Shootings at a dorm and classroom on the Virginia Tech campus Monday, April 16, 2007, left at least one person dead and one wounded, and a suspect was arrested, authorities said. (AP Graphic) By SUE LINDSEY Associated Press Writer
BLACKSBURG, Va. -- Gunfire erupted in a dorm and classroom at Virginia Tech on Monday, killing 22 people, the police chief said. The gunman was killed.
The university told students to stay inside and away from windows as police swept the campus and worked to establish whether the gunman acted alone.
A hospital spokeswoman said 17 students were treated for gunshot wounds and other injuries.
On the Web site, Tech reported the shootings at opposite ends of the 2,600-acre campus at West Ambler Johnston, a co-ed residence hall that houses 895 people, and said there were "multiple victims" at Norris Hall, an engineering building.
Government officials with knowledge of the case told The Associated Press there were seven to eight other "casualties."
All entrances to the campus were closed and classes canceled through Tuesday.
"There's just a lot of commotion. It's hard to tell exactly what's going on," said student Jason Anthony Smith, 19, who lives in the dorm where shooting took place.
Aimee Kanode, a freshman from Martinsville, said the shooting happened on the 4th floor of West Ambler Johnston dormitory, one floor above her room. Kanode's resident assistant knocked on her door about 8 a.m. to notify students to stay put.
"They had us under lockdown," Kanode said. "They temporarily lifted the lockdown, the gunman shot again."
"We're all locked in our dorms surfing the Internet trying to figure out what's going on," Kanode said.
Madison Van Duyne, a student who was interviewed by telephone on CNN, said, "We are all in lockdown. Most of the students are sitting on the floors away from the windows just trying to be as safe as possible."
It was second time in less than a year that the campus was closed because of a shooting.
In August 2006, the opening day of classes was canceled and the campus closed when an escaped jail inmate allegedly killed a hospital guard off campus and fled to the Tech area. A sheriff's deputy involved in the manhunt was killed on a trail just off campus.
The accused gunman, William Morva, faces capital murder charges.
Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Posted by rimasco on :
Terrible....Not alot of news on this yet....with that many killed I cant imagine what type gun this sicko was using. I would have to guess it was a fully automatic?
Posted by glassman on :
apparently, after the shooting in the dorms the gunman crossed a mile of campus and then shot up classes in an engineering building...
Posted by glassman on :
quote:Originally posted by rimasco: Terrible....Not alot of news on this yet....with that many killed I cant imagine what type gun this sicko was using. I would have to guess it was a fully automatic?
only a pistol is reported, the police are being tight-lipped..... they seem to be somewhat in shock about how this happened..
there is a big question if it was only a lone gunman...
Posted by rimasco on :
Thats what im saying...at columbine those two wastes of life were armed to the teeth and took out twelve and injured 24.
Maybe he was in a nest?......
Posted by glassman on :
it's not that hard to shoot unarmed students when you are standing in the doorway and blocking the exit..
Posted by rimasco on :
I know but my point is.....soon as you let off those first few rounds theres not to many targets left standing around....like i said at columbine there were two, shooting everything that moved....
I wouldnt be surprised if there was a second shooter...or like i said before....the kid was in a nest covering a huge area
Posted by glassman on :
i think the the police couldn't believe there was only one shooter too.. that's why we are not getting the news quickly..
Posted by glassman on :
the gun control questions are already being fired at the white house...
gee? if we outlaw guns? will the same dope dealers that supply all the campuses add Glocks to their "inventory"
Posted by urnso77 on :
Future Michael Moore movie coming? Posted by glassman on :
quote:Originally posted by urnso77: Future Michael Moore movie coming?
who cares? moore is a fat self-serving slob and so is rushie Posted by urnso77 on :
good grief...lol
Posted by urnso77 on :
good grief...lol
Posted by rimasco on :
Well we cant argue gun control until we see what hardware was used...
I not for total control but I dont see why guns like the tech 9 mac 10 and 11 are still in produstion....
Posted by glassman on :
2 9-milli semi-auto's...
i predict we'll find this guy had extensive experience maybe even "pro" training....
Posted by rimasco on :
Thats what im saying....this guy sounded like a marksman
Posted by BooDog on :
22 killed including the gunman 21 others injured. Couldn't use helos because of the high winds. Still waiting to hear from some friends about their kids. Our prayers are with all the families affected by this.
Posted by glassman on :
quote:Originally posted by rimasco: Well we cant argue gun control until we see what hardware was used...
I not for total control but I dont see why guns like the tech 9 mac 10 and 11 are still in produstion....
those guns are crap. their designs have been fundamentally altered so that they can no longer handle the forces generated in full-auto fire... the ATF (finally) forced the manuf. to change them...
there are older models still around that can be altered, but they are becoming scarcer and scarcer...
Posted by glassman on :
the numbers keep rising...
Posted by J_U_ICE on :
Now at 32. Posted by BooDog on :
quote:Originally posted by J_U_ICE: Now at 32.
not enough gremlin faces to express my anger
Posted by CashCowMoo on :
32 killed..
you know if one of those students had a conceal and carry and the campus allowed that then there is a possibility that gunman would have killed less...
now all the gun grabbers are going to say if guns were banned this would have never happened....as if the sicko wouldnt have found something else worse to use
Posted by glassman on :
agreed CCM...
we recently had an incident in a Jackson MS shopping center parking lot where an unidentified (armed) man stopped a guy from lighting his own wife on fire after the husband had stabbed her a dozen times and poured gasoline on her...
the guy with the gun just disappeared after the cops showed up
VA had some of the most liberal concealed carry laws in the country when i left there in '97.... i dunno if they changed 'em... in CA it's illegal to posses a firearm on any State campus
Posted by BooDog on :
still hearing 29 killed another 20 some injured. another 3-5 in critical condition. Some jumped from 2nd and 4th story windows to escape. a couple prior bomb threats a week and a couple weeks before this. That should have heightened security.
Posted by bdgee on :
Years ago, in a tavern in west Fort Worth, a drunk got into a fight and was ejected. He tried but couldn't find a gun to retaliate against the guy with whom he was angree. He went across the street and bought a gallon of gasoline and poured most of it in a glass jug, inserted a wad of shirt tail for a wick, lit the thing, and heaved it into the tavern from the front door.
The intended victim was in the restroom at the time and escaped unscratched through a small window into the alley way. Those inside the main tavern that didn't die were horribly disfigured for life.
The moral of this story is to ban glass bottles or any substitute that will shatter on empact. That's the reason all the soft dring and beer companies use plastic bottles or aluminum cans now. So stop riding them for being unconcerned with the environment and your safety.
Posted by BooDog on :
now up to 31. What station are you listening to juice?
Posted by rimasco on :
somthings fishy....I wouldnt be surprised if they hold back alot of info. to deter prospective copycats
Posted by rimasco on :
FBI spokesman Richard Kolko in Washington said there was no immediate evidence to suggest it was a terrorist attack, "but all avenues will be explored."
I must admit it did cross my mind
Posted by rimasco on :
Yahoo news Keeps running the same story but increasing the death toll...the toll stands at 30 + shooter
Posted by bdgee on :
The death toll after Whitman shot from the University Tower in Austin is still growing. There was a death announced about in January that "resulted from injuries" due to being shot by Whitman from his perch.
Posted by rimasco on :
"shooter appeared to be a heavily armed asian man"
Posted by Ramius on :
quote:Originally posted by bdgee: Years ago, in a tavern in west Fort Worth, a drunk got into a fight and was ejected. He tried but couldn't find a gun to retaliate against the guy with whom he was angree. He went across the street and bought a gallon of gasoline and poured most of it in a glass jug, inserted a wad of shirt tail for a wick, lit the thing, and heaved it into the tavern from the front door.
The intended victim was in the restroom at the time and escaped unscratched through a small window into the alley way. Those inside the main tavern that didn't die were horribly disfigured for life.
The moral of this story is to ban glass bottles or any substitute that will shatter on empact. That's the reason all the soft dring and beer companies use plastic bottles or aluminum cans now. So stop riding them for being unconcerned with the environment and your safety.
Seems to me a thin plastic bottle or can is a heck of a lot cheaper than glass.
Posted by rimasco on :
Its starting to look like somewhat of a columbine copycat...
A friend of the shooter said he plyed the game "DOOM" alot which Klepold and the other azz-clown played as well.
They also said that the largest school shooting previos to this one was in Germany, where 16 were left dead. They said in that case as well they found 50 shoot'em up games in the murderers home.
Posted by BooDog on :
Gunman Opens Fire in Virginia Tech Dorm, Classroom, Killing at Least 30 People; Gunman Killed 04-16-2007 2:48 PM By SUE LINDSEY, Associated Press Writer
BLACKSBURG, Va. (Associated Press) -- A gunman opened fire in a Virginia Tech dorm and then, two hours later, in a classroom across campus Monday, killing at least 30 people in the deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history, government officials told The Associated Press. The gunman was killed, bringing the death toll to 31.
"Today the university was struck with a tragedy that we consider of monumental proportions," said Virginia Tech president Charles Steger. "The university is shocked and indeed horrified."
It was not immediately clear whether the gunman was shot by police or took his own life. His name was not released, investigators offered no motive for the attack. It was not known if the gunman was a student.
The shootings spread panic and confusion on campus, with witnesses reporting students jumping out the windows of a classroom building to escape the gunfire. SWAT team members with helmets, flak jackets and assault rifles swarmed over the campus. Students and faculty members carried out some of the wounded themselves, without waiting for ambulances to arrive.
The massacre took place at opposite sides of the 2,600-acre campus, beginning at about 7:15 a.m. at West Ambler Johnston, a coed dormitory that houses 895 people, and continuing at least two hours later at Norris Hall, an engineering building about a half-mile away, authorities said.
Police said they were still investigating the shooting at the dorm when they got word of gunfire at the classroom building.
After the first shots were fired, students were warned to stay indoors and away from the windows. But some students said they thought the precautions had been lifted by the time the second burst of gunfire was heard, and some bitterly questioned why the gunman was able to strike a second time, two hours after the bloodshed began.
"What happened today this was ridiculous. And I don't know what happened or what was going through this guy's mind," student Jason Piatt told CNN. "But I'm pretty outraged and I'll say on the record I'm pretty outraged that someone died in a shooting in a dorm at 7 o'clock in the morning and the first e-mail about it _ no mention of locking down campus, no mention of canceling classes _ they just mention that they're investigating a shooting two hours later at 9:22."
He added: "That's pretty ridiculous and meanwhile, while they're sending out that e-mail, 22 more people got killed."
FBI spokesman Richard Kolko in Washington said there was no evidence to suggest it was a terrorist attack, "but all avenues will be explored."
Up until Monday, the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history was in Killeen, Texas, in 1991, when George Hennard drove his pickup into a Luby's Cafeteria and shot 23 people to death, then himself.
Posted by bdgee on :
quote:Originally posted by Ramius:
quote:Originally posted by bdgee: Years ago, in a tavern in west Fort Worth, a drunk got into a fight and was ejected. He tried but couldn't find a gun to retaliate against the guy with whom he was angree. He went across the street and bought a gallon of gasoline and poured most of it in a glass jug, inserted a wad of shirt tail for a wick, lit the thing, and heaved it into the tavern from the front door.
The intended victim was in the restroom at the time and escaped unscratched through a small window into the alley way. Those inside the main tavern that didn't die were horribly disfigured for life.
The moral of this story is to ban glass bottles or any substitute that will shatter on empact. That's the reason all the soft dring and beer companies use plastic bottles or aluminum cans now. So stop riding them for being unconcerned with the environment and your safety.
Seems to me a thin plastic bottle or can is a heck of a lot cheaper than glass.
I'm not surprized. Even most high school drop outs know that. Most of them would have also noticed the shot of irony.
Ok, for those that can't on their own, I'll state the real intent of the post.
I would expect that the "eventual" death toll from the shootings today to continue to grow through years, as has been the case in other incidents of this kind.
(And I appologize for including notions that confuse some.)
{snicker)
Posted by rimasco on :
I understood ya sarcasim.... Posted by MCJA on :
Major U.S. school shootings in the last 10 years:
Greenville, Texas. March 7, 2007. A 16-year-old male high school student fatally shot himself while in the band hallway area of the school around 7:15 a.m. No other students were injured. More than 100 parents rushed to the school to remove their students.
Tacoma, Wash. Jan. 3, 2007. An 18-year-old male high school student was arrested for shooting and killing a 17-year-old male student at their school. The suspect allegedly shot the victim in the face and then stood over him, firing twice more.
Springfield Township, Pa. Dec. 12, 2006. A 16-year-old male high school shot and killed himself with an AK-47 assault rifle in the hallway of his high school. The student, reportedly despondent over his grades, had the gun concealed in a camouflage duffle bag and fired one round in the ceiling to warn other students to get out of the way before committing suicide.
Katy, Texas. Oct. 17, 2006. A 16-year-old male high school sophomore committed suicide by shooting himself with a handgun in the school's cafeteria courtyard.
Cazenovia, Wis., Sept. 29, 2006. A student walked into a rural school with a pistol and a rifle and shot the principal several times, critically injuring him.
Bailey, Colo. Sept. 27, 2006. A lone gunman enters a high school and holds six female students hostage, sexually assaults them, kills one of them, and then himself after a four-hour standoff.
Pittsburgh, Pa. Sept. 17, 2006. Five Duquesne University basketball players are wounded after a shooting on campus after a dance. One of the two shooters was allegedly upset that his date had talked to one of the athletes.
Hillsborough, N.C. Aug. 30, 2006. After shooting his father to death, a student open fires at his high school, injuring two students. Deputies found guns, ammunition, and homemade pipe bombs in the student's car. The student had emailed Columbine High's principal, telling him that it was "time the world remembered" the shootings at Columbine.
Essex, Vt. Aug. 24, 2006. A gunman shoots five people, killing two of them, in a rampage through two houses and an elementary school, before wounding himself.
Red Lake Indian Reservation, Minn. March 21, 2005. The worst school-related shooting incident since the Columbine shootings in April of 1999. Ten killed (shooter killed nine and then himself) and seven injured in rampage by high school student.
Cumberland City, Tenn. March 2, 2005. School bus driver shot and killed while driving a school bus carrying approximately 20 students by a 14-year-old student who had been reported to administrators by the driver for chewing tobacco on the bus.
Nine Mile Falls, Wash. Dec. 10, 2004. A 16-year-old high school junior committed suicide at the high school's entryway. A canister holding fireworks, shotgun shells, and rifle cartridges was found in a backpack belonging to the student.
Joyce, Wash. March 17, 2004. A 13-year-old student shot and killed himself in a school classroom where about 20 other students were present. The boy reportedly brought a .22-caliber rifle hidden in a guitar case and pulled it out during the 10 a.m. class.
Philadelphia, Pa. Feb. 11, 2004. A 10-year-old student was shot in the face and died after being shot outside a Philadelphia elementary school. A 56-year-old female school crossing guard was also shot in the foot as she tried to scurry children across the street as bullets were flying and children were on the playground.
Washington, D.C. Feb. 2, 2004. A 17-year-old male high school student died after being shot several times and another student was injured after shots were fired near the school's cafeteria.
Henderson, Nev. Jan. 21, 2004. Gunman shoots and kills a hostage in his car on school campus. The gunman was allegedly looking for his ex-girlfriend as he searched the school full of children in an after-school program.
Cold Spring, Minn. Sept. 24, 2003. Two students shot and killed by a 15-year-old boy at Rocori High School.
Red Lion, Pa. April 24, 2003. Principal of Red Lion Area Junior High is fatally shot in the chest by a 14-year-old student, who then committed suicide, as students gather in the cafeteria for breakfast.
New Orleans, La. April 14, 2003. One 15-year-old killed and three students wounded at John McDonough High School by gunfire from four teenagers in a gang-related shooting.
October 7, 2002. Bowie, Md. A 13-year-old by was shot and critically wounded by the DC-area sniper outside Benjamin Tasker Middle School.
New York, N.Y. Jan. 15, 2002. Two students at Martin Luther King Junior High School in Manhattan were seriously wounded when an 18-year-old opened fire in the school.
Caro, Mich.. Nov. 12, 2001. A 17-year-old student took two hostages and the Caro Learning Center before killing himself.
Ennis, Texas. May 15, 2001. A 16-year-old sophomore upset over his relationship with a girl, took 17 hostages in English class, and shot and killed himself and the girl.
Gary, Ind. March 30, 2001. 17-year-old expelled from Lew Wallace High School kills classmate.
Granite Hills, Calif. March 22, 2001. One teacher and three students wounded by a student at Granite Hills school.
Willamsport, Pa. March 7, 2001. Classmate wounded by a 14-year-old girl, in the cafeteria of Bishop Newuman High School.
Santee, Calif. March 5, 2001. A 15-year-old student killed two fellow students and wounded 13 others, while firing from a bathroom at Santana High School in San Diego County.
Baltimore, Md. Jan. 17, 2001. 17-year-old student shot and killed in front of Lake Clifton-Eastern High School.
New Orleans, La. Sept. 26, 2000. Two students wounded in a gun fight at Woodson Middle School.
Lake Worth, Fla. May 26, 2000. A 13-year-old honor killed his English teacher, Barry Grunow, on the last day of classes after the teacher refused to let him talk to two girls in his classroom.
Mount Morris Township, Mich. Feb. 29, 2000. A 6-year-old boy shot and killed a 6-year-old girl at Buell Elementary School with a .32 caliber handgun.
Fort Gibson, Okla. Dec. 6, 2000. A 13-year-old boy, armed with a handgun, opened fire outside Fort Gibson Middle school, wounding four classmates.
Deming, N.M. Nov. 19, 1999. 12-year-old boy came to school dressed in camouflage and shoots 13-year-old girl with a .22 caliber as students were returning from lunch.
Conyers, Georgia. May 20, 1999. 15-year-old sophomore opens fire with a rifle and a handgun on Heritage High School students arriving for classes, injuring six.
Littleton, Colo. April 20, 1999. Students Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, killed 12 students and a teacher and wounded 23 before killing themselves at Columbine High School.
Springfield, Ore. May 21, 1998. Two teenagers were killed and more than 20 people hurt when a teenage boy opened fire at a high school after killing his parents. Kip Kinkel, 17, was sentenced to nearly 112 years in prison.
Fayetteville, Tenn. May 19, 1998. Three days before his graduation, an honor student opened fire at a high school, killing a classmate who was dating his ex-girlfriend. Jacob Davis, 18, was sentenced to life in prison.
Jonesboro, Ark. March 24, 1998. Two boys, ages 11 and 13, fired on their middle school from nearby woods, killing four girls and a teacher and wounding 10 others. Both boys were later convicted of murder and can be held until age 21.
West Paducah, Ky. Dec. 1, 1997. Three students were killed and five wounded at a high school. Michael Carneal, then 14, later pleaded guilty but mentally ill to murder and is serving life in prison.
Pearl, Miss. Oct. 1, 1997. Sixteen-year-old Luke Woodham of fatally shot two students and wounded seven others after stabbing his mother to death. He was sentenced the following year to three life sentences.
Posted by bdgee on :
quote:Originally posted by rimasco: I understood ya sarcasim.... :D
Goooooood.
Ya can put a gold star beside your name in the bullitin board.
Posted by urnso77 on :
I like count chocula cereal. It really gets me ready for the day. oh...ooops wrong thread. my bad.
Posted by rimasco on :
Its close, Count Chocula and Lucky Charms....I could tear through a box of either in a sitting
Posted by glassman on :
i don't even let my kids eat those, guess i'm a mean SOB huh? Posted by rimasco on :
Well I had no choice....my daughter just stuck her hand in my bowl and helped herself...she hasnt been the same since Posted by urnso77 on :
not at all glass...
The only reason I eat it now is because my parents never let me eat that crap when I was young either. Didn't get my first cavity until I was like 21.
My son is almost 2 years old and he had some mcdonalds for the first time a couple of weeks ago and now he wants it all the time. I say no and he cries and cries and cries...
Posted by glassman on :
McDonalds? what's that? Posted by rimasco on :
quote:Originally posted by glassman: 2 9-milli semi-auto's...
i predict we'll find this guy had extensive experience maybe even "pro" training....
Well as it might turn out.... he had thosands of hours in on shooting games....
I know some of the peeps on this board are a little older but if your interested in doing an experiment try this out. 1 get your hands on a video game like say "Vice City" 2 put in like 4 hours on the game(which is really really easy once you get into it) 3 Jump in your car and take a 15 minute ride, Preferably where theyll be some traffic.
Im telling you the end result will be some sort of a slight discombobulation. And you have just become addicted to a video game
P.S. dont knock it till you tryed it
Posted by NaturalResources on :
quote:Originally posted by bdgee: Years ago, in a tavern in west Fort Worth, a drunk got into a fight and was ejected. He tried but couldn't find a gun to retaliate against the guy with whom he was angree. He went across the street and bought a gallon of gasoline and poured most of it in a glass jug, inserted a wad of shirt tail for a wick, lit the thing, and heaved it into the tavern from the front door.
The intended victim was in the restroom at the time and escaped unscratched through a small window into the alley way. Those inside the main tavern that didn't die were horribly disfigured for life.
The moral of this story is to ban glass bottles or any substitute that will shatter on empact. That's the reason all the soft dring and beer companies use plastic bottles or aluminum cans now. So stop riding them for being unconcerned with the environment and your safety.
I went to a Leon Russell concert once, and decided to bring my own "recreational" beverages, instead of paying outrageous amounts for liquor once I was inside the gate. When I reached the front of the line, I noticed bags, jackets and coolers were being searched at the gate for weapons, and in addition, anything in a glass container was being confiscated.
After asking the uniformed guards why drinks were being confiscated, I was told that glass containers could be broken and used as weapons, and therefore were not allowed inside. I was also told my items would be returned to me after the concert was over, so I begrudgingly agreed, and handed over the goods.
Once I was inside, I ended up having to pay 9$ for one 32oz. can of Fosters, the only alcohol available. After holding one in my hand, I realized the story at the gate was either BS or not well thought out.
Long story short, my liquor was never returned to me or anyone else, the guards were mysteriously MIA, probably off enjoying their pillaged goods, but I did enjoy watching a guy who looks like Santa Claus rock out... LOL.
The moral of this story is, anything can be used as a weapon.... A tool is a tool. The problem is the person using the tool and what their intent is, not the tool itself.
Posted by glassman on :
rim, i was a beta tester for Need for Speed high stakes online. i spent a good bit of time on it. i got ranked at 80th of over 100,000 peeps... (most of the people ahead of me were employees at EA and cheated LOL)
since i already had a propensity to drive too fast? i won't comment beyond saying that i still never got any speeding tickets after playing.. Posted by dinner42 on :
Chief Flinchum said the gunmen took his own life. He said at a televised news briefing this evening that the police had a preliminary identification of the suspected gunman but they were not yet ready to release it. He said the gunman was not a student.
According to a federal law enforcement official, the gunman did not have identification and could not be easily identified visually because of the severity of an apparently self-inflicted wound to the head. He said investigators were trying to trace purchase records for two handguns found near the body.
Posted by dinner42 on :
So how do they know he was not a student?
Posted by glassman on :
quote:Originally posted by dinner42: So how do they know he was not a student?
there's a lot of stuff not adding up yet... the guy had agirlfriend break up with him. they aren't sure if she is a victim yet or not.. they thought she was killed in the early morning scene, but then reports come in that he was searching for her at he classrooms and executing people when they told him they didn't know where she was... if he did kill her in the early action? then he had mental breakdown as he went on to the classroom building... (not unlikely i suppose)
one thing i REALLY didn't like hearing was all the questions about why the Universtiy wasn't put on lockdown sooner... these journalists would be the first ones to report that everybody's rights were violated if the University over-reacted to a simple domestic assault/shooting... the early morning attack APPEARED to be a "domestic" dispute gone terribly wrong, not the first stage of a rampage... sometimes i wonder if the journalists have any common sense or even souls for that matter.
Posted by cactus33 on :
what a pos evil #*$$#$##*#..
man..
college are idiots for not shutting down campus.
wtf?
jmho
Posted by glassman on :
well cactus? i'm not sure if you are asking a question or not...
majority of college students (99.99%) are adults over 18 and eligable to serve in the US military...
they aren't children anymore... in other words? you can't detain adult people legally... lockdowns are for prisons and elementary thru high school...
Posted by bdgee on :
and places where they don't have the Constitutional rights we do.
It is a bit easy to blame people that had no reason ever to suspect such an event. I say that as one that was on the South Mall of the University of Texas while Whitman was using us as targets. I knew Whitman and I know a lot of other people that did and never heard any of them so much as suggest they had any inkling that he might someday do what he did.
You cannot design a world about the assumption of the actions of a screwball.
Posted by glassman on :
You cannot design a world about the assumption of the actions of a screwball.
after 9-11? everybody seems to expect just that...
i have heard halfadozen or more stuffed shirt/talking heads ask why the Universtiy didn't behave as if the world was ending after the first killings in the morning.. i bet the lawyers will be suing over it too... sheesh..
on msnbc right now... the bozo's are asking students if they feel like they got enogh warning that this guy was about to go a shooting spree... leesee waht would the world be like if we go to lockdown a city every time somebody shoots someone? (i live in a city with a smaller population than VaTech)
Posted by bdgee on :
By definition, anyone that would commit such an act is a crackpot.
By definition, what a crackpot might do isn't predictable.
That's why he's called a crackpot
Often, it is the crackpot among us that make our lives more enjoyable.
Red Skelton was a crackpot.
So was Ben Franklin. Imagine what you, in that day, might have thought of a damned fool out in the rain flying a kite and telling you he was about to catch lightening?
I can name a lot of others, but those two samples should be enough to illustrate that any notion of trying to predict the activities of a crackpot are futile.
Anyway, who would want to have changed those men?
Posted by Ace of Spades on :
i meant shut down classes, just cancel classes at that point.
only question was WTF? how did this happen.
quote:Originally posted by glassman: well cactus? i'm not sure if you are asking a question or not...
majority of college students (99.99%) are adults over 18 and eligable to serve in the US military...
they aren't children anymore... in other words? you can't detain adult people legally... lockdowns are for prisons and elementary thru high school...
Posted by dinner42 on :
thanks Ace.
I feel sorry for those that are supposed to be at home tonight and instead are in the county morgue. Things can change in an instant.
best to you !
Posted by glassman on :
quote:Originally posted by cactus33: i meant shut down classes, just cancel classes at that point.
only question was WTF? how did this happen.
quote:Originally posted by glassman: well cactus? i'm not sure if you are asking a question or not...
majority of college students (99.99%) are adults over 18 and eligible to serve in the US military...
they aren't children anymore... in other words? you can't detain adult people legally... lockdowns are for prisons and elementary thru high school...
the police had no reason to believe the guy was still around... the usual assumption is thie killer would leave for another state, or even country.. how could they possibly know the guy would go "silent" for two hours and then start it up again?
it doesn't make sense... (and, no,i don't expect it to) we can't just shut down life when soemthing happens... i don't understand how people can expect the police to know this guy was gonna go do something this crazy...
my problem is that journalistas are now second guessing the professionals and doing it rather harshly IMO...
i heard this interview (below) on the air today.. listen to the interviewee... he sounds like most of my neighbors
i lived in the Great Dismal Swamp (eastern VA) for about ten years, and he sounds like a few of my neighbors when i lived there too..
you have to click on the red listen tab just under the word Campus
MSNBC and NBC News Updated: 57 minutes ago BLACKSBURG, Va. - Local, state and federal investigators scoured a university campus in Virginia for clues to what set off the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history after a gunman shot two people to death in a dormitory Monday morning before making his way to a classroom building where, silently and coolly, he killed 30 more people before turning his weapon on himself, authorities said.
At least 15 other people were wounded in the shootings, which took place over 2½ hours at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Some of them were injured as they leapt to safety from the windows of their classrooms.
The shootings, which came just four days before the eighth anniversary of the Columbine High School bloodbath, in which two students killed 13 people and themselves near Littleton, Colo., created panic and confusion at the university, which was already on edge after two weeks of bomb threats.
After the scope of the carnage was clear, angry students and employees demanded to know why the first e-mail warning from police and administrators did not go out to them for more than two hours, even though the killer of two people was at large. By then, the gunman had struck a second time.
Nearly 50 victims In all, 33 people died Monday at Virginia Tech, including the gunman. The 15 who were wounded were treated for gunshots or other injuries, authorities said. Their conditions were not reported.
Campus Police Chief Wendell Flinchum would not officially confirm that the two incidents were related, pending the results of the investigation, but he referred to only one gunman and said no other suspect was being sought. Numerous federal and local law enforcement officials told NBC News that the events were the work of a lone gunman.
Federal investigators told NBC News Pete Williams that they believed the man was a Virginia Tech student in his early 20s. Their identification was delayed for several hours, they said, because the mans face was disfigured when he shot himself, he carried no ID and an initial check on his fingerprints came up empty.
The mans two guns, which were bought in Virginia and whose serial numbers had been obliterated, were to be examined at a laboratory of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Williams reported, citing federal law enforcement officials. That examination was also delayed because authorities had to drive the guns to the lab in the suburbs of Washington after high winds precluded them from using an airplane.
Early reports in the initial confusion said police had a suspect in custody, but Flinchum said later that the person was only being questioned for information because he knew one of the dormitory victims. Officers were interviewing him off-campus when reports of the second round of shooting came in, Flinchum said, and the man was not in custody.
Warnings came too late Charles Steger, the universitys president, and law enforcement authorities gave this account of the days events in public statements and comments to NBC News:
The rampage began about 7:15 a.m. ET at West Ambler Johnston, a coeducational residence hall that houses 895 people. The gunman, armed with a 9-mm pistol and a .22-caliber handgun, killed a man and a woman there.
About 2½ hours later, police responded to a 911 call reporting that shots had been fired at Norris Hall, an engineering classroom building about a half-mile away on the opposite end of the 2,600-acre campus. They discovered that the front doors had been chained from the inside, apparently so victims could not escape and police could not enter.
Officers forced their way in and followed the sound of gunshots to the second floor, where they found the gunman, who had shot himself in the face. As they canvassed the building, they found dozens of gunshot victims. Eventually, they announced that 31, including the gunman, were dead in the classroom building.
Its probably one of the worst things Ive seen in my life, Flinchum said.
Shaken students said they believed many of the victims might have been spared if campus officials had taken more immediate steps to secure the campus after the first shootings at the dormitory.
The first e-mail warning to students and employees did not go out to students, faculty and staff until 9:26 a.m., more than two hours after the shooting at the dormitory, according to the time stamps on copies obtained by NBC News. By then, the classroom shooting was under way. The message warned students to be cautious but did not warn them not to go to class.
I really thought they should have canceled classes sooner, Sam Leake, a junior who lives in West Ambler Johnston, told the campus newspaper, The Collegiate Times. If they had, maybe some of these deaths could have been prevented.
Steger said administrators and police initially believed the first shooting was an isolated incident and did not see a need to close the university. He said they believed the gunman had fled the campus.
We can only make decisions based on the information you had on the time. You dont have hours to reflect on it, he said.
Posted by dinner42 on :
quote:Originally posted by dinner42: Chief Flinchum said the gunmen took his own life. He said at a televised news briefing this evening that the police had a preliminary identification of the suspected gunman but they were not yet ready to release it. He said the gunman was not a student.
According to a federal law enforcement official, the gunman did not have identification and could not be easily identified visually because of the severity of an apparently self-inflicted wound to the head. He said investigators were trying to trace purchase records for two handguns found near the body.
says here that he was not a student....
Posted by Ace of Spades on :
The first murder was in a dorm where you need a Student ID to get in ......
unfortunately? it takes things like this to make people take security seriously...
my child was thinking of becoming an RA at the dorm they live in next year...this may change that attitude...
Posted by T e x on :
Once, at UTA many years ago, I learned second-hand that the campus equivalent of an "all-points bulletin" had been issued...for me!
I had driven in to the campus, nearly late for class, straight from the deer lease. I parked in a hurry, maybe in some faculty spot? don't recall...but when they were going through the truck, they "found" my "hidden" stash of weapons. Admittedly, was a formidable "stash." But hardly hidden, in the espionage sense...back then, was commonplace for pickups to have gun racks mounted inside the rear window of the cab. I always thought that was ignorant, and my seat folded out, so I mounted mine behind the seat. Out of view? sure (duh...thieves!) Hidden? not hardly...had I evil intent, the damage could have been easily thrice-fold any reported to date: *students* were telling me the campus police were looking for me, so I beat feet to the campus newspaper--the easiest place to find me--and worked it out over the phone....
Point being, these concerns are nothing new. I'm sure Charles Whitman has been menioned today... Yet, seems no lessons learned.
If I were on any kind of campus nowadays, I'd *at least* have the security emergency number in my cellphone speed-dial dealie... It's a savage, savage world, virtually unchanged since "days of yore."
Posted by dinner42 on :
quote:Originally posted by glassman:
quote:Originally posted by Ace of Spades: The first murder was in a dorm where you need a Student ID to get in ......
unfortunately? it takes things like this to make people take security seriously...
my child was thinking of becoming an RA at the dorm they live in next year...this may change that attitude...
I hope it doesn't. We should not live in fear. We should go on with life and pursue our dreams and when you're in school you are in a great place. This incident should not detour us from moving forward otherwise we have lost our nation as a free country and the terrorist have won !
Come to my house and try to burn my flag and see what happens.
Best to you GM and your college student...lol just wanted to say that because mine are in elementry school still.. That make you older than me...lol
you're the best sir! lol
Posted by Ace of Spades on :
You know what scares me the most....there will be a copy cat..
The media will play this over and over for weeks......giving ideas to the unstable and suicidal people.
Someone that is so miserable, depressed, and screwed up drugs, and was already thinking about killing himself....will try to break the record and kill more people, to die with people remembering his name.
Posted by glassman on :
well? the security i meant was basic, like not letting strangers in on your card... i've seen it many times at many places...
we dunno how the guy got into the dorm yet, but letting people follow someone thru a carded door is very common..
no, i don't wanna see a cop on every corner, but it is up to each of US to pay attention to details like this..
Posted by Ace of Spades on :
First time ever in Scotland in 1996 and in Germany in 2002. Since then and before that nothing here in Europe.
It's a joke! In the US everybody can buy guns everywhere. But if you're 16, 17 or 18 and in possession of beer or marijuana...well, you know it better than me.
Other way around here in Europe.
Posted by bdgee on :
You guys seem to be suggesting that, in order to protect ourselves from the nut cases whose possible future anti-social actions we can't predict, we should eagerly treat us all like prospective criminals after the trial.
Hey, lets all get together and pass a passel of new law to give the cops the power to stop this! NOW!!!
Before we reach that conclusion, couldn't we please be quite specific in exactly what we mean by such things as to whom and what is to be protected against?
I'm afraid, in the excited aura of fear and revenge, for things we can't fathom anyone doing, we are getting a bit close to moving for provisions that stiffle the rights and freedoms that make us a worthwhile society.
Locally, there has recently been a case where a couple's home was invaded, via a search warrant, and the couple cited for keeping and tending to several dozen animals in violation of city regulations (a criminal violation). The animals were "confiscated", though it was clear that none had been mistreated, abused, stolen, or in anyway illegally or improperly obtained or treated. Indeed, these animals were kept in immaculate and loving circumstances and in a way that posed no harm to or danger to anyone or anything (treated like much loved children). Most are now to be "put down", which no doubt each would prefer to their prior conditions.
There is no doubt that, in composing the ordinances that permitted the police power to invade that home, the city's attorneys provided a legally proper wording to the city fathers, who, in turn, passed it into law with the best of intentions, in order to make it illegal to fail to provide appropriate and healthy upkeep to pets and other animals. But following a law, which is a power granted to any law enforcement official, failed hopelessly to serve its intended purpose and, in this case, has done quite the opposite. Those animals now will NOT recieve loving healty upkeep.
My point is that you cannot assure me or us that the enforcers of any law won't be (perhaps even unwittingly) among the dangerous crackpots that society needs to be wary of and to whom deny the chance to destroy lives. Laws should be scarce on the ground.
Given a statute, there is among those that are authorized to enforce it, those that shouldn't be granted that power and WILL ABUSE IT (whether it be from innocent ignorance or malicious intent). Consider the Duke rape case.
Posted by jordanreed on :
as bush says...we cant let the terrorists win(after all. isnt that what this is?..a terrorist attack)...just go about your business as usual..
Posted by glassman on :
quote:Originally posted by Persia: First time ever in Scotland in 1996 and in Germany in 2002. Since then and before that nothing here in Europe.
It's a joke! In the US everybody can buy guns everywhere. But if you're 16, 17 or 18 and in possession of beer or marijuana...well, you know it better than me.
Other way around here in Europe.
it happened in Australia and several times in Cananda too Persia... they both have stricter gun laws too.. when you outlaw guns? only outlaws have guns.
sadly? there is a pattern of young males from other countries going on rampages like this...
Posted by bdgee on :
Quite simply, there are too many people in the world.
Studies of over population (with or without hunger) in any and all varieties of animals show this trend to violent irrational anti-social acts by individuals and small groups.
Posted by NaturalResources on :
Some reports saying gunman was South Korean, others saying he was Chinese... All are saying he arrived at university recently on a student visa.
Posted by bdgee on :
I seriously doubt his citizenship or his status as a student has anything to do with his illness.
He was a nut! There are nuts of all colors, sexes, and nationalities.
Posted by NaturalResources on :
I wasn't suggesting anything, only reporting what I heard on the news this morning.
Posted by glassman on :
comeon bdgee, you and i both know for a fact that students on visa are under double or even triple the strain of the avg American student...
i'm surprised he was not a grad student...
grad students stress levels are doubled again becaase their visa's are usually held by their principal professor....
i saw grad students work 100 plus hours a week for years on end at UCR, even tho the state law specifically forbids it...
i can't tell you how many Profs have made off-hand comments about hiring "cheap foreign labor"
Posted by glassman on :
hmmm... he was an English major and had been in the country for years... he even went to HS here..
now why is an English major shooting up the Engineering dept?
Posted by NaturalResources on :
Police are saying ballistic tests show that one of the guns was used in both the first and second incidents..
Posted by Hannibull on :
quote:Originally posted by rimasco: Its starting to look like somewhat of a columbine copycat...
A friend of the shooter said he plyed the game "DOOM" alot which Klepold and the other azz-clown played as well.
They also said that the largest school shooting previos to this one was in Germany, where 16 were left dead. They said in that case as well they found 50 shoot'em up games in the murderers home.
I love shoot 'em up games and listen to metal music, I would never hurt an innocent person. I am convinced these things have nothing to do with why he did this.
Posted by NaturalResources on :
C'mon Hannibull, it is pretty clear that the shooters were merely psychological victims of America's violent pop-culture....... These people are victims of a society obsessed with violence, guns and video games. They cannot be blamed for their actions. YOU AND SOCIETY ARE TO BLAME for not taking action to BAN GUNS and VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES. YOU ARE TO BLAME for making them do what they did. I suggest you use your anger and emotion regarding this incident to motivate you to take action and stop this kind of thing from ever happening again. DONT THINK, ACT.
[/Sarcasm]
Posted by bdgee on :
quote:Originally posted by glassman: comeon bdgee, you and i both know for a fact that students on visa are under double or even triple the strain of the avg American student...
i'm surprised he was not a grad student...
grad students stress levels are doubled again becaase their visa's are usually held by their principal professor....
i saw grad students work 100 plus hours a week for years on end at UCR, even tho the state law specifically forbids it...
i can't tell you how many Profs have made off-hand comments about hiring "cheap foreign labor"
Yes!!!
It is down right sinful and evil. I can speak with some actual knowledge, not as an observer, but both as a grad student (not foreigh, though) and as the professor.
I worked those 100+ hour weeks as a student, trying to reach the level of achievement that would mean sucess. I did it again and again as a professor. It isn't abnormal in that environment. However, no one required me to do that much work or any ....... it was by choice.
My vote on the faculty was always to not allow the "use" of graduate students and their efforts to be permissible, either by statement or by fact of "other" requirements, particularly with rspect to foreign students. My side was uniformly out voted on that concern, with the most common reason stated being that foreign students had to follow orders or chance loosing their fellowships or their visas (in other words, they approved of slavery if it was a foreign student....or more correctly, whenever they could get away with it).
It constitutes a terribly bad attitude that, in the long run, destroys any hope or semblance of an "environment conducive to research" that is actually the foundation of graduate study. It creates automatons, who go on to destroy yet another generation of schollars.
Posted by glassman on :
when google first got REALLY powerful? one of the fisrt things i used it for was it to determine which Professors (in the field we were concerned about) were actually graduating students and getting them promoted into positions with meaning and impact...
it wasn't hard to refine searches once you developed the names (dataset) from older papers... what i found was astounding... some of the biggest names in the field (we were concerned about) were in fact using people up as fast as they could recruit them... i am talking about people who regularly get 6 and 7 figure grants from NIH...
we also noticed that some Profs were in fact on EVERY paper their "friends" were on.... since we were intimately aware of who was actually doing what work? we knew they were simply putting hte names on to increase references... Crichton addresses some of this in his latest book Next which is apparently not the same Next as the movie coming out with Nick Cage at the end of this month...
Posted by NaturalResources on :
quote:Originally posted by glassman: 2 9-milli semi-auto's...
i predict we'll find this guy had extensive experience maybe even "pro" training....
Suddenly, the door swung open and the shooter, described as an Asian man wearing a jacket and a maroon baseball cap, mechanically opened fire, reloaded his handgun and then started shooting again, ODell said.
"He was very quick in reloading, so it looked like hed been trained," said the 20-year-old biological sciences student.
Posted by bdgee on :
quote:Originally posted by glassman: when google first got REALLY powerful? one of the fisrt things i used it for was it to determine which Professors (in the field we were concerned about) were actually graduating students and getting them promoted into positions with meaning and impact...
it wasn't hard to refine searches once you developed the names (dataset) from older papers... what i found was astounding... some of the biggest names in the field (we were concerned about) were in fact using people up as fast as they could recruit them... i am talking about people who regularly get 6 and 7 figure grants from NIH...
we also noticed that some Profs were in fact on EVERY paper their "friends" were on.... since we were intimately aware of who was actually doing what work? we knew they were simply putting hte names on to increase references... Crichton addresses some of this in his latest book Next which is apparently not the same Next as the movie coming out with Nick Cage at the end of this month...
I studied and still work in a "school of schollarchip and research" in which having multiple authors on a paper is not in fashion. I do have a couple of joint authorships, but more that are not. I once worked in scientific areas wherein it was customary for the "boss" to affix his name to any publication that went out. I remember resigning my position and destroying all my notes after returning to town from a research conference and learning that some of my work had been sent to publication under the names of a collection of the people in the lab, but not with mine.
I do not accept any excuse for plagerism! It is theft.
Posted by J_U_ICE on :
St. EDWARDS College in Austin TX on lockdown due to a bomb threat and threatening note.
Posted by glassman on :
quote:Originally posted by J_U_ICE: St. EDWARDS College in Austin TX on lockdown due to a bomb threat and threatening note.
bet we see alot more of this in "finals weeks" too
i had a signed copy of a book by John Brunner i lost it in a fire but i replaced it and haven't gone to any cons where he's at to get another siggy...
it's called the "Sheep Look Up" not his best work, but the prophetic quality of it is eery...
Posted by bdgee on :
It isn't so new as the media wants (maybe believes) it to be.
I recall a day of high school long ago when we were marched out to the football practice field while the cops searched for a non-existant bomb they were told about over the phone.
Eventually, it was discovered that a student trying to delay a promised major exam in a history class had made the call.
I also remember the way too frequent "atomic bomb drills" we were forced to practice to keep us in fear of the dreaded and assured attacks that WOULD come from communist.
I seem to recall constant loud calls back then to attack first, because it would be better to fight there than here in our own back yard..
Is that an echo I hear?
Posted by rimasco on :
quote:Originally posted by glassman: rim, i was a beta tester for Need for Speed high stakes online. i spent a good bit of time on it. i got ranked at 80th of over 100,000 peeps... (most of the people ahead of me were employees at EA and cheated LOL)
since i already had a propensity to drive too fast? i won't comment beyond saying that i still never got any speeding tickets after playing..
Hey, did you see the movie Grandma's Boy?... Grey-Bush.
Its an Adam Sandler production...I think you'll like it....
Posted by MCJA on :
Sources told ABC News that after Cho killed the one female and one male at West Ambler Johnston Monday morning, he returned to his own dorm room where he re-armed and left a "disturbing note" before entering Norris Hall on the other side of campus to continue his rampage and kill 30 more before shooting himself.
The Chicago Tribune reported that the note included a rambling list of grievances that railed against "rich kids," "debauchery" and "deceitful charlatans" on campus. The paper also reported that Cho died with the words "Ismail Ax" in red ink on the inside of one of his arms.
Quoting an "investigative source," the newspaper said Cho had shown recent signs of violent, aberrant behavior, including setting a fire in a dorm room and allegedly stalking some women, and that he was taking medication for depression. The Tribune also reported that Cho's family runs a dry cleaning business and he has a sister who atatended Princeton University. Cho and his family came to the United States in 1992, when he was 8 years old.
Law enforcement officials told ABCNews.com that Cho bought his first gun, a Glock 9mm handgun, on March 13; they say he bought his second weapon, a 22-caliber handgun, within the last week. The serial number
Posted by rimasco on :
I wanna know where he obtained the guns and how easily...
If there is a hell....I hope beelzebub is giving this guy the red savina habanero right in the crapper.....
Posted by MCJA on :
Campus Threats Force Lockdowns at 3 Universities, 2 Public Schools Tuesday, April 17, 2007
E-MAIL STORY PRINTER FRIENDLY VERSION AUSTIN, Texas Campus threats forced lock-downs and evacuations at universities in Texas, Oklahoma and Tennessee and two public schools in Louisiana on Tuesday, a day after a Virginia Tech student's shooting rampage killed 33 people.
In Louisiana, parents picked up hundreds of students from Bogalusa's high school and middle school amid reports that a man had been arrested Tuesday morning for threatening a mass killing in a note that alluded to the murders at Virginia Tech.
Schools Superintendent Jerry Payne said both schools were locked down and police arrested a 53-year-old man who allegedly made the threat in a note he gave to a student headed to the private Bowling Green School in Franklinton, in southwestern Louisiana.
"The note referred to what happened at Virginia Tech," Payne said. "It said something like, 'If you think that was bad, then you haven't seen anything yet."
In Austin, authorities evacuated buildings at St. Edward's University after a threatening note was found, a school official said.
Police secured the campus perimeter and were searching the buildings, St. Edward's University spokeswoman Mischelle Amador said. She declined to say where the note was found and said its contents were "nonspecific."
Posted by Jason0352 on :
Posted from a user on another forum. This post also was out before the media knew the make of both pistols which later came out to be true according to this post.
A little background; apparently the Korean destroyed both serial numbers on both guns, but was not smart enough to destroy the reciept for both.
"Holy **** guys, I thought the guy was lying.. I knew this guys first name and about the receipt and **** from a message board I read yesterday.
The website is currently down, but the guy posted this:
"Well, I'm screwed. They found a receipt in the gunman's pocket indicating that he bought the gun from me in March. ATF is at my shop right now. See you later, I'm on my way to the shop right now."
"Call BS all you like, but I just spent the last several hours with 3 ATF agents. I saw the shooter's picture. I know his name and home address. I also know that he used a Glock 19 and a Walther P-22. The serial number was ground off the Glock. Why would he do that and still keep the receipt in his pocket from when he bought the gun? ATF told me that they are going to keep this low-key and not report this to the tv news. However, they cautioned that it will leak out eventually, and that I should be ready to deal with CNN, FOX, etc. My 32 camera surveillance system recorded the event 35 days ago. This is a digital system that only keeps the video for 35 days. We got lucky. By the way, the paperwork for Mr. Cho was perfect, thank God."
Mr. Cho had proof of Virginia residency, checkbook (for a second ID), and his green card(which is, of course, not green). That is all he needed to purchase a handgun.
He had this site linked in his sig, which is where the guy got his guns: Welcome to Roanoke Firearms!" http://www.roanokefirearms.com/ Posted by bdgee on :
Jason,
Thanks for the info. That link to the forum is dead now too.
Posted by bdgee on :
This guy had been here almost his whole life. Certainly he has been here so long that it is probable he had no attachment to the culture of his early childhood (and little memory of it).
We need to drop all reference to his "blood lines" or race. He was an American and nothing else, by habit and routine, if no other way. We won't get to any rational or usable conclusions about this tragedy by allowing it to rest on his life before coming to the U.S. All that cedes is a pile of bigotry.
(I never liked the idea of any racial or cultural designations to modify aqmerican anyway. Let's be proud of what we are and forget what we could have been had we not been here.)
Posted by andrew on :
Can you believe Rosey is already making this political. Guess its no surprise.
Posted by bdgee on :
It was becoming a political toy before Rosey chimed in. Get your devils in line.
Hell, this is already just another bit of foder for the rightwingers talk shows, as is almost anything they can blame on someone that isn't a Party loyalist.
Posted by J_U_ICE on :
Gunman in Virginia Tech massacre had raised concerns with his disturbing writings
By: ADAM GELLER - Associated Press
BLACKSBURG, Va. -- The gunman suspected of carrying out the Virginia Tech massacre that left 33 people dead was identified Tuesday as an English major whose creative writing was so disturbing that he was referred to the school's counseling service.
News reports also said that he may have been taking medication for depression, that he was becoming increasingly violent and erratic, and that he left a note in his dorm in which he railed against "rich kids," "debauchery" and "deceitful charlatans" on campus.
Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old senior, arrived in the United States as boy from South Korea in 1992 and was raised in suburban Washington, D.C., officials said. He was living on campus in a different dorm from the one where Monday's bloodbath began.
Police and university officials offered no clues as to exactly what set him off on the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history.
"He was a loner, and we're having difficulty finding information about him," school spokesman Larry Hincker said.
Professor Carolyn Rude, chairwoman of the university's English department, said she did not personally know the gunman. But she said she spoke with Lucinda Roy, the department's director of creative writing, who had Cho in one of her classes and described him as "troubled."
"There was some concern about him," Rude said. "Sometimes, in creative writing, people reveal things and you never know if it's creative or if they're describing things, if they're imagining things or just how real it might be. But we're all alert to not ignore things like this."
She said Cho was referred to the counseling service, but she said she did not know when, or what the outcome was. Rude refused to release any of his writings or his grades, citing privacy laws.
The Chicago Tribune reported on its Web site that he left a note in his dorm room that included a rambling list of grievances. Citing unidentified sources, the Tribune said he had recently shown troubling signs, including setting a fire in a dorm room and stalking some women.
ABC, citing law enforcement sources, reported that the note, several pages long, explains Cho's actions and says, "You caused me to do this."
Investigators believe Cho at some point had been taking medication for depression, the Tribune reported.
The rampage consisted of two attacks, more than two hours apart -- first at a dormitory, where two people were killed, then inside a classroom building, where 31 people, including Cho, died after being locked inside, Virginia State Police said. Cho committed suicide; two guns were found in the classroom building.
One law enforcement official said Cho's backpack contained a receipt for a March purchase of a Glock 9 mm pistol. Cho held a green card, meaning he was a legal, permanent resident, federal officials said. That meant he was eligible to buy a handgun unless he had been convicted of a felony.
Investigators stopped short of saying Cho carried out both attacks. But ballistics tests show one gun was used in both, Virginia State Police said.
And two law enforcement officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because the information had not been announced, said Cho's fingerprints were found on both guns. The serial numbers on the two weapons had been filed off, the officials said.
Col. Steve Flaherty, superintendent of the Virginia State Police, said it was reasonable to assume that Cho was the shooter in both attacks but that the link was not yet definitive. "There's no evidence of any accomplice at either event, but we're exploring the possibility," he said.
Officials said Cho graduated from a public high school in Chantilly, Va., in 2003. His family lived in an off-white, two-story townhouse in Centreville, Va.
"He was very quiet, always by himself," neighbor Abdul Shash said. Shash said Cho spent a lot of his free time playing basketball and would not respond if someone greeted him. He described the family as quiet.
Virginia Tech Police issued a speeding ticket to Cho on April 7 for going 44 mph in a 25 mph zone, and he had a court date set for May 23.
South Korea expressed its condolences, and said it hoped that the tragedy would not "stir up racial prejudice or confrontation."
"We are in shock beyond description," said Cho Byung-se, a Foreign Ministry official handling North American affairs.
A memorial service was planned for the victims Tuesday afternoon at the university, and President Bush planned to attend. Gov. Tim Kaine was flying back to Virginia from Tokyo for the gathering.
Classes were canceled for the rest of the week.
Many students were leaving town quickly, lugging pillows, sleeping bags and backpacks down the sidewalks.
Jessie Ferguson, 19, a freshman from Arlington, left Newman Hall and headed for her car with tears streaming down her red cheeks.
"I'm still kind of shaky," she said. "I had to pump myself up just to kind of come out of the building. I was going to come out, but it took a little bit of 'OK, it's going to be all right. There's lots of cops around."'
Although she wanted to be with friends, she wanted her family more. "I just don't want to be on campus," she said.
The first deadly attack was at the dormitory around 7:15 a.m., but some students said they didn't get their first warning about a danger on campus until two hours later, in an e-mail at 9:26 a.m., around the time the second attack began.
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.
The victims in Norris Hall were found in four classrooms and a stairwell, Flaherty said. Cho was found dead in one of those classrooms, he said.
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.
Virginia Tech President Charles Steger emphasized that the university closed off the dorm after the first attack. He said that before the e-mail was sent, the university began telephoning resident advisers in the dorms and sent people to knock on doors to warn them.
"We can only make decisions based on the information you had at the time. You don't have hours to reflect on it," Steger said.
Until Monday, the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history was in Killeen, Texas, in 1991, when George Hennard plowed his pickup truck into a Luby's Cafeteria and shot 23 people to death, then himself.
Previously, the deadliest campus shooting in U.S. history was a rampage that took place in 1966 at the University of Texas at Austin, where Charles Whitman climbed the clock tower and opened fire with a rifle from the 28th-floor observation deck. He killed 16 people before he was shot to death by police.
-- Associated Press writers Stephen Manning in Centreville, Va.; Matt Barakat in Richmond, Va.; and Vicki Smith, Sue Lindsey and Justin Pope in Blacksburg contributed to this report.
The Victims:
A list of some of the victims of the shootings at Virginia Tech:
Killed:
Ross Abdallah Alameddine, 20, of Saugus, Mass., according to his mother, Lynnette Alameddine.
Ryan Clark, 22, of Martinez, Ga., biology and English major, according to Columbia County Coroner Vernon Collins.
Daniel Perez Cueva, 21, killed in his French class, according to his mother, Betty Cueva, of Peru.
Kevin Granata, age unknown, engineering science and mechanics professor, according to Ishwar K. Puri, the head of the engineering science and mechanics department.
Caitlin Hammaren, 19, of Westtown, N.Y., a sophomore majoring in international studies and French, according to Minisink Valley, N.Y., school officials who spoke with Hammaren's family.
Jeremy Herbstritt, 27, of Bellefonte, Pa., according to Penn State University, his alma mater and his father's employer.
Emily Jane Hilscher, a 19-year-old freshman from Woodville, according to Rappahannock County Administrator John W. McCarthy, a family friend.
Jarrett L. Lane, according to Riffe's Funeral Service Inc. in Narrows, Va.
Liviu Librescu, 76, engineering science and mathematics lecturer, according to Puri.
G.V. Loganathan, 51, civil and environmental engineering professor, according to his brother G.V. Palanivel.
Juan Ramon Ortiz, a 26-year-old graduate student in engineering from Bayamon, Puerto Rico, according to his wife, Liselle Vega Cortes.
Mary Karen Read, 19, of Annandale, Va. according to her aunt, Karen Kuppinger, of Rochester, N.Y.
Posted by Hannibull on :
if you want to read a lil (bad) story... by the shooter O_O
Posted by glassman on :
sorry, can't get past the first page... i wonder if he was worried about graduating?
Posted by rimasco on :
Well its obvious one of his problems was he couldnt write....
They say anything about the writing on his arm yet "Ismail Ax"?
Posted by rimasco on :
Why would he file the numbers off...who was he protecting?
Posted by bdgee on :
How does what a nut does imply that he was protecting anyone?
Damn! He's a nut! What he does doesn't make sense. Give up on the let's make sense outta this guy and what he did. It just doesn't make sense at all.
Posted by andrew on :
Gun Control would do no good for someone like this. Any thoughts?
Posted by glassman on :
quote:Originally posted by bdgee: How does what a nut does imply that he was protecting anyone?
Damn! He's a nut! What he does doesn't make sense. Give up on the let's make sense outta this guy and what he did. It just doesn't make sense at all.
until the end of the 19th century? (British, Victorian) police had the same attitude about all criminals. Then Sir Arthur Conan Doyle changed that attitude.
Posted by bdgee on :
I doubt that gun laws actually prevent much crime. At the same time, I doubt the clain that carrying concealed weapons would have any significan't effect on preventing crime.
I've owned guns all my life and I long ago understood that if some nut, bent on being nasty, bust through the front door, I have little or no chance surviving by running for the gun cabinet....I will bust through the back door......much better odds of survival.
Then too, I sort of prefer to think of a nut busting through the front door with a gun than one tossing a bomb or a jug of gasoline. I'd prefer the chance that he isn't a good shot to the chance he'd miss me with a bomb.
Still, when a nut screws loose, it may be just too late to cure it. He'll find a gun or make a bomb or get some gas or......
Posted by glassman on :
quote:Originally posted by andrew: Gun Control would do no good for someone like this. Any thoughts?
no, gun control won't help.
Fatal shooting reminds Japan: it can happen here 18 Apr 2007 11:32:15 GMT Source: Reuters
By Linda Sieg
TOKYO, April 18 (Reuters) - It couldn't happen here. That's what many Japanese were doubtless thinking after a gunman massacred 32 people at a U.S. university.
But the fatal shooting of the mayor of Nagasaki as he campaigned for re-election has reminded people of Japan's dark underworld of gun-toting "yakuza" gangsters, and prompted some, including Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, to call for even tighter controls. "This is really awful. It is related to yakuza -- ordinary people don't carry guns and don't want to carry guns," said Fumiko Tateno, 48, who works in a patent attorney's office.
"It's different from America, where the government protects people with guns," she added. "It's a very big shock."
Japan has strict gun control laws, and what firearms there are mostly in the hands of yakuza or hunters.
"Japan already has some of the tightest controls in the world," Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters in response to a question about gun control. "But I think that control should be even more thorough." "Guns are banned in Japan, but even so, this sort of thing has happened. It is tragic," said Norihisa Hirano, a salesman at an IT-related firm, on his way to work on Wednesday.
"There is a black market for guns. We need better controls."
holy moly! VA Tech coed on "Today" right now...was a high school freshman at Columbine...escaped there *before* the cops were called, not so close to action this time...but still...
Posted by glassman on :
columbine was 8 years ago this Fri?
the shoooter at VaTech was 23? that makes him 15 at the time of the columbine shootings... makes you wonder how he reacted to that situation.
Posted by rimasco on :
It starting to come out that there were all kinds of red flags. So at what point does the legal process bog down at removing sombody like this from society???
BLACKBURG, Va. (CNN) -- Cho Seung-Hui, the student blamed for the deadliest shooting spree in U.S. history, had "a really mean streak" that prompted Virginia Tech professor Nikki Giovanni to threaten to resign unless he was removed from her poetry class in 2005, the nationally-known poet said.
Although he officially remained on her class roll, the head of the English Department responded to Giovanni's demand by arranging to teach him one-on-one for the rest of that semester, Giovanni said.
Giovanni, in an interview on CNN's American Morning Wednesday, said two of her students dropped out of the class because Cho was "taking photographs of us, we don't know what he's doing."
"He was a very intimidating student to my other students," Giovanni said. She said she wrote a letter to English Department head Lucinda Roy asking that Cho be removed from the class.
"I was willing to resign before I was going to continue with him," she said.
Giovanni said at the start of each class there would be a "ritual" in which she would have to ask Cho to take off his sunglasses and cap.
She said what scared her, and prompted her to ask for campus security to keep a watch on her, was the poetry he wrote for the class.
"He was writing just weird things," she said. "It was terrible. It was not bad poetry, it was intimidating."
She said when she told him to stop writing such poems, he argued back.
"He said 'you can't make me' and I said 'yes, I can," she said.
Her memory of his time in her class was so strong that when she first learned someone had gone on a shooting rampage on campus, she immediately suspected it was Cho.
"I would have been shocked it wasn't," Giovanni said.
"There was something mean about this boy," she said. "It was the meanness that bothered me. It was a really mean streak."
Posted by IWISHIHAD on :
What a sad thing these shootings are. How does anyone know what really goes on in someone's head when something like this happens. They can speculate how they might have stopped it, but in reality if you try and figure out what each college student writes and what they wear, then decide if they are allowed to attend college, good luck. Things like a hat and sunglasses, how many students might that fit. The tragedy the families and friends must feel, and then you have to re-live it day after day with all the coverage. All those young lives.
Posted by rimasco on :
there was alot more to it then a hat a glasses. I think the teacher was just making a point on how it was a ritual with him and his defiance Its also being said that some of the students dubed him a "school shooter". Sad to say but in this case alot of people knew and are helpless to act.
Look into the interview with his roomate.....
Posted by NaturalResources on :
In screenplays Cho wrote for a class last fall, characters throw hammers and attack with chainsaws, said a student who attended Virginia Tech last fall. In another, Cho concocted a tale of students who fantasize about stalking and killing a teacher who sexually molested them.
"When we read Cho's plays, it was like something out of a nightmare," former classmate Ian MacFarlane, now an AOL employee, wrote in a **** posted on an AOL Web site.
"The plays had really twisted, macabre violence that used weapons I wouldn't have even thought of."
He said he and other students "were talking to each other with serious worry about whether he could be a school shooter."
"We always joked we were just waiting for him to do something, waiting to hear about something he did," said another classmate, Stephanie Derry. "But when I got the call it was Cho who had done this, I started crying, bawling."
.....
Posted by IWISHIHAD on :
I know there is more beyond what is said in the articles, but after the fact you can say the warning signs were there (and it appears they were). I thought defiance in college was part of college, with quite a few students. There are and will be big investgations into this tragedy and i am sure that more cross searches of students will come about. I can see students getting thrown out of college for for what they write and questionable behavior. I am not sure that will stop this from happenning again, i hope so, but deep down i really do not think so. It will mean more students will be controlled on what they write and how they act as to not draw attention, thus maybe get kicked out of school or just keep it to themselves. I do not know where the solution is, if any. But i do not like the end result of what happened or what might change as a result of this tragedy, if it means hugh cross checks of students on a continual bases. Tough call for administrators to take on in the future.
Posted by glassman on :
It will mean more students will be controlled on what they write and how they act as to not draw attention, thus maybe get kicked out of school or just keep it to themselves.
good point...
this brings into question whether self-control matters.
did this shooter have any?
Posted by andrew on :
There is no way to stop this from happening again. Just like there is no way to keep terrorist from coming into this country and doing the EXACT same thing. A "nut" will find a way of taking whatever life he/she decides to take....and as we seen, how many he/she decides to take.
Posted by NaturalResources on :
According to court papers, on Dec. 13, 2005, a magistrate ordered Cho to undergo an evaluation at Carilion St. Albans Hospital. The magistrate signed the order because of evidence Cho was a danger to himself or others as a result of mental illness. The next day, according to court records, a special justice approved outpatient treatment for Cho.
It is unclear how long Cho stayed at Carilion, though court papers indicate he was free to leave as of Dec. 14. Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker said Cho had been continually enrolled at Tech and never took a leave of absence.
A spokesman for Carilion St. Albans would not comment Wednesday.
After the first stalking incident, police referred Cho to the university's disciplinary system, Flinchum said.
But Ed Spencer, assistant vice president of student affairs, would not comment on any disciplinary proceedings, saying federal law protects students' medical privacy even after death. In any case, Cho remained enrolled up until his death.
.....
Posted by NaturalResources on :
quote:But Ed Spencer, assistant vice president of student affairs, would not comment on any disciplinary proceedings, saying federal law protects students' medical privacy even after death.
Does anyone else here think an exception should be made in this particular case?
Posted by jordanreed on :
hindsight...
Posted by NaturalResources on :
Breaking News:
NBC has recieved "writings and images" via mail(?) from Cho and turned them over to the authorities.
Posted by glassman on :
quote:Originally posted by NaturalResources: Breaking News:
NBC has recieved "writings and images" via mail(?) from Cho and turned them over to the authorities.
not surprising... he's got our attention now doesn't he?
Posted by NaturalResources on :
Supposedly NBC recieved them a few days ago.... CNN is saying NBC will have a special report tonight? Not sure, no questions were taken at the press conference where this news was released.
Posted by bdgee on :
Nope, exceptions inevitably amount to Constitutional violations and then to furthur eroding of the Constitution's viability.
Posted by NaturalResources on :
BLACKSBURG, Va. - The Virginia Tech gunman sent photographs, videos and writings to NBC in New York before he died in the massacre that left 33 people dead, authorities said Wednesday. NBC said that a time stamp on the package indicated the material was mailed in the two-hour window between the first burst of gunfire and the second.
"This may be a very new, critical component of this investigation. We're in the process right now of attempting to analyze and evaluate its worth," said Col. Steve Flaherty, superintendent of Virginia State Police.
NBC said it immediately turned the package containing what the network described as a "lengthy diatribe" over to authorities on Wednesday.
The package included digital images of him holding weapons and a manifesto that "rants against rich people and warns that he wants to get even," according to a law enforcement official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the case.
.....
Posted by rimasco on :
quote:Originally posted by bdgee: How does what a nut does imply that he was protecting anyone?
Damn! He's a nut! What he does doesn't make sense. Give up on the let's make sense outta this guy and what he did. It just doesn't make sense at all.
Well first of all it will tell us if it was the gun he purchased last month.... whos to say he didnt have 2 glocks or even 3. The store owner said he bought 50 rounds of ammo....which means theres a chance he had more ammo previously....
As far as "Give up on the let's make sense outta this guy and what he did." It appears it made perfect sense, especially when in 2005 the courts ruled him "an imminent danger to himself"
No wait youre right. lets just forget about trying to figure out what made the guy tick and prevent future incidents...
DAMM just when I thought you had a little brain power to go with your vast english courses...
Posted by NaturalResources on :
quote:Originally posted by bdgee: Nope, exceptions inevitably amount to Constitutional violations and then to furthur eroding of the Constitution's viability.
It is a federal law that prevents his record from being released, not a constitutional law.
Posted by glassman on :
Well first of all it will tell us if it was the gun he purchased last month.... whos to say he didnt have 2 glocks or even 3. The store owner said he bought 50 rounds of ammo....which means theres a chance he had more ammo previously..
it's not that difficult for trained experts to "raise" filed numbers...
the stamping process disturbs the undlerying metals... simplified explanation: they polish the filed surface smooth and study the "disturbed" area underneath magnetically...
Posted by MCJA on :
Va. Tech gunman sent material to NBC By MATT APUZZO, AP National Writer 19 minutes ago
BLACKSBURG, Va. - Between his first and second bursts of gunfire, the Virginia Tech gunman mailed a package to NBC News containing what authorities said were images of him brandishing weapons and a video of him delivering a diatribe about getting even with rich people.
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"This may be a very new, critical component of this investigation. We're in the process right now of attempting to analyze and evaluate its worth," said Col. Steve Flaherty, superintendent of Virginia State Police. He gave no details on the material.
NBC said that a time stamp on the package indicated the material was mailed in the two-hour window between the first burst of gunfire in a high-rise dormitory and the second fusillade, at a classroom building. Thirty-three people died in the rampage, including the gunman, 23-year-old student Cho Seung-Hui, who committed suicide.
The package included digital images of him holding weapons and a manifesto that "rants against rich people and warns that he wants to get even," according to a law enforcement official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the case.
MSNBC said that the package included a CD-ROM on which Cho read his manifesto.
"NBC Nightly News" planned to show some of the material Wednesday night, MSNBC reported.
NBC said it immediately turned the package over to authorities on Wednesday. The package was sent to NBC News head Steve Capus.
If the package was indeed mailed between the first attack and the second, that would help explain where Cho was and what he did during that two-hour window.
Posted by NaturalResources on :
quote:Originally posted by glassman: Well first of all it will tell us if it was the gun he purchased last month.... whos to say he didnt have 2 glocks or even 3. The store owner said he bought 50 rounds of ammo....which means theres a chance he had more ammo previously..
it's not that difficult for trained experts to "raise" filed numbers...
the stamping process disturbs the undlerying metals... simplified explanation: they polish the filed surface smooth and study the "disturbed" area underneath magnetically...
I believe police have already "raised" the filed numbers off of both guns, based on what I heard on CNN this morning. One was bought in Roanoke ~5 months ago and the other was bought online, and then picked up at a gun shop ~April 9th across the street from the campus.
Posted by NaturalResources on :
MSNBC is showing some of the images from the "package" right now...
Posted by NaturalResources on :
Shows him posing like some guy from a Hollywood shoot-em-up film.... More to be released in about an hour via NBC.
Posted by glassman on :
yeah, listening to Chris "go off"... it's amazing what some of these talking heads say...
Chris was saying how he woulda never let this guy be his roomie in college..DUH? why do you think this guy went postal? (oops not supposed to say that anymore am i?)
Posted by NaturalResources on :
They keep calling the guys that lived with him "suitemates"... Did I miss the latest memo on the political incorrectness of calling someone a "roomate"?
Chris was saying earlier that Cho was wearing a bandana... "could be a symbol of suicide"... I guess he doesn't know what a hat worn backwards looks like....
Posted by NaturalResources on :
.
Posted by bdgee on :
quote:Originally posted by NaturalResources:
quote:Originally posted by bdgee: Nope, exceptions inevitably amount to Constitutional violations and then to furthur eroding of the Constitution's viability.
It is a federal law that prevents his record from being released, not a constitutional law.
You really are a bit slow at times.....
Federal law emits as a result of the Constitution, first of all.
Second of all, there is this strangely worded Amendment (14) of the Constitution that prohibits exceptions when considering the rights of people...something like "...nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." In other words, NO EXCEPTIONS!
Moreover and third, what you you speak of is a criminal action, which will require the exception you foster to comply with Amendmenbat 5, 6, and 7. It can't.
The Constitution does specifically disallow a bill of attainer, which is the sort of thing you are suggersting with an "exception.
I think you fail to understand the Constitution, either willingly misconstueing it or misrepresenting it in confusion.
Posted by glassman on :
comeon bdgee.... you can inform w/o the ______
Posted by glassman on :
quote:Originally posted by NaturalResources: They keep calling the guys that lived with him "suitemates"... Did I miss the latest memo on the political incorrectness of calling someone a "roomate"?
Chris was saying earlier that Cho was wearing a bandana... "could be a symbol of suicide"... I guess he doesn't know what a hat worn backwards looks like....
suites are rooms that share a common area..guess these guys had private rooms?
Posted by NaturalResources on :
Ah ok, thanks for the clarification Glass...
Posted by NaturalResources on :
Posted by andrew on :
quote:Originally posted by NaturalResources:
quote:Originally posted by bdgee: Nope, exceptions inevitably amount to Constitutional violations and then to furthur eroding of the Constitution's viability.
It is a federal law that prevents his record from being released, not a constitutional law.
SUMMARY OF THE HIPAA PRIVACY RULE Introduction The Standards for Privacy of Individually Identifiable Health Information (Privacy Rule) establishes, for the first time, a set of national standards for the protection of certain health information. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued the Privacy Rule to implement the requirement of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). 1 The Privacy Rule standards address the use and disclosure of individuals health informationcalled protected health information by organizations subject to the Privacy Rule called covered entities, as well as standards for individuals' privacy rights to understand and control how their health information is used. Within HHS, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has responsibility for implementing and enforcing the Privacy Rule with respect to voluntary compliance activities and civil money penalties. A major goal of the Privacy Rule is to assure that individuals health information is properly protected while allowing the flow of health information needed to provide and promote high quality health care and to protect the public's health and well being. The Rule strikes a balance that permits important uses of information, while protecting the privacy of people who seek care and healing. Given that the health care marketplace is diverse, the Rule is designed to be flexible and comprehensive to cover the variety of uses and disclosures that need to be addressed.
Posted by glassman on :
OMG.... they are playing his video on NBC...
he was very ill... martyr syndrome combined with rage.. and he was obsessed with columbine..
Posted by NaturalResources on :
Steve Capus NBC news president is saying the package sent to NBC headquarters had the name "Ax Ismail" for the return address... Same thing that was reported to be written on Cho's arm in red ink when he committed this atrocity.
Posted by NaturalResources on :
Anyone care to speculate why Cho would give himself an Islamic name?
Posted by glassman on :
quote:But Ed Spencer, assistant vice president of student affairs, would not comment on any disciplinary proceedings, saying federal law protects students' medical privacy even after death.
Does anyone else here think an exception should be made in this particular case?
Legally there are exceptions that are MANDATED such as voicing threats to harm someone or confessing to abuse. That's it.
If there were no such threats or confessions then there is NO EXCEPTION.
Posted by Jason0352 on :
Please Forward to Your Local Newspapers, Radio Stations, and Television News Stations
Subject: Gun School For Teachers
Las Vegas, Nevada: In the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings, Front Sight Firearms Training Institute, which arguably is the world leader in providing intensified courses in the defensive use of firearms for private citizens, feels they have the answer to stopping further attacks on school children. Front Sight is offering free firearms training to any school administrator, teacher, or full time staff member designated as school Safety Monitors. Front Sight will accept for training up to three staff members from each school, college or university. Applicants must submit a letter requesting training on school letterhead signed by the top school district official and designating the applicant as the school's Safety Monitor.
Guns and Teachers
Front Sight's Founder and Director, Dr. Ignatius Piazza understands that his offer may offend some school administrators and parents who do not see arming and training selected school staff members as a positive solution to violent attacks. However, he is quick to point out that historically, his approach has worked while gun control has actually increased violent crime by shifting the balance of power to favor the criminals and lunatics.
"My offer is not a new idea," says Piazza. "In the early 70's, Israel was faced with much greater problems of armed terrorist attacks on schools. The cry for more gun control was heard then too, but Israel very carefully analyzed all possible options before adopting the proactive position of arming and training their teachers. School shootings stopped and terrorists looked for easier targets." He maintains that gun control never has and never will stop criminals and madmen from carrying out acts of gun violence.
"In our country, every time a misguided individual on psychiatric drugs goes on a killing spree, anti-self defense legislators, watch the polls and exploit the dead victims in order to fool the public into accepting more gun control. It is time our country finds some resolve and the will to tackle the real problem- which is rooting out the actual influences in the lives of our youth that predispose them to commit atrocities such as those we saw at Virginia Tech. The problem is not guns. Guns don't cause these incidents to occur anymore than cameras cause child pornography or automobiles cause traffic fatalities. Israel had the right answer. Society is safer when we train and arm our law abiding citizens. As the defensive training leader in the USA, Front Sight is willing and able to set the example for the rest of the country to follow."
Armed Teachers
Dave Clark, who recently retired after teaching for the last 25 years at Junction Junior High School in Livermore, California agrees with Front Sight's philosophy. In fact, Mr. Clark has previously attended a Four Day Defensive Handgun course at Front Sight at his own expense and found the course to be exactly what is needed to train fellow teachers to stop an attack similar to Columbine school and Virginia Tech. "Front Sight provides safe and responsible training to a level that exceeds law enforcement standards." Says Mr. Clark. "Among the many lessons taught, I learned universally accepted rules in justifiable use of deadly force. More importantly, I learned when not to shoot and how to be more mentally prepared to see a lethal confrontation coming before it happens in order to avoid it. The firearms training is second to none and clearly gives the graduates the skill needed to save the lives of those in their charge if ever attacked. If my school district chose to adopt a policy of sending selected teachers to Front Sight for concealed handgun training, I would wholeheartedly support it and volunteer as a Safety Monitor. There is no reason for our children to continue to be victimized when free, professional training is available to stop school attacks."
Guns in Schools
There is evidence that a gun in the hand of a teacher will stop an armed attacker. The vice-principal of a school in Pearl, Mississippi used his handgun to stop and detain an armed killer until the police arrived. Dr. Piazza adds, "It seems obvious that armed and trained staff members inside the school are in a better position to identify the attackers and do something immediately to resolve the situation. It is much harder for police, who arrive on the scene too late to stop the killing."
Not so convinced is Sharon Piazza, Dr. Piazza's aunt who recently retired after 30 years as an elementary teacher and school administrator for Oak Grove School District in San Jose, California. "The thought of teachers carrying guns saddens me greatly. I would feel that we had failed as a society and missed the core reason why violence is occurring in our youth. It is not guns, but something much deeper that is the common thread in all these tragedies. If we must arm individuals in the school setting to protect our children, I definitely believe they need to be trained in when and how to use the weapon. However, I am definitely not one who would want to be armed and would not want to teach in that setting."
Lawmakers With Blood on Their Hands
Another obstacle to Front Sight's offer to train and arm teachers is the current law in many states prohibiting the possession of firearms on school grounds even when the possessor is qualified and has a concealed weapons license. Dr. Piazza quickly points out that those laws did not prevent or stop the gun violence at numerous schools over the last tens years. He states, "The brazen attacks in school after school during the last decade indicate criminals have concluded that 'Gun-Free-School-Zone' actually means 'Government Certified, Helpless and Unarmed Victim Zone.'
Case in Point: House Bill 1572 would have given college students and employees the right to carry a concealed handgun on campus but this legislation was killed in subcommittee by the General Assembly. Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker was happy at the time to hear the bill had died. Hincker stated, "I'm sure the university community is appreciative of the General Assembly's actions because this helps parents, students, faculty and visitors to feel safe on our campus." Mr. Hincker now has rotten egg on his face and the General Assembly has blood on their hands.
School administrators, law enforcement agencies, and legislators can change laws and policies if they truly want to stop these attacks.
Senator Bob Beers of Nevada had the right answer by introducing Senate Bill 286 which authorized teachers who hold permits to carry concealed firearms and who have completed a specific program of firearms training to carry concealed on schools grounds. Nevada lawmakers
shot down Senator Beers' prophetic legislation just one week before the Virginia Tech Massacre.
The voices of Dr. Ignatius Piazza and Senator Bob Beers can now be heard through the halls of every school in America as they scream, "How many more of our children must be gunned down before this country will wake up and pass sensible laws that protect our children by placing concealed guns in the hands of the good guys? No more free-fire-zones for deranged criminals!"
Schools Can't Afford to Pass on No Cost Security
Most school districts cannot afford to have even one full time police officer in every school, but they can easily afford to train three or more of their selected staff members to a higher level of firearms training than offered in police academies because Front Sight will provide the training at no cost."
Retired law enforcement firearms instructor, Mike Waidelich from Bakersfield, California strongly supports the Front Sight concept of arming and training teachers. "Nearly every tragedy on or off school grounds in the entire 30 years of my law enforcement career could have been prevented or the damage done considerably limited, by the presence of an armed and trained individual."
Concealed Guns
The training provided in Front Sight's basic training classes easily exceeds the training provided in most police basic training academies.
Front Sight proves it on their nationally televised reality series Front Sight Challenge shown every week on VERSUS Network. Seasoned law enforcement officers from around the country go head-to-head in tests of marksmanship, speed and tactics against private citizens-- including teachers-- who have not received any training other than Front Sight's firearms courses. Remarkably, the Front Sight trained, private citizens are currently leading the series 8 : 5.
Piazza adds, "Teachers will be trained to carry a concealed weapon, so potential attackers will not know which teachers are armed and which are not. In states that have adopted concealed weapon laws for private citizens, violent crime has dropped. School attacks will drop as well once it is known that any of the teachers and staff members on school grounds have the ability and training to stop a violent attack immediately."
Piazza explains that scientific research also supports Front Sight's stance on concealed weapon training. He references researcher, John Lott, Jr. from the University of Chicago School of Law who published Crime, Deterrence and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handguns in July 1996. "Mr. Lott's research of cross-sectional time-series data from all 3054 U.S. counties from 1977 to 1992 found that allowing citizens to carry concealed weapons deters violent crime and appears to produce no increase in accidental deaths. If those states which did not have right-to-carry concealed handgun provisions had adopted them in 1992, approximately 1,570 murders, 4,177 rapes, and over 60,000 aggravated assaults would have been avoided yearly."
Gun Control Increases Violent Crime
Piazza asks, "How many times must we experience another Littleton, Colorado or Virginia Tech before we wake up, study the research and adopt policies which actually reduce crime and begin saving our children instead of leaving them helpless victims when the next psych drug user snaps?"
Gun control typically increases violent crime yet some politicians continue to tout disarming law abiding citizens as a solution. Front Sight has a better solution.
School districts interested in taking advantage of Front Sight's commitment to help protect our children should call us at 1.800.987.7719 or e-mail Front Sight at info*frontsight.com. More information about Front Sight training is available at http://www.frontsight.com." Posted by IWISHIHAD on :
Then we will have the teachers carrying firearms on campus and probebly shooting the wrong person in their panic. That's why guns scare me so much, so many mistakes happen.
Posted by rimasco on :
quote:Originally posted by NaturalResources: Anyone care to speculate why Cho would give himself an Islamic name?
Well one of the shrinks on cnn used the word "injustice collector". They collect all that they feel are injutices, even other people's. And we all know that Islamic radicals harbor this same trait.
He also sympathized with the columbine dopes.
Posted by bdgee on :
About anything that comes up as a response to this idiocy anytime soon has abou zero chance of helping and about a probability of 1 of doing real harm.
This reaction is emotion, not thought and reason.
Posted by rimasco on :
Wow just seen some of his video's . This cat had serious paranoid delusion's.
Posted by glassman on :
quote:Originally posted by rimasco: Wow just seen some of his video's . This cat had serious paranoid delusion's.
yeah, and from the looks of him? he can't even blame meth Posted by bdgee on :
quote:Originally posted by rimasco: Wow just seen some of his video's . This cat had serious paranoid delusion's.
Man!
I hope you weren't expecting a man that did what he did to be sane or normal!
Go check up on the writings of Charles Whitman and Lee Oswald. Manson. McVeigh.
Posted by ruthie on :
There sure are a lot of alarming and awful tragedies happening these days. Here is North Carolina this afternoon in a high school in Huntersville, a young man had a situation come up concerning a young lady he had feelings for and came on campus brandishing a gun. He then left and shot himself to death. Such a frightening time we are living in.
Posted by glassman on :
quote:Originally posted by ruthie: There sure are a lot of alarming and awful tragedies happening these days. Here is North Carolina this afternoon in a high school in Huntersville, a young man had a situation come up concerning a young lady he had feelings for and came on campus brandishing a gun. He then left and shot himself to death. Such a frightening time we are living in.
well Ruthie, you are right, the times are difficult. unfortunately? they always have been, we just know more about what all is going out there... communication is better and faster...
Posted by bdgee on :
And hyped more.
Posted by rimasco on :
Yeah on Andesen Pooper two of the shrinks said "these things happen in clusters" and that they should stop playing the clowns footage because there are people out there that might identify and it could serve as a breaking point.
A little off topic...my friend ran into Anderson pooper in a restaurant the other day.....he was with his BOYFRIEND....yeah thats right
Posted by rimasco on :
Got one of the guns from a pawn shop across the street from the campus...I mean WTF.....what goes on down there??? And the owner labeled it a "normal transaction"
Posted by glassman on :
quote:Originally posted by rimasco: Got one of the guns from a pawn shop across the street from the campus...I mean WTF.....what goes on down there??? And the owner labeled it a "normal transaction"
gee rim? i'm beginning to wonder if you are getting ready to ask me to turn in my "iron collection" Posted by rimasco on :
Not true.....but a pawn shop??? Is it smart to give a person in hock ....errr uhhhh the option to trade up for a Glock???
Posted by IWISHIHAD on :
Not the best place for a gun shop, but for these types of indivuals would not make any differance, they can get one somewhere else anyhow, i would worry more about party animals at college shooting themselves, with a shop so close. The part beyond the tragedy itself, is that so many people are hearing the details on tv on a constant basis, all day all night. Now families will have to deal with the fear and try and explain what happened to their kids. Some young kids and adults will have fear that will not go away. The talk about instructors and students getting guns seems so bad, yet it will happen. The truth of the matter is, that in most cases they can train them how to handle a gun, but most will not be trained enough to handle the situation. The worse thing is that some people have more and more fear(a lot because of what we read and hear) about what is going to happen to them when they go out. That can be a lot worse than what "might' happen. I have never felt that way and do not like the idea of a gun to protect myself. Again for me, i have that fear of guns and want no part of them. I wish a lot more people felt that way, but i also do not believe in gun control.
Posted by Ace of Spades on :
I know people that " have that fear of (alcohol) and want no part of (it)".
Many of them advocate bringing back prohibition (perhaps indirectly in the guize of safety or moral necessity or "just as soon as we finish with smoking and have created the necessary court rulings") and insist it is their right to determine the rights of others because of their fear.
Many of them advocte bringing back prohibition directly and either, insist that the Constitutional blunder and disaster that had to be corrected before would not happen again, or claim ignorance of the Constitutional reality and history.
We are dealing with rights, not fears, with laws, not religion, with a constitutional republic, not a pure democracy.
The people do have the right for the Government to not be allowed to interfere with their rights and privileges, even if some of the people fear others or what others may do. Normally, when and if a person reacts to reality by trying to make others conform to their wishes, in spite of those others not wishing in concert with them, we put that person in the category of selfish crackpots (or worse, in a special place, when they carry on and on and on.....).
Posted by NaturalResources on :
quote:Originally posted by rimasco: Not true.....but a pawn shop??? Is it smart to give a person in hock ....errr uhhhh the option to trade up for a Glock???
The gun was purchased online from an out of state vendor, but according to Virginia law, it couldn't be shipped to Cho's residence, it had to be shipped to a licensed gun dealer, where a background check could be performed.... The "pawn shop" across the street from the campus was a licensed gun dealer.
Posted by rimasco on :
I know how it went down. That why I used the word option.
I agree with Iwish... I owned a few guns when I was younger(a little younger then the shooter)Always felt compelled to shoot the thing. Then I seen some friends go down at the other end of them....most didnt get up. The one thing every single situation had in common....they were alllllllll handguns
I dont want them around me....any un wanted visitors come in my house?? their getting bludgeoned to the likes of Rocky Dennis!!
Posted by bdgee on :
Suppose a young man had taken himself a wife and things went really bad and he saw the same thing happen to some friends ...... watched it destroy lives....
So, he got rid of his and "don't want them around".
Assuming that sort of logic, I'm supposed to accept his insistance that marriage is dangerous and wives are harmful to society?
Then, on the other hand, maybe wives could be useful in some circumstances?
Should we be asking the Legeslature to pass a concealed wife permit law?
Posted by rimasco on :
"Then, on the other hand, maybe wives could be useful in some circumstances?"
OOHHHH YEAH
"Should we be asking the Legeslature to pass a concealed wife permit law?"
"If you ever met my girl im sure you would walk away saying"
Good point...even better, if any unwanted visitors came in my home....they'ed have to deal with her as well....lets just say she sometimes has the temperment of a rabid mastiff!
and no she doesnt spin herself on the carpet at that time of the month..... at least not that i know of
Posted by MCJA on :
quote:Originally posted by bdgee: Suppose a young man had taken himself a wife and things went really bad and he saw the same thing happen to some friends ...... watched it destroy lives....
So, he got rid of his and "don't want them around".
Assuming that sort of logic, I'm supposed to accept his insistance that marriage is dangerous and wives are harmful to society?
Then, on the other hand, maybe wives could be useful in some circumstances?
Should we be asking the Legeslature to pass a concealed wife permit law?
Your on to something: My wife is dangerous, when she naggs on me I sometimes think about throwing a rope over the shower rod.loll
Posted by bdgee on :
lol
Don't blame it on me!!!!!
Posted by IWISHIHAD on :
Rimasco, Its nasty what can happen when people have handguns, some do not understand the reality of the actions of shooting another person and some do. Around 20 years ago we had a salesman that called on a company i worked for. One day he decided he needed a handgun because of all the rode rage problems. This salesperson was about 30 years old and had built a great business, he was worth millions. One day on the freeway two guys were doing the road rage thing with him as he stated, they pulled along the road and he killed both of them, he said it was self defense. The last time we heard from him he had lost all his millions, company, and possibly his family, his words were, why did i ever buy a handgun i have lost my life because of it. Sad, but it can be the reality.
Posted by rimasco on :
One of the situations I witnessed was with two close friends of mine....it all started over frendly wrestling match where egos were at stake. One guy bit the other and it turned into a brawl....after that, they threw hands every time they encountered eachother...till one day after one of there ritualistic brawls one decided to burn the other kids car...the other kid decided to go put some glue in the lock to his house... when my friend was unable to get in his house he turned around to be shot 5 times point blank by my other friend...who is now serving out the end of a 15 year sentence....
lost two friends that day....the one incarcerated I decided never to speak to again
over a wrestling match
Posted by bdgee on :
Was it the gun or the challenge of the rage?
If you go looking for a fight, does it become self defense just because you are paranoid?
If you have a chip on your shoulder (even out of fear), shouldn't you expect someone to take the bait? Is it their fault if they do?
Posted by Ramius on :
quote:Originally posted by rimasco: I know how it went down. That why I used the word option.
I agree with Iwish... I owned a few guns when I was younger(a little younger then the shooter)Always felt compelled to shoot the thing. Then I seen some friends go down at the other end of them....most didnt get up. The one thing every single situation had in common....they were alllllllll handguns
I dont want them around me....any un wanted visitors come in my house?? their getting bludgeoned to the likes of Rocky Dennis!!
Nice Rim, Rocky Dennis reference...I haven't heard any in years.
Posted by glassman on :
mine will meet 140 lbs of houndog first...
Posted by rimasco on :
WOW 140 lb hound??? Do you live near a reactor???
Posted by glassman on :
nah he's just BIG....
one bark and people start looking for hidey holes Posted by glassman on :
that's a size 11 shoe next to him...
hmmm... tiny pic ain't working now?
Posted by rimasco on :
Wow hes a big boy you crop those ears and he'd look like a Pit.
Posted by glassman on :
even the pits look for hidey holes.. Posted by IWISHIHAD on :
That's no dog, you just brought him indoors to keep him fresher for the next big race. Posted by glassman on :
some people do race 'em... they're called Rhodesian Ridgebacks, and they were bred to hunt african lions... the one featured on this page is virtually identical to NoNobaddog, except the one pictured has some lighter colored fur on his neck... http://www.dogbreedinfo.com/rhodesianridgeback.htm
if you read up onthe bredd description you'll see that mine is 50% again bigger than the breed standard (in America)
the Africans bred larger on purpose..
Ridgebacks are loyal, intelligent, gentle, and very independent. They are, however, aloof to strangers. This breed requires training and dedication and is only for the experienced dog owner. They are strong-willed, exceptionally clever, and many seem to have a penchant for mischief. They do not make a good first dog, though the same traits that make them difficult often appeal to the more experienced owners. Although they can withstand wide temperature variations due to their African heritage, they are sensitive and prefer to be with their human families inside. They were traditionally hunters, guardians, and companions. The breed's long history dates back to early in the 18th century when the first European settlers found with the Khoisan tribes a domesticated dog with the hair on his spine being turned forward. Later, to fill specific needs of the big game hunters of the late 19th century for a serviceable hunting dog, tough, resistant to disease, intelligent enough to avoid crocodiles and snakes, with tick repellent smooth coat, tight paw pads to protect against thorns and rough terrain, brave enough to face a lion or any other big game, but fast enough to stay out of harm's way of horns, claws and teeth. The main person behind this development was Cornelius Van Rooyen of Plumtree, Rhodesia.
The history of the breed is frustratingly murky. What is commonly accepted is that Van Rooyen used two ridged, rough-coated *****es from the Swellendam district brought to him by the Rev. Charles Helm in 1879. Van Rooyen crossed these *****es with members of his pack, noting that their ridged progeny excelled at lion hunting. Posted by rimasco on :
It looks to me like youre living in HIS house?
Posted by glassman on :
quote:Originally posted by rimasco: It looks to me like youre living in HIS house?
his position in the household is just under my foot whenever possible?
if i ignore him too long (10 minutes or so?)? he appears with whatever dirty clothes (preferably socks) he can find handy and insists that i chase him around the house..
Posted by rimasco on :
LOL
theres a bunch of schools on lockdown
In CA there hunting a guy who is a know Meth addict and is threating to make VT look like a walk in the park.....
He claimed to authorities he has an AK some IED's and poison..
Lets hope he mistakes his ripple for the poison....
Posted by rimasco on :
sorry the LOL was for the visual of glass chasing his dog with dirty sock.....
Posted by rimasco on :
These are the clusters the shrinks were talking about....im sure most are pranks
Posted by rimasco on :
Its about time....these media JOs should have focused on the victims...
Backlash leads to pullback on Cho video
NEW YORK - With a backlash developing against the media for airing sickening pictures from Virginia Tech shooter Cho Seung-Hui, Fox News Channel said Thursday it would stop and other networks said they would severely limit their use.
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NBC News was the recipient Wednesday of Cho's package of rambling, hate-filled video and written messages, with several pictures of him posing with a gun. Contents began airing on "Nightly News," and its rivals quickly used them, too.
Family members of victims canceled plans to appear on NBC's "Today" show Thursday because they "were very upset" with the network for showing the pictures, "Today" host Meredith Vieira said.
Virginia State Police Col. Steve Flaherty who praised NBC Wednesday for coming to authorities first with the package said Thursday he was disappointed with what the network showed.
"I just hate that a lot of people not used to seeing that type of image had to see it," he said.
NBC said the material was aired because it helped to answer the question of why Cho killed 32 people and himself on the Virginia Tech campus Monday.
"The decision to run this video was reached by virtually every news organization in the world, as evidenced by coverage on television, on Web sites and in newspapers," NBC said in a statement. "We have covered this story and our unique role in it with extreme sensitivity, underscored by our devoted efforts to remember and honor the victims and heroes of this tragic incident."
NBC and its MSNBC cable outlet will "severely limit" use of these pictures going forward, "Today" host Matt Lauer said, a restriction echoed by ABC News. At both CBS News and CNN, producers will need explicit approval from their bosses to use them going forward.
Fox News announced on the air late Thursday morning that it would no longer air Cho's material, saying "sometimes you change your mind."
These decisions, of course, came more than 12 hours after the pictures became available, after they already made their impact. The news cycle dictates they would be used less, anyway.
"It has value as breaking news," said ABC News spokesman Jeffrey Schneider, "but then becomes practically pornographic as it is just repeated ad nauseam."
Jon Klein, president of CNN U.S., said the decision to air it was a tough call.
"As breaking news, it's pertinent to our understanding of why this was done," he said. "Then, once the public has seen the material and digested it, then it's fair to say, `How much should we be showing it?' I think it's to the credit of news organizations that they are dialing back."
NBC News said it had no indication why Cho chose it for his message. A Postal Service time stamp shows it was mailed at 9:01 a.m. Monday, during the two hours between his first shooting at a Virginia Tech dorm and his massacre at a classroom building.
___
NBC News is owned by General Electric Co. ABC is owned by the Walt Disney Co. CBS is owned by CBS Corp. CNN is owned by Time Warner Inc. Fox News Channel is owned by News Corp.
Posted by rimasco on :
The Media literally went from totally bombarding US with that sicko to pulling everything on him...
I guess their pimps got a hold of them??
Posted by IWISHIHAD on :
Glassman, How come this thread has stretched out since your dog came on? Posted by glassman on :
my dog is so big he stretched out the page
it's only this page, the next page will be back to nromal....
it's the format they use at tiny pic dotcom... i tried to get it to smaller size, but it wouldn't work...
Posted by T e x on :
lol, stop that...
Posted by IWISHIHAD on :
I think you should squeeeeeze your dog before you take a picture, or have him use some of that exlax to reduce his size, but clear out of the house first. That dog has that look in it's eye's our Red Setter use to have, if any dog can be like a Red Setter, but they are great kid dogs.
Posted by bdgee on :
Yep, a dog like that takes well to squeezing, IWW.
Mine isn't so large (Lab/Chesapeake only 120 pounds), but he loves about anything you might do so long as he gets in on the doing of it. He loves about anybody he knows and anything they do, but I wouldn't suggest breaking in if you aren't one of his pack.
Posted by BooDog on :
quote:Originally posted by rimasco: The Media literally went from totally bombarding US with that sicko to pulling everything on him...
I guess their pimps got a hold of them??
media stay out!
respect the victims and what they would have brought to the future imo. and stop giving so much air time to the life of the psycho.
page back to normal. lol
Posted by MCJA on :
Nugent: Gun-free zones are recipe for disaster POSTED: 3:14 p.m. EDT, April 20, 2007 More on CNN TV: Ted Nugent participates in a roundtable discussion on gun control tonight on "Glenn Beck," Headline Prime, 7 p.m. ET. By Ted Nugent Special to CNN
Adjust font size: Editor's note: Rock guitarist Ted Nugent has sold more than 30 million albums. He's also a gun rights activist and serves on the board of directors of the National Rifle Association. His program, "Ted Nugent Spirit of the Wild," can be seen on the Outdoor Channel.
Read an opposing take on gun control from journalist Tom Plate: Let's lay down our right to bear arms
WACO, Texas (CNN) -- Zero tolerance, huh? Gun-free zones, huh? Try this on for size: Columbine gun-free zone, New York City pizza shop gun-free zone, Luby's Cafeteria gun-free zone, Amish school in Pennsylvania gun-free zone and now Virginia Tech gun-free zone.
Anybody see what the evil Brady Campaign and other anti-gun cults have created? I personally have zero tolerance for evil and denial. And America had best wake up real fast that the brain-dead celebration of unarmed helplessness will get you killed every time, and I've about had enough of it.
Nearly a decade ago, a Springfield, Oregon, high schooler, a hunter familiar with firearms, was able to bring an unfolding rampage to an abrupt end when he identified a gunman attempting to reload his .22-caliber rifle, made the tactical decision to make a move and tackled the shooter.
A few years back, an assistant principal at Pearl High School in Mississippi, which was a gun-free zone, retrieved his legally owned Colt .45 from his car and stopped a Columbine wannabe from continuing his massacre at another school after he had killed two and wounded more at Pearl.
At an eighth-grade school dance in Pennsylvania, a boy fatally shot a teacher and wounded two students before the owner of the dance hall brought the killing to a halt with his own gun.
More recently, just a few miles up the road from Virginia Tech, two law school students ran to fetch their legally owned firearm to stop a madman from slaughtering anybody and everybody he pleased. These brave, average, armed citizens neutralized him pronto.
My hero, Dr. Suzanne Gratia Hupp, was not allowed by Texas law to carry her handgun into Luby's Cafeteria that fateful day in 1991, when due to bureaucrat-forced unarmed helplessness she could do nothing to stop satanic George Hennard from killing 23 people and wounding more than 20 others before he shot himself. Hupp was unarmed for no other reason than denial-ridden "feel good" politics.
She has since led the charge for concealed weapon upgrade in Texas, where we can now stop evil. Yet, there are still the mindless puppets of the Brady Campaign and other anti-gun organizations insisting on continuing the gun-free zone insanity by which innocents are forced into unarmed helplessness. Shame on them. Shame on America. Shame on the anti-gunners all.
No one was foolish enough to debate Ryder truck regulations or ammonia nitrate restrictions or a "cult of agriculture fertilizer" following the unabashed evil of Timothy McVeigh's heinous crime against America on that fateful day in Oklahoma City. No one faulted kitchen utensils or other hardware of choice after Jeffrey Dahmer was caught drugging, mutilating, raping, murdering and cannibalizing his victims. Nobody wanted "steak knife control" as they autopsied the dead nurses in Chicago, Illinois, as Richard Speck went on trial for mass murder.
Evil is as evil does, and laws disarming guaranteed victims make evil people very, very happy. Shame on us.
Already spineless gun control advocates are squawking like chickens with their tiny-brained heads chopped off, making political hay over this most recent, devastating Virginia Tech massacre, when in fact it is their own forced gun-free zone policy that enabled the unchallenged methodical murder of 32 people.
Thirty-two people dead on a U.S. college campus pursuing their American Dream, mowed-down over an extended period of time by a lone, non-American gunman in illegal possession of a firearm on campus in defiance of a zero-tolerance gun law. Feel better yet? Didn't think so.
Who doesn't get this? Who has the audacity to demand unarmed helplessness? Who likes dead good guys?
I'll tell you who. People who tramp on the Second Amendment, that's who. People who refuse to accept the self-evident truth that free people have the God-given right to keep and bear arms, to defend themselves and their loved ones. People who are so desperate in their drive to control others, so mindless in their denial that they pretend access to gas causes arson, Ryder trucks and fertilizer cause terrorism, water causes drowning, forks and spoons cause obesity, dialing 911 will somehow save your life, and that their greedy clamoring to "feel good" is more important than admitting that armed citizens are much better equipped to stop evil than unarmed, helpless ones.
Pray for the families of victims everywhere, America. Study the methodology of evil. It has a profile, a system, a preferred environment where victims cannot fight back. Embrace the facts, demand upgrade and be certain that your children's school has a better plan than Virginia Tech or Columbine. Eliminate the insanity of gun-free zones, which will never, ever be gun-free zones. They will only be good guy gun-free zones, and that is a recipe for disaster written in blood on the altar of denial. I, for one, refuse to genuflect there.
What is your take on this commentary? E-mail us
The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the writer. This is part of an occasional series of commentaries on CNN.com that offers a broad range of perspectives, thoughts and points of view.
Read an opposing point of view from journalist Tom Plate: Let's lay down our right to bear arms
Your responses
CNN.com asked readers for their thoughts on this commentary. Below you will find a small selection of these e-mails, some of which have been edited for length and spelling:
Travis Carollo, Sullivan, Missouri I agree 100 percent. The only thing anti-guns laws will prevent is normal law-abiding citizens from owning them. Criminals will always find a way to obtain a gun. They are criminals. They will never follow the law. Way to go Nuge!
Doug, Houston, Texas Frankly I got sick in my stomach reading Mr. Nugent's article. According to Mr. Nugent, the solution is very simple: All citizens should be armed and the world would be a much safer place. Let's take a moment to think about the implication of this. The criminals are not dumb. If we average law-abiding citizens were allowed to freely purchase weapons, the criminals would do everything they could to ensure they have the upper hands on their firepower. Of course, we would immediately do the same to regain our upper hands. What then would you think the criminals would do in return?
Kathy Culley, Virginia Beach, Virginia Ted has hit the nail on the head. Making the right to bear arms illegal is only illegal for the "good" guys. The "bad" guys will always have access through their illegal ways. Just thinking that someone may be carrying a gun might deter would-be killers out of their heinous crime. Way to go Ted for speaking out for our American rights!
Nita Olson, Florence, Mississippi I believe he is right! I'm not fond of guns, but I believe we should have the right to bear arms and protect our loved ones. I, for one, would not hesitate to shoot someone trying to enter my house, car, etc. Reason being you ask? If the "suspect" is entering my home, armed with a gun, then I feel no remorse about shooting someone who is coming into my "zone" with the intent of hurting/killing me or family and taking things that I have worked hard for and will not give it up "because it can be replaced."
Joe Russo, Staten Island, New York Ted Nugent really has a twisted way of looking at the violence that seems to regularly plague us. As a hunter and gun owner, I do believe in our right to bear arms. However, that right should not include hand guns and assualt weapons.
Josh Munford, Lincoln, Nebraska Simply stated, Ted Nugent is right. The fact of the matter is that these anti-gun activists have created more problems. Evil will always find a way and giving them more opportunity by creating "anti" laws in all reality protects them. It's common sense to a criminal: "Law-abiding citizens won't be prepared here or here or here, so I'll be able to create the most destruction, panic and chaos there." What are you thinking by creating anti-gun laws, and gun free zones?
Linda, Plymouth, Michigan To back up Ted's points, when have we ever heard of a gunman killing 32 people in a police station? How about at an Army Base in Michigan? Nope. How about at the local shooting range? Tons of guns there, you'd think there'd be mass killing there every other weekend with all the guns...oh wait...at all those places the victims would be armed and would shoot back. An armed gunman wouldn't get out more than one shot, if that, before being stopped.
John Thatamanil, Nashville, Tennessee "A God-given right to bear guns?" Dear Mr. Nugent, which God, pray tell, are you speaking about? Surely not Jesus, you know, the one who said, "He who lives by the sword dies by the sword." Frankly, I find Mr. Nugent whatever God he claims to worship terribly frightening. Stick to rock, Mr. Nugent, you are terrifically good at that!
Posted by glassman on :
Cat Scratch Fever yeah ...
Posted by rimasco on :
AP: Va. gunman's family feels hopeless By ALLEN G. BREED and AARON BEARD, Associated Press Writer 4 minutes ago
BLACKSBURG, Va. - The family of Virginia Tech gunman Seung-Hui Cho told The Associated Press on Friday that they feel "hopeless, helpless and lost," and "never could have envisioned that he was capable of so much violence."
"He has made the world weep. We are living a nightmare," said a statement issued by Cho's sister, Sun-Kyung Cho, on the family's behalf.
It was the Chos' first public comment since the 23-year-old student killed 32 people and committed suicide Monday in the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history.
Raleigh, N.C., lawyer Wade Smith provided the statement to the AP after the Cho family reached out to him. Smith said the family would not answer any questions, and neither would he.
"Our family is so very sorry for my brother's unspeakable actions. It is a terrible tragedy for all of us," said Sun-Kyung Cho, a 2004 Princeton University graduate who works as a contractor for a State Department office that oversees American aid for Iraq.
"We pray for their families and loved ones who are experiencing so much excruciating grief. And we pray for those who were injured and for those whose lives are changed forever because of what they witnessed and experienced," she said. "Each of these people had so much love, talent and gifts to offer, and their lives were cut short by a horrible and senseless act."
The Chos' whereabouts are unclear. But Virginia State Police said they are under law enforcement protection.
The statement was issued during a statewide day of mourning for the victims. Silence fell across the Virginia Tech campus at noon and bells tolled in churches nationwide in memory of the victims.
"We are humbled by this darkness. We feel hopeless, helpless and lost. This is someone that I grew up with and loved. Now I feel like I didn't know this person," Cho's sister said. "We have always been a close, peaceful and loving family. My brother was quiet and reserved, yet struggled to fit in. We never could have envisioned that he was capable of so much violence."
She said her family will cooperate fully and "do whatever we can to help authorities understand why these senseless acts happened. We have many unanswered questions as well."
Wendy Adams, whose niece, Leslie Sherman, was killed in the massacre, said of the family's statement: "I'm not so generous to be able to forgive him for what he did. But I do feel for the family. I do feel sorry for them."
"I do believe they're living a nightmare," she added.
Robert Jeffers of Idaho Falls, Idaho, a friend of slain 25-year-old student Brian R. Bluhm, said: "I hope people can see that the right action to take from all of this is love, not hate."
"Based on this sorrowful statement, it is apparent that the family grieves with everyone in the world," Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker said.
Cho's name was given as "Cho Seung-Hui" by police and school officials earlier this week. But the the South Korean immigrant family said their preference was "Seung-Hui Cho." Many Asian immigrant families Americanize their names by reversing them and putting their surnames last.
While Cho clearly was seething and had been taken to a psychiatric hospital more than a year as threat to himself, investigators are still trying to establish exactly what set him off, why he chose a dormitory and a classroom building for the rampage, and how he selected his victims.
"The why and the how are the crux of the investigation," Virginia State Police spokeswoman Corinne Geller said. "The why may never be determined because the person responsible is deceased."
During the campus memorial, hundreds of somber students and area residents, most wearing the school's maroon and orange, stood with heads bowed on the parade ground in front of Norris Hall, the classrooom building where all but two of the victims died. Along with the bouquets and candles was a sign reading, "Never forgotten."
"It's good to feel the love of people around you," said Alice Lo, a Virginia Tech graduate and friend of Jocelyne Couture-Nowak, a French instructor killed in the rampage. "With this evil, there is still goodness."
The mourners gathered in front of stone memorials, each adorned with a basket of tulips and an American flag. There were 33 stones one for each victim and Cho.
"His family is suffering just as much as the other families," said Elizabeth Lineberry, who will be a freshman at Virginia Tech in the fall.
Posted by bdgee on :
""His family is suffering just as much as the other families," said Elizabeth Lineberry, who will be a freshman at Virginia Tech in the fall."
I remember that the families of the murdered school children in Pennsylvania insisted that the donations and prayers be shared equally with the family of the murderer, for they too were victims.
Posted by NaturalResources on :
quote:Originally posted by NaturalResources: Anyone care to speculate why Cho would give himself an Islamic name?
School fires accounting professor who mimicked Virginia Tech shootings A small college in Massachusetts has fired an accounting professor who made controversial comments about the Virginia Tech shootings during a recent lecture.
According to students in his class, [Nicholas] Winset staged a dramatization ... mimicking the shootings at Virginia Tech and disparaging the victims as rich white kids combined with an obscene epithet, Emmanuel College said in a statement, according to the Boston Herald. He did not do this as part of an open debate with his students. The school described his comments as "discriminatory," according to the paper.
Winset told the Boston Globe: "I walked among them, [aiming a marker at students] and went 'bang' five or six times," Winset said. He then held up his hands, signaling to a student he had prepped before class, to draw his own marker and point it at Winset, "at which point, I went down," Winset said.
Winset, an adjunct instructor, said he was trying to show students that guns aren't always bad. In response, he said he received a one-page termination letter that barred him from returning to campus and an application for unemployment benefits.
A classroom is supposed to be a place for academic exploration, he told the Herald. Its just gotten so politically correct. Its sad that we have come to this point.
He has posted a lengthy response to the school on YouTube. You can see the first of four clips here.
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