenicians, the Egyptians and every other civilization you can come up with -- they fell because another civilization came over and kicked their ass and took what had been theirs. That's the way that's gone since the beginning of time