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Many Dead In Virginia Tech Shooting
nexuspal writes "Over 20 confirmed dead at Virginia Tech. Shooter killed some at residence hall then two hours later killed others in classrooms. Worst school shooting in US history. "
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I'm a gaming and simulation design engineering major.
I really hope they don't find any way to blame this on video games, like most school shootings.
So far, 32 dead they say including him...they said he was an oriental fellow, with a vest on, and lots of ammo strapped to him.
Any word if he was an engineering student that may have snapped or anything?
Sad day...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Yeah, this sucks. I lived in AJ. As a CS major (and grad student), I had classes in Norris. I spent a lot of time there in general (thanks to various club activities). As the numbers keep growing and growing, it just becomes more and more shocking, yet numbing at the same time.
That said, everytime the press says, "This has set a new record in campus killings", I want to throttle someone.
-- jchenx
While I can certainly appreciate the pain that friends and victims must be feeling here, the key word in your latter point is "seems". Check the murder rate since the year 1200 in the world. The fact that this is huge news means we do a lot right.
Every time a news of shooting breaks out, I always wonder why the possession of firearms is not banned entirely in this country. I am native of Japan, and where I grew up nobody but cops were allowed to carry guns. I live in New Jersey now, and I really miss a sense of security I used to have back home. Back there I never worried about getting killed and such, whereas I feel physically threatened where I live now since there have been a number of incidents of armed robberies on campus at Rutgers and in my neighborhood. (My own apartment was robbed several years ago, too.) Seriously, it makes a huge difference when I have to take into consideration the possibility of the possession of firearms when some strangers attacked me. I am aware that there are gun lobbies working against the ban of firearms, but it never made any sense to me. Could anybody enlighten me as to why people want to carry guns at all?
That makes sense. I'll vote for the candidate who promises to grant me the right to carry a concealed firearm anywhere I wish, across all states of the nation, because that individual understands the second amendment.
Oh wait, you think I should be against guns? Perhaps you should wake up and realize that the US was founded on the idea of personal freedom, while the UK was founded upon the principle of a monarchy. The UK was disarmed much earlier and people would stand for that shit. Today there are vastly more guns than people in the US. You'll never get rid of them all. And there are an absolute crapload of gunsmiths here. One person I know showed me a submachine gun he built himself. It is a truism that if you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns.
There are less guns and less of a gun mentality in the UK, and that was true from the start. But here in the US, it was formerly considered every citizen's responsibility to own a gun, for two purposes. One, to protect us from fascism. Well, that hasn't worked. But Two, to provide for the defense of the nation. Disarmed countries are easy to control.
And on that note, I leave you with the following quotation: "Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest..." --Mahatma Gandhi
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I'm actually agreeing with drinkypoo! Perhaps if just one of the law-abiding citizens involved had been armed, much of this would have been avoided...
It sounds counter-intuitive to many, but here's a study which supports your position:
Multiple Victim Public Shootings, Bombings, and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handgun Laws: Contrasting Private and Public Law Enforcement
JOHN R. LOTT Jr.
State University of New York - Department of Economics
WILLIAM M. LANDES
University of Chicago Law School; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Few events obtain the same instant worldwide news coverage as multiple victim public shootings. These crimes allow us to study the alternative methods used to kill a large number of people (e.g., shootings versus bombings), marginal deterrence and the severity of the crime, substitutability of penalties, private versus public methods of deterrence and incapacitation, and whether attacks produce copycats. Yet, economists have not studied this phenomenon. Our results are surprising and dramatic. While arrest or conviction rates and the death penalty reduce normal murder rates, our results find that the only policy factor to influence multiple victim public shootings is the passage of concealed handgun laws. We explain why public shootings are more sensitive than other violent crimes to concealed handguns, why the laws reduce both the number of shootings as well as their severity, and why other penalties like executions have differential deterrent effects depending upon the type of murder.
He got away with it *both* times because the law emasculates the citizen from carrying a weapon at all times.
And it was the Hokie adminstration that led the charge to dis-arm the students and the faculty:
Every time a news of shooting breaks out, I always wonder why the possession of firearms is not banned entirely in this country. I am native of Japan, and where I grew up nobody but cops were allowed to carry guns. I live in New Jersey now, and I really miss a sense of security I used to have back home. Back there I never worried about getting killed and such, whereas I feel physically threatened where I live now since there have been a number of incidents of armed robberies on campus at Rutgers and in my neighborhood. (My own apartment was robbed several years ago, too.) Seriously, it makes a huge difference when I have to take into consideration the possibility of the possession of firearms when some strangers attacked me. I am aware that there are gun lobbies working against the ban of firearms, but it never made any sense to me.
Because in this country we - historically - believe in certain inalienable rights of all men; and that includes - in addition to the phrase "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness" - the idea that individuals (or groups of individuals joined together for a common good) can defend those rights, using violence if necessary. Now no sane person *wants* violence or war, or bloodshed, but our Founding Fathers acknowledged that sometimes you have to choose to utilized armed forced in order to defend your "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Case in point, the US Revolutionary War.
And to this day, US citizens generally understand that if the government ever becomes tyrannical and repressive, "we the people" have the right (and must have the means) to overthrow it.
Could anybody enlighten me as to why people want to carry guns at all?
Because there is no way to prevent crazy nuts like this guy from VT from getting guns. And some people want to be able to defend themselves when these nuts show up and start shooting.
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
The shallow analysis is that this guy was insane, a random nutcase, but this is the Nth time it's happened in the US. Why isn't the same thing happening in other countries? What is it about American society which creates these young men who have so little to lose?
Deleted
Warren Ellis did an issue of Hellblazer about school shootings (which DC then didn't publish). You can find the pages available here. I highly, highly recommend reading it - I feel it has serious insight into at least one aspect of why these things happen.
The scan is a bit blurry, and the server is having some trouble right now (404's - just hit refresh and it'll fix itself). If anyone can mirror it on a better server it would be appreciated.
Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.
Did the gun sprout legs and arms and go beserk??
No, but out of curiosity I wonder what kind of weapon and or training the person had. This is the highest body count any mass murder has had on a rampage in the states.
The only higher World Wide (at least so far) was the Port Arthur Massacre with 35 deaths who used an AR-10 rifle.
I'm not pro or anti gun, but you simply can't go on a mass murdering spree like this with a knife or a bow and arrow.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Flamebait? So young people ARE allowed to express aggression and exhuberance? Because I haven't noticed.
The last part was one of these, I think:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dichotomy
Or it was one of these (2b):
http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/conundrum
And it makes people feel like one of these:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hypocrite
Please stop stalking me, bro.
Well armed and trained people allowed to carry concealed weapons at all times in all places, UNLESS they specifically search EVERYONE for weapons. Banning weapons doesn't stop people from killing, it only makes them less successful at killing masses. Unless you count box cutters (and now knitting needles).
We should be teaching people how to fight back against such things rather than quivering under desks.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Well, for one thing it is cultural to some degree. I grew up in the south east (north central FL) and was around guns fairly regularly. I'm comfortable with them. Shoot, going out to a range with a friend and a box of 22 rounds can be a nice way to pass an afternoon. They do make it easier for one person to kill another, and especially for something like this to happen, but banning them doesn't mean the crazies won't find another way. No reason this couldn't have been a suicide bomber because you can't ban all the combinations of chemicals that can be made into such devices.
Another thing to remember is that guns have a great equalizing effect. Sure, the thug could pull a gun and kill you, but you have the ability to do the same. In this country even someones grandmother could be carrying a handgun in the big purse. She might even know how to use it. Firearms do put power in the hands of weaker people that they wouldn't have otherwise. Take a big guy who discovers he can get what he wants through force, now give the victim a firearm, big dude is less dangerous.
And let's go to the last/best argument. The cat is out of the bag. Guns are scattered through our country now. If you banned them it would have little if any effect in the short or medium term. Well, the black market value would probably go up, and law abiding citizens would be more unarmed, but neither of those is good. They've been such a part of our culture for so long that removing them now just isn't a viable option. Shoot, I know a number of law abiding citizens that just wouldn't give them up, let alone criminals.
Personally, I have very little problem with concealed carry laws. One day I may carry a gun myself. Unlikely, but I don't have a feeling of disgust about it. That said, I think people should have some very good training, regular re-examinations, psychological testing, etc. before they are allowed to carry.
Sigh. Your comment is rather heartless. Do you think the shooter would have killed more than one or two people if the people around him were armed? Of course not! I speculate (but not very much) that you are in favor of the VT gun ban. Okay, so by your support of it, you contributed to the deaths of these dozens of people.
Yeah, in a perfect world nobody would want to kill so many. I'll settle for a less perfect world in which nobody is *able* to kill so many.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
[Disclaimer: I'm against weapons for "personal defense"]
A few years ago, there were two guys at my door attempting to break in. They lunged into the door so hard, that I was almost certain they would break in. It was pretty scary, because the only weapon I had was a big kitchen knife. Anyway, they failed to break the door in, but after they left, the 911 operator didn't want to send police over, because, well, they were gone. The police didn't even bother to come by and take finger prints (the thugs tried the door knob to see if it was unlocked). I live in Los Angeles. I'm not against weapons for "personal defense". If I had a shot gun, I could have calmly waited for them to knock the door in, and picked them off as they entered. There's a different perspective for you.
All they had to do was be a threat, making him keep his head down. A handgun does not have the accuracy to hit a person at that distance unless you're really lucky, or a trained marksman with extensive modifications, but it certainly has the range if all you need is for the bullets to travel the distance.
I'm going to quote the wiki, despite the obvious reservations:So it seems that, although the civilians' actions may not have been the sole reason, gunfire from the ground did cause him to take a more defensive posture, with it's intendant limitations on potential targets.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
One of the complaints I heard is the first notification was a email two hours later. Students are fairly notorious for being "off the broadcast grid" rarely watching TV or radio. Is email sufficent? If you get 5%-10% immediate penetration, can you count on word-of-mouth for the rest? Many students will stil asleep at 8AM when the shootings started. what about soemthing more intrusive like txting to every known cell. I fear some of the intrusive channels would co-opted for some non-emergency message, then instantly lose their credibility.
The word for it is psychopathy, which unfortunately isn't in the current DSM. But it has a great track record of predicting future criminal behavior in current inmates. It's characterized by a lack of ability to feel empathy. These people's brains are wired differently than most. There are millions of them, but most are small-time crooks and swindlers. Couple psychopathy with something more, and you've got potential for real tragedy.
Turns out Eric Harris was a psychopath.
I got my Linux laptop at System76.
And I as a journalist have a hard time wrapping my head around it. Indeed, mass-violence predates videogames and even mass-media.
Recently, the hype surrounding the business favorite pair of double-d's (death and destruction) has gone up monumentally, it would seem.
Most news outlets have restrictions on publishing news about suicides that don't involve anyone else. This is so, because mass dissemination of information on suicides has been clinically linked to an increase in suicides in the community. Likely, if this guy had offed himself in his dorm/apartment/car, it never would have been seen or heard. Now, looking at a story about some nutjob taking 32 people with him, it can't be avoided.
This guy has made a name for himself that will be remembered for a long time. Since he wanted to die anyway (presumably), this was an easy way to do it. It's much harder to become famous by inventing a longer lasting lightbulb, or by taking pictures (trust me) than it is by doing something really 'out there'. In this guy's head, fame and infamy are the same thing.
I wonder how we should be treating mass tragedy in the news? Part of me wants to let it go entirely. Certainly not ostrich syndrome-style, but as a means of not making it glamorous and copy-cat worthy.
I think if all news outlets in general tried harder to present the full perspective on life, not just DD sensationalism, we'd all be in a better place.
But maybe I'm wrong. What do I know?
Message contains 1 attachment: spam.gif
I think the original poster is correct. We all have it in us to do something horrid--believing that you are better than this shooter is a fundamental misunderstanding of the human condition.
How is saying "I'm better than this shooter" different from some fundi saying "I'm better than all you non-believers..." Both have a belief system that says that others who behave or function differently are inherently worse.
We're all humans, and we're all horrid, or at least equally capable of horrid acts... and, to some degree, capable of wonderful acts as well.
Of course, we should never get that far in the first place. The fact that a healthy adult can be made to feel so isolated as to not seek help for their violent delusions until it's too late is the real problem. And it's not like there aren't symptoms for years before such a break. Excessive anti-social behaviour is present, always. That doesn't mean everyone who exhibits such behaviour will snap, but it certainly means something should be done.
I've seen kids who were badly abused by their parents, even to the extent of showing physical scars from their beatings, who never received the help they needed. Every one of those people has since had serious social problems. Promiscuity, drugs, alcohol, gambling. All too common, and all too preventable. But, as usual, it's not my problem. No one ever reached out to any of those kids and got them to a counselor, or in some cases a psychiatrist. If those kids were treated when they were 12, they would have grown up much healthier, realizing that weaknesses in character are natural, and that people generally have enough goodwill to reach out to those in need. But that doesn't happen. Usually, they just sink into whatever hell has been prepared for them and no one talks about their issues until something happens. That's inevitably going to be far too late.
And for those who are younger, or who have parents: for God's sake do something! If someone bullies your child, go to the principal or the bully's parents. If it continues to be a problem, get some family counselling for you and your bullied child. If your child is a bully, then find ways to discourage such behaviour. Our society has lost these social niceities; everything either ends up in a courtroom or it's perfectly acceptable behaviour. If there were some middle ground where people actually treated each other as humans, we'd probably find far fewer anti-social kids in the first place.
"Please describe the scientific nature of the 'whammy'" - Agent Scully
Almost exactly, I would say. I used to be kind of like that.
Life sucks when every day is a mind-numbingly boring routine at school, and all of your friends live life like a sitcom because that's all they know. I saw cruelty and injustice pretty much everywhere, and it pissed me off, but nobody I knew even cared.
That is exactly how these kinds of things happen. I didn't break, because when it came down to it I had one real friend that stuck with me. But when I see another kid going postal on the evening news, I'm never surprised. It's just another guy who wasn't as lucky as me.
Why is it that when you believe something it's an opinion, but when I believe something it's a manifesto?
No, not really.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/26568
A Human Right
> If the students were armed, as provided for by the 2nd amendment, someone could have dropped
> that guy early on and saved 30 or more people.
Normally I'd agree with that, I'm a paid up NRA member and all that. Not sure how much it would have helped in this incident though because this guy was good. Most shooters only bag a handful because they are losers, its WHY they end up as nutjobs running around with a gun shooting random people. One good guy with a concealed weapon could probably deal with a random idiot. Still wouldn't mind a law striking gun free zones out of any/all government controlled/funded places. All they do is paint big targets on the innocent.
But we are now about ten hours in and haven't heard a peep about the perp except one comment on fox news that he was 'Asian.' Now look at how effective this guy was compared to the usual. Starting to smell like a Religion of Peace job by someone with some jihad training instead of Sudden Jihad Syndrome or a random nutter stressing about finals or a failed relationship.
Other signs it isn't a random nut:
We aren't getting the profile of the perp wall to wall. No experts discussing why he went off.
Ms. Brady hasn't been given wall to wall coverage to spout her usual attempts to turn tragedy into political hay.
Democrat delenda est
Most people aren't really jolted by this stuff anymore. A lot of people don't even care that this happened. Shit, I consciously acknowledge this is completely and totally fucking terrible, and I'm having trouble being fazed by it because I'm used to hearing about this shit. I've said a prayer for the families of the people who died, I'm sad for all of them, but I'm really not especially irked by it. Not in the way I was the day Columbine happened.
I've been hearing about this kind of thing since I was in middle school, and I get to hear about the Next Big Massacre daily. I'm fully aware that every day, shit fucking blows up. People get killed in horrible and stupid ways by horrible and stupid people. This kind of thing and worse happens every other day in a certain couple of countries we've been occupying, for example. That doesn't mean we shouldn't care, and it doesn't mean we shouldn't show respect for the people who've died, but let's face it. This just doesn't seem unusual anymore.
That said, if a lot of folks - especially younger people today who come from the 'Columbine Generation' - can't even be moved by the massacre itself even if they do genuinely care, why would they get up in arms when some waste of life opens his big fucking mouth on television to try to capitalize off of the incident politically? Even if they know it's bad in every imaginable way, they have a lot of trouble reacting to it.
Apathy? More like a tolerance.
Deaths at the hands of "terrorists" kill only a small number of our people each year. Many more die in non-"terrorist" incidents. Still more die in offensive wars that we start.
Our national priorities are seriously misaligned.
Penny - plain text accounting
It's really sad, all those people died for no reason. I think they could have been prevented however. We were all sent emails at 9:30 about an incident that happened at 7:15 AM... that seems a bit odd to me. Also as a precaution, the campus should have been locked down when the first shooting at WAJ occurred, but they ASSUMED he had left. If classes were cancelled, Norris wouldn't have been full of students for the gunman to kill. Virginia Tech is such a great school, both socially and academically. Its a shame that this will scar our reputation forever. High schoolers have been touring the school for the last couple weeks; its too bad that a lot of smart kids, I'm sure, have been turned off by this incident and will choose another university. Thanks you all for your support
Hahahahahahaha!!!
:-)
You are totally ignorant of history. We ARE from the same ancestors. Very few people were "kicked back across the ocean", only a few officers. Many enlisted redcoats actually stayed and were granted citizenship.
Our legal system is based upon English Common Law, though our constitution and bill of rights was unique at the time.
The simple fact is that our well trained army of about 1 million men could easily and without breaking a sweat, subdue all 299 million of the rest of the United States population, even if each one had a bolt-action rifle, given technology, resources, tactics and general training, if it came to that.
The argument of guns-for-revolution is based on antiquated concepts. As it is now and as it has always been, private organizations, companies, universities, offices, citizens, etc are free, within our law, even as it stood in 1810, to prohibit the posession of firearms on their property.
It was within my right and still is within my right to say "no guns allowed" and require that you leave them at the door. That is protected use of private property and the 2nd amendment does not apply.
Whether or not gun-toting citizens would stop violent crime is hard to say, but I would lean toward "no". that doesn't mean that gun ownership is baseless, or is not deserved... it just means that the argument of "shoot the criminals" is probably bunk. Western countries with strict gun control ALL (every single one) have far lower rates of violent crime than the US. The argument for preventing government corruption is mostly bunk too.
However, I support the 2nd amendment strictly on the grounds that it is a personal liberty. The government CANNOT and SHOULD NOT tell citizens what they can say, how they can dress and what they can carry, provided that it does not cause DIRECT harm to others. And by "direct" I don't mean It may potentially increase the risk that he may or may not be apt to..... because that's BS.
So, what I'm saying is that while I support people's rights to own and carry guns as I believe it is a fundamental freedom, I think your bullshit argument is crap.
Stew
There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who don't.
UK, Australia, and Canada all surpassed the US in violent crime back in 2001 and have been trending even further up. ( http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTI CLE_ID=21902 , http://www.cdnshootingsports.org/gunlawsandviolent crime.html). Data that supports the US having one of the higher violent crime rates is from 1994, quite outdated.
Hmmn, so Germany and France aren't in Europe?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Steinhäuser
(Note that he was stopped by a teacher brave enough to not be a victim)
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Durn
And that was with 30 seconds of Google-ing. I'm sure 5 minutes worth would dig up pages of results.
Take care getting off that high horse of yours.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
I never said I'm for banning guns. In fact, I'm in support of conceal/carry laws (though I think a permit should be required). People think *I'm* a nut for thinking that arming yourself around OSU is a good idea. I just find the idea that people would be bringing guns to class at 9am in blacksburg virginia to be strange, regardless of what laws they have, especially considering my experiences at a much much more dangerous college (we'd have a student or two killed almost every year, and countless assaults/rapes).
"Question with boldness even the existence of a god." - Thomas Jefferson
A graduate of Rutgers Engineering told me about another example of stress gone extreme.
Back in the early-to-mid 70s, an engineering student drove his car full speed up some steps and into the front of one of the engineering buildings. The steel doorframe stopped the car. Nobody was killed or injured.
When they asked why he did it, he said it was because he felt like it.
The grad who told me the story would not have done likewise but had a lot of sympathy/empathy for the kid who did it.
My heart goes out to the families and friends of all affected by today's tragedy.
Your post reminds me about a case I saw in the papers a while back.
A man from Newfoundland decided for whatever reason he was going to go out in a shooting rampage. He decided he'd commit the rampage in Toronto because he thought people weren't very nice there. So he was at a park in Toronto, car full of guns and ammo scouting out the scene before starting his rampage. As it happened a woman was walking her dog ended up having a friendly conversation with him. The man then decided that people were too nice to kill in Toronto as well and so he turned himself into police.
I stole this Sig
So, rather than taking the guns out of the hands of potential shooters you would increase the potential exponentially by placing a gun in the hand of every student on campus??!
Young persons + Drugs and Alcohol + University/School environment + Firearms for all = Not such a terribly bright idea
Remember, you've got to shoot first if you're to save yourself, this means shooting the moment you suspect that someone might be planning to pull a gun on you, holding them at gunpoint is fairly useless with this class of shooter as they're generally self-destructive as it is, they aren't about to stop.
And of course making guns the norm may well increase the likelihood that groups/gangs may form in order to carry out deranged fantasies.
I've tended to kick myself each time i find myself stereotyping the US as a nation of guncrazed maniacs but with attitudes like yours being modded up so heavily maybe it's true, I always thought it was protection of the right to bear arms, not a requirement to do so...
The United States has a great foundation myth of the ragtag band of civilians in the woods with substandard civilian weapons banding together and winning themselves a country (the now hated French have no role in the myth despite having a very major role). This story in my opinion is being used as an excuse for people to hide military sidearms in their jackets and just so they can feel strong. Your guns have not protected you from a ruler that has more authority than George III ever had, and your guns will not get rid of him, laws setting term limits will do that.
I really do not understand the obessession with the second amendment and with civilians carrying military weapons around even though I learned how to shoot a rifle at the age of seven.
I feel very sad after reading about this - and my thoughts are with the families and friends of those killed and injured.
How depressing.
What a waste.
What I want to add is that - from what I have personally seen - laws restricing firearms are not very helpful. I currently live in the Republic of Colombia, where not only are there very tight restrictions on civilian firearm ownership, there are very harsh penalties in place for violating those laws. Firearms are also ridiculously expensive, whether being legally sold by the Government or illegally by civilians.
Darn near everywhere you go down here (the movies, clubs, and on the road) you get patted down for guns, by private security, cops, or soldiers.
From what I have read about the topic, Colombia has had the dubious honor of having the highest murder rate in the world during many, many years.
Two of my cousins have been murdered, one was shot.
An acquaintance of mine was murdered - shot.
Granny's cleaning lady, her son, was murdered - shot.
I have personally seen the aftermath scenes of several shootings.
Have laws helped? Apparently not.
I agree with previous posters in that PEOPLE NEED TO BE NICE TO ONE ANOTHER - or at least civil.
People down here, for instance, are not nice - and the results are all over the local news, every single day.
What I aim to express with this post is that, from personal observation, laws do not make much difference - education and civil behavior make a difference.
MRH
SARAVA!
I don't know anything about Finland. I can speak about my experiences in high school in the USA.
People are racist. Almost every week I was called a "chink", "chingwah", "ching chong", etc.. Those were the nicer comments. This from everyone from blacks to whites to Hispanics. Almost every month someone would come up to me and slap me in the back of the head, spit on my head, steal my books. I was kicked in the hallways, had urine poured on me, had my work stolen and handed in by others as their own. The teachers didn't do a thing.
I was in honors classes and worked my ass off to do well. All the time I watched teachers turn the other way when their A students would cheat. Someone tried to cheat off my paper and *I* was written up. I've *never* cheated in my life but was written up anyway. The f*ckin football player threatened to kill me unless I let him cheat.
The only thing I pride myself on is that I had enormous amounts of self control. I endured it. I took it. And it ended. And luckily, college was a lot nicer to me. I met some interesting people, got laid finally, and realized that the nightmare was over. I realized that not everyone was evil, but just pushed into certain behaviours because it was cool to do so.
But two decades later, I still think about high school. I remember the rage I felt when some stupid kid, as small as I was, would punch me and I couldn't do a thing because he had his ten friends behind him. (And yeah, I fought back a few times and got beat down for it).
Truthfully, I don't know what I would have done if weapons were accessible to me. There are times when I shudder to think of what I would have done. I certainly had the rage.
The funny thing is that I own firearms now. But the thought of using them for defense has never crossed my mind. It's odd, but I feel an enormous amount of *peace* when I'm on the range. I don't know if it's the breathing or the self-imposed calm that you need when shooting, but it's almost a zen experience. There is ABSOLUTELY no rage when I shoot, just a perfect calm.
I have heard reports that the shooter's livejournal page is here.
From the profile:
Birthdate: 1984-02-22
NBC5 quotes a Chicago Sun-Times columnist Michael Sneed as saying the shooter was a 24 year old male student on a student visa from China.
Plus the livejournal I point to above is all about guns, killing, shooting, depression, etc... so it is a pretty decent first guess as to who the shooter might me?
I felt quite horrified reading the news this morning. Even here, the incident is frontpage news. The fact that my sister and her husband are both medical school students in the US brings the incident even closer home. Having never visited or lived in the US, I have a question in mind (which perhaps many other asian/other nationals also wonder).. Is the picture of school and college life in the US, painted in Hollywood movies, really a reflection of reality? Now, India itself is probably one of the world's worst countries to grow up in for children. (Yes, it is, ok? I'm not being anti-national when I say that!). In terms of health, nutrition, child labor and other measures of human development, we pretty much scrape the bottom of the barrel over and over every year. Even so, I have never seen or felt the kind of hostility, peer pressure to conform and mental stress that, going by movie/TV standards, children in the US seem to be subjected to. I mean a social tension, although I'm sure economical disparities and dynamics must contribute in many ways... Is it for real? Are families irrelevant, or a source of negative rather than positive emotion for a lot of young people? Do kids really grow up too early, too fast? (atleast, that's the way it looks to me on TV, maybe my outlook is provincial by world standards..). And is it really easy to get your hands on a gun? I'm sure I couldn't even find one today in Delhi (I'm 25 now) even if I tried hard, and I'm pretty sure I'm better off for it. Can you guys from the states give your perspective? And, indeed, how it's different in Europe and other developed nations?
Actually most schools actually ban firearms through their administrative code. I don't know about OSU, but here at WSU (Washington) firearms are not allowed on campus even with a permit. However I can tell you a lot of my friends carry anyway, and I know of 5 off hand that want it changed, and there's actually a student group moving for change now. Its not because we don't trust the other students, or we feel unsafe but we prefer to exercise our rights even if they deem it illegal. If you choose not to carry and you end up in a situation like that, you made the choice for yourself. However if someone else tells you, "NO YOU CANT CARRY" and then the shit hits the fan, its the person who banned the carry in the first place, because the outcome could have been different. Just because you're in a small town doesn't mean "It cant happen to you." Case in point recently there were a couple murders here in Pullman and Moscow.
I truthfully don't know how many would actually regularly carry, however most who go through the effort to get their CWP and the rest of it will carry just because.
People often ask me why I have a CWP and why I carry even in the middle of no where. This is my response:
"I would rather have it and not need it, than need it and not have it."
-PB_TPU_40 The trick to flying is to throw yourself at the ground and miss.
Criminality ridden city, weapons all around the place (in the hand of criminals and the police mostly).
We never ever had a "school shooting" (bar the students riots in 1968, the police's bullets marks were still there when I went to HIgh School, but you will concede that is slightly different).
Why?
Most people do not carry weapons.
Spin it any way you want, it is hard time you have a look at yourselves, the statistics and the derided ammendment in your constitution that allows things like this to happen.
I hear the argument that if you ban weapons only criminals will have them.
You know what? I have no problem with that.
As the situation in Mexico City probes, criminals are not interested in indiscriminate shootings, it is a "tool of the trade" and the immense majority of people in Mexico City will never see a gun in their lives.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Would you feel better if deaths happened by poisoning or hatchet perhaps? The problem is violence and murder, not gun violence.
In the UK it is national news when somebody gets stabbed to death, even more so when guns are involved (they are banned in the UK). We only have a few dozens of incidents per year in the whole country, most of them gang violence.The same is true for some parts of the US, and it's not like the UK has a lot of room to brag, compared to some places in Europe (like Sweden), including places with gun ownership rates similar to the US, the UK has extremely high levels of violent crime. In fact if you look at the whole world and compare rates of murder and violent crime you'll note something interesting. It correlates very strongly with some societal factors and very little with others. If there is any correlation between restrictive gun laws and violent crime, then statistics show that gun bans correlate with a slight increase in violent crime (barely within the range of significance).
The UK does have much lower rates of violent crime than the US. The UK also has socialized health care and drug treatment, which correlates very, very strongly with reduced violent crime. So logically, why would you assume gun laws had anything to do with it... or were you thinking logically?
The overwhelming majority of gun deaths in the U.S. are a direct result of the never-ending drug war (a.k.a. prohibition). Outside of known gang controlled "war zones" such things are actually quite rare.
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