Many Dead In Virginia Tech Shooting 2661
nexuspal writes "Over 20 confirmed dead at Virginia Tech. Shooter killed some at residence hall then two hours later killed others in classrooms. Worst school shooting in US history. "
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
Many Dead In Virginia Tech Shooting
Related Links Top of the: day, week, month.
It's been a business doing pleasure with you.
31 dead, 20 wounded. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:31 dead, 20 wounded. (Score:5, Informative)
My sincerest condolences (Score:5, Insightful)
I was at the University of Arizona Nursing School shootings in 2001, and know what the folks over at VTech are going through.
My thoughts are with you, your loved ones and for this world, which every day seems to spin more out of control.
Re:My sincerest condolences (Score:5, Insightful)
"Check the murder rate since the year 1200 in the world. The fact that this is huge news means we do a lot right."
You have murder stats going back over 800 years?
I'll assume you meant 2001. The United States has much higher murder rates than Canada and European Union countries. It also has both the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world, and, in absolute numbers, the most people in jail.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0818/p02s01-usju.htm l [csmonitor.com]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/uk/06/prisoMore prisons, tougher jail sentences ... they don't work. There's something about American culture that makes people think a gun is a solution instead of an accident waiting to happen, and we're seeing this attitude bleed over into other countries ...
More than 20. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:More than 20. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
He got away with it *both* times because the law emasculates the citizen from carrying a weapon at all times. If there were no restrictions on concealed carry, more people would carry. If V. Tech (like may schools) didn't ban firearms on its grounds, it's probable that some people in either group would have been armed and could have defended themselves.
Christ, can't you shut up with this shit for a day? If morons carried guns everywhere, we'd have many more than 31 killed in spontaneous acts of stupidity every day. There are people who I would generally trust to be around while they carry weapons, but I would not extend that trust of judgement to more than about 5% of the general population. Most of the rest are too damned stupid or impulsive.
In the absence of meaningful regulation of who gets guns - which people like you have fought vehemently against - sane people like me simply don't trust being around any number of idiots with guns. If you want more of society to accept the wisdom of having armed citizens around, you'll have to convince us that there's some method of keeping them in the right hands - which clearly did NOT happen today.
Re:More than 20. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
it's wrong to deprive the good guys of the means to defend themselves
Hate to use your own argument against you but, "Your argument is based on a specious assumption". That is to say that you can only speculate that it would be better (or at least no worse) if some|many|all of the students at staff at Virginia Tech were carrying weapons.
Think for a minute about the chaos that a few shots fired in a school would cause. Now, imagine that a bunch of people suddenly pull out handguns and start looking for the original shooter. I see a lot of problems with this situation.
Re:More than 20. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a difference between defending yourself and carrying around a lethal weapon that has no other purpose than to kill.
I'm sure that if you carried around Anthrax, or had some fertiliser packed into your car then some serious questions would be asked as to what on Earth you were doing. However, you've got a far greater chance of killing with a lethal weapon like a gun.
Re:More than 20. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Huh? Pretty much every time a husband shoots a wife or vice-versa would fall into this category. A few are murders for hire, and others are cold, calculating bastards, but pretty much any gun murder described as a "crime of passion" wouldn't have happened if the murderer hadn't had ready, legal access to a gun.
It's not that "most" people are like this, but enough are that it's likely more die due to widespread availability of guns than are protected by it.
Note that I agree with the NRA's interpretation of the 2nd Amendment. (After all, Madison and co. were dealing with single-shot muzzle loaders at the time, which wouldn't have allowed for this sort of horror.)
Re:More than 20. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Clearly you missed the point that criminals, by definition, do not obey the laws. There is some logic to that whole "when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns" motto. It's a truism. Gun laws shift the balance of power in favor of those who don't give a shit about the law.
That relies on 2 things: 1) that there is a distinction between good guys and bad guys, and 2) that good guys are good shots. For the first, many (to that point) honest citizens commit "heat of the moment" crimes, which would certainly be made worse with the presence of guns. The second creates problems when well meaning laypeople start playing hero and injure bystanders.
What you're trying to convince people is that a device, whose sole purpose is to maim and kill, should be allowed to be carried in public by anyone, without demonstrating 1) basic competency or 2) psychological dependability. Forget that.
I'm not one of the crazies on either side, but if we have to have licenses for cars, we need licenses for guns. And I'm not interested in the BS slippery slope rhetoric. I'm OK with highly trained civillians carrying guns in public. I'm OK with idiot yokels having guns locked up at home that they use for hunting or target practice. I'm not OK with idiot yokels carrying guns in public. It's not safe.
If you're in favor of licensing, background investigations, testing, and registration, then I'm OK with concealed permit licensing. Until then, no thanks.
Re:More than 20. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
If only that were the case. There's too many firearm advocates arguing that ANY attempt to regulate gun ownership or require certification for gun owners is unacceptable -- that if you can't anonymously walk into a Wal-Mart with a wad of cash and walk out with a handgun and a box of ammo, that means the government's eventually going to use gun registration records to round up the gun owners and take their weapons away. Gun nuts seem to enjoy contemplating the "firefight with an oppressive overlord" fantasy.
I'm all for allowing a well-regulated militia to bear arms. But it HAS to be well-regulated.
Re:More than 20. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Would guns on campus have prevented more people from getting shot? Who the hell knows? Maybe it would have meant several people trying to play hero and causing even more casualties by shooting wildly in the direction of the gunman. It's just idle speculation. The real question here is how a 911 call about shots fired gets to police at 7:15am and the same gunman (apparently) is allowed to come in and shoot up another building on the same campus TWO HOURS LATER with no police presence.
Re:More than 20. . . (Score:5, Informative)
To get a CCP in the vast majority of states you have to show you are proficient in handling a firearm. I can't speak for other states, but the people who can pass a CCP exam aren't the type that will be shooting wildly.
Worked at the University of Texas (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Worked at the University of Texas (Score:5, Insightful)
So I stand by my original statement that trying to push a gun rights agenda on this discussion is pointless and disgusting, as there is no way to tell how having more guns around would have affected (for better or worse) this particular situation. Not to mention it's despicable to push any sort of political agenda on a tragedy like this, particularly so soon after the fact.
Re:Worked at the University of Texas (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:More than 20. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, if you check the statistics, armed citizens have a better record than the police do of only shooting the actual bad guy. This is mostly because the police come on the scene late and need to figure out who the bad guy is; a citizen on the scene who witnesses the bad guy in action knows who the bad guy is. And responsible adults don't lightly pull out guns, especially if they have had good training.
I believe that if armed citizens trying to play hero caused even more casualties, that would be big news, carried by all the mainstream media. (If someone shoots a bunch of students, that's big news; if a citizen shoots someone by mistake, that's big news; and if a citizen stops a bad guy before he can shoot a bunch of people, that's local-interest news only. You never see a headline like "local man heroically stops gunman at school"; it's more like "local man shoots teen", and it goes downhill from there if the local man is white and the gunman isn't.) Anyway, I cannot recall seeing any news stories like this.
The real question here is how a 911 call about shots fired gets to police at 7:15am and the same gunman (apparently) is allowed to come in and shoot up another building on the same campus TWO HOURS LATER with no police presence.
That's just horrible. But it is an example that you can't count on the police to protect you. In general, the police do their best, and lapses like the above are rare; but it remains true that you can't count on the police to protect you.
steveha
And the Hokie administration led the charge... (Score:5, Interesting)
He got away with it *both* times because the law emasculates the citizen from carrying a weapon at all times.
And it was the Hokie adminstration that led the charge to dis-arm the students and the faculty:
Re:More than 20. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Consider: you are carrying a concealed weapon and you hear gunfire coming from the room down the hall (or maybe from the floor below). You draw your weapon, and the next thing you know someone carrying a gun walks into the room. Is it another student from elsewhere in the building responding to the gunfire, or the nutcase? Do you shoot them before they can shoot you? Now add plenty of screaming and panic, and multiply this scenario by the number of different panicked scared students all carrying firearms.
To my mind each case (the nutcase getting shot, and a anumber of innocent students getting shot) seems equally reasonable, so given that the whole thing is purely hypothetical can you really claim, with any certainty, that lots of students carrying guns would have saved lives? I don't see that that is clear at all.
Re:More than 20. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
YEAH MAN (Score:5, Insightful)
Get a goddamned grip. The US has more guns -- and more gun deaths -- than any other developed nation [medicinenet.com].
Clearly the solution to today's situation would have been for everyone to have guns, then people could have started firing recklessly into the fray and that would have been really fucking great!
Re:More than 20. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
He got away with it *both* times because the law emasculates the citizen from carrying a weapon at all times. If there were no restrictions on concealed carry, more people would carry. If V. Tech (like may schools) didn't ban firearms on its grounds, it's probable that some people in either group would have been armed and could have defended themselves.
Precisely, the way it works in Baghdad. Once a bad Iraqi shows up, a group of good Iraqis shoot him and violence stops right there. Works like a charm in practice, which is why Baghdad is one of the safest places on Earth, as opposed tho those crazy gun-control places like Sweden.
Re:More than 20. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Skilled people make mistakes every day. Unskilled people make many mistakes every day. Would more guns have helped in this situation? maybe. It's possible that the gun man could have walked into the first place, started shooting and promptly get shot himself. But it's much more likely that he would have walked in, started shooting, and in the chaos that ensued multiple people would have fired back, most of whom wouldn't even know who their target was. They would resort to shooting who ever had a gun, including each other. Sure, the guy would have been stopped in the first incident, but the cross fire would have killed 30 people anyways.
Once you look at the number of heat of the moment crimes that would escalate to guns instead of fists and knives, and the number of accidental discharges, it doesn't take long to see that while a very, VERY small number of isolated incidents may be avoided, significantly MORE incidents would occur overall.
I'm all for the 2nd amendment. But the purpose of that law was not to protect ourselves from each other, so much as it was to protect ourselves from the government. Soap, Ballot, Jury, Ammo; Use your boxes wisely.
-Rick
Re:More than 20. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
The concept of sane/insane is really tricky, here. The two kids at Columbine knew that there was a trained, armed policeman at the school that day, and that there wouldn't be the next day, but that didn't deter them. Does that automatically mean they were insane? Or does it mean that the symbolic nature of the date was more important? Or that the idea of a gunfight was more interesting than deterring? I suggest that a person who is even considering shooting a bunch of other people is unlikely to be strongly deterred by the idea of armed opponents, so then it becomes a matter of whether having more armed people will more quickly remove a gunman than it will lead to additional deaths from those same guns.
From real experience: I shot someone! (Score:5, Insightful)
In some of the towns I lived in at least 30% of males on the street were carrying. Luckily almost all of those had been through military training and knew a few things about guns, target assesment, risk mitigation etc. Go into the kmart equivalent and the guy helping folk select a tie had a 357 on his hip. Quite a few people got shot by mistake.
In USA there's the problem that so few people with firearms have real firearm training. I am not that opposed to *very* well trained people carrying weapons, but am suggesting that the idea that it should be a citizen's right is broken.
Don't. Do. That. (Score:5, Insightful)
Please, DO NOT add to it with talks of "worst" or not worst, of "top three", and of "body counts". This ISN'T a game. There is no high score. There's no achievement or rank involved.
This kind of talk always bothers me. I guess it's natural to try to categorize and make sense of it - but it even bothers me for natural events like earthquakes or floods. The difference is, natural events don't care one way or another.
I guess we'll never know the shooter's motivation. But is it that far-fetched to assume that the immense amount of attention previous shootings got played at least SOME role in his mind? That the temptation of immortal infamy made him choose THIS way to go, rather than another?
And now we put him in a "top 3"?
ALREADY Jack Thompson blames games (Score:5, Insightful)
How the hell does Jacko correlate the skill of properly aiming and discharging a firearm with moving a thumbstick and pressing a button on a control-pad? There is no link there!
Listen Jack, just because your addled mind cannot disassociate video games from reality doesn't mean that the rest of us can't either. For fuck sake, the bodies aren't even COLD yet, we have no idea who the shooter is, and already you're exploiting this situation to try to push your illogical and ultimatly incorrect agenda?
You are a sick, sick man Jacko. Human filth. The only person worse than you in this situation is the shooter, but at least he had the decency to get killed.
My heart goes out to the victims of this tragedy, but right now I can't help but feel only rage at the baseless lies and unabashed opportunism displayed by this man.
Re:ALREADY Jack Thompson blames games (Score:5, Insightful)
Though this is what we can expect in a mass media age. Here we are, on Slashdot, already discussing it when they're still counting the dead.
But I'm glad there is a place to discuss it. I have friends in the area, I know people who went to the colleges there. It's really freaky.
Re:ALREADY Jack Thompson blames games (Score:5, Funny)
Checked in with people I knew as best I could. (Score:5, Informative)
From what I heard they put all schools in the county into lockdown when the attack was detected - not just college campuses. The gunman is apparently dead, but obviously everyone is extremely nervous.
Apparently the campus had had bomb threats in the last two weeks. No idea if they're connected:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18134671/ [msn.com]
My thoughts are with the lost and their loved ones.
As horrifying as this is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Thoughts and prayers for all victims of violence.
Re:As horrifying as this is... (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact is, in both cases, innocent civilians are being killed, but here in the west, if something like this happens, the event is met with horror and outrage. Why? Because it's close. Because it's not supposed to happen here. But it's different in Baghdad because, as we all know, Iraq is a third-world hell hole populated by murderous, religious fanatics that we don't care to understand.
gun control comments (Score:5, Insightful)
As I recall it only took a couple of guys with some simple box cutters to kill 3000+ people, so what would
a gun ban do?
Why are people allowed to possess guns in the US? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Why are people allowed to possess guns in the U (Score:5, Interesting)
Because in this country we - historically - believe in certain inalienable rights of all men; and that includes - in addition to the phrase "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness" - the idea that individuals (or groups of individuals joined together for a common good) can defend those rights, using violence if necessary. Now no sane person *wants* violence or war, or bloodshed, but our Founding Fathers acknowledged that sometimes you have to choose to utilized armed forced in order to defend your "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Case in point, the US Revolutionary War.
And to this day, US citizens generally understand that if the government ever becomes tyrannical and repressive, "we the people" have the right (and must have the means) to overthrow it.
Could anybody enlighten me as to why people want to carry guns at all?
Because there is no way to prevent crazy nuts like this guy from VT from getting guns. And some people want to be able to defend themselves when these nuts show up and start shooting.
Re:Why are people allowed to possess guns in the U (Score:5, Insightful)
There seems to be a cultivation of fear, where violent crime seems to get a disproportionate amount of coverage on the news that's way beyond the actual importance of it. So there was an armed robbery at the gas station earlier this morning. Do we really need a live outside broadcast from the scene of the crime at 7pm where all the activity has long finished?
On the radio this morning someone made a very good point about people in their neighbourhood driving their children the short distance to school for fear of abduction, even though the number of abductions in that area in the last ten years is zero. TV shows talk about an 'epidemic' of road rage, an epidemic being five reported incidents in the country in the last year. Remember the SARS outbreak? About five people in Asia died from it and it was reported as a 'worldwide pandemic.'
I don't know if gun control is the complete solution to the problem, it runs much deeper than that, but it has to be part of it. There's no way any random person should be able to walk in off the street and buy an AK47.
The folly of Michael Moore (Score:5, Insightful)
Michael Moore goes wrong in a number of areas with his "culture of fear" model of US gun crime. Highlights follow:
- First, while many nations (including my own, i.e. Sweden) have plenty of legal guns (hunting is a huge movement here and tens of thousands of reservists have FN-FAL assault rifles at home), those are usually of models not well suited to crime, are registered, and required to be stored in a safe fashion. The same goes for, say, Canada (his chosen comparison).
- General US gun deaths are extremely concentrated to certain demographic groups (Read: black & latino bangers in inner-cities.). For instance, a little more than half of all US killers are black, despite making up a bit more than a tenth of the population. (I.e see the bureau of justice statistics: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/crimoff.htm [usdoj.gov]) The gross murder rate for US lily-white suburbia is much closer to Europe than stats would let on, despite spillover from the inner city wars.
- In short, the main general problem with regards to guns in the US are not trigger happy rednecks in Arkansas or scared soccer moms killing people by mistake. The "culture of fear" theory just comes up short when confronted by reality.
- Gun accessibility, however, is probably important. The banger wars are hardly helped by the plentiful and easy access to guns. It is unrealistic at this point, however, to see how even a total gun ban could yield short-term results in this department. Bangers would hang on to their illegal guns no matter what laws are passed, and only a long battle of attrition could bring major crime-drop windfalls. In the meantime, the law-abiding population would be stripped of percieved and real protection, and political pressures to ease gun access would mount.
- Making things even more complicated, the main benificiaries of a gun ban would in the end be white city liberals, while the hunting 'n guns culture of the rednecks would pay a big chunk of the price. The political problems are obvious.
- Finally (lots more to be said, but I have to go to bed...
That it for today. Goodnight!
Re:Why are people allowed to possess guns in the U (Score:5, Interesting)
Another thing to remember is that guns have a great equalizing effect. Sure, the thug could pull a gun and kill you, but you have the ability to do the same. In this country even someones grandmother could be carrying a handgun in the big purse. She might even know how to use it. Firearms do put power in the hands of weaker people that they wouldn't have otherwise. Take a big guy who discovers he can get what he wants through force, now give the victim a firearm, big dude is less dangerous.
And let's go to the last/best argument. The cat is out of the bag. Guns are scattered through our country now. If you banned them it would have little if any effect in the short or medium term. Well, the black market value would probably go up, and law abiding citizens would be more unarmed, but neither of those is good. They've been such a part of our culture for so long that removing them now just isn't a viable option. Shoot, I know a number of law abiding citizens that just wouldn't give them up, let alone criminals.
Personally, I have very little problem with concealed carry laws. One day I may carry a gun myself. Unlikely, but I don't have a feeling of disgust about it. That said, I think people should have some very good training, regular re-examinations, psychological testing, etc. before they are allowed to carry.
Why Did He Do It? (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Virginia Tech not to blame (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet, people are already blaming Virginia Tech.
Would we close or "lock down" a city of 40000 people if there was a shooting? Because that's exactly what a campus of this size and type is (including students and faculty/staff).
No, but people are already calling for siren/PA systems in EVERY of HUNDREDS of buildings, of varying ages and constructions, centralized door locking/control and camera systems for not just outer building doors, but ALL doors.
The University reacted in a reasonable way. Yes, a shooter was "on the loose". Someone who had shot a person in a dorm, and the University immediately sent out notifications that such an event occurred; to be cautious and aware, and to report any suspicious activity to campus police. The area was "locked down", but after over two hours elapsed, there was no reason to believe that a madman was about to go on a random killing spree across campus.
This is not an elementary school. This is not a high school. This is a massive, open research campus with tens of thousands of people spreading over 2600 acres, with private, residential, and other buildings intermixed.
The only person to be blamed here is the shooter. And yes, he's dead. But Virginia Tech is not at fault.
Transcript from VT afternoon press conference (Score:5, Informative)
- I am vice president for university relations. We will begin this with a short statement by the president. All of the individuals will be available for comment. The president will identify him in his opening comments. We will stay here as long as you need us to. Afterwards, i will be available for comment. Obviously, there are an awful lot of you and there is one of me. I would recommend that we try to get as much as we can accomplish in this press briefing today.
- Thank you. Just a few minutes ago , i spoke with president bush and he conveyed his concern and condolences for everyone in washington and offered all of the help that they could possibly provide. I' ve also spoken with the governor who was coming back from tokyo. He has declared a state of emergency which allows us to access significant oth er assets at that will be required to do with this tragedy. With me today is the secretary for public service for the commonwealth of virginia, john marshall, and the superintendent for the virginia state police. Also is the mayor of b lacksburg, the chief of the blacksburg police department and the chief of the virginia tech police. I want to repeat my horror and disbelief and profound sorrow at the events of today. People from around the world have expressed their shock and their sorrow. I am really at a loss for words to explain or understand the carnage that has visited our campus. I know no other way to speak about this than to tell you what we now. It is now confirmed that we have at 31 deaths from the norris hall , including the gunman. 15 Other victims are being treated at hospitals. There are two confirmed deaths from the shooting in the dormitory, in addition to those at norris hall. We' ve not confirmed the activity of the gun man because he carried no at the dedication. We are in the process of attempting a dedication identification. We are in the proces s of notifying next of kin. This will take some time. We will not release any names unti l we are positive of this edification. We anticipate being able to release a list sometime tomorrow. We' re asking our students to contact their parents and let them know their status. Our investigation continues into whether there is a connection between the first and second incidents. That has not been decided. We know that the parents will want to embrace their children. We are not suggesting that you come to campus, however, if pa rents feel that it must come to campus, we are locating counselors at the end of virginia tech to be available. As you can imagine, security, investigation, operational, and counseling resources are very taxed at this moment. However, we are getting assistance from the state police, the fbi, the atf, local jurisdictions, and the red cross. We understand the desire and the compelling need to get information on the part of families, stu dents, and loved ones. Unfortunately, this is all of the information that we can verify at this point in time. We are posting information o n our web site as we learned it. I communication systems are taxed . We are posting information on the web site for the state police. I think we are ready to take questions.
- Why not shut down campus after the first shooting rather g -- shooting?
- The information that we have less to make the decision that it was an isolated event to that building and the decision was not made to cancel class' s at that time.
- Can you say why the students were not notified for tw o hours?
- They were notified that there was a shooting. You have to remember that of the 26,000 is that we have, only about 9000 are on campus. When the class start at 9:00 A.M., Thou sands of people are in transit. The question is, where do you keep them when it is most safe? We concluded that the incident at the dormitory was domestic in question. This other events occurred two hours later.
- The first e-mail did not arrive
Re:Completely agree, also keep in mind the context (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't believe no one has said it (Score:5, Funny)
Thank you (no sarcasm) (Score:5, Insightful)
Because this is the thing: Life isn't terrible. Yes, very bad things happen. People do horrible things. Always have, always will. This one is worse than many. But we cope, and continue, and manage to find beauty and companionship and humor despite it all, and that's amazing.
So, thank you for your humor. I think that it is a necessity in tragedy, a good grounding to prevent us from getting wrapped up in our mourning, or at least to prevent us from being swept away in wave after wave of media-induced panic - they tend to not report the good things, you have to use your own eyes for that.
Interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
Practice the Shaolin Way (Score:5, Insightful)
These students today, I don't want to be harsh on the injured, but they should have been READY. Everybody should be ready for anything. If this means carrying a
Fight back!
Josh
Re:Engineering building (Score:5, Interesting)
So far, 32 dead they say including him...they said he was an oriental fellow, with a vest on, and lots of ammo strapped to him.
Any word if he was an engineering student that may have snapped or anything?
Sad day...
Re:Engineering building (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Engineering building (Score:5, Insightful)
Look, whatever. The issue at hand isn't terminology. It's the murders.
If the students were armed, as provided for by the 2nd amendment, someone could have dropped that guy early on and saved 30 or more people. Chalk up another bunch of deaths to the pussification of American citizens by the mommy government. There will be no correction, though; instead of people going "well duh, I should be armed in case some crazy bastard shows up in my face somewhere", they'll just take a bunch more of your civil rights away at the schools - restrict your movements, require papers, stick RFID tags to you earlobes, x-ray your colons... and a year or so from now, some crazy will do the same thing again, perhaps slightly more cleverly.
Ah, it's so frustrating to hear news like this. All those people did not have to die. Learn to defend yourselves, and be willing to. Seriously. The government cannot protect you from crazies; you have to do it yourself. The government always arrives after these events - only you can stop them as they happen. Get licensed. Practice. Carry. Be a protector instead of a victim. When the government says you can't carry here or there, fight like wildcats to reject this weakening of your ability to defend yourself and those you care about. The government is not your friend.
Re:Engineering building (Score:5, Funny)
Look, whatever. The issue at hand isn't guns. It's Hypnogenic Ninjitsu.
If the students had been trained as ninjas with the power to hypnotize their attackers, as provided for by Bob's Ninjitsu and Hypnosis College, someone could have done the Stare-of-Freezing to that guy early on and saved 30 or more people. Chalk up another bunch of deaths to the anti-Ninja agenda of American citizens by the mommy government. There will be no correction, though; instead of people going "well duh, I should take Hypnogenic Ninjitsu classes in case some crazy bastard shows up in my face somewhere", they'll just take a bunch more of your martial arts education away at the schools - restrict your hypnosis lessons, require Ninja-study permission slips, make you wear "guns don't kill people, Ninjas do" T-shirts, ... and a year or so from now, some crazy will do the same thing again, perhaps slightly more cleverly and with more throwing stars.
Re:Engineering building (Score:5, Insightful)
But what if the assailant WASN'T armed?
Maybe you shouldn't say anything until you know where he got his gun. If he bought it at K-Mart at 7AM and was shooting people at 7:30 AM, that might be a pretty strong indication that the problem here wasn't the availability of guns to the other students, the problem was the availability of guns to the assailant.
Also, it's premature to blame the law for the lack of guns in the possession of the students. Not only would the law have to be different, we would also need to know if there were any students present who would have been carrying a firearm themselves if it was legal to do so.
But, the reality of the situation is we're screwed either way:
Not all gun crime is the same. Some gun crime is impulsive - people who are impulsively violent are more destructive when they have ready access to a firearm. In these kinds of gun crimes, eliminating ready access to firearms would reduce the effects of gun crime. And some gun crime is premeditated - the criminal is going to get the gun they need to commit the crime. In that kind of crime, reducing ready access to firearms creates an opportunity for the criminal.
So you can't solve the gun problem, you can just favor one kind of gun violence over another.
Re:Engineering building (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously though, people bring up this bizarre "man gets angry, buys a gun, shoots people, all in the same day" scenario quite frequently, but I have yet to hear of a single incident where anyone has actually done that. Most shootings are committed by people who already have guns, and have usually had them for quite a while. Face it, the time it takes to go buy a gun is usually long enough to cool off any normal "hothead". If the law considers a couple hours ample time to "cool off" when making the distinction between 1st and 2nd degree murder, then why do some people think it should take 3-14 DAYS (varies from state to state) to "cool off" when trying to buy a firearm? It's absurd.
Re:Engineering building (Score:5, Insightful)
People like you have no idea what it means to live in a society where everyone has a gun. All you have is your little pornographic power fantasies. Yeah, completely banning guns is no recipe for global peace. But neither is giving everyone a gun.
Re:Engineering building (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Engineering building (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Engineering building (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, I'll tell you what. Why don't you go tell these kid's parents and friends that it was ok, because it was rare. Go ahead. I'll wait here for you. With a first aid kit. Hopefully, that'll be sufficient.
Agreed. No guarantees. However, at least they would have had a chance, one that improved in direct proportion to the number of armed and trained people in the group. As it was, however, they had none, because the rules required them to be defenseless. Now they're dead, and we're not talking about "chance", are we? No. because we're certain they're dead, and we're certain they had no way to defend themselves.
Re:Engineering building (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Engineering building (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't shoot anyone for holding a gun. I only shoot if I see someone shooting unarmed students.
If someone runs into your car in a parking lot, who do you blame? Everyone with a car? Of course not. Only the person you know hit your car. Stop trying to caricature armed citizens as twitching bundles of indiscriminate reflexes. We can think as well as you can, and about the same things.
Re:Engineering building (Score:5, Insightful)
What happens if you see someone with a gun shoot someone else with a gun, then turn and point their gun at another guy with a gun? Is that person the original shooter, or did they just kill the original shooter? Should you shoot that person to protect everyone else in case they are the original shooter? What happens if you're the person they point their gun at next, do you shoot them because they just shot someone else and now they're about to shoot you? Or do you lay down your gun because they're just confused because you still have your gun out after they shot the original shooter?
Oh yes, and did I mention, you have approximately 1/2 a second to evaluate and answer the above questions.
Re:Engineering building (Score:5, Insightful)
Guns are tightly controlled in New York. In Kennesaw, every household is legally obligated to keep a gun. So explain to me again how gun control saves peoples' lives?
Or maybe, just maybe, you can't compare two very different places and assume that gun control is the difference!
I'm not arguing for or against gun control, but as someone once said, "your argument is trash".
Asian/Oriental (Score:5, Insightful)
It's like the mis-use of the term African-American. African-American is a cultural distinction. Not all blacks are African-American some are from the Caribean, some are Pacific Islanders, some are African. The term 'black' is offensive very few people... and very useful in describing race and society.
But what do you do about Asian/Oriental? You could try to be specific on country of origin... but Chinese isn't very good as there are many different races/ethnicities from China. If you're going to distinguish between Han Chinese and Korean, you might as well distinguish Tibetan too.
My vote is to simplify skin color just like eye/hair color: Whites, Blacks, Browns, Yellows, and Reds.
oh... and for those of you on this thread who think 'oriental' is as bad as the n-word... you have not seen/experienced real full-force dehumanising racism if you can honestly claim that. There are racist terms equavalent to the n-word, but 'oriental' isn't one of them.
Right to bare arms (Score:5, Funny)
Students and Weapons: (Score:5, Insightful)
Students have enough problems with getting to class on time and making terrible decisions with the largest deadliest weapons at their disposal: motor vehicles.
It doesn't take too much imagination to envision the mayhem with them carrying firearms and making decisions about shooting them.
Re:That depends on who has all the guns (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, I fear crazy people who can just walk into K-Mart and arm themselves.
You can look at this situation and say that the problem is that none of the other students had guns.
But you can just as easily look at this situation and conclude that the problem is that the nutjob DID have a gun.
So your solution is 'Give everyone a gun!'. My solution is 'Don't give crazy people guns.'
Your way the crazy guy only manages to kill 3 or 4 people before someone else shoots him. My way, nobody gets shot.
Re:Exactly right. (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, the American pro-gun lobby often use the argument that if guns are criminalised, only criminals will have them. Which is probably true. But as I just said, they'll mostly only use them against people like themselves. I don't think there's a significantly higher number of potential mass murderers in the US than there are in the UK, yet incidents like this one today are far more common in America. The only reason I can see for this is that when somebody comes completely unhinged, it's easier to reach for a gun and commit an atrocity there. Here in the UK, I couldn't do it if I wanted to. Getting access to a gun would be an absolute pain in the backside, and I speak as someone who has a friend who sells rifles for a living.
It's the ease of access to guns, and the ease with which you can pile up dead bodies once you have one, that makes incidents like this more common. I don't see how anybody could argue otherwise. On the other hand, I don't see what you can do about it now, either. The genie's out of the bottle. You're never going to take those guns back off people. It's part of the culture. We, on the other hand, never had them in the first place, and I think that even if we suddenly had gun laws like America's tomorrow, we wouldn't be going out and buying them either.
All this is a long-winded way of saying "I agree">
Re:Gun Laws (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Go go Jack Thompson (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Go go Jack Thompson (Score:5, Insightful)
Jack Thompson will blame video games, Jerry Falwell will blame gay marriage, Rosie O'Donnel will say it is the proliferation of guns, Rush Limbaugh will tell us that this is the inevitable result of a a Democrat majority. This is how these people get their faces on TV.
I don't even think it is seen as grotesque by most people any more.
Re:Go go Jack Thompson (Score:5, Informative)
ABC is reporting that it was 2 semi-automatic pistols. Hardly an asrenal.
Re:Go go Jack Thompson (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Go go Jack Thompson (Score:5, Informative)
Sure. It happens quite often. http://www.guncite.com/kleckandgertztable1.html [guncite.com] Even the very conservative estimates put the number at over half a million per year. The most thorough survey puts it at around 2 million per year.
Re:Go go Jack Thompson (Score:5, Insightful)
Or found their weapon stolen and had been used to kill even more people. Or been outgunned in a hall shootout in the same manner as the armed guard at Columbine.
This is breaking news, can we please all put down our politics until the story becomes more coherent?
Re:Gaming (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Gaming (Score:5, Insightful)
- Computer games
- Music of some sort
- Lack of gun control
- Religion
- Lack of religion
- Educational system
- Lack of mental-health counseling
- If the person turns out to be an engineering student, expect blame to fall on H1B visas for providing too much competition for local engineers
- If the person turns out to be foreign, I can imagine a whole slew of others to blame
In short, blame everything/everybody except the person who did the deed. Personal responsibility is not even a concept in America any more.Re:Gaming (Score:5, Informative)
No guns are allowed on campus. We have a few full-time shrinks on campus. The engineering student was probably an american (most of our foreign students are grad students). So far the word is the kid was a senior with 3 engineering majors. We have lots of bible groups, etc on campus, but we're not really known for being very religious or very secular for that matter.
My guess would be stress. I've seen grown men cry over single assignments, several of them, over the years here @ VT. The engineering kids are pushed really hard, and many of them don't deal with it very well. 60 hours a week of real work are pretty normal, with classes that everage 27-50%, which are only curved at the end (and nobody knows the curve till then). Try that for 4 years while growing up... Many engineering students I know end up having fairly empty shells of personalities, as their entire lives so far have circled around work and thinly veiled attempts at having a life on the side.
3 engineering majors at once would break most people. Guaranteed.
So far, the big questions are:
1. Why didn't the students find out about the 7:15am shooting until 2 hours later
2. Why was only the dorm closed?
To be fair, we had two bomb threats (no bombs) over the last 2 weeks, the last one only 3 days ago. So maybe the administration was getting tired of interrupting school for non-issues.
Re:Gaming, no (Score:5, Interesting)
No, but out of curiosity I wonder what kind of weapon and or training the person had. This is the highest body count any mass murder has had on a rampage in the states.
The only higher World Wide (at least so far) was the Port Arthur Massacre [wikipedia.org] with 35 deaths who used an AR-10 rifle.
I'm not pro or anti gun, but you simply can't go on a mass murdering spree like this with a knife or a bow and arrow.
Re:Get ready... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Get ready... (Score:5, Informative)
10. Fireworks/Explosives/Hazardous Chemicals/Weapons
Unauthorized possession or use of fireworks, explosives, or weapons is prohibited. Hazardous chemicals that could pose a health risk are also prohibited from the campus, including chemicals that, when combined with other substances, could be hazardous or present a danger to others.
Unauthorized possession, storage (in vehicles on campus as well as in the residence halls), or control of firearms and weapons on university property is prohibited. (NOTE: Organizational weapons of the Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets, approved by the commandant, are not prohibited by this policy.) Firearms are defined as any gun, rifle, pistol, or handgun designed to fire bullets, BBs, pellets, or shots (including paint balls), regardless of the propellant used. Other weapons are defined as any instrument of combat or any object not designed as an instrument of combat but carried for the purpose of inflicting or threatening bodily injury. Examples include (but are not limited to) knives with fixed blades or pocket knives with blades longer than four inches, razors, metal knuckles, blackjacks, hatchets, bows and arrows, nun chahkas, foils, or any explosive or incendiary device. Possession of realistic replicas of weapons on campus is prohibited. Students who store weapons in residence hall rooms, who brandish weapons, or who use a weapon in a reckless manner may face disciplinary action which may include suspension or dismissal from the university.
Refer to Section V.W. for additional information about Weapons.
Re:slashdot? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Beyond words... (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's give ourselves credit where it is deserved. There's probably not a person on this list who hasn't wanted to do multiple homicides now and then. But we don't. We learn to control our anger, to seek non-violent solutions.
Let's treat this incident as a baseline, and praise ourselves for having advanced well beyond it. This guy was an exception, not the norm.
Why bad behavior happens to good people? (Score:5, Insightful)
In reality there is no clear and permanent classification of people into "good" and "bad". The "good" person from yesterday might be a "bad" person today because of the circumstances they were put in. The "good cop, doing his job at work, might go home and beat his wife", and so on. Our society, our legal system though wants to make that binary classification because it is less painful for us to admit that we could also do "bad" thing once in a while and we surely like to think of ourselves as "good people".
A lot of the criminals when asked why they commited the crime would answer "I don't know why I did it." Notice I am not advocating that we should not punish the offenders or that individuals should not be responsible for their actions (those damn genes made me do it!), but rather that we shouldn't hastily judge and categorize people with permanent overgeneralized labels such as "he is evil" and "I am good". In case of a habitual offender or were a clear pattern of bad behavior occurs perhaps such labels are valid, however there are moments and circumstances were even the sanest and "best" of us can do pretty bad things.
Re:Beyond words... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Beyond words... (Score:5, Insightful)
For example, imagine that suddenly your dear and loving parents split apart violently. Your once placid and happy life is sundered apart. Instead of caring, your friends (if you're lucky enough have any) shrug it off. They might have gone through divorce and think it's much ado about nothing or perhaps they simply don't understand.
Meanwhile life only gets worse. It isn't just that no one understands, no one wants to. No one makes the effort to connect and communicate, or not enough people do. You only get to watch as everyone around them appears happy and complacent. They're having fun, playing games, living normal lives and crying about silly things like how their boyfriend dumped them. Boohoo, your soul is only tearing itself apart and no one notices.
The wound festers, and before long you hate everyone and everything. They're is so happy like sheep, ignorant and uncaring about the injustices that go on around them. They don't fucking care, so long as they get to have their stupid, superficial relationships and screw each other while others suffer. They're more than willing to spend $15 a month on some remote child in africa but to actually lift a finger themselves, too hard for the bastards.
Demons all of them. They're talking about you behind your back. They're pointing you out, you're the weirdo. The anti-social ass who chased away all those fuckers who were your "friends". No one wants anything to do with you, or doesn't know you're unclean. You practically don't even exist in the feeble minds of these bitches. Some socially disfigured leper.
Damn those fuckers to hell. You play nice, you're a "primadonna" because you had a nervous breakdown when your parents split. You play rough, and you're a lowlife scumfuck without the sophistication to breed. Fuck'em all and their social games. They'll see. You'll wake them up and they'll see. They'll see themselves for the compassionless, stupid fucks they are. Yeah, it'll be sweet.
Is that how this happened? Probably not. However, it's suprising how quickly good people can go bad when there's no one willing or able to support them.
Re:Beyond words... (Score:5, Interesting)
Almost exactly, I would say. I used to be kind of like that.
Life sucks when every day is a mind-numbingly boring routine at school, and all of your friends live life like a sitcom because that's all they know. I saw cruelty and injustice pretty much everywhere, and it pissed me off, but nobody I knew even cared.
That is exactly how these kinds of things happen. I didn't break, because when it came down to it I had one real friend that stuck with me. But when I see another kid going postal on the evening news, I'm never surprised. It's just another guy who wasn't as lucky as me.
Re:Beyond words... (Score:5, Insightful)
No. It means being nicer to people.
To friends, family and complete strangers.
Yes... I said complete strangers. We don't say please and thank you anymore. We don't hold doors for each other. We cut each other off in traffic and give each other the bird. We lie and cheat to get ahead at the work place. We gossip and ruin people's lives. We cut in line in grocery store and we try to rip off our waiter at the restaurant. We focus our lives our possessions and money and we don't give a damn to a man on the street or a kid who has had his world shattered. We say they are "crazy". We say they are "evil" and that it isn't our fault.
But it is our fault. Every single one of us have forgotten about all the other humans out there and we always trump "personal responsibility" on others without even thinking that we haven't even bothered ourselves.
I'm surprised more people don't go crazy in our society on a daily basis with the way we behave.
Everyone is about "ME! ME! ME!" without ever stopping to think about the fact they are hurting everyone else.
And I'm guilty as everyone else... But sometimes I think to myself "Maybe I shouldn't cut off that guy in traffic like that, he might go and snap."
Re:Beyond words... (Score:5, Insightful)
When kids pick on each other, some people seem to think that it's a positive thing - "real world lessons" and such. While children do need to, at some point, come to grips with the sometimes inharmonious nature of the world, *abuse* is neither healthy nor helpful, to anyone.
I take it as a truism that no one is born evil. Some people take a lot of shit, and win through it. Some take shit and end up written off for whatever reason. Some people take a lot of shit, and then decide that the only way they can cope with existence is to unload some shit on someone else.
If you kick a dog enough times, that dog will either crumble, or it will bite back.
We owe it to future generations to make the world a better place, as did each generation before us. Why do people hurt each other? What can we do? It's not easy, but it is worth thinking about.
My good will goes out to all affected by this incident.
Re:Beyond words... (Score:5, Interesting)
A man from Newfoundland decided for whatever reason he was going to go out in a shooting rampage. He decided he'd commit the rampage in Toronto because he thought people weren't very nice there. So he was at a park in Toronto, car full of guns and ammo scouting out the scene before starting his rampage. As it happened a woman was walking her dog ended up having a friendly conversation with him. The man then decided that people were too nice to kill in Toronto as well and so he turned himself into police.
Re:Beyond words... (Score:5, Interesting)
The word for it is psychopathy, which unfortunately isn't in the current DSM. But it has a great track record of predicting future criminal behavior in current inmates. It's characterized by a lack of ability to feel empathy. These people's brains are wired differently than most. There are millions of them, but most are small-time crooks and swindlers. Couple psychopathy with something more, and you've got potential for real tragedy.
Turns out Eric Harris [slate.com] was a psychopath.
Re:Beyond words... (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with Col. Cooper's statement is that killing people is seen as a bad thing, and is something that should be avoided. That is why soldiers and/or cops have to be authorized to use lethal force. A rifle is a tool, but it's purpose is, basically, to kill. So, while a rifle may have no moral stature, it is a tool whose purpose it is to effect a morally wrong action. Because, even if evil men can be "corrected" by men with rifles, those men with rifles have done something that we as a society frown upon.
As for your assertion that gun-free zones are in effect "unarmed victim zones," think about the fact that in our legal system there is a difference between manslaughter and murder; in order for murder to be committed, malice and forethought must be proved. If you piss someone with a gun off, they could very easily kill you, even if they weren't justified in their action. Without guns, it is a whole lot harder, involved, and personal to kill someone, and that means that fewer people will die. It is very true that people kill people, and as long as that is the case, people will continue to kill people, no matter what weapons we outlaw. However, removing weapons from the market makes it much harder, and that means that fewer people die; hence, why some people place their personal safety in front of their right to bear arms, and call for tighter gun control.
Re:Beyond words... (Score:5, Insightful)
Use logic to make your arguments. Don't try to claim that these two awful situations are linked in some way to sway people to your side.
Re:And still you fight for your right to bear arms (Score:5, Insightful)
And still you fight for your right to bear arms
(Score:2, Offtopic)
Take this as (another) wake up call. Vote for the candidate that promise to reform your gun control laws in '08.
Yeah, existing laws - making it illegal to walk on campus with a gun and shoot 30+ people - really did a lot of good, no? What makes you think passing more laws is going to help?
Something like this actually makes me MORE determined than ever to fight for my 2nd Amendment rights. You can do whatever the fuck you want if some nut with a gun shows up and starts trying to kill you, but I want to be able to defend myself. I may not succeed, but at least I won't go out cowering under a desk, praying to a god that does not exist, that the killer won't find me.
Re:And still you fight for your right to bear arms (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And still you fight for your right to bear arms (Score:5, Interesting)
And I as a journalist have a hard time wrapping my head around it. Indeed, mass-violence predates videogames and even mass-media.
Recently, the hype surrounding the business favorite pair of double-d's (death and destruction) has gone up monumentally, it would seem.
Most news outlets have restrictions on publishing news about suicides that don't involve anyone else. This is so, because mass dissemination of information on suicides has been clinically linked to an increase in suicides in the community. Likely, if this guy had offed himself in his dorm/apartment/car, it never would have been seen or heard. Now, looking at a story about some nutjob taking 32 people with him, it can't be avoided.
This guy has made a name for himself that will be remembered for a long time. Since he wanted to die anyway (presumably), this was an easy way to do it. It's much harder to become famous by inventing a longer lasting lightbulb, or by taking pictures (trust me) than it is by doing something really 'out there'. In this guy's head, fame and infamy are the same thing.
I wonder how we should be treating mass tragedy in the news? Part of me wants to let it go entirely. Certainly not ostrich syndrome-style, but as a means of not making it glamorous and copy-cat worthy.
I think if all news outlets in general tried harder to present the full perspective on life, not just DD sensationalism, we'd all be in a better place.
But maybe I'm wrong. What do I know?
Re:Federal Sources Cite 31 Dead Now (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Hear, hear (Score:5, Interesting)
It sounds counter-intuitive to many, but here's a study which supports your position:
Multiple Victim Public Shootings, Bombings, and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handgun Laws: Contrasting Private and Public Law Enforcement [ssrn.com]
JOHN R. LOTT Jr.
State University of New York - Department of Economics
WILLIAM M. LANDES
University of Chicago Law School; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Few events obtain the same instant worldwide news coverage as multiple victim public shootings. These crimes allow us to study the alternative methods used to kill a large number of people (e.g., shootings versus bombings), marginal deterrence and the severity of the crime, substitutability of penalties, private versus public methods of deterrence and incapacitation, and whether attacks produce copycats. Yet, economists have not studied this phenomenon. Our results are surprising and dramatic. While arrest or conviction rates and the death penalty reduce normal murder rates, our results find that the only policy factor to influence multiple victim public shootings is the passage of concealed handgun laws. We explain why public shootings are more sensitive than other violent crimes to concealed handguns, why the laws reduce both the number of shootings as well as their severity, and why other penalties like executions have differential deterrent effects depending upon the type of murder.
Re:Limbaugh Talking points (Score:5, Insightful)
Look at the fucking timestamps. When I started my comment there were 0 comments in this story.
I have my own mind and can make it up on my own. Welcome to my foes list.
The Libertarians' website thingy tells me that I am an upper left centrist. Make of that what you will.
Accusing people who don't agree with you of following someone else's agenda is a sorry excuse for an actual debate. Mudslinging is easy, but it still makes you look like an ass.
Fact: Some guy shot a bunch of people.
Fact: You are not permitted to carry guns on campus.
Fact: Someone with a gun would have been in a better position to shoot the shooter than someone without a gun. In fact, once the event was confirmed, they called some men with guns and those men came and shot the man shooting people.
Fact: You are making stupid assumptions. One of them is that he had no facts before you did.
Ah yes, compare me to Rush in order to discredit me. That will work fine on the idiot sheeple who respond predictably to such stimulus. But it will not work on rational individuals who are not afraid to make up their own minds.
Also, if Rush takes the same stance on carrying firearms, then I am not afraid to stand up and be counted as someone who agrees with him on the individual point, because issues and people are different things. Congratulations on being a sheep who does not understand this, and who even attempts to use that confusion to paint me as intolerant.
Never mind that denying someone their constitutional rights is what's genuinely intolerant here.
Re:Thoughts go the the families.. (Score:5, Insightful)
And to karma-whores, for the sort of pointless statement you get on local TV coverage of this sort of thing.
Re:Thoughts go the the families.. (Score:5, Insightful)
College is a time of unthinkable often unheard sacrifice for many people. People give up everything to go, working terrible jobs for years to save enough to get started, leave everyone and everything they know to live in an isolated world, and find their isolation enforced by bitter poverty and relentless work. For a lot of people, this is their only chance at a future; If they fail, they'll be trapped with a minimum wage job and tens of thousands of dollars of debt they have no way to pay back and nothing tangible to show for it. For a lot of people, this time is an amplifier, sending all their insecurities, all their fears, all their self-hatreds into overdrive, changing it from something indistinguishable from the background noise of life to a roar, deafening and all-encompassing.
If this is the truth for the shooter, I'm sorry you couldn't be saved. You have ended your future and stolen others. I'll shed a tear fall for you and your fallen life, and your senseless, useless, meaningless death.
For anyone reading this, facing the same path, please know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and that there are people who know what you're going through. It's the hardest thing you'll ever have to do, but persevere, and don't become like this wasted life, because those who fight for the future they want are the ones who carry the heaviest burden, and the ones who shine the brightest.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)