Virginia Tech

[Smack 0]

Earlier this morning today on Monday, April 16th, 22 students were shot and killed with between 17 and 21 students wounded by a lone gunman at Virginia Tech (http://www.vt.edu/). It is the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history. It is unclear why the students were shot. Some students were shot in classrooms while others were in dormatories.This is obviously a great tragedy and we should keep these students and their families in our thoughts and prayers.http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/: CNN headline news reports that the student was looking for his girlfriend and was shooting people execution style.Counseling centers have been set up for the students and the college will likely remain closed for the week. The shooter is among those reported dead, yet it is unclear by whom he was shot.

Edited April 16, 2007 by Smack (see edit history)

[Watermonkey 0]

Classic gov't op. Multiple bomb threats for weeks. Cops just cower behind trees doing nothing for hours giving the bad guy more time to carry out his agenda. As of now, I'm hearing over 30 people dead at this time. There's no excuse for this kind of event in America where, supposedly, the right to keep and bear arms is protected for all citizens. Yet, no students were armed to defend themselves from some psycho with a firearm? Completely avoidable. We're a nation of wussies who are ready to be lined up and shot by ski mask wearing thugs.

[Smack 0]

While the right to bear arms is a good thing, it is also that type of thing that lead this to happen.Besides, I don't know anyone who would think it is a good idea for students to have guns in class. If students were carrying guns while they heard a gun shot, people would freak out and see others with guns *some took their gun out when they heard the first shots* and then you have innocent people getting shot. It would be mass chaos.It should be left up to the police to protect us when something like this happens.

[heavensounds 0]

Don't forget that a lot more people die EVERYDAY in IRAQ and it is not interesting enough to be put in the news by the media, BUT IT SHOULD BE!!!This is pure sensationalism and I say that with all respects to the victims and their loved ones. Best whishes

[Smack 0]

Don't forget that a lot more people die EVERYDAY in IRAQ and it is not interesting enough to be put in the news by the media, BUT IT SHOULD BE!!!
This is pure sensationalism and I say that with all respects to the victims and their loved ones.

Best whishes

Sensationalism you say? No, Anna Nicole's story was sensationalism. This is real news. And people dying in Iraq is on the news everyday - body counts aren't reported enough though, especially the Iraqi civillian deathcounts.

Edit: By the way the Virginia Tech death count is now at 31.
Edited April 16, 2007 by Smack (see edit history)

[Imtay22 0]

That was mean... Why would he shoot so many people just for that purpose? I mean, 31 killed, and 17- 21 wounded? I can't stand Guns . Please world, don't kill me!

[Thorned Rose 0]

It saddens me that this comes as no great surprise. I live in New Zealand where this kind of thing is non-existent. What's also virtually non-existent is the use of firearms.

There's no excuse for this kind of event in America where, supposedly, the right to keep and bear arms is protected for all citizens. Yet, no students were armed to defend themselves from some psycho with a firearm?

It is exactly this attitude and culture in America that is causing so much trouble. "It's our god-given right".... since when is it any one's 'right' to own something that has the sole purpose of maiming and killing other people?! Truly, the stupidity is beyond my comprehension.As for Iraq, Anna Nicole, high school shootouts - they are ALL sensationalised. People watch their tv screens with bated breath for updates and the latest tolls or scandals. Nobody sees the true reality. War? - When you have a war in which thousands more innocent people die than soldiers, you know what you are doing is wrong.
Where is the story about the pregnant woman who had a mortar land beside her that blew her unborn child a hundred feet away? - that's the reality of war. Where is the story about an entire village that was gassed - a woman fallen where she stood still hugging her dead baby in her arms? - that's war. Where is the story of the little girl with diabetes lapsing into a coma because the war has cut of her supply off insulin? - that's war. Where is the story of the man who's family is now starving to death because he had both his legs and an arm blown off? - that's war! And people want to mope and complain about the number of their soldiers dying?! They *chose* to join the army so they *chose* to potentially die. I feel sorry for their families but I have no sympathy for soldiers fighting a war in which so many innocent people are losing their lives.
The boxing day Tsunami - the press was all over it. Sudan - the press was all over it. Where are the press now? Thousands of people are still dying every day - more than in Iraq or by guns or anything else and nobody gives a damn any more. Where is the story of the mother who's baby was murdered by genocidal soldiers? Or the story of the father who lost his wife and children because they starved to death? You don't hear their stories because they aren't in the good ol' USofA!

Don't get me wrong. I feel a great amount of sympathy for the people at the highschool and their families. It just doesn't surprise me anymore.

[FolkRockFan 0]

Actually, Thorned Rose, today's shooting happened at a university - a school that's received multiple bomb threats over the last couple of weeks or so. I realize that hoaxes happen at college (some students will phone in false threats just to get out of taking the dreaded mid-term exam that day), but multiple threats? Campus LEO ignored the calls and, as a result, many people are dead. I for one want the rest of the U.S. to follow Utah's lead. There, people who have concealed handgun permits can carry concealed weapons on campus. Because obtaining a CHL requires classroom time, training and a *very* thorough background check, it is very rare that an irresponsible person or a filthy criminal is licensed to carry.Think of it this way: if even ONE student living in the Virginia Tech dorms had kept a hunting rifle in his or her dorm room, this horrifying event might have been less tragic. It only takes one: one crazy to launch a massacre...and one law-abiding citizen to stop the attack.

[Watermonkey 0]

While the right to bear arms is a good thing, it is also that type of thing that lead this to happen.
Besides, I don't know anyone who would think it is a good idea for students to have guns in class.

If students were carrying guns while they heard a gun shot, people would freak out and see others with guns *some took their gun out when they heard the first shots* and then you have innocent people getting shot. It would be mass chaos.

It should be left up to the police to protect us when something like this happens.

The courts determined years ago the police are not obligated to protect citizens. I used to go to a community college and then the University. I didn't own a handgun when I went to CC, but at the U, I bought a little 9mm that I still own and I conceal-carried it all the time on campus and in class. Strangely, miraculously even, not a shot was ever fired. But if some sicko were to storm in shooting random people, at least there would have been a chance of him being stopped in his tracks. This University allowed students to conceal carry on campus, but they had to apply for a special permit, which I never applied for.

[FolkRockFan 0]

The students on the Virginia campus left their personal defense to the police. More than thirty of them are dead now because the campus police - and local law enforcement - could not get there or execute a plan fast enough to save them. Every student in the dorm and classroom buildings sat there in lockdown, waiting to either be rescued or be shot. I'm not saying that law enforcement is bad. We need them and many do good jobs. But these men and women can't shadow us all twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, to keep us safe. It's on each of us to do everything that we can to defend and protect ourselves.We pay attention to our surroundings so that we can avoid walking into a convenience store that is being held up by a psychotic robber.We learn martial arts so that we can fight back if somebody grabs us.We invest in good door locks, windows and other home-security measures.We carry handguns, knives, OC spray, et cetera because all of these solutions are a lot faster and more reliable than calling 911.Besides: not everybody lives within half a block of a police station. I live in the middle of nowhere. As such, I'm under the county's jurisdiction: there is no local police force in my area. The Sheriff's Department can't get here in under TWO HOURS, even for EMERGENCIES (assault in progress, for example - that time a deputy was out here in about two and a half hours).

[Thorned Rose 0]

Actually, Thorned Rose, today's shooting happened at a university

Duly noted not that it makes any difference

 

I really wish Americans would get over the moronic idea that to solve gun problems you need more guns. Like I said, in New Zealand not even the police carry side-arms and gun-related injuries and deaths are virtually non-existent (mostly hunting accidents). Not to mention the fact that America has the highest rate of gun related injuries and deaths per capita in the western world! Also not to mention the fact that research has shown that there is a direct correlation between gun related injuries/deaths and gun ownership. If you don't know what correlate means, here's the 411: the more guns people own = the more injuries/deaths you get. Irrefutable proof that increasing gun ownership DOES NOT WORK!

 

Take a lesson from the rest of the world and get over your testosterone filled, self righteous, patriotically deluded and idiotic ideas about gun ownership. You DO NOT have the right to own a 'weapon of mass killing'!

[Watermonkey 0]

Duly noted not that it makes any difference

 

I really wish Americans would get over the moronic idea that to solve gun problems you need more guns. Like I said, in New Zealand not even the police carry side-arms and gun-related injuries and deaths are virtually non-existent (mostly hunting accidents). Not to mention the fact that America has the highest rate of gun related injuries and deaths per capita in the western world! Also not to mention the fact that research has shown that there is a direct correlation between gun related injuries/deaths and gun ownership. If you don't know what correlate means, here's the 411: the more guns people own = the more injuries/deaths you get. Irrefutable proof that increasing gun ownership DOES NOT WORK!

 

Take a lesson from the rest of the world and get over your testosterone filled, self righteous, patriotically deluded and idiotic ideas about gun ownership. You DO NOT have the right to own a 'weapon of mass killing'!

Your attitude is based on the false assumption that what works on your little island would work in America. Further you seem to be suffering from a Superiority complex. I think you'd be wise no stop shooting your mouth off and if you've got some statistics to throw out, then source them. Otherwise you're just another self-inflated pompous jerk with a fake English accent wearing rose-colored glasses. If you want real cause and effect statistics from real science, go read John Lott's, More Guns, Less Crime. The numbers don't lie. The areas in the United States where carrying concealed is allowed are the areas with less crime. Period, end of story. Those areas that have strick (illegal) laws prohibiting gun ownership or prohibit concealed carry such as Chicago, NYC, and Washington District of Columbia have enormously high crime and notoriously high gun crimes. (England has seen a recent rise in gun and projectile weapon crimes too, though such things are quite outlawed there...) Ironic, isn't it, that those places where guns are outlawed have the highest rates of gun-related crime... Makes a thinking, rational person think... Or at least it should.

 

Oh, and, regarding "weapon if mass killing", is that your own invention? Not very clever... You see, a hand gun only holds between 8 and 16 rounds normally and even military rifles only hold up to 25 rounds per magazine typically. And, contrary to what you see on TV and in the movies, kill shots are not very frequent at all. That thing in Tasmania a few years ago that caused the whole country to piss and moan and turn in all their guns? That guy had a nearly 100% kill ratio. Experts have gone on record as saying he was obviously not the guy who took the fall for it. The guy who actually shot all those people was a top notch world class marksman! Even a cop, someone you'd expect to be able to hit his target fairly frequently, would've only gotten about half of those people. It's not so easy, as just "point and shoot" like some cheap camera. So with a pistol with 10 rounds in the mag and one in the chamber in the hands of someone with no experience shooting live people, in a crowd or whatnot, maybe one or two would die at most. The only reason so many died at Virginia Tech this morning is because the assailant apparently lined people up against walls and shot each of them at close range one at a time. Thing I can't figure is they didn't even try to defend themselves. A group of people could rush a person like that and take him down. Yeah, a few might die in the process, but they're dead anyway, nothing to lose at that point. Your use of that idiotic phrase shows you're totally ignorant of the whole "gun thing" and you're just trying to be sensationalist like some cheap media *BLEEP*. I guess your sole source of information on this topic of discussion is from the likes of the "Brady Foundation" (now known as VPC) and their ilk. That's exactly what they do. They climb upon the stack of dead bodies (figuratively) and preach gun control. All the while, their bodyguards are carrying full auto machine guns...

Edited April 16, 2007 by Watermonkey (see edit history)

[czrrr 0]

I go to a school right next to VA tech.. crazy stuff..

quoting yahoo :

BLACKSBURG, Va. - A gunman opened fire in a Virginia Tech dorm and then, two hours later, shot up a classroom building across campus Monday, killing 32 people in the deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history. The gunman committed suicide, bringing the death toll to 33.ADVERTISEMENT

Students bitterly complained that there were no public-address announcements on campus after the first burst of gunfire. Many said the first word they received from the university was an e-mail more than two hours into the rampage around the time the gunman struck again.

Virginia Tech President Charles Steger said authorities believed that the shooting at the dorm was a domestic dispute and mistakenly thought the gunman had fled the campus.

"We had no reason to suspect any other incident was going to occur," he said.

He defended the university's handling of the tragedy, saying: "We can only make decisions based on the information you had on the time. You don't have hours to reflect on it."

Investigators offered no motive for the attack. The gunman's name was not immediately released, and it was not known if he was a student.

The shootings spread panic and confusion on campus. Witnesses reporting students jumping out the windows of a classroom building to escape the gunfire. SWAT team members with helmets, flak jackets and assault rifles swarmed over the campus. Students and faculty members carried out some of the wounded themselves, without waiting for ambulances to arrive. A student used his cell-phone camera to record the sound of shots echoing through the stone classroom building.

The massacre took place at opposite sides of the 2,600-acre campus, beginning at about 7:15 a.m. at West Ambler Johnston, a coed dormitory that houses 895 people, and continuing at least two hours later at Norris Hall, an engineering building about a half-mile away, authorities said.

Two people were killed in a dormitory room, and 31 others were killed in the classroom building, including the gunman, police said.

"Today the university was struck with a tragedy that we consider of monumental proportions," Steger said. "The university is shocked and indeed horrified."

Steger emphasized that the university closed off the dorm after the first attack and decided to rely on e-mail and other electronic means to notify members of the university, but with 11,000 people driving onto campus first thing in the morning, it was difficult to get the word out. He said that before the e-mail went out, the university began telephoning resident advisers in the dorms to notify them and sent people to knock on doors to spread the word.

Virginia Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum would not say how many weapons the gunman carried. But a law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation was incomplete, said that the gunman had two pistols and multiple clips of ammunition.

Flinchum said that some doors in the classroom building had been chained shut from the inside.

Police said they were still investigating the shooting at the dorm when they got word of gunfire at the classroom building.

Some students bitterly questioned why the gunman was able to strike a second time.

"What happened today, this was ridiculous," student Jason Piatt told CNN. "While they send out that e-mail, 20 more people got killed."

Students and Laura Wedin, a student programs manager at Virginia Tech, said the first notification they got of the shootings came in an e-mail at 9:26 a.m., more than two hours after the first shooting.

The e-mail had few details. It read: "A shooting incident occurred at West Amber Johnston earlier this morning. Police are on the scene and are investigating." The message warned students to be cautious and contact police about anything suspicious.

Student Maurice Hiller said he went to a 9 a.m. class two buildings away from the engineering building, and no warnings were coming over the outdoor public address system on campus at the time.

Everett Good, junior, said of the lack of warning: "I'm trying to figure that out. Someone's head is definitely going to roll over that."

"We were kept in the dark a lot about exactly what was going on," said Andrew Capers Thompson, a 22-year-old graduate student from Walhalla, S.C.

At an evening news conference, the university president and police chief said they were still investigating whether the shootings at the dorm and the classroom building were related. But earlier in the day, the chief said he believed there was only one gunman, and he was dead.

Edmund Henneke, associate dean of engineering, said he was in the classroom building and he and colleagues had just read the e-mail advisory regarding the first shooting and were discussing it when he heard gunfire. He said moments later SWAT team members rushed them downstairs "but the doors were chained and padlocked from the inside." They left the building through a construction area that had not been locked.

Henneke said it is unfair to criticize the school over the delay in warning.

"People are absolutely making too much of that. You do what you can," Henneke said. "We have a huge campus. You have to close down a small town and you can't close down every way in or out."

At least 26 people were being treated at three area hospitals for gunshot wounds and other injuries, authorities said. Their exact conditions were not disclosed, but at least one was sent to a trauma center and six were in surgery, authorities said.

Up until Monday, the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history was in Killeen, Texas, in 1991, when George Hennard plowed his pickup truck into a Luby's Cafeteria and shot 23 people to death, then himself.

The massacre Monday took place almost eight years to the day after the Columbine High bloodbath near Littleton, Colo. On April 20, 1999, two teenagers killed 12 fellow students and a teacher before taking their own lives.

Previously, the deadliest campus shooting in U.S. history was a rampage that took place in 1966 at the University of Texas at Austin, where Charles Whitman climbed the clock tower and opened fire with a rifle from the 28th-floor observation deck. He killed 16 people before he was shot to death by police.

Founded in 1872, Virginia Tech is nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains of southwestern Virginia, about 160 miles west of Richmond. With more than 25,000 full-time students, it has the state's largest full-time student population. The school is best known for its engineering school and its powerhouse Hokies football team.

The rampage took place on a brisk spring day, with snow flurries swirling around the campus. The campus is centered around the Drill Field, a grassy field where military cadets who now represent a fraction of the student body practice. The dorm and the classroom building are on opposites sides of the Drill Field.

A gasp could be heard at a campus news conference early in the day when the police chief announced that at least 20 people had been killed. Previously, only one person was thought to have been killed.

A White House spokesman said
President Bush was horrified by the rampage and offered his prayers to the victims and the people of Virginia. "The president believes that there is a right for people to bear arms, but that all laws must be followed," spokeswoman Dana Perino said

After the shootings, all entrances to the campus were closed, and classes were canceled through Tuesday. The university set up a meeting place for families to reunite with their children. It also made counselors available and planned an assembly for Tuesday at the basketball arena.

After the shooting began, students were told to stay inside away from the windows.

Aimee Kanode, a freshman from Martinsville, said the shooting happened on the fourth floor of West Ambler Johnston dormitory, one floor above her room. Kanode's resident assistant knocked on her door about 8 a.m. to notify students to stay put.

Police said there had been bomb threats on campus over the past two weeks by authorities but said they have not determined a link to the shootings.

It was second time in less than a year that the campus was closed because of a shooting.

Last August, the opening day of classes was canceled and the campus closed when an escaped jail inmate allegedly killed a hospital guard off campus and fled to the Tech area. A sheriff's deputy involved in the manhunt was killed on a trail just off campus. The accused gunman, William Morva, faces capital murder charges.

as I said before... crazy stuff...

Notice from jlhaslip:

Please use bbcode Quote tags when you copy from other sources. Added Tags.
And please post in the already started topics. Moved, merged.

[Smack 0]

Your attitude is based on the false assumption that what works on your little island would work in America. Further you seem to be suffering from a Superiority complex. I think you'd be wise no stop shooting your mouth off and if you've got some statistics to throw out, then source them. Otherwise you're just another self-inflated pompous jerk with a fake English accent wearing rose-colored glasses. If you want real cause and effect statistics from real science, go read John Lott's, More Guns, Less Crime. The numbers don't lie. The areas in the United States where carrying concealed is allowed are the areas with less crime. Period, end of story. Those areas that have strick (illegal) laws prohibiting gun ownership or prohibit concealed carry such as Chicago, NYC, and Washington District of Columbia have enormously high crime and notoriously high gun crimes. Ironic, isn't it, that those places where guns are outlawed have the highest rates of gun-related crime... Makes a thinking rational person think... Or at least it should.

Thorned Rose does not seem to have a superiority complex, my friend you seem to be the one. You insult him saying he has an accent.. this is a forum is it not? Anyways.

 

You demand links to prove his numbers yet you don't provide any for yours, just say buy this book? I'd rather not.

 

But since you want some kind of 'proof.'

 

While advocates of relaxed concealed weapons laws promise the public protection from crime, Texas DPS data details the day-to-day, real-world effect of such laws: they arm criminals and threaten public safety. All too often, concealed carry license holders don't stop crimes, but commit them. In light of the findings of this study, and previous studies conducted by the Violence Policy Center of the Texas and Florida concealed weapons laws, the VPC strongly recommends against the adoption of concealed carry licensing in any additional states and urges states that have passed such laws to repeal them.

Links to VPC studies: More Guns, More Crime, Liscense to Kill, A Look at Firearm deaths in America

 

A poll showing who owns guns.

 

Gallup poll for gun topics.

More specifically:

Do you think schools would be safer places or more dangerous places if school officials were armed with guns?

 

Safer - 22%

More dangerous - 73%

Depends - 2

No opinion - 3

 

2005 Apr 4-7

And I've ran across a website that counters Lott's Book. Lott's of errors.

 

And last, because I'm tired of looking for things like this.. guncite

[Watermonkey 0]

Thorned Rose does not seem to have a superiority complex, my friend you seem to be the one. You insult him saying he has an accent.. this is a forum is it not? Anyways.
You demand links to prove his numbers yet you don't provide any for yours, just say buy this book? I'd rather not.

But since you want some kind of 'proof.'

Links to VPC studies: More Guns, More Crime, Liscense to Kill, A Look at Firearm deaths in America

A poll showing who owns guns.

Gallup poll for gun topics.
More specifically:
And I've ran across a website that counters Lott's Book. Lott's of errors.

And last, because I'm tired of looking for things like this.. guncite

In that I'm someone who won't line up against a wall to wait for someone to shoot me, I'm someone who'll take my personal defense in my own hands, I AM SUPERIOR to the worm who'll cry and whimper about how evil guns are and how it's a tragedy and how if we only had more gun restrictions these things wouldn't happen... Yeah, you read that right, in that respect you're damn right I'm superior! Want me to say it again? Did you get that message?

Tell me honestly: How exactly are people suppose to be protected from other people when they don't have the same level playing field? Do you really believe it's going to turn out alright when someone goes to a gunfight with a squirt gun? Are the results predictable? Is a government agency motivated to follow the law when they've got all the guns and the citizens have none? Did you pay any attention when the FBI and ATF killed men, women, and children at the Branch Davidian Compound in Waco, TX? Doesn't it seem kinda strange to you they went to all that trouble over a simple warrant they could've served any time when Koresch was in town jogging or shopping? They were sending the rest of the country a message: We are above the law, we can kill children with impunity, and there's nothing you can do about it. And you know what? We've become so weak as a nation, I'm afraid they're right! Of course the Davidians were armed so Janet's boys had to bring in tanks, helicopters machine guns, and CS gas to get the job done. You remember that don't you?
Edited April 17, 2007 by Watermonkey (see edit history)