Because the gunman died, the full story of Monday’s shocking rampage at a dorm and an engineering classroom at Virginia Tech may never be known. The timeline raises tough questions for officials at the school in Blacksburg, Va. As the massacre rattles college students and their parents nationally, the incident will spur new debates about campus security. Such horrific crimes probably will always happen in a free society, even in a time of terrorism. But count on many international observers especially to see Monday’s violence the same way they saw Columbine — as the price of America’s gun rights. Is that fair?
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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193 Comments
Too many guns in the hands of idiots. Sorry, NRA, guns DO kill people.
Slam me all you want. I own guns and like to shoot. But the one thing I have learned from hunting and three years in the Army, guns kill people.
Every teacher, professor, administrator needs to be armed and trained.
This is total BS. Never should anyone, especially children be stuck in a building, defenseless, like sitting ducks – awaiting slaughter.
There will be bad people.
They will get guns – or worse.
Arm the teachers.
Take the little bastids out before they do massive harm as they did here.
Makes me wonder if online classes aren’t going to replace the residential university before too long. This, along with the rising costs begs the question….is it all worth it?
The shooter’s dead – good – but for all the half-baked nuts out there that see him as a martyr – let’s cut off his head and display it on a stake in the town square. That wouldn’t be near as pretty and alluringly anarchist.
Let’s quit romanticizing these whack jobs. Let’s make this look every bit as ugly as we possibly can.
A sad day, indeed.
And If one of those students had been carrying, how many could have been saved? I don;t know either.
Dennis – ONLY in the hands of a person.
Yeah, students carrying guns to class is BRILLIANT. That 19 year old engineering studuent in the third row DEFINITELY could have gotten a shot off in the *hail of bullets* flying around him. And do you think the cops responding really wanted a student vigilante firing another gun at the scene? Come on now.
Do you even think before you type?
I try not to.
But how about the guy in the front row? Or behind the pillar> Takes a long time to shoot that many people, with a good deal of concentraiton to get that many “kill shots” with a handgun. Somebody could have perhaps intervened. Guess we’ll never know
“The shooter’s dead – good – but for all the half-baked nuts out there that see him as a martyr – let’s cut off his head and display it on a stake in the town square. That wouldn’t be near as pretty and alluringly anarchist.”
Those “that see him as a martyr?” Jesus Christ, you are insane. “See him as a martyr?” Exactly who the hell would see this nutcase as martyr? Anarchists? Umm, okay. This whole thing was apparently about this d-bags girlfriend, not politics.
“Let’s quit romanticizing these whack jobs. Let’s make this look every bit as ugly as we possibly can.”
You must be high on crystal meth. Romanticizing? Who the hell would “romanticize” this terrible, terrible tragedy? What the hell are you talking about? And ‘let’s make this look every bit as ugly as we possibly can”? Uhh, yeah. I’d say its already *about as ugly as it can get.* Bottom line: my sympathy is with the families of the victims. May they rest in peace.
And quit trying to turn this into politics? Have you no decency?
I have no idea what GS is talking about there either. I ahven;t seen anyone making him a martyr or romanticizing him.
My sympathy too is with the family. I cannot imagine being in their place.
The politics, that was the question raised by the blog author.
I don’t know what to think on this. On the one hand I can see GS’s point but I can also see the other side. One thing that also worries me is the potential for a lot of “collateral damage” from a shootout.
But, if someone could get a clean shot I’d love it.
The concern about collateral damage is real enough, and gives pause. But with proper education, can be reduced. My Dad taught me how to handle a gun. SOme of his rules
1) Treat every gun as if it was loaded
2) don;t point it unless you have intentions to shoot
3) don;t shoot unless yo have a clear shot and intend to kill.
Worked so far
I heard scattered reports that the identity of the shooter is described as an Asian male.
Some station reported that he was into video games like Combat Strike or something like that, don’t play them dunno. Although I’m not sure if they were talking about another incident or this one.
Very sad and tragic.
The shooter being dead is a good thing? This is happening too often to wish all the shooters dead. That may seem like I’m supporting shooters. Far from it: they need to be locked up in the deepest dungeon and studied until the die of old age.
Only then can we possibly get a handle on what makes these people tick. They were all good people at one time. What triggered the rage, or whatever caused them to explode in violence? Can we find a common denominator? Can we spot it before it takes over the minds of these people?
Wishing they were all dead is not going to solve the problem; understanding the workings of the diseased mind could be a step towards stopping the violence.
A sad day indeed; there have been too many of them.
Hmm. An interesting thought. Perhaps you are right. I would maybe think it better to get them alive, however it seems that killing them or them killing themselves so far has been the only way to stop them
It’s going to be impossible, but the media shouldn’t even name him.
Whether he was a student or not, criminal background, thats okay.
Investigate the friends.
Not announce kind of weapons the murderer had. Multiple clips are imagined, how times reloaded, not the type of shells either.
It’s a horrible tragedy in a free society where its wrong for the need to arm everybody. There would have been more cross fire with multiple guns and people in the way. It’s not procedures the average citizen should have to train for.Al Queda couldn’t done the deed any better. Terrorists are home grown and among us.
They can hide in plain sight because perceptions of “bad people” are wrongly placed.
Prayers for the dead and injured, its going to be a long time putting the tragedy behind them.
America won’t forget it.
Prayers for the dead and injured, its going to be a long time putting the tragedy behind them.
America won’t forget it.
Posted by: Mrage | April 16, 2007 at 04:50
Amen
It would be people who say that David Koresh & Timothy McVeigh who romaticise and DEFEND their actions, and blame the government for what happened there…those are the ones who look at these people as martyrs.
And I know there are a whole mess of people here who do too.
Oh well.
There are so many school shootings these days. I guess these tragedies are just acceptable losses in a free society, like traffic accidents and pollution.
Long live cowboy logic — YEE HAA!
I don;t glorify or defend either one, but the government has a lot to answer for with the David Koresh incident, in my mind. But the fault is his, make no mistake about it. I am NOT apologizing for him, or trying to shift the blame. He was a wacko, but the whole situation was handled very poorly by the feds.
Please forgive my past post. It was inappropriate while discussing a tragedy such as this.
ddub
“Do you even think before you type?”
I should ask you the same. You dismiss the idea out of hand, using the “vigilante” canard in the process. It may be a good idea, it may not. But it deserves a thoughtful response rather than a dismissive and disingenuous one.
Think about this. At this point, I don’t know what weapons the shooter had; if it was a hand gun, he had to reload at least five times. That takes a great deal of time. Ben notes the hazard of a shootout, and that risk is something to be considered. But could that possibly be worse than what happened? Must potential victims be content to simply cower and wait until the shooter decides to execute them?
It appears that, once again, a shooter acted with impunity in a so-called “gun free” zone. Coincidence? How many of these invasions take place in police stations, for example? The shooters want power, and can act as one with power in a place they know they hold the only instruments of that power – i.e., a firearm.
I’d also note that in the last public shooting, the mall in Utah, a legal carrier of a firearm ended the threat before many more were killed. An off-duty officer, carrying the same type of weapon and putting to use the same type of training any CCH holder can take.
We know, from some 15+ years experience with CCH in 48 states that the CCH holder is NOT a threat. So what is the point to the “gun free” zones? Do shooters and criminals respect the no firearms signs? We know the answer to that, too: No. So aside from protecting delicate sensibilities, just what purpose do those signs serve – aside from disarming the victims? How many innocents must die?
Some will use this to push for more gun laws. Just what gun law would have prevented this tragedy?
So ddub, all of us, how do we prevent this slaughter? If you can predict which persons will become the shooters and go postal, great. I can’t. I have no claim to be psychic. Law enforcement cannot secure every site, or follow every person around. What options does that leave?
From some EMT blogs, apparently the word is the guy found his ex-girlfriend humping some other guy so he shot them both…then went off.
And it is not the worst school deaths as they are saying. This happened in 1927.
The Bath School disaster was a series of bombings in Bath Township, Michigan, USA, on May 18, 1927, which killed 45 people and injured 58. Most of the victims were children in second to sixth grades attending the Bath Consolidated School.
http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/history/bath/index_1.html
MSNBC pulled out some interesting tidbits about the last 5 campus shootings. 4 were Asians and 1 was Algerian, so the usual angry white male seems to be misplaced , at least on campuses.
Yep, the gun banners are crawling out now. So I’m guessing right after they do that, they will ban Pencils to thwart misspellings.
After all you know the Pencil causes those bad words. Has nothing to do with the USER. heh
The more comments I see from GSheridan the more astonished I am at the breathtakingly demented workings of her brain.
The other day she was mournfully carrying on about how terribly Southern white people were treated during the Civil War. In the VERY NEXT PARAGRAPH she was instructing black people to “get over it” with regard to slavery. And if that bewildering combination of historical revisionism, ignorance and OBVIOUSLY contradictory standards wasn’t enough, she finished this particular tirade by suggesting that slavery BENEFITTED the slaves by bringing them to America. Truly jaw dropping insanity.
A day or so before that she closed a rant against Catholics with the phrase “Pope on a rope.” This from someone who shrieks and howls at the disrespect she senses from her Godless liberal tormentors. Note to GSheridan: Catholics are “people of faith,” even if you don’t view Catholocism as the “right” faith.
Now GSheridan offers up these deranged outbursts:
“Makes me wonder if online classes aren’t going to replace the residential university before too long. This, along with the rising costs begs the question….is it all worth it?”
Yes, GSheridan. Clearly it’s too expensive and too dangerous to go to school anymore. We should all carry guns and never leave our houses because… we might encounter crazy people with guns. This is the kind of insane, self-contradictory thinking that leads to “pre-emptive” wars with no exit strategy. I really wish people like GSheridan would make up their minds if they’re psychotically aggressive or pathetic bedwetters who live in constant fear.
But wait, there’s even crazier material after that…
“The shooter’s dead – good – but for all the half-baked nuts out there that see him as a martyr – let’s cut off his head and display it on a stake in the town square. That wouldn’t be near as pretty and alluringly anarchist.
Let’s quit romanticizing these whack jobs. Let’s make this look every bit as ugly as we possibly can.”"
Charming. But WHO THE F*CK sees this violent nutcase as a martyr? WHO THE F*CK is romanticizing these whack jobs? Seriously! WHO!?!?!
GSheridan. Please stop listening to the voices in your head who say such things and schedule an appointment with your doctor. I’m not kidding when I say this. If anyone here knows GSheridan in real life, please get her some help.
Yet another attack from the left. Nice job Condor, you’re mama would be proud of you taking time out in the time of tragedy to promote your hatred.
It’s a tragedy, how about a little less piling on and digging at each other.
Let’s try to understand what happen here and be reverent and sorrowful that so many young people died today.
If that was an attack from the left, what was what GSheridan wrote?
Bob,
GS addressed the issues of conceal and carry for professors. I didn’t find any attack on the left. Please point it out to me.
She also condemned the shooter as a whack job.
How are any of those topics an attack on the left?
Republican,
GSheridan’s comments on this blog are the product of a truly demented brain. The topic of this thread, no matter how tragic, does not give GSheridan a free pass to bark and howl and scratch at the crazy voices in her head. Someone should help her sort out her demented fantasies from the reality that the rest of us share. NO ONE views the person who committed the violent crime that occasioned this thread as a “martyr.” NO ONE is romaniticizing that person. NO ONE.
The fact that I put these particular INSANE comments from GSheridan in the context of other equally insane comments does not mean that I’m “piling on and digging at each other.” It means that I’m pointing out how these deranged comments fit a now clearly established pattern of dereanged comments from GSheridan.
The fact that I’m calling out GSheridan’s deranged comments as deranged does not mean that I hate her. It means I can’t let such derangment go unremarked upon especially when there is such a clear pattern of derangement. If you want hatred, I invite you to scroll up and read GSheridan’s comments again. The woman is a fount of misplaced aggression and unreasoned hatred.
GSheridan was certainly not refering to you, was she?
I don’t agree with GS’s writings; I can’t imagine anyone romanticizing this type of shooting.
But GS’s writing was not an attack on any person, nor any particular political point of view. Certainly, GS’s point of view is subject to disagreement and criticism.
But Condor’s post went far beyond that to personally attack the poster. And drug up non-topic posts to pile on as well. Condor could have made the same point without doing so.
Let’s stick to the topic, shall we. And GS’s mental state is not the topic.
I’m just curious. When is it appropriate to comment on the mental state of people who so continually say clearly demented things? Will there ever be a thread where it’s appropriate to observe that a given contributor to this blog has obvious cognitive and emotional difficulties? Or all we all supposed to simply ignore the barking mad among us?
Shooting Fish in a Barrel.
That’s what we have when we allow folks like Condor and ddub to try and make our schools ‘gun free zones.’
You REALLY think nutso kids don’t romanticize these shooters? Think again. Many schools ended up banning the long black trench coats after the Columbine shooting because kids were emulating the murderers.
Shooting Fish in a Barrel.
That’s what happened today at Virginia Tech as the shooter went from classroom to classroom – and kids were terrified enough to jump from second story windows.
We can’t arm the teachers or selective kids, you say?
What the Hell is the matter with you? All you’re doing is creating a ‘high efficiency target area’ when you ban allowing certain people to carry guns.
In every university across this nation – ex-military are attending on the GI Bill. These are kids who have put on our country’s uniform, risked their own lives for our nation, and now we can’t allow them to carry a gun? WTF? If ANYONE not only deserves to – but is ALREADY well suited to act under fire – it is these brave individuals.
Shooting Fish in a Barrel.
That’s what happens when liberals who think guns have a life of their own – have their say.
Pathetic.
We just reaped (once again) what the liberals have sown.
It is not the choice of weapons that kills people; it is the ideal of killing and making that commitment to kill people.Timothy McVeigh – BombingAl Qaeda – Commercial AircraftsVirginia Tech – FirearmsHow do you keep people from killing people?There has been no answer to that question for several thousands years.
Come on Condor, a lot of people are pretty upset. A part of me would gladly see what’s left of this guy’s head on a pole. It has nothing to do with my politics.
There’s no way we’re not going to politicize this. Anybody who’s been around this blog for a long time knows my views on guns. I’ve always backed Second Amendment rights.
But this has really given me pause. I can see Sheridan’s side, but Dennis has a valid point, too. There was a lot of carnage today and until we hear more, it’s a little hard to tell if a gun-toting student or teacher could have taken this guy down. And as was said upthread, this guy knew what he was doing. His hit rate was phenomenal.
My question is, why did this go on for about 3 hours?
“The fact that I’m calling out GSheridan’s deranged comments as deranged does not mean that I hate her. It means I can’t let such derangment go unremarked upon especially when there is such a clear pattern of derangement. If you want hatred, I invite you to scroll up and read GSheridan’s comments again. The woman is a fount of misplaced aggression and unreasoned hatred.”
————–
The fact that I’m exposing you for the pacifist whack-job and failure as a human being that you are – doesn’t mean I hate you.
I don’t hate you.
I pity you.
I pity anyone who is around you – or looks up to you because you are spreading your liberal poison – the very same kind of poison that took hold at Virgina Tech today – resulting in the slaughter of dozens of innocent kids.
Good job defending the nutso policy that these kids (or any kids) have NO right to defend themselves.
GMC, from earlier reports, the shooter had two handguns in possession; 9mm is what I’ve been led to believe.
XXX, that’s the question that (again, from an AP story read earlier) VaTech students are asking. The question raised by one student was why there was nothing posted on the school web site about the first shooting until after the second one, some two hours later, had begun. Again, this is from something I read about two hours ago.
Now GSheridan makes explicit what she implied in her earlier comments.
I’m sure Republican will be along soon to ask why we can’t all just get along.
At a certain point simple disagreement and criticism doesn’t cut it anymore. I have reached that point with GSheridan and her demented rantings. Her comments on slavery, catholicism and now here are simply undebatably lunatic in nature. Above she advocates medieval public displays of punishment in order to teach a lesson to people that exist only in her fevered imagination. That’s sick and I don’t apologize for saying so. Furthermore, I don’t apologize for putting GSheridan’s sick comments in context that shows these are not simply one-off lapses in judgement, but part of a very disturbing pattern.
GSheridan prowls this blog looking for any excuse to vent her hatred against liberals. And she often does so with disturbingly graphic imagery and rhetoric bordering on eliminationist. I don’t apologize for calling it out.
Still don’t know what to think. From the bits I have seen he did have to stop and reload which does suggest that someone could have ‘taken him out’ with a good shot. Just don’t know …
One thing it does suggest to me is the question of mental health. Could this guy have been spotted? Helped? STOPPED?
I just don’t know …
The real shame is that this was predicted – in Virginia – and the ability to perhaps prevent this tragedy was declined.
http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/wb/xp-50658
See also: http://armsandthelaw.com/archives/2007/04/vcdl_on_va_tech.php
Note the VT spokesman’s comment: declining the law helped visitors and students “feel safe.”
Unfortunately, “feeling” safe is not the same as taking steps to BE safe.
This incident will be politicized – of course. We know that. The ink will not be dry in the papers before Shumer, Feinstein and Co. attempt to ride this incident to more “reasonable” gun laws.
But this incident is not evidence of a need for more gun control; on the contrary. This incident is just more evidence of the utter failure of gun control laws.
“Her comments on slavery, catholicism and now here are simply undebatably lunatic in nature. Above she advocates medieval public displays of punishment in order to teach a lesson to people that exist only in her fevered imagination.”——————
You’re just mad because you found out the Confederacy wasn’t the evil empire you had been led to believe.
You never did disprove ONE SINGLE thing I posted about the War of Northern Aggression.
Now, you attack me – full of name-calling and insults, instead of my ideas – but I’ve come to expect little more from you.
The bottom line is – almost 3 dozen innocents are dead – many more are seriously wounded.
A shooter went from room to room, mowing them done as they tried to hide from his bullets.
But you want to blame guns.
You can’t see beyond your unreasonable belief that all we need to get rid of the guns and kids will stop dying.
It’s not ever gonna happen.
Even the cops are 911, “Dial a Prayer.”
Our kids deserve better.
I have to say that it is quite a stretch to blame the shooting at Virgina Tech on liberals. The fact is, it was a deranged individual that did the shooting. Anger should be focused on him and not those of a different political persuasion.
If the shooter had two semi-autos with clips of 9, he would have to take time to reload after every 18 shots.
If he had extra clips – that could be a quick reload, but if he had to put the bullets in the clips, that would take substantially longer.
And reports (from kids) so far are saying over a hundred shots.
That’s more than enough time for an armed teacher, administrator, or student to put a stop to the slaughter.
Dang, the Eagle is all over this story. They already have lots of URLs to look at regarding this case.
Bob, the shooting, itself, is not the fault of liberals, re-read what I wrote.
The inability of the students – or teachers – to be able to stop the slaughter IS the fault of liberals.
There is a difference, certainly; one is a nut intent on killing, the other a pie-in-the-sky attitude that everything will be okay if we ban guns everywhere.
And right here on this blog we’ve seen the liberals advocating taking away guns, so you can’t deny that.
GMC posted a link to a bill that might have made a difference. Look who voted it down.
There are a couple of inescapable questions here; first, do we (as human beings) have the right to protect ourselves? Secondly, if any of us on this blog today, were armed and trained – is there even ONE of us that would not have gone to the aid of the students today?
Anyone?
Is there anyone who would not have helped?
Can we have a show of hands?
GMC70,
Even though you and I disagree on many things, I’ve come to respect you for your patient, thoughtful posts on several recent threads.
When you said above that “GS’s writing was not an attack on any person, nor any particular political point of view,” I was a little surpised you weren’t able to see her lunatic comments for the thinly veiled rant against liberals there were intended to be. She has now decided to make this explicit in a series of further lunatic comments.
I most definetly do not hold you or any other thinking conservative accountable for such lunatic rantings. But no one who reads this thread should doubt GSheridan’s intentions in the future. So next time, when I object to her lunatic rantings, I hope we can dispense with the head in the clouds calls for respect. GSheridan has no respect for me or anyone with (I sure hope Fleetwood is reading) the balls to object to her historical revisionism and religiously and racially bigoted ranting. People who so consistently say such deranged, hateful things are not deserving of the benefit of the doubt.
Why the web of silence surrounding this guy?
Some emails of the students are saying there were two shooters.
Is there a politically-correct reason we are not hearing?
Sudden on-set of mental derangement usually only occurs in high IQ intelligent people.It is hard to identify those characteristics that pin point’s violent tendency unless you can come up with a quick and cost effective testing of chemical imbalance of the brain.My guess to the real reasons of the killing is due to that chemical imbalance, drug induced or natural.
And right here on this blog we’ve seen the liberals advocating taking away guns, so you can’t deny that.
I don’t know about that, seems to me that most liberals are not overly opposed to guns. Some may call me liberal and I know that I don’t have a problem with guns.
I read thru the links and did not see where it said liberals were the ones that killed the bill. It did say, I will concede, that VA Tech was against the proposed bill.
Someone up thread said something about wishing that the killer had not died so we could get some sort of idea what would possess someone to do such a thing. Perhaps to have an idea would help establish some early warning. Maybe not. I don’t know why anyone would want to shoot a relative stranger.
If I knew that more guns could have prevented this tragedy, I would be for passing a law requiring folks to carry.
Condor -
Care to try to come down off your high-horse and actually DEBATE a point?
As I said, you’re just still mad about the War of Northern Aggression thread.
You got proved wrong there and it’s hard to take.
I’ve pointed out EXACTLY what role liberalness played in this. Care to try and debate that?
Why don’t you belly up to the bar and tell us how YOU would solve this?
By banning guns?
Go ahead – tell us.
Sanity can not shield you from insanity, as every fortress that is place by sanity only causes insanity to flow elsewhere. Sanity can not even help you to understand insanity, as by its nature there is nothing in insanity that can be understood by a sane thought. The only thing that sanity can help you to do is to know that insanity exist and it is insane. The only comfort sanity gives is that when insanity happens, you know the difference and that insanity is the exception and not the rule.
There is some question as to whether there may have been two shooters – separate incidents. Not likely but possible. News reports indicate that the first shooting was a domestic dispute gone really wrong. The second shootings were two hours later and were planned in advance.
Bob – in Israel, they’ve dealt with death from suicide bombers for a long time and kids are all required to spend a two year stint in the military.
Eventually, we’re going to need to do something similar.
I don’t advocate making untrained folks carry – but we DO need trained folks to protect our kids from guys like the nut today.
We have to get serious about this as a nation. All the Zero Tolerance policies have backfired. We need to step up and admit that it’s more important to save lives, than it is to pretend we all hunky-dory.
The shooter today was a terrorist – maybe not the Muslim kind – but he spread just as much terror and death.
Gee,
People you vote into office don’t want a draft.
There is no placing guns in every classroom, office, store, street corner that will stop a motivated killer.
Think people in Iraq are walking around unarmed? They can’t stop anybody plotting their death by bombing or shooting from a distance.
People carrying a gun can be caught unaware. More concerned about victims in the way, instead of trying to take on a shooter.
Glyn – Arming instructors and selected students is the WORST idea I’ve ever seen you suggest. How could that cause anything but mass confusion and more senseless deaths? By the time police and SWAT teams were ready to roll, they wouldn’t be able to tell the good guys from the bad guys.
Virginia Tech has it’s own police department right there on campus. The mistake was apparently made in thinking that the shooter had left campus after the first shooting.
I went to bed before the news broke about the mass killing, but the description of from the first shooting matched the description of the mass killing. The fact that the killer chained the doors on the second showed intent either in the bring of chains or knowing where to find them. The domestic angle may have just been an assumption on the authorities part as that makes the most sense. But as has been show, sense is not a real driving factor in this.
GSheridan,
There is no point in debating anything with you since you are incapable of reasoned debate. Upthread I’ve provided several examples. And here’s a brand new example of your peculiar dementia:
“Why the web of silence surrounding this guy?
Some emails of the students are saying there were two shooters.
Is there a politically-correct reason we are not hearing?
Posted by: GSheridan | April 16, 2007 at 06:29 PM”
That comment is insane. It’s not worthy of debate.
GSheridan sees liberal conscpiracies everywhere she looks. She does not deserve to be treated as a rational civil person. All of her comments prove that she is irrational and uncivil.
A few days ago, I saw a guy on a motorcycle drive along a street next to a school, and then turn down a side street.
A student who was looking down the street the motorcyclist took raised both arms, hands together (like pretending to hold a pistol), and “fired” multiple shots into his back.
The student was on grade school property, he looked like maybe 7 years old.
Well, just moments ago, the Chief of Police admitted that the descriptions of the two shooters did not match. Could be a witness issue, but something isn’t right. There is a distinct possibility that there were two shooters, perhaps unrelated.
Cosmos,
If that’s true, could be the kid’s father in a custody dispute. Something the child said, got him in trouble.
A random nut with vengeance in mind. Are gestures criminal? Prosecutable? Its an implied threat. Trained police might have pulled him over, if they saw it.
Someone shoots the guy, good luck explaining that arm movement after the motorcycle crashes or the guy is dead.
Lifted this from another sight, kind of illustrates the mind-set that makes certain that these tradgedies continue to happem-
Jan 21, 2006HB 1572, which would have allowed handguns on college campuses, died in subcommittee.By Greg Esposito 381-1675snipA bill that would have given college students and employees the right to carry handguns on campus died with nary a shot being fired in the General Assembly.snipVirginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker was happy to hear the bill was defeated. “I’m sure the university community is appreciative of the General Assembly’s actions because this will help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on our campus.”
This kind of thinking must change.
We raise our children as sheep (some do anyway) assuring them that “authorities” will care for their safety. Then we send them in groups to places where they are denied the means to defend themselves. And sick, evil people walk the earth and take advantage of them for their own satisfaction.
Sick.
I hope we can all live our lives as normally as possible and that incidents like this don’t spark a scare that we start having to have a Federal Department of School Campus Security, for which everybody has to go through detectors and taking their shoes off with no liquids, just to attend class.
Guns don’t kill people, people kill people. It is because of gun bans that all of us at work or in school are easy prey for criminals and psychos who will always obtain and have guns. If even one of those students had been armed, perhaps the body count would have been less. Don’t blame the NRA for this. If anything, blame the Republicans in power who have brought about a culture of violence, hate and war. Blame the media for their obsession with promoting violence and glorification of violent death. Death has become acceptable and even cool in our culture.
Realistically, how many college students would even want to carry a gun? How many parents would want their kids carrying? What would be the odds of a student being in the situation today that was carrying and could have gotten a clean shot?
My guess is that it would not have made much a difference. Even trained police officers have difficulty hitting a perp. I doubt that a college kid or a professor could have done anything to to stop the killer this morning.
1096 – 25 minutes one boy said, from the time his class heard the first shots and it was all over.
How does that translate into the University Security doing a good job?
It was a failure. Kids in all classrooms were dialing 911 on their cellphones (Dial a Prayer,) and the shooter continued to blow them away as they punched the numbers.
25 minutes. Hundreds of shots fired. I’m not in security or law enforcement, but even I know that if there are children inside and a shooter that is killing – don’t wait. Storm the building.
You’re acting as though reasonable adults – and trained young adults (ex-military) who are armed and TRAINED, wouldn’t know what to do when the authorities arrived and told them to “drop their weapons.”
How confusing is it to hear those words and to follow them?
Do you seriously think there would have been MORE confusion today had a teacher shot the murderer after he had killed only, say…five kids?
I don’t see the confusion issue there.
You can really feel the hate and rage in GSheridan’s posts. I wondered how long it would be before she laid the blame for this at the feet of “liberals.” I knew it was not a matter of if, but of when.
Pretty sad.
A comment on GS side from this “libersal”. We have a lot of veterans taking classes at a lot of institutions. While I am dubious about a ‘civilian’ (think about me with a gun) being able to reasonably handle a gun in this situation I do think a vet, especially with a bit more training, could do so successfully.
As I have commented on other ‘gun threads’ I find myself torn on this sort of issue. Obviously if someone like Nathan could have taken the guy out I would be first in line to buy him a ‘cold one’
“I doubt that a college kid or a professor could have done anything to to stop the killer this morning.”—————–
This happened in the South. Although many kids probably come from other areas – a good number of Southern kids (and adults) know their way around guns. And they’re good shots.
Sure, there’s a chance they might miss – but in a situation like today’s – it’s a chance worth taking.
Time is of the essence in cases like this. And time just wasn’t with the kids of Virginia Tech today. An armed teacher might have made ALL the difference.
Latest news is that it’s a Chinese National.
When I was a kid there were guns around. In fact we had long guns and a handgun that belonged to my father. But back then there were consequences for certain behaviours. And back then there was not a culture of hate, violence and a violent right wing government where even the VP shoots people in the face. After Kennedy was shot, people were concerned with nuts shooting the President- not the Vice President shooting other people!
Ben – Amen. I feel exactly the same way.
We have a lot of ex-military in our universities. They’re already trained and many have been in situations similar to this – sadly.
I don’t doubt for a second Nathan could have made a difference – or another Vet like him.
Chinese National?
Uh-oh.
2) don;t point it unless you have intentions to shoot
Sometimes just pointing it enough to let the punks know you mean business and they will move on. I know a guy that carries (legal here, no permit needed) and, if it after dark and he needs to stop for gas, he holds the gun in one hand and the gas nozzle with the other and when strangers get too close, he lets them know to back off.
Wasn’t there a case about another Engineering student who shot his Professor for getting a bad grade? I’m foggy on this, but its tickling my memory.
“It was a failure. Kids in all classrooms were dialing 911 on their cellphones (Dial a Prayer,) and the shooter continued to blow them away as they punched the numbers.”
There was probably jurisdictional confusion. By dialing 911 on a cell phone the students are bypassing the Campus Police and calling the police agency off campus. Since Campus Police respond to on campus incidents, the dispatcher probably told them to call Campus Police or rerouted the call. If you dial 911 from a campus phone, you usually get the university police.
Advocating more guns doesn’t solve anything.
Teenagers, young adults have more issues about life to worry about than adding a gun to their pocket.
Campus should be safer, with more security. Virginia Tech will have that from now on. It will just have to be increased expense on the University and State legislators.
But no security procedure can fully stop a random act. They can put camera’s in buildings so maybe a gun nut can be seen prior to rampaging.
We’ve had this conversation. Video protection where guns aren’t readily available.
If people know they will be on video entering buildings they might not try such things.
Crazy people probably never look in the mirror before going gun nutty.
If someone watching the video security, people might have been warned earlier.
More guns isn’t an answer at all.
It’s the former crime site,Luby’s Cafeteria argument. Gun man shot many people and one lady left her gun in the car. If she was that brave, maybe rising up and running out would have stopped others from being shot.
Bravery doesn’t always need a gun in one’s hand.
I refuse to consider the Virgina Tech dead as “sheep” or Dial A Praying. Many tried to stay alive, I’m sure of their own mental abilities could allow.
I highly doubt gun carriers of any training will see others fall and be aggressive. In War, soldiers freeze at seeing people die nearby.
Increased guns is not a solution.
Weren’t we all on the edge of our seats waiting for GSheridan to make some sort of nonsensical comment about the shooter’s ethnicity?
Does anyone doubt what ugly screeds are lurking behind this ridiculously coy post:
“Chinese National?
Uh-oh.
Posted by: GSheridan | April 16, 2007 at 07:53 PM”
Uh-oh, she says. Indeed.
Joe Williams could have used any term to complete the phrase “Latest news is that it’s a…” and feverish demented fantasies would have immediately sprung from GSheridan’s head. Her “Uh-oh” is clearly the blog equivalent of a knowing glance to her fellow lunatics.
So, let’s hear it, GSheridan. Enough with your “PC” self-restraint. What’s the Uh-Oh really mean?
This thread is nauseating. Shame on anyone who is sitting here politicizing the deaths of the victims.
Condor would have replied with his usual “I’m a liberal I hate anyone who doesn’t think like me” even if they posted words like “I see.”
Especially if it’s a poster he hates.
Always looking for a fight aren’t you Condor. :)
Being a good shot at the range or while hunting is one thing, shooting someone that is shooting at you is a whole different story. Police have difficulty in the same situation. Soldiers have the same difficulty at times. It just isn’t human nature to point a gun and shoot someone, regardless of the circumstances.
The advantage that the killer has is that he is planning to shoot – he has already prepared himself. The victims are not ready and have not mentally prepared themselves to shoot to kill.
Stuff happens. I read about a homeowner that missed a cornered intruder with six shots from point-blank range. It happens.
The solution is more complex than just having more armed people.
People with nothing to lose are very dangerous in general. None of us know enough about this person to determine if there is a pattern of behavior consistent with his actions, or if he just lost his mind as some allege. In either case, a person who is determined to get at you will eventually do so, even if it is a little at a time.
That having been said, and with regards to gun control, I say only this: Should we have banned anything that could have been used to bludgeon people to death on college campuses after Mr. Bundy’s rampage? Perhaps we should have forced all of the women on college campuses to dye their hair blonde since Mr. Bundy preferred to kill brunettes?
Unfortunately, there is not a good answer to any of this aside from trying to move on…which is going to be a long, slow, painful process at this point.
“How does that translate into the University Security doing a good job?”
Don’t even TRY to put words into MY mouth, Glyn. Nowhere in my post did I say something translated into “University Security” doing a good job.
Virginia Tech apparently has it’s own police department – these guys aren’t just security guards. Indiana State University has it’s own police department, and I know firsthand that those officers have the same power to enforce the laws as do the Terre Haute city police.
Are you reading any of the more recent accounts about this tragedy? All of the reports that I’ve seen say that after the initial early morning shooting in the dorm, “the best information police had was that the shooter had left campus.” Further, when the second assault began, “several of the doors had been chained closed when officers arrived at Norris Hall.”
http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD/MGArticle/RTD_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1173350761552
Teachers don’t get paid enough to teach as it is. How many do you think would be willing to become trained sharpshooters in addition to all their other duties?
Republican,
Don’t be deliberately dense. GSheridan’s “Uh-oh” is clearly intended to mean something. I think we all have a general idea of her line of thought, but I’m looking for GSheridan to make herself clear.
She has a visceral hatred for liberals. That’s clear to see.
She has a visceral hatred for Catholicism and the Pope. That’s clear to see.
She has a morrally repugnant interpretation of the Civil War and the effect of slavery on black people. That’s clear to see.
I’m asking her to make it clear what she really thinks about the signifigance of the nationality of the shooter in this instance. Enough of this coy restraint on her part.
Republican, you want to make this about liberal intolerance, but GSheridan’s postions on the above issues shouldn’t be tolerated by anyone. Her positions are irrational and sickening to me and I make no apologies for letting everyone else here know who they’re dealing with when they interact with GSheridan.
GSheridan began this way upthread with a VERY thinly veiled attack on liberals in which she suggested that people that don’t think like her view the perpetrator of this disgusting crime as a “martyr” and “romanticize” what has happened today. She later confirmed this is what she meant.
That’s f*cking sick and I make no apologies for vigorously stating my objection to it and the pattern of deranged commentary it’s a part of.
Republican, if you care to defend her right to say such offensive things, that is well within your rights. But I sincerely hope that you have enough of a moral compass to recognize how truly deranged GSheridan’s comments are. One can support gun rights policies without being a deranged lunatic.
“Shame on anyone who is sitting here politicizing the deaths of the victims.”
Agreed.
2) don;t point it unless you have intentions to shoot
Sometimes just pointing it enough to let the punks know you mean business and they will move on. I know a guy that carries (legal here, no permit needed) and, if it after dark and he needs to stop for gas, he holds the gun in one hand and the gas nozzle with the other and when strangers get too close, he lets them know to back off.
Posted by: Kev | April 16, 2007 at 07:54 PM
Actually, I agree. Intending to shoot is not the same as shooting.What I mean is, for self protection purposes, do not pull a gun unless you have the resolve to use it. Pulling a gun without such resolve is suicide. I should have clarified that a bit more
J M Walker, I agree with your 4:43 p.m. post. It might help in the future to understand what has happened in the past.
As a liberal, I’m not shouting for more gun control. Whether there’s CCW or not, these kinds of things will continue to happen. Neither am I shouting for fewer gun laws. If something like the VaTech situation was happening weekly, then, yes, we should be discussing gun laws. But how many colleges and universities are there in this country? How many students? It’s an isolated incident that maybe we can learn from.
There are pros and cons to allowing guns on campus. Considering all of the drinking and drugging that goes on, allowing students to carry might be something people want to think about before allowing. And I sure don’t believe that there were NO students there that didn’t have a gun handy.
Just to remind folks like Republican what I’m talking about when I say that GSheridan’s comments shouldn’t be tolerated by any decent person, here’s a direct quote from GSheridan, speaking directly to me at 5:58 pm this evening:
“The fact that I’m exposing you for the pacifist whack-job and failure as a human being that you are – doesn’t mean I hate you.
I don’t hate you.
I pity you.
I pity anyone who is around you – or looks up to you because you are spreading your liberal poison – the very same kind of poison that took hold at Virgina Tech today – resulting in the slaughter of dozens of innocent kids.”
Did you catch that last paragraph, Republican? That is the product of a sick mind. The same sick mind that said “Pope on a rope” while believing that liberals are insufficiently respectful towards people of faith. The same sick mind that think slavery was beneficial for black people. GSheridan says morally repugnant things. She’s well within her rights to do so. But when I object to such things as the quote above, it is a not a product of liberal intolerance, as you would have it. It’s a product of self-respect. It’s a product of human decency. Will anyone deny me that?
I think you’re just hating back Condor and with that, your attitude and comments are tasteless and hateful.
You can choose to ignore, but you want to turn this into a Republican vs Liberal “na na na na na” bitch fest.
Grow up!
Please everyone, for God’s sake,keep politics out of this thread!
Why did these people have to die today? The majority of these victims were aspiring to something useful and productive. Most of you rant on here either because you REALLY want to express your First Admendment right or you have nothing better to do. Again, why did these people have to die today? Can you answer that?
What happened this morning, regardless of the shooter’s emotional state beforehand was senseless. Utterly senseless.
We don’t know why. Just circumstance.
It’s life! It’s happens.
Virginia Tech by law is a ‘Gun Free Zone’. Hum, the law didn’t work.Last year Virginia state Delegate Todd Gilbert put a bill in to change Virginia law to allow college and university students and faculty with approved concealed handgun permits to be able to carry a gun on campus for self-defense, and so did Delegate Mark Cole this year.
They could not get the bills out of subcommittee.
They warned the General Assembly that violent crime can and does happen on campuses across the Commonwealth.
But the university and college lobbyists swore that crime was not an issue and that the schools did not want students and visitors to be able to defend themselves with a gun or other weapon. They argued that the schools had little boxes with lights that had a button someone could press if they needed the police. Boy, those little boxes will take care of any problem, right? Cellphones too, they can always call for help with those. They tried cellphones, help came too late!
The General Assembly turned a deaf ear to allowing college and university students to be able to protect themselves and here we are today.
Those that claim guns are the problem, in and of themselves, as opposed to people with harmful, criminal intent, will of course cry for more gun restrictions and more laws on top of laws that those same criminals have no intention of obeying, ever.I supposed instead of just ‘regular laws’ they could propose a ‘Dirty, Double-Dog Dare Law’ that the bad guys will cower from and obey, just like they want them to. Again, don’t count on it, because it ain’t gonna happen. They will continue to ignore those new laws, just like they did the existing ones on the Virginia campus, and innocent law abiding citizens will be left defenseless and at continued risk.
Good Lord.
Joe Williams. Did you read any of GSheridan’s posts today? Did you happen to catch the one where she directly blamed my political beliefs for the deaths of all those kids today? I remind you, that this is what she said directly to me at 5:58 pm tonight:
“I pity anyone who is around you – or looks up to you because you are spreading your liberal poison – the very same kind of poison that took hold at Virgina Tech today – resulting in the slaughter of dozens of innocent kids.”
And you think I’m the one being tasteless and hateful for objecting to that? I would hope we all have enough self respect to be judged tasteless and hateful by Joe Williams.
“… it is a not a product of liberal intolerance, as you would have it. It’s a product of self-respect. It’s a product of human decency. Will anyone deny me that?”
You’re absolutely correct, Condor.
Just curious, Joe, why do you attack the liberals but have nothing to say about the conservatives that have blamed the Va Tech on liberals?
The only blame for todays incident has to be placed on the shooter.
Not liberals or conservatives.
“Shame on anyone who is sitting here politicizing the deaths of the victims.”
Everything is political. That is life. Who politicized 9-11-01 with such grace? GW Bush and the Republicans! And they are still riding that donkey 6 years later!
All of you blathering regulars on here going back and forth are pathetic.
This slaughter could have been at WSU, Maize High, Beech, Cessna or Lear. It could happen at a rock concert or the Wichita Symphony. And let’s not forget the upcoming River Festival.
What happened today hurt me. To those who are rambling on here that are parents and seeing this, once again, occured at learning institution,parents should hurt, too.
Excuse my last post. I’m tired and grieving for these innocent people. Let’s shut this down for the night.
As I read the thread, two thoughts:
1) The idea that “trained police” are inherently more capable shooters than civilians is simply not true. You’d be surprised just how few rounds most officers shoot a year, and most of that at a range at static targets. Many, if not most, officers go their entire careers and never fire their weapon in the course of duty.
Trained civilians can fire a weapon effectively. Many of us have been shooting for most of our lives. I fire more rounds than most officers do, and I make a point to do so in situations that simulate, as much as possible, possible scenarios. It’s important to think through possible scenarios, and PRACTICE regularly, so that if the moment comes, once the decision to fire is made, the rest is muscle memory.
2) Kev, LJ: NEVER point that weapon until you’re prepared to fire. Once the weapon clears leather and points at a target, the legal requirement for justification to use deadly force had BETTER exist, or you’ve committed a crime. I’d strongly recommend against drawing the weapon as a bluff or a warning. Point the weapon only when you’re prepared to use it. As Col. Cooper put it, never point that weapon at anything you don’t intend to destroy.
I’ve said all I think I need to say about this incident. I’ll close with just this: We’ve seen the result of incidents in “gun free” zones, and it’s not pretty. We’ve also recently seen a public shooting ended quickly by a trained bystander with a weapon (Utah mall shooting). Is it time to try something aside from forcing our children to be helpless victims? Given a choice between cowering and waiting to be executed and having the opportunity to defend myself, I’ll take the latter. I think all of us would.
Why do we continue to deny same to our students and education professionals?
This is so sad. I was so busy today that I managed to miss the news of this all day until about an hour ago. Correction, I knew there was a shooting at a college in VA but I didn’t know which school and how bad… I just got an email from my sorority that one of the sisters in our local chapter at VA Tech is unaccounted for. I pray that she is alright and that whatever investigation that follows can be done quickly so that students and families can begin to heal and get back to their reason for being there.
The hero of the Utah Mall incident was an off-duty police officer. He was not your average citizen with a CCW.
Some may fire more rounds than your average police officer, but being a great shot does not a hero make.
Regardless, the solution to the problem is not more guns – it is determining what went wrong with a deranged madman and how can we recognize or prevent such behavior in the future.
To some, an ounce of cure (guns) is the solution, but realistically, an ounce of cure is a better choice.
Ounce of PREVENTION……..
32 Co-Eds Wiped out by “A Well-Regulated Militia”
I’m the strongest 2nd Amendment advocate I know.
I believe in the right to keep and bear arms. But I also believe a well-regulated militia is essential to a free state.
And to that end, I wouldn’t mind mind if my neighbor kept a thermo-nuclear device in his rumpus room, provided he were vetted by certain basic requirements and subject to the Miltary Code of Justice. (Well, maybe not so much now that George WMD Bush has lowered the standards of military service to include felons and drop-outs. But the standards could be reinstated to pre-Iraq levels.)
I buy into the NRA’s objections against banning an inanimate object (although most NRA members seem just fine with banning marijuana; it must speak to them. but I digress…) What I’m nost concerned about is the mental stability and technical competence social responsibility and personal reliability of people who insist on owning lethal firepower.
The NRA is perfectly willing to accept minimum governmental standards including background checks and proof of competence for Concealed Carry permit-applicants. Does it make sense to accept less from someone owning an AK-47?
It will take a while to learn the background of the Virginia Tech shooter. But I suspect we’ll learn that there are elements in his life that might have indicated that he wasn’t “well-regulated militia” material.
As far as I’m concerned, guns should be available in vending machines, provided the purchaser is certified to be sane and competent and responsible. Let’s require recertification with an hour a month at the firing range and annual one-day training and refresher course; an opportunity for a 21st Century version of a citizens’ militia to weed out the psychos, the desperate, the irresponsible, and the incompetent.
“Losing” a gun, or having a gun “stolen,” or allowing your crazy teenager access to your personal arsenal would be dealt with with the same severity a solider would face if s/he “lost” a weapon. Possession of a weapon without current militia status would be dealt with the same way we deal with those impersonating military personnel. Harshly.
No, it wouldn’t guarantee elimination of another Columbine or Virginia Tech, but it would likely reduce the risk. And I cannot for the life of me imagine why a sane, competent, responsible gun-owner would object.
“The hero of the Utah Mall incident was an off-duty police officer. He was not your average citizen with a CCW.”
Bob, know that. I noted same upthread. But he was carrying the same weapon millions of civilians shooters own. And there’s nothing magic to being competent with a weapon and its use. It takes training, preparation, and practice. Nothing else. A civilian can do it. I can do it. I’ve qualified on every police course I’ve ever shot. And frankly, you’d be surprised just how few rounds most officers shoot, and how little practice they get.
If you hve some psychic ability to sniff out this type of shooter before he goes off, I’m all ears. But excuse me if I’m more than skeptical.
Lacking that, I’ve yet to hear an alternative offered other than continued slaughter. Which would you choose to be – cowering or having the opportunity to defend yourself?
GMC,
Super shot, Dead eye dude, whatever your proud of…someday you may get that chance to be aggressive and defend citizens and maybe you never will. Gun tragedy after tragedy will occur and your accuracy is never required.
It’s great to hear you’ll see others fall bleeding and screaming but the shooter will be in your sights. That dead face some shooters are described to have, won’t chill your soul, looking at them.
Citizens shouldn’t have to train for gun survival unless the announcement occurs, EVERYBODY FOR THEMSELVES and 911 won’t pick up.This is a tragedy for increased security by campus police, using video technology to watch for odd behaviors and legislators not spending time putting gun laws into affect, but using money to spend for more security in schools. More trained security with actual badges.
Those you giggle about being more inaccurate than you.
Those dead people at Virgina Tech weren’t cowering. They were trying to survive.
Not as bad as 9/11, but another terrorist attack.So much for Homeland Security. Was Bush re-reading “My Pet Goat?
The main problem with predicting rare events like the Virgina Tech shooting is that such events are very rare. There has been some improvement in predicting low base rate events, as this article outlines, but there are still unacceptably high rates of false positives and false negatives:
http://www.trowbridgefoundation.org/docs/age_and_recidivism.pdf
A clarification: there are many more false positives (saying something will happen, when it doesn’t) than false negatives (saying something won’t happen when it does).
For example, if the base rate of a behavior amongst a group of one hundred people is one percent. We would be correct 99% of the time if we said any given member in the group will not evidence the behavior.
Even with with the new and improved base rate considering statistics, optimal correct classification is in the 75% range – which implies many false positives.
Update to my 10:40pm post last night… She’s dead. She was a chemical engineering student in the classroom building. She would have graduated in just a few weeks…
I am sorry AFN, about the death of your VT sorority sister.
Rhonda’s assessment about international observers looking at this latest incident like Columbine was unfortunately born out for me last night. I was listening to BBC news on my Sirius radio at about 9:30 (2:30 in the morning in UK), and the post midnight hour reporter, when interviewing a Columbine survivor, asked an inane question about whether this incident would finally have an effect on the way that American’s “worship” guns. He then later talked about the tragedy at “Columbine College” (even though the interviewee clearly mentioned that she was at a HIGH school). He made it sound like this sort of thing was epidemic here, and it is not. Now, to be fair, you generally don’t hear this sort of nonsense on the BBC, especially during their prime time (I think they are the best international reporting English language news service I have heard anywhere), but this guy clearly didn’t know what he was talking about.
AFN,My condolences.RJ
Okay, despite the hissy-fit that Condor threw yesterday, there were some pretty darned good comments on this thread.
But I have to ask again – why is the media not releasing this guy’s name? And why are there STILL so many conflicting accounts?
The post that points out the difference between the Utah Mall gunman – who was quickly taken out by an armed off-duty officer and the zero-tolerance campus where 32 died speaks volumes.
AFN,
Ditto what RJ said. So sad, so numbing. Just incomprehensible.
As for “solving” the problem by arming everybody, please. As a college professor, myself, the LAST thing I want are guns in the classroom. Cel phones are enough of a problem to manage, thanks.
The idea that we can arm ourselves into civility is ludicrous. Want to see the destruction of civil society and the erosion of the rule of law? Arm everyone.
As for GSheridan, congratulations: you win the Ann Coulter Prize for bringing the WeBlog to a new low. “Liberal poison,” indeed.
Condor – this post is specifically for YOU.
You spent a good part of yesterday attacking everything I suggested – and now I would like to hear YOUR ideas. You’re really adept at name-calling and insults – but there HAS to be a thinking brain in that head….
What would YOU do to stop atrocities like what happened yesterday?
Do you have ANY ideas? Or do you just want to be ANTI-anything a conservative posts?
Since you changed nics and came back from the self-banned dead, you’ve continued to show your true colors – and they have nothing to do with debate on this board. Just attack.
So – here’s your chance, Condor.
Tell us HOW you would go about stopping incidents like yesterday’s massacre.
CF2K – would you care to comment on the fact that Switzerland has one of the lowest crime rates, and all its citizens are not only issued weapons – but trained in how to use them?
Do you think that is simply a coincidence?
Can you NOT see that your way has failed? Miserably?
BTW – I don’t like Ann Coulter – so your false analogy is as far off as your ideas of how to protect students.
Comparing arming ourselves to cellphones.
Indeed.
GSheridan,
Objecting to morrally repugnant, thoroughly indecent comments from you such as this gem from 5:58 pm last night:
“I pity anyone who is around you – or looks up to you because you are spreading your liberal poison – the very same kind of poison that took hold at Virgina Tech today – resulting in the slaughter of dozens of innocent kids.”
is NOT and never will be a “hissy fit.” It takes a demented mind to say such things. You should be ashamed of yourself.
It is possible to advocate for or against various public policies intended to prevent horrific attacks like this without splattering the vomitous drivel of your demented hateful mind all over this thread. You have repeatedly crossed that line, GSheridan, and your comments should be rejected by anyone with an ounce of human decency.
GSheridan,
Way to go mistaking the effect for the cause and in making a false comparison!
The Swiss are about as domesticated a people as you’re likely to find. Their armaments are intended to be used against EXTERNAL threats–not to enforce ‘civility,’ which isn’t something the Swiss have much of a problem with. Pretty placid folk.
Not so with Americans. This is a high-conflict, high-violence soecity par excellence. So of course, GSheridan’s way to deal with it is to throw gasoline on the fire.
You want to know what ‘way’ has failed miserably, GSheridan? The one that routinizes violence as the default way of settling disputes.
Your analysis is a mile wide and a centimeter deep, GSheridan. And in opportunistically pouncing to gain political advantage, it is Coulterian in the extreme.
No class, GSheridan.
Condor – sure it’s a hissy fit.
And you’re still having it.
I stand by what I said. You, yourself, offer NO ideas, NO solutions, all you do is name-call and attack.
My comment PALES in comparison to your hissy-fit.
I’m still waiting for an answer to my question.
Put up – or shut up.
CF2K – Switzerland is not a violent society?
Gee – I wonder why?
When an intruder KNOWS every home is armed and the occupants trained in how to use weapons effectively.
And you think that is just a coincidence?
Have you EVER stopped to ask WHY our citizens are MORE VIOLENT?
The answer is:
Because they CAN be.
GSheridan,
You’re a lunatic. I don’t try to engage in reasoned debate with lunatics because it’s pointless.
You don’t know ANYTHING about me and you’ve accused me of all manner of things in this thread and elsewhere. You accuse me of changing my nic and not only are you wrong about that, but you don’t have ANY evidence to support your claim.
As for me being “ANTI-anything a conservative posts,” you’ll notice that many different ideas have been discussed on this thread, both liberal and conservative, and I’ve not “attacked” anyone’s posts but yours. And that’s because no one else here has said anything NEAR as morally repugnant and hate filled as you.
And now you proudly say that you won’t apologize for accusing me of spreading the “liberal poison” which you think is responsible for the deaths of those poor kids yesterday. In the words of our current Vice President “Go f*ck yourself.”
Let’s take a look at this issue realistically.
2.5 MILLION people use guns in self-defense EVERY YEAR.
What would our annual violent death toll rise to – if they were NOT allowed to use guns to defend themselves?
Source: Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz, “Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense With a Gun,” 86 The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Northwestern University School of Law, 1 (Fall 1995):164.
“You don’t know ANYTHING about me and you’ve accused me of all manner of things in this thread and elsewhere. You accuse me of changing my nic and not only are you wrong about that, but you don’t have ANY evidence to support your claim.”————-
I ONLY accused you after you started your hissy-fit name-calling and insulting posts.
And you STILL refuse to answer my question.
And now, you’re even stooping to using the ‘f’ word.
Maybe you need to take your meds. Your anger is all-consuming.
Now – PLEASE quit dancing around – and ANSWER my question.
….fingers tapping….
GSheridan,
There you go again, mistaking the effect for the cause.
The Swiss aren’t a peaceful society because everyone has guns; rather, it’s the case that BECAUSE the Swiss have been socialized toward a certain mode of social coexistence, that they can have guns in the home and not use them.
I realize that complex thoughts are, well, complex thoughts. But your folk psychology as to why social behavior is the way it is ain’t gonna cut it here. Are you saying that if we took away their guns, the Swiss would become unruly and violent? Because that’s the reverse implication.
Like I said: a mile wide and a centimeter deep.
Ah, CY2K, I see you are following Condor down the old ‘insult’ road.
Pretty typical since the facts just aren’t on your side.
Also CF2K, The Swiss don’t just own military weapons, but also handguns, and in many areas they carry them freely.
The men MUST – the women are encouraged to.
The crime rate is so low- they don’t even document it.
And you just can’t see a connection.
Did you say you were teaching our kids????
….sigh….
I really hate for this thread to be about GS, her mental status, or any politicalization of this tragedy.
GS’s posts speak volumes about where she comes from. I don’t see anything added by accusing her of being demented, etc.
Let’s move on, please.
Steven Davis,
Indeed. But the proper response to such a monumental and senseless catastrophe as the shootings at Virginia Tech is that we hold on to our reason and try to think clearly. This imperative requires us to stare down polemics and hysterics such as those which GSheridan has been peddling.
GSheridan,
Get your facts straight. The claim that in Switzerland “the crime rate is so low they don’t even document it” is absolutely false. Wikipedia reports there are around 300 gun deaths per year.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Switzerland#_note-0
Here’s another site that debunks your factual claims:
http://www.gca.org.za/facts/briefs/10switzerland.htm
And here’s a comparative table that shows Swiss gun deaths (more suicides than homicides) at 6.2 per 100,000. While that’s less than half the U.S. figure, 13.7, it’s much more than say, Japan, in which guns are illegal, and the death rate involving firearms is 0.07.
http://www.guncontrol.ca/Content/international.html
So CF2K stands by his dismissal of GSheridan’s watered-down brew of folk psychology and Right Wing ideology.
As is customary after GSheridan calls someone else a name, she then turns around to accuse them of calling her a name to avoid dealing with their substantive criticisms.
These are real numbers, GSheridan: refute them if you can.
CF
“As a college professor, myself, the LAST thing I want are guns in the classroom. Cel phones are enough of a problem to manage, thanks.”
Then you should not carry one. I suspect, however, that had the incident yesterday happened in YOUR classroom, you’d have been thankful for one, and a trained person to use it.
The gun interrupts nothing. It doesn’t go beep. You will not even be aware of it, unless, God forbid, it’s needed. And we’re talking here of qualified and legal CC holders, who we know pose no threat to anyone (except an assailant).
It is your classroom, of course, and you should have control of it. But I fail to see how a weapon you are unaware of distracts from your classroom.
Give me another alternative, CF. I’m all ears. And I’m damn tired of our students being helpless targets.
Here ya go, CF2K,
[quote]Guns are deeply rooted within Swiss culture – but the gun crime rate is so low that statistics are not even kept.
The country has a population of six million, but there are estimated to be at least two million publicly-owned firearms, including about 600,000 automatic rifles and 500,000 pistols.
This is in a very large part due to Switzerland’s unique system of national defence, developed over the centuries.
Instead of a standing, full-time army, the country requires every man to undergo some form of military training for a few days or weeks a year throughout most of their lives.
Between the ages of 21 and 32 men serve as frontline troops. They are given an M-57 assault rifle and 24 rounds of ammunition which they are required to keep at home.
Once discharged, men serve in the Swiss equivalent of the US National Guard, but still have to train occasionally and are given bolt rifles. Women do not have to own firearms, but are encouraged to. [end quote]
more here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1566715.stm
It’s so easy to take a morally-superior stance claiming that advocating armed citizenry is wrong, but I doubt that any of the parents of yesterday’s slaughtered kids are glad today that there was no one within range of that madman who had a gun – and was willing to use it.
It’s that old “no atheist in foxholes,” adage.
It’s all well and fine – when you’re armchair quarterbacking the issues – but when the problem comes home to roost, folks start singing a different song entirely.
An excellent opinion piece from a V.T. grad student.
http://www.roanoke.com/editorials/commentary/wb/80510snipOf all of the emotions and thoughts that were running through my head that morning, the most overwhelming one was of helplessness.
That feeling of helplessness has been difficult to reconcile because I knew I would have been safer with a proper means to defend myself.
Well, I guess Condor ran away since I pressed him for an answer and I can’t wait any longer – work, you know.
However, I would like to add to Heckler’s spot-on comments that for those who think more laws banning more guns is the answer, consider that there is ALREADY a law on VT campus that makes it ILLEGAL for the students to have guns.
That law did NOT stop Cho, did it?
What makes you think another law would have stopped him?
Ponder that today.
Toodles
GMC70 says, ” And we’re talking here of qualified and legal CC holders, who we know pose no threat to anyone (except an assailant).”
Hogwash. Qualified and legal CC holders are mere humans who are as capable of snapping and going on a rampage as anyone else.
Agreed CF2K. Obviously, disputing assertions that are erroroneous is needed. I didn’t have you in mind when I was making my complaint.
But I think there is some sort of Asian proverb that goes, when one comes upon two spittle spewing people arguing, it is hard to tell which one is the “real” idiot.
I think it is the height of ignorance to think that any simple solution like concealed and carry would do much to prevent problems like this. To assert one’s ignorance in such a fashion is the height of arrogance, or the inability to experience shame. IMHO.
Thank you all for your condolences, even though I really don’t deserve them. It’s funny how you can mourn for someone you never even knew… Maybe because we had followed similar paths in our lives and the fact that I’m not that much older than she was?
I’m not an astrology person or anything, but when going to the bank this a.m. I was listening to NPR. They were discussing past tragedies like this. Other annivresary events that happened within a week of the VT tragedy were:
Oklahoma City bombingsWaco disasterColumbine shootings
And maybe others I am not thinking of. Interesting coincidences, but hard to see how they could be much more than that.
im1096:
Fine. Then it should not be difficult to find circumstances where CC holders have done that, given the prevalance of CC in this nation.
Give me an example. I’d say I’ll wait, but I know the answer. You won’t find them.
Is CC the perfect solution? No. In a perfect world, we’d not be discussing this at all. But this is not that perfect world, nor will it ever be.
I’ll ask again, im1096, Mr. Davis: give me a viable alternative to end, or at least lessen, these types of slaughters. I did not come here easily, like CF, I’m a former teacher too. The thought of firearms in schools is a little unsettling. But faced with events like yesterdays (and the one before that, and the one before that, etc.), were I in that classroom, I’d want an armed and trained CC holder there. So would you.
From Lawdog
“I weep for the dead. I weep for the families who lost their treasured children today.
I weep even more for a land which not only denies the tools required for self-defence, but also denies the very mindset required for self-defence.
LawDog
http://thelawdogfiles.blogspot.com/
I think that while the VT shooting is horrible it is an anomaly. Despite the press they get when one happens are rare. and their we be a lot of overreacting to this crisis. Would having students/teachers with guns have stopped this or other shootings, who knows. I would assume that campus police are armed. and did not stop the shooter. I would also venture that their is a difference in being armed facing down a crazed gunman vs running into a building where the crazed gunman is and playing hero.
why things happen this week in April. Why i don’t know about the VT tragedy. OCK was done on the ann. of Waco by McVeigh to avenge it. Colobime because April 20 was Hilter’s birthday, I’m guessing other crazies do things on the 20th for that reason also.
It’s the magnetic helix associated with the formation of our natural clock or some such thing. (shrugs)
Some thoughts, based upon various media reports:
As the killer acquired two hand guns, meticulously observing the 30 day period between purchases as required by Virginia law, then filed (or attempted to file) the id numbers off, he had been thinking about this for a while. The 9mm was acquired March 13; the .22 caliber on or after April 13. It is also reported he had chains to secure the main entrance to Norris Hall in his backpack.
The incident in the residence hall occurred at 7:15 am (or a bit earlier); it seems from what I’ve heard, etc., that the RA had come to the room when a disturbance broke out. I suspect that he was “in the wrong place at the wrong time”.
After the residence hall incident, according to abcnews.go.com, the shooter returned to his dorm room in another residence hall, reloaded, and left a “disturbing note”. Meanwhile, the campus police had locked down the residence hall where the first shootings had occurred, were interviewing potential witnesses, had identified a “person of interest” and were in the process of questioning him when the Norris Hall shootings were first reported.
From witness reports, the shooter was not dressed in a way to call attention to himself; I speculate he headed across campus from his residence hall to Norris Hall, mingling with other students walking there on the way to class, the weapons concealed in the vest he was wearing, or otherwise on his person.
Once the campus police received the first 911 calls from Norris, it appears from cell phone videos, etc., they responded quickly; on one of the cell phone videos shown on CNN last night, shots may be heard in the background as the police converged on Norris Hall. Entry thereto was hindered by his chaining the main doors shut from the inside. It took, according to something I heard, about a minute to gain access; the police were on the way to the second floor of the building when the perpetrator apparently committed suicide, as the shooting then stopped.
There is much criticism of the VPI administration’s actions (or lack thereof) in notifying students and others of the potential dangers involved; the only thing I feel is valid is the delay in notification of the first shooting. I’ve heard, from listening to the President and the Chief of the Campus Police, that initially it was believed the first, residence hall shooting, was a murder-suicide; it took some time to ascertain this wasn’t the case. However, in all fairness, it seems notification of students and others of the fact of the shootings in the res hall should have been made more quickly.
The shooter is described as a “loner”, with the authorities finding it difficult to obtain much information about him from others.
It is my further understanding that on the VPI campus, there is a loud speaker emergency communication system that was activated upon receipt of the first reports of the Norris Hall shootings; emails were also sent over the campus network.
The campus, it is said, is some 2300+ acres; there are some 26000 students, 10000 faculty/staff/other employees. The campus map I saw on the tube reflects several points of ingress and egress, making it quite difficult to quickly “shut down” the campus. Prior to the eruption of gunfire at Norris Hall, given what appeared to be a “romantic” murder at a residence hall with the shooter apparently no longer on the premises, is it then reasonable to shut the campus down, given the information then available?
Identification (positive) of the shooter was delayed for reasons earlier posted; I understand it took a positive match of fingerprints to those in the immigration records to make the i.d.
“I’ll ask again, im1096, Mr. Davis: give me a viable alternative to end, or at least lessen, these types of slaughters. I did not come here easily, like CF, I’m a former teacher too. The thought of firearms in schools is a little unsettling. But faced with events like yesterdays (and the one before that, and the one before that, etc.), were I in that classroom, I’d want an armed and trained CC holder there. So would you.”
Sorry, GMC, but you’re wrong about what I would want. I am also a former teacher and I actually HAD a student bring a gun to school one day. He didn’t bring it to shoot anyone with though – he did it to “be cool.”
Are you saying, im, that said student was an “armed and trained CC holder?”
I don’t think so. Having a HS kid bring a gun because it’s “cool” is irrelevent to the topic here. That’s a strawman.
A blog post on “Ismail Ax”, found in red (it is reported) on the shooter’s arm, and how his note was signed. FWIW.
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2007/04/ismail_ax.html
GMC,
All your gun training and waiting for the perfect shot at a shooter, its likely your going to be needed more helping the bleeding and injured to safety.
See those police carrying bodies. That kind of effort.
Stay strong and stop boasting about your accuracy.
The fix for exposed places where groups gather is more security. Better security with techonology involved. No stadium or arena allows you or anyone to carry guns.
Some stadiums have 100,000 people in the seats. Enough security and procedures.
Every campus or mall, can be “sectioned” off with enough security coverage so that kind of crazy can’t take over a building so easily.
I don’t know about hallway doors in that building, the gunman chained, wood or metal, but the doors should be plexiglass from now on.
They will tear that building down.
Its easier to drop security plans becuase nothing happens. Increasingly politicans, police officials and security can’t fail to try and protect large groups of people.
So many are unstable personalities, without criminal records at college age, they shouldn’t have to train and hold a gun as responsibility.
Psychologically, many people don’t say The Pledge of Alligiance enough, not everyday, to remind themselves, this is our land and shared experience.
Some foreign countries with one ethnic group of people believe in themselves as a group.
America is full of immigrants, large variety of differences culturally and backgrounds, but the idea of group think has to continue.
America is separating and its easy to do. That negative effect is why America has so much crime.
Its simply not enough believe in the Pledge of Allegiance.
Many disregard the basic humanity belief, do no harm. Its greed or domination that criminals try to harm others.
How can you not see innocents as innocent.
vaughn what is that saying?
Mrage
I’d respond, but I don’t know what you’re saying; you post is incoherent. What is your point?
GMC,
My last statement was mistyped. I meant to say, that gun nuts don’t see innocents as innocent.
How is it possible to shoot defenseless people. Mental defect.
That young student without a criminal record buying weapons and using them with deadly affect.
It’s exactly what you promote.
More guns in hands, isn’t an answer.
You foster more distrust in society. Expanding separation and suspicion of people.
Many don’t believe in the idea of America but live here and they arm themselves. Cause mayhem in the streets.
Leave group protection to real security, its the governments responsibility not young individuals to protect themselves that way.
Security procedures could have been better on that campus and everywhere from now on.
It’s costly to add more security, but it cost more to individuals if they carry around a gun. Not everyone can be responsible like you with weapons. Look at teenagers, young twenty somethings, cause more car accidents than any other group. You want guns in their pockets or backpacks.
“That young student without a criminal record buying weapons and using them with deadly affect.
It’s exactly what you promote.”
I’ve promoted no such thing, Mrage. And you know it.
The rest of your post, as usual, is incoherent. It’s disconnected rambling. If you can string together a coherent thought, we’ll talk.
If I gave each one of you $1000 y’all would find some reason to fight!!! He got newer bills than I did. She got smaller bills than I did. It would eventually reach a party line issue.
God I love free speech!!!!
GMC,
You won’t follow at NO GUNS ALLOWED sign. That’s incoherent.
Trained security and police are responsible for groups of people.
Individuals with more guns in pockets, shows failure of our society and our group policies.
More security in certain places, not more guns in individuals hands. Especially guns in young people’s hands when they are going through emotional and mental changes.
College campus is not a place for people to carry around guns. We can’t allow politicans fail that protection duty. They have to afford more police and security, including video technology.
Today’s wireless video, just stick cell phones on hallway walls or in class rooms to record what’s happening. That video transmitted to some security watching nearby.
Enough security to make a difference nearby.
Cho’s plays:
http://newsbloggers.aol.com/2007/04/17/cho-seung-huis-plays/
Scary.
“You won’t follow at NO GUNS ALLOWED sign. That’s incoherent.”
What does that mean? That I won’t obey that law? Untrue. That I won’t go there? Given a realistic alternative, that is true.
Is gov’t responsible for security? Sure. And VT had campus police, etc. etc. But no police force, no matter how good, can be everywhere. And ultimately, I (and you) may be responsible for my own safety.
Show me the harms that CC holders have done. Compare that to the harms caused by this maniac (and the previous one, and the one before that). Then tell me that taking steps to protect myself and my family is not a rational act. It’s not even a close call.
And give me a workable alternative – what you’ve offered is more of the same. And here, the usual procedures failed utterly.
Gun control has failed utterly. What a surprise. But it won’t stop the usual suspects from using this atrocity to press for more failed policies.
I may have to go buy a scary black rifle, just to get Shumer and Co. to pee their pants in panic. What’s an AR15 going for these days?
BTW Mrage – I wasn’t calling you position incoherent, though I deeply disagree with you. It is your writing that I find incredibly hard to follow. It appears to be a serious of somewhat related thoughts, unconnected by any context or grammar. Try writing in complete paragraphs – you’ll be easier to follow.
Has anyone heard there was an Israeli professor killed in the attack?
Some say he was a Nazi war-camp survivor. How sad.
On another note – I wonder if anything will come out of the post Vaughn Tolle linked to, insinuating the shooter could have been Muslim?
What is the latest on the Campus Security? Were they wrong? Lax? I saw a tiny clip on TV – cops, or Campus Cops, running….didn’t see one that could have weighed much less than 300 lbs, hiding behind some trees. Should security personnel be held to physical requirements?
I saw something about one of the dead being a Holocaust survivor. I also heard that Sean Hannity is trying to push the idea that Cho was Muslim but have seen no evidence. He was born in S Korea and grew up in the suburbs of Washington.
I saw that clip too GS – I agree, he sure looked a bit heavy.
“Mr. Davis: give me a viable alternative to end, or at least lessen, these types of slaughters.”
Your premise is fundamentally wrong. There is no way to end or lessen these types of slaughters, unless we set up our public places like maximum security prisons. I will take my chances – which I pointed out earlier are quite good that I will never encounter such a slaughter.
I think adding to guns to stop gun violence is a fundamentally flawed — like LBJ’s fighting for peace, or the other fing for chastity.
I taught at McConnell once upon a time and the staff there reminded us that though the guys waving us in could be a little obnoxious “they were 18 and 19 yr olds with guns” – not a combination that I think is terribly wise, quite truthfully.
GMC,
The correct alternative is video surveillance. Some authority watching the video for sounds or actions, that maybe a crime.
England has gone way far with video watching nearly everywhere in some locations.
College campus or any business today, can be wired for video easily, but its costly too.
Costly tech and to maintain, plus upgrade the systems longterm. Wireless is better than wires.
Adding more security but not overdoing the number of boots on the ground. More coverage with video and people together is a security system alternative.
Video can nearly be anywhere and response to crimes happening could occur at multiple locations.
The VT campus, every security and police was at the dorms. If video protected buildings elsewhere, some security would still be watching.
Police have to respond faster and that’s the duty they accept.
Increased personal security, people can have cell phones to record crimes others are doing.
But trained police and security are the most responsible to respond with weapons.
Governments have cut security funding, no video protection created in this fast moving technological age.
That’s not responsible government.
Did the killer have very large clips, didn’t have to reload that often. Those large clips used to be banned, but now they are not.
Limiting clips can be responsible gun management. The government is now refusing to do it, due to the NRA lobby.
Citizens are affected by criminals using big clip weapons.
I posted this on another thread. People can respond appropriately and it can still not be enough.*****It doesn’t sound like this Cho guy was someone who “suddenly cracked”. Mental illness in the form of at least depression had been obvious with him for some time. He was taking antidepressant meds.
http://www.kansas.com/197/story/46561.html
Multiple murders like this account for less than one percent of all homicides in the U.S. Since 1945 there have been approximatley 100 cases of such multiple killings.
Usually the perps are not known to the the Criminal system, but are known to the mental health system. This is not to say that psychiatric patients are more likely to commit these types of crimes than non-psych patients. In the majority of cases such perps gave warning signs concerning their intent to commit violence – often directly telling someone like a family member.
Most perps of multiple killings do not survive their murders – they either kill themselves like Cho did, or commit suicide by cop.
http://www.wamu.org/programs/dr/07/04/17.php#13158...
Because of the concerns raised by Cho’s writing assignments he had been referred to the school’s counseling division. So he left signs as well.
So, even in being alert to warning signs and responding appropriately to them is not always sufficient to prevent tragedies like this.*****
Gee,
About fat police, once they pass the original physical tests, they don’t have to again.
Some of the fattest guys employed I’ve seen are some police officers in the Sedgwick County courthouse.
They can’t be fired for being fat. But they be limited to some jobs, where they don’t have to run far.
Is that right? Staffing is a problem in some police jobs. Fat or not they need the employees.
‘Because of the concerns raised by Cho’s writing assignments he had been referred to the school’s counseling division.’
I wonder what teachers and classmates of Stephan King and EA Poe thought?
Is writing crazy, wierd stuff a ‘warning sign’? Who has to due diligence to follow up on things like that, who decides when creativity turns to menace?
Good question brian. Maybe attempted arson should be another red flag?
It certainly should give cause for concern.
After reading all the posts there’s not much I can add. I see that those on the left are attacking those on the right and those on the right are attacking those on the left. If those on the left want me to give up my gun I’ll consider it when you pass laws so that if I, or a member of my family, is assaulted, robbed, harmed or killed, then the civil authorities are liable and can be sued for failure to protect me or them. Until then I’m going to protect myself and family to the best of my ability, recognizing that the police generally only come in and try to figure out what happened after the fact, and all that’s necessary for me to do is to be able to convince twelve people I was justified in doing whatever it was I did.
Who said that anyone on the left wanted you to give up your gun? At the very least, that is disingenuous. No one wants to take anyones guns away. Perhaps you might want to rethink your kill first – mount a defense later approach. How are you going to feel when you discover that you needlessly killed an innocent person? Cowboying up is not the answer. The world is a lot less dangerous then you think.
I have an idea- lets make it illegal to bring guns on all University grounds and put up surveillance cameras. That will keep things like this from happening.
Oh shit, that’s right, we’ve been trying that type of crap for how long now? 15 years? 20?
Could a person or two in that building with a handgun, be it a prof. or grad student, have made a difference? Probably, but we can’t say for sure. What we can say for sure is that if we continue to make schools places where the law abiding are denied the natural right to self preservation this will happen again, and again.
Let’s get over the cowboy attitudes – realistically, a prof or a grad ass would not have prevented this tragedy. First of all, why burden a college professor with the responsibility of protecting his students? Secondly, what makes anyone think that the right person, with the right sight line would have been in the right place with the right weapon to take down the shooter and why would anyone think that the shooter would not have killer the would be hero? The solution is not more guns – to think so is just being foolish.
Either that or make doors to classrooms with Student ID and Faculty/Staff pass accessible only; swipe cards.
This would also be a good way to keep attendance and knowing who was in class and who isn’t.
Give Faculty the opportunity to change the sequence on the pass card periodically.
I’m sure some Engineering Students at each University could design such a system and with the help of locksmiths help install it. This would cut down on costs.
Heckler,
What’s that Professor or grad student with a gun…why not that freshman be allowed, the 18 year old. His first time from home in a new state. He has concerns. Gun will solve his fears possibly. He likes the Desert Eagle, a lot.
He bought it without training. Some states suggest it, but is that required for purchase?
Have to learn rules of the road, behavior in traffic to drive.
Gun is easier to get.
How about no one but more security, is allowed weapons on campus.
Security will see criminals acting up on increased video coverage. The key is response times.
Security and police have to be nearby enough for aggressive video surveillance to work.
When no one is watching video, its a recording, that’s passive video surveillance.
When VHS tapes were used over and over, very bad video passive security.
It’s too bad terrorists exist among us to change our security behaviours.
Security investment has been dropped. The Football Stadium has excellent security at VTech, but education time on campus gets less? That’s not right.
In old buildings where the gunman chained a metal or wood door, change them to plexiglass. No matter the chain he couldn’t hide the shooting he was doing.There’s solid doors to stairwells. Nothing happens behind those closed doors that can’t be seen.
Doors to individual classrooms could stay solid. Professors won’t like students looking at who’s going by the room as a distracting.
But there should be two doors on either side of any room for escape reasons.
Old buildings have to reworked for better retreat and access in an emergency to rooms.
It’s worse to allow many different people, their fears and bias, more guns in their pockets in a confined space.
Every campus building is a confined space.
Leave it to the security and police forces and increased video coverages has be aggressive.
Vaughn Tolle’s posting up threaded at April 17 12:20 pmIt has a very interesting posting on that link.It goes into in-depth details on the procedures of checking out individual’s criminal background history when that individual is making a purchase for a weapon.One of the problems that I can see about it is how it emphasizes checking into criminal histories but it does not emphasize any at all on any mental illness or characteristic backgrounds.I know that in any law enforcement occupations that an individual applies for has to go thru an extensive background check of criminal, mental and characteristics before they are consider for that occupation.Mr. Tolle, you have posted that link and I think you have read it too, my question to you is “Do you think that our systems has a flaw in one of the three areas on what it is not properly checked out on who is OK to purchase a weapon?”
“The solution is not more guns – to think so is just being foolish.”
That’s a bald statement – upon what is it based? Would a trained CC holder have prevented Cho from beginning his rampage? No. COULD it have cut down the number killed? Perhaps.
But the statement above is nothing more than a statement of faith, based on what makes us “feel” safe.
What do we know? We know more “security cameras” won’t work; all that will do is let us get good footage of the carnage. It would not have deterred this individual, nor would it have significantly sped up police response. Cameras are great, but they won’t stop a determined attacker, nor a bullet.
We know that CC holders are not a threat. I have yet to have anyone point out the CC holder who commits these kinds of crimes – and we’ve had CC in 40+ states for some 15 years. Show me from experience the threat posed by those folks. Go ahead.
“How about no one but more security, is allowed weapons on campus.”
Hell Mrage, that’s what we do NOW!!! It worked out real well didn’t it . . . At VT, at the Pennsylvania Amish school, at the mall, the last shooting, the one before that – - – ALL were in places where people were not “allowed” to have guns. Result? Innocents slaughtered, cowering, unable to defend themselves.
So many here dismiss the idea of PERMITTING students/ teachers/ administrators to carry (no one has suggested requiring same; that’s a strawman) out of hand, but they have yet to 1) define just WHY, based upon our 15+ years of experience with CC, the option should be dismissed without consideration, or 2) offer a viable alternative, other than more of the same.
No one is suggesting that CC should be denied, but to think that it is some sort of answer is just naive. It would not made a difference yesterday, or during Columbine or any other situation. There have been what four or five incidents where a CC individual prevented/stopped a crime? The odds are extremely slim that a carrier would have prevented the tragedy at Va Tech. To solve the problem you need to look at a lot more than just CC as an answer.
You folks want to direct your anger? Direct it at the cowardly son of a bitch that did the shooting. It’s not a failure of law enforcement. It is not a failure of the state. It is not the failure of gun owners or gun banners. He was a little chicken shit that did not have the courage to face himself in the mirror so he killed 32 people. That is what should piss you off.
Just great…now thats all that will be on TV for 5 months. Worse than the dead air about the Bahama Bimbo that went on and on and on. Bunch of crap
Well, it’s not the right clammoring for more gun control and banning of certain weapon, so I concluded, and rightly so, that it’s the folks on the left. So my statement isn’t disingenuous. And I didn’t say a thing about kill first. I believe you read that into the statement because that’s the way you think. And I don’t see how is it that an innocent person is going to be attacking me, or trying to rob me, so I’m not in fear of killing someone that’s innocent. And if defending myself is Cowboying up, then I’m guilty as charged. And the world is and always has been a dangerous place, but maybe not from the utopian tower your gazing out of. What’s your solution? Putting up a sign with a gun on it and a red circle with a slash through it? That will stop a deranged person or crimminal in his tracks won’t it.
bob:
I’m not suggesting that CC is the only answer, and it is pure speculation as to whether or not a CC holder might have lowered yesterday’s death toll.
All I’m saying is that these incidents keep happening in free-fire zones, where citizens are denied by law the ability to defend themselves, in circumstance where despite the best and often heroic efforts of law enforcement, they are at the mercy of monsters who kill with impunity.
It’s time to change that calculus.
Ask yourselves one question: If YOU have found yourself in that classroom, under those circumstances, would you have prefered to have a firearm to defend yourself? We all know the answer to that. And that says it all.
GMC,
Consider pay and insurance coverage, citizen cc protection fits under what procedure or process?
If someone is allowed a weapon, they are licensed to use force.
What agency would be responsible, since the college didn’t approve the original gun training?
When will police allow citizen cc to cover security for them?
Here’s my fix to your CC dreams.
Two doors for every classroom. There is more than one way out.
IF VT could have had a campus siren announcing a dramatic situation is occurring, they might have evacuated the buildings.
Gunman not found, is a huge question. Why they thought he left the campus, heading out of town, a bad case of mistaken identity. They were looking for the wrong guy from that first shooting.
A siren is better than adding more cc guns to the situation.
Look at past crimes where school shootings occurred did any siren go off? Community shootings, any siren go off?
Someone watching on an aggressive video system could sound a campus alarm, if all else fails.
The alarm may say, stay in the room, gunman on the loose, but that room must have two exit doors. People in the room must have a couple of choices, to get out.
Some can’t jump from 2nd or third story windows.Basement rooms should have two exit doors, not just one.
The Amish school had one set of double doors, that’s the wrong construction.
CC won’t save everyone in danger or stop a situation that fast. Its not citizens responsibility on campus, in a building, any public enclosed place. Those places are for security and police to respond with weapons.
It doesn’t take much training to get handguns in some states. A passport takes more time, but the gun is quick.
It used to be show a need for getting a passport, like a paid ticket for out of country travel.
Many have no need to announce why they must have a gun. If its self protection, why might someone sell it within days for a profit.
Has the person signed up for practice time at a shooting range, that’s a reason to buy the gun.
If someone has threat of their life, police report, that’s a reason.
Shotguns anytime. To hunt requires a state license. Its illegal to shoot a shotgun off personal property.
It’s the handguns that are easily hidden and could be carried in both hands, that’s the problem.
What’s the intention of people buying handguns. They will say for CC reasons. Are they on the CC list for training. If not they can’t buy so fast.
Fix what’s wrong, the easy way getting a handgun so fast.
Let public buildings enact their own security plans. With tragedies, public facilities have to keep improving their security procedures.
More security personnel and aggressive video systems on campus.
No to CC guns on any staff or student. College is hard enough with school work to worry about.
No guns on campus says some legislators. But they must back the security up with more video systems and boots to patrol instead.
Can’t say no guns on campus. Then don’t do anything improving security procedures on campus or any public building.
If Virginia gun laws don’t change, there is moral corruption in the gun lobby. Its the ease attaining weapons. So many weapons on the street, who flooded the market or allow gun transfers not recorded. Its cheap and easy to get a street gun.
The VT shooter didn’t have to bother, just a easy and quick with his credit card.
No one asked him why the need for a handgun and if he was signed up anywhere for training.
“Consider pay and insurance coverage, citizen cc protection fits under what procedure or process?
If someone is allowed a weapon, they are licensed to use force.”
What in the Sam Hill does that mean? Insurance? License to use force?!!! Ya been watching too much James Bond???
All persons have a privilege to use force in order to defend one from great bodily harm. But that privilege is meaningless when the means is denied.
However, you do speak one truth: “Its cheap and easy to get a street gun.” And NO LAW will ever change that. It is a fact of life, for better or worse.
Deal with that reality on a realistic level, rather than enact more laws that disarm the law-abiding and are easily ignored by those with evil intent.
And your writing style, Mrage, is still barely coherent, at best.
Mrage, your are indeed a dreamer. Two doors in every classroom, videos to monitor everyone, sirens screaming a warning, but which won’t identify what the warning is for. A crimminal or deranged person is going to get a weapon regardless, why do you want to punish to law abiding citizens by making it hard for them to buy something to defend themselves with? And I’m sure that if a perpetrator was asked why he wanted a weapon and if he had the proper training would be truthful, don’t you?
GMC,
You take the license to carry anywhere too far.
You would be responsible on campus property shooting someone. So would the campus in a lawsuit.
Your fear of injury isn’t everyone’s fear.
Ever been in a fist fight? I have, on campus back in college. Push and shove, could become a shooting? People cross paths on sidewalks, don’t like each other.
It has to be a gun free zone on campus with people that age, trying to figure out adulthood.
These school tragedies don’t call for more cc guns at all.
It calls for more security on campus and aggressive video coverage. Change evacuation procedures getting out of rooms.
Governments have to fix ease of getting handguns, from gun stores.
From a gun store is how this tragedy occurred. He bought two handguns within a month and nothing stopped him.
Jay,
I’m dreaming of security and video protection, not increasing cc guns in streets. I like to see people in uniforms with guns, not the common person with a gun hidden.
Many people like the obvious procedures of security protection. Uniforms and video cameras.
Your law abiding, stay that way. I’ve seen unreported handgun transfers to know it can be a slimy business. People buy guns for others and lie about it to gun stores. At gun shows.
I better amend my statement…the killer bought those two handguns in February and March, legal purchases in Virginia.
But the lack of training required is alarming.
Someone on another website said, legal guns aren’t used as often in murders, because they can be traced.
The killer did file serial numbers from his guns, trying to be anonymous. Left the gun receipt in his backpack though.
Psychologists are trying to point out he was crazy, but I see calculation and plotting with a clear mind to do what he did.
Those rooms with one door, and with him in the doorway with guns, where would the students and teachers go.
Chained the hallway doors is evil.
Bought guns easy to get and did murder so well. Death toys!
Before any cc legislation allowing guns on campus more aggressive video and security personnel procedures must be realized.
Virginia legislators will have that fight with the gun lobby, again.
Guns shouldn’t be young people’s hands because personal family values of those children enrolled are not the same.
Parents still make college age children’s decisions.
New York says many guns on the streets used in crimes, come from Virginia.
That’s all I can say about the tragedy.
When huge society troubles happen, I tend not to rest enough. It’s a point America has to decide, should we change.
The gun lobby sucks and is too powerful corrupting politics.
“Guns shouldn’t be young people’s hands because personal family values of those children enrolled are not the same.
Parents still make college age children’s decisions. “—————–
Many of these same “college age children” have put on our country’s uniform and faced the enemy in a combat situation. Like Nathan. Their parents were not there to make the decisions for them.
They can certainly handle a gun, and what’s more – they are probably better suited to handling it under a duress situation than is a cop who has only gone through simulated training.
CNN reports the shooter was ‘mad at rick kids.’
Sure he had cultural issues, richer students, he named actual people as enemies, some reports said. Plus he’s not American yet.
Still defined strictly as South Korean, like he just arrived here.Probably felt that. Korean students on VT campus couldn’t engage him for four years.
Was American as any other doing bad things with a gun. The right to bear arms. He assimilated how to create mayhem with weapons.
Broken homes are supposed to trigger this, but his parents are together and trying to achieve a middle class life. They didn’t move around since coming here when he was 8. Older sister grad of Princeton. Where did his values control go terribly wrong?
Some person on another website…
Apatha Singhular explained:
Just a few interesting facts. The gunman had the word Ismail AX written on his arm. If you read the plays that the gunman had written one was called ‘Mr Brownstone’ which is a name of a Gun’n'Roses song.
Also the fact that Axle Rose (lead singer of Guns’n'roses was molested by his father and stepfather) stark similarities between the gunmans stories and Axle Rose shows that this was his idol.
Also Axle Rose was a voice over on the game Grand Theft Auto (the game that you go on shoot em up rampages) is a little weird. Anyway just a view.
I still want more police and trained security, on campus in uniforms. They could be former soldiers.
But not in street gear with hidden weapons. That’s the cc I can’t stand on campus security ideas.
If it’s a choice between arming citizens and turning campuses into mini-police states I’ll take the former. I don’t understand why liberals but not all liberals are so distrustful of the public, they see themselves as enlightened or smarter than everyone else I guess. If we create a class of people whos function is to protect us because we are to weak to protect ourselves, I fear we will create a society like that of ancient Japan where there was a ruling class, a warrior class (now to consist of police and security personnel) trained to protect us, and then the common man subject to the whims of both groups. Are you sure that’s what you want?
According to Nikki Giovanni, who taught at VPI and had Cho removed from her class, “he was mean”.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/18/vtech.shooting/index.html
Wiseman, to respond a bit to your post upthread; the “instacheck” method used in Virginia, it seems to me, must, in order for it to work, concentrate on matters of public record. These are, by necessity, criminal acts and convictions; however, I can envision where individuals who have been adjudicated “mentally incompetent” would also be listed on such a system.
Where, however, there is no public record, the system will perforce fail.
In watching an interview with the gun shop owner who sold the 9mm, he made the point he had exercised his discretion to not make a sale many times; I believe he said daily. An example he gave was if someone had been drinking. He also described Cho as a quiet, polite person whose demeanor gave him no reason to question the intended purchase, and when, after the requisite ID was provided and the check revealed no reason to not make the sale, the same was consumated.
To me it is clear that no laws of Virginia or applicable federal laws were violated in the sale. If, Wiseman, you are inquiring about consideration of the mental health of a prospective purchaser of a firearm in the decision to consumate the sale (as I infer), then absent outward manifestation of any psychosis or other mental illness and no adjudication of incompetency appears in the public record, I cannot think of a way to do this. I really don’t think a letter from a psychiatrist attesting to the mental competence and stability of a prospective purchaser should be required. A “waiting period” as required in other states would not have been helpful here, as it appears that the two weapons were purchased in February and March, and not apparently used until April. The actions of filing off the serial numbers, the chaining of the doors, etc., cause me to conclude this was not a crime committed “in the heat of passion”, but rather one of long term planning in its execution.
Should anyone, other than a US CITIZEN, be able to purchase and/or own a firearm while in the US? Does any other country allow that?
what in the world is this all about? This guy was that scary?And if he was felt to be a dange to himself or others, why in the world was he roaming the campus?
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23393119-details/Students+lived+in+fear+of+campus+gunman/article.do
Due to his actions, his apparent eccentric behavior, and his age, it appears to me that he may have developed schizophrenia, or a similar disorder such as schizoeffective disorder. For men, it usually develops in their late teens and early 20’s. This may have been his first psychotic break.
Some support for TDT from ABC News’ forensic psychiatrist:
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/VATech/story?id=3050483&page=1
Concealed carry permits are only issued to ADULTS after a BACKGROUND CHECK. Those people have invested time and money to protect their lives. They have reputations they worry about, they rarely, if ever comit a crime or have “rage.”In the editorial…Posted on Wed, Apr. 18, Bloodbath calls for soul-searching,… …Short of turning our universities into armed camps, there is no foolproof way to prevent such tragedies from happening. …”For the editorial board, Randy Scholfield”The most and probably only effective method to prevent mass murder is dismissed out of hand by the Eagle Editorial Board.An armed camp, when the arms are in the hands of the good people is safe. Concealed carry permit holders have had background checks, so have policemen. CCH holders have had some training, they don’t need the training the police get identification of the bad guy, they are the true “first responders” because they are there when the fan gets turned on.
It now appears that the VT killer bought one gun from a seller on the Internet. But he did not get that gun directly from the Internet, it was shipped to a pawn shop that had a Federal Firearms License [FFL] and a background check was completed. The other gun, a Glock was purchased from a store and a background check was completed there too.Pr4oblems with the background check don’t call for more gun control laws, they call for revision to the Federal medical privacy laws and the reporting procedures followed by the states.What you need to keep in mind about background checks, the anti-gun folks want everybody disqualified for any degree of medical problemYour wife dies in a car crash and you’re depressed. You seek treatment and the doctor thinks you might harm yourself. You are forced into the “system.” The fact that a few days or weeks of counselling about your life and the effect you will have on your children, etc. completely clears up the “suicidal thoughts” but the anti-gunners want you barred for life from having a gun.BTW, in Kansas, applicant for concealed carry permits waive their medical privacy rights.