Another school shooting, Virginia

[InfiniteNow]

Which regurgitates my point that while the media fixated on Don Imus for an entire week, crucifying his "Nappy headed Ho" comment, that its pretty much just bullshit becuz' this is the reality of the world.. where people get KILLED!

If you're "deeply Offended" by a comment, then you need to wake the hell up!

Look around.

 

How did he kill 32 people with a 9mm handgun?? he must have reloaded the clip..

 

Yes, he killed a few people in the dormatory area around 7am, then multiple people, in four distinct classrooms, starting somewhere around 9am. Those that were sent to the hospital EACH had at least three bullet wounds, indicating that he did not just shoot randomly, but targetted his victims before pulling the trigger. I'd say, especially considering 1) the time gap between dorm and classroom, 2) the number of classrooms involved, and 3) the number of wounds inflicted per victim... that it's very likely he was aware of what he was doing and reloaded his weapon consciously.

 

We need to understand the root causes of the angst of our people, recognize that this did not happen because he was Korean, and question certain aspects of the availability of death inducing weapons.

 

And even Don Imus falls into that "root causes of the angst" category.

[maikeru]

Well, until the Second Amendment is amended, perhaps we should be looking at what is driving these kids to do such a thing. No sane, well adjusted, content person is really going to decide to kill a bunch of people, and perhaps themselves, today. This all goes far deeper than gun laws - society is in trouble for many other reasons.

 

It'll be hard, if not almost impossible, to amend the Second Amendment. Like the First Amendment, its cousin, it is seen as fundamental to American rights and society.

 

First Amendment to the United States Constitution - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

It's easier to jump to the moon than to change the Constitution of the USA.

 

Society is in trouble, and all societies have been in trouble since they began but some worse than others. It's my opinion that America needs to have a long, overdue talk with itself.

[maikeru]

AFAIK most other school mass murders in the US have been performed by US kids so your reasoning has little bearing on what happened at Virginia Tech.

 

Yes, I agree. Banning gun ownership to immigrants or non-citizens won't help much. Much more important are restricting gun availability to the wrong people, and discovering, recognizing, and solving the circumstances and mentality that drive people to commit acts like this.

[Ganoderma]

Well, until the Second Amendment is amended, perhaps we should be looking at what is driving these kids to do such a thing. No sane, well adjusted, content person is really going to decide to kill a bunch of people, and perhaps themselves, today. This all goes far deeper than gun laws - **society is in trouble for many other reasons**.

 

indeed.

[Southtown]

God bless the families. I just can't imagine.

 

Names of Victims at Virginia Tech | World Latest | Guardian Unlimited

 

Monomer hit it on the head. My son is 5, and he sees all people in terms of good and bad. He's always pretending like he's shooting bad guys, and he's always asking if one of his friends are 'bad' because they do or say certain things. He gets it from watching tv, and it scares me that the industrial world may be subconsciously bred for war with imaginary adversaries-to-be.

 

God help us all.

[Turtle]

My son is 5, and he sees all people in terms of good and bad. He's always pretending like he's shooting bad guys, and he's always asking if one of his friends are 'bad' because they do or say certain things. He gets it from watching tv, and it scares me that the industrial world may be subconsciously bred for war with imaginary adversaries-to-be.

God help us all.

 

As was the pre-industrial world subjected to such imagery by the best communication means of their days. For good ol' historical show-quality brutality, good-vs-bad, the brothers Grimm & the Bible come quickly to mind. No doubt merely my Western bias; choose your favorite culture & time. So it goes. :cocktail:

[Mercedes Benzene]

Perhaps the saddest part of this incident is not the sheer number of people who died, but the number of miraculously gifted people who should have lead a full prosperous life.

One student was a senior, getting ready to graduate, who had a 4.0 GPA (:cocktail:), a triple major (:cheer:), and was getting ready to puruse a Ph.D. (:doh:).

This is so tragic. :Clown:

[IMAMONKEY!]

Has anyone seen how sick in the head this kid was?

 

Cho Seung Hui- Richard McBeef - AOL News

 

Cho Seung Hui- Mr. Brownstone, by Seung Cho, Title Page - AOL News

 

those are two *plays* that he wrote... Read them and you'll realize just how much of a nutbar he truly was...

 

I have a simple solution to problems like these; you see someone acting funny and they're always quiet and never have any friends: TELL SOMEONE. Get them to counseling... for pity's sake they were talking about it in the news article. Students saw that this kid seemed depressed and never had any friends... loners like him scare me because they never have anything to lose... :cocktail:

[CraigD]

How did he kill 32 people with a 9mm handgun?? he must have reloaded the clip..

Although many/most journalists refer to them as “clips”, the removable device that holds the ammunition in modern semiautomatic handgun is called a magazine, or “mag”. A clip is a device that holds cartridges together so that they can be more easily inserted into a magazine, which is usually (but not always) removed before firing.

 

The confusion of magazines and clips appears to be due to the popularization of phrases like “pass me a clip” in books and movies about WW I and WW II, where many weapons had non-removable magazines, and soldiers carried ammunition into battle in clips. The misuse has been perpetuated by its use subsequent movies and games. In my experience, it almost never occurs among firearm experts and enthusiasts.

Yes, he killed a few people in the dormatory area around 7am, then multiple people, in four distinct classrooms, starting somewhere around 9am.

2 people were killed around 7:15 AM at West Ambler Johnston Dormitory. Although details remain vague and contradictory, the first reports of shooting at Norris Hall, where all the other killing appear to have occurred, was at 9:45 AM. Cho Seung-hui was reportedly seen at Norris Hall at 9:05. Police report that “the gunman” is dead at 9:55 AM. (sources: WDBJ7 Roanoke News and Weather NRV Lynchburg Danville WDBJ 7 | Timeline of Virginia Tech Shooting Spree, Timeline: How deadly shooting unfolded - Massacre at Virginia Tech - MSNBC.com).

[CraigD]

Although many have suggested that Cho’s actions are emblematic of deep-rooted societal problems in the US and/or Korean and the world, I disagree. Although the 2006 US per-capita murder rate has increased slightly since 2004 (from 5.50 to 5.90 /100,000), it is far from its 1980 maximum (10.22). From 1990 to 2000, US murder rates decreased dramatically (from 9.79 to 5.54). (Source: United States Crime Rates 1960 - 2005)

 

College students, most of whom are between 18 and 24 and living somewhat independently for the first time in their lives, are one of the most vulnerable populations to mental health problems, including the terrible kind that lead to actions such as Cho’s. Murders among this population are disproportionately high when compared to its wealth and education, factors that strongly tend to lower a populations murder rate. Although measure can be and are taken to address this, the heightened psychiatric vulnerability of the 18-24 population must, IMHO, be accepted as an innate human trait.

 

Although a heightened risk of violence must, I think, be accepted, this does not mean that a heightened expectation of violence must be. Reading the emerging information about Cho (such as this msnbc article), I am appalled by the similarity of it to my personal experience with a 1985 campus murder in one very specific area: the failure of school-provided mental health care. In Cho’s case a professor of Cho’s (Lucinda Roy) was so concerned with his mental health and behavior that she had him removed from her class, and encouraged him to visit a school counselor to the extent of offering to accompany him. According to Roy, Cho refused, and was told by counselors that he could not be forced into counceling. In my experience, the eventual killer confided in me his emotional distress, and voluntarily attended sessions both with a school counselor and with an off-campus psychotherapist to whom the counselor referred him, yet still wound up stalking and killing another student. In this case, the killer actually attacked his victim a year before the murder, resulting in the injury of several people including him and his victim and an appearance in criminal court, but no court-ordered action.

 

What these and other campus murders have in common is the availability of mental health services and legal processes that could have prevented them, but the failure of these services and processes to do so. Rather than looking to ban (or, as some have suggested, promote the increased carrying of) firearms, I believe the most effective action that can be taken to prevent future tragedies of this kind are for schools to adopt policies by which clearly troubled students can be compelled to attend counseling and therapy as a condition of their continued attendance. Though, as my experience shows, such therapy is not assured to prevent these tragedies, it can, I believe, greatly decrease their likelihood.

[maikeru]

Has anyone seen how sick in the head this kid was?

 

Cho Seung Hui- Richard McBeef - AOL News

 

Cho Seung Hui- Mr. Brownstone, by Seung Cho, Title Page - AOL News

 

those are two *plays* that he wrote... Read them and you'll realize just how much of a nutbar he truly was...

 

I never saw anything remotely like these in the student short stories and plays I read in my creative writing and fiction classes. Disturbing.:)

[TheBigDog]

Deeply disturbing and saddening. There is so much on my mind that it is probably best to not comment too much until the emotion has had a chance to subside.

 

When I was seven my dad gave me my first gun. A 1902 model Winchester .22 rifle with an 18" barrel. It had been given to him by his father when he was six. I was too small to shoulder it, so he cut the stock down for me. My fingers were not strong enough to cock it, but he let me keep it in my room to practice. Along with the gun cam very grave instructions about responsibility.

 

I was never to load it.

I was never to point it at a person.

I was always to treat the gun as though it was loaded, even when I knew it was not.

I was never allowed to use the gun like a toy, it was a tool.

 

These lessons are etched in my brain and my behavior. It is unfortunate that this type of respect for the power of an object is lost in much of today's society. I remember sitting at my in-law's kitchen table a few years ago. My wife's cousin was over. He had just bought a small pistol. He sat at the table habitually cocking and dry firing the thing without a care about where it was pointed. I asked him about gun safety and he spouted off about how safe he is while he continued to point and click with the pistol. I reached out and asked if I could see it and he let me. I sat and gazed at it, keeping it out of his hands for as long as I could. My father-in-law asked for it and began doing the same click fire thing. The man is legally blind, and he had been drinking. I didn't care that I knew the gun was unloaded. It is a damn shame when adults who should be role models of behavior act that way in from of kids who should be taught safe handling of weapons in both theory and in practice. I packed up the family and left. I apparently offended some people, **** them.

 

I have chosen to not keep guns in my house since I have had kids. I have tried to instill the same values in them about handling guns, but it is difficult when you don't have any. Part of the reason for not keeping a gun (a big part) is #2, my 2nd oldest son. He suffers from mental illness that causes him to have very poor impulse control at times. As he has gotten older, and his medications have balanced out, his impulse control has improved, but I would not feel safe having a weapon within his reach. As a parent I would sign any slip that would prevent him from ever purchasing a firearm because I don't think he could exhibit the maturity needed to use it correctly. He is not by his nature violent, or malicious. But he is also not always in control of his faculties. And when he goes over the deep end into paranoia and delusion, the last thing he needs is a gun within reach. The killer in VA seems like he may have been in a similar boat. I guess we will learn more with time.

 

One last thought, there were 32 people gunned down in cold blood in Virginia. America weeps, the world is aware. The psychopath who did it will be examined and analyzed every which way for the next few months by every interested party in the whole world. Suddenly because of this act there are deficiencies in our laws and out society that need to be fixed. We must examine our values and figure out how to keep this from happening again. The "killer profile" will be talked about at length as intellectuals try and isolate the demented before they can strike. This looks very much like a freak incident yet we will move mountains to isolate the root cause and stop it.

 

This week in Iraq a woman strapped a bomb to her body and walked into a group of young men lined up to join the security forces of their country. They were killed in cold blood. They were trying to do their part to make the crazy world they live in safer for themselves and their families. This has been happening more than weekly for a couple of years, dwarfing the tragedy of Virginia, yet it is a footnote in the news, another tally of bodies at the hands of terrorists. I weep for the Iraqi people who are fighting for the safety of their families who face these senseless acts of terror as a constant presence in their life. It solidifies in my mind the importance of focusing on evil that can be identified and can be profiled and can be stopped.

 

It is senseless violence that is the enemy of peace. It is killing of innocents to perpetuate fear that is the prime evil in the world. If the killer from Virginia Tech was the member of a movement, all sworn to commit similar acts of violence, would we hesitate to take swift action against them now? Yet we pause when a culture of terror propagates hate and breeds fear and suckles their young on genocide, and we contort ourselves over hurting the feelings of those who have already sworn to eradicate us, or hurting the feelings of those who sympathize about eradicating us, or hurting anyone's feelings lest that tip them into a killing spree that they just can't help themselves from doing, after all we are so damn evil for just existing.

 

I weep for the dead unspoken for. Just numbers to be tallied and written on protest signs. They are the ones who the living owe the actions of justice and freedom, not surrendering to fear and letting anarchy rule the future.

 

This was a ****ed up week.

 

Bill

[Turtle]

As was the pre-industrial world subjected to such imagery by the best communication means of their days. For good ol' historical show-quality brutality, good-vs-bad, the brothers Grimm & the Bible come quickly to mind. No doubt merely my Western bias; choose your favorite culture & time. So it goes. :)

 

I pick here and now. The newest reports now feature the contents of a package that the murderer sent to NBC News headquarters in New York City. It contains still photos, videos, and written text. So my question is, why did NBC go through & copy it before handing it over to law enforcement as evidence? Who made that decision at NBC? Is NBC charging other outlets to use this material? Brian Williams says they will have more tomorrow after they go through it to spare us the worst! WTF!!!!!????

 

Just curious ;) ,

Turtle :)

[Racoon]

I pick here and now. The newest reports now feature the contents of a package that the murderer sent to NBC News headquarters in New York City. It contains still photos, videos, and written text. So my question is, why did NBC go through & copy it before handing it over to law enforcement as evidence? Who made that decision at NBC? Is NBC charging other outlets to use this material? Brian Williams says they will have more tomorrow after they go through it to spare us the worst! WTF!!!!!????

 

Just curious :) ,

Turtle :)

 

 

Journalism my dear Turtle.

 

They have a package that CBS, ABC, CNN, and Fox did not get...

 

Tradgedy makes for great News coverage. Even greater if you got the inside scoop.

Of course they copied everything before handing it over to the FBI.

 

Make$ perfect $ense

[Turtle]

I pick here and now. The newest reports now feature the contents of a package that the murderer sent to NBC News headquarters in New York City. It contains still photos, videos, and written text. So my question is, why did NBC go through & copy it before handing it over to law enforcement as evidence? Who made that decision at NBC? Is NBC charging other outlets to use this material? Brian Williams says they will have more tomorrow after they go through it to spare us the worst! WTF!!!!!????

 

Just curious,

Turtle :hihi:

 

Turtle Journalism my dear Turtle.

 

They have a package that CBS, ABC, CNN, and Fox did not get...

 

Tradgedy makes for great News coverage. Even greater if you got the inside scoop.

Of course they copied everything before handing it over to the FBI.

 

Make$ perfect $ense

 

Let the backlash begin! NBC has now withdrawn the materials from broadcast after receiving a flood of negative feedback from families of victims et al. Glad it's not just me. Still, I gotta wonder how much they collected in royalties while it lasted? Who makes this decision at NBC? :(

[CraigD]

Let the backlash begin! NBC has now withdrawn the materials [Cho’s “multimedia manifesto”] from broadcast after receiving a flood of negative feedback from families of victims et al. Glad it's not just me.

I’m glad to hear that the material has been withdrawn, and regret that it was shown when it was.

 

I agree with one of the commentators interviewed on MSNBC news that the visceral, visual nature of the material poses an unacceptable risk of spurring mentally imbalanced viewers to violence, in a way that printed and spoken description of it would not. IMHO, MSNBC should have acknowledged receiving the materials, published transcripts of its written parts and detailed, unemotional textual descriptions of its visual contents available, and broadcast excerpts of these, but not shown the pictures themselves. I was particularly appalled by the images of people in restaurants, bars, and other public places in Blacksburg watching Cho’s pictures on TV screens, a tactic I consider barely better than showing autopsy photos to surviving relatives while filming their reactions.

Still, I gotta wonder how much they collected in royalties while it lasted?

I’m unsure, legally, if anyone can claim any royalties from this material. If they have an implied legal copyright holder, I suspect it is the estate of their author, Cho Seung-hui’s family. To the best of my knowledge, Virginia has no “Son of Sam Law” forfeiting criminals’ rights to intellectual property, while New York does, but with very specific restriction that I don’t believe would act in MSNBC’s favor, so unless MSNBC obtained the permission of Cho’s family prior to showing the material, or can argue that his sending them to them implies a binding “all-for-us, none-for-you” contract, and that Cho was competent to make such a contract, I believe they may owe royalties.

 

It would please me if MSNBC and other deep-pocketed news organizations that showed these images were made to pay dearly for their use, and the money used to memorialize the massacre’s victims, compensate their families, and finance research and programs to prevent repeats of the tragedy. Not only could this help past and potential future victims, it would offer Cho’s family a powerful means of apologizing for their son’s abominable behavior, generally increase the good will of humankind, and allow bad to be put to good.

 

I just finished speaking with my mother, who was in Blacksburg today. In her opinion, after the late Cho, residents’ condemnation is strongest for large (but not small) news agencies, then visiting politicians. Although I find no mention of it in the news, according to her, President Bush’s visit provoked angry outbursts and threads, including a bomb threat that forced changes in his itinerary.

 

Those seeking to benefit financially or politically from this tragedy should be wary - Blacksburg is not a stupid community, and is not at present in a good mood.