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Post by takilasunrise on Apr 16, 2007 14:24:24 GMT -5
I'm sure most of you have already heard about it........... news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070416/ap_on_re_us/virginia_tech_shootingHow sad and tragic! I feel so bad for the families that have lost their loved ones. I can't imagine sending your child to college and then having them gunned down as if they were in a war zone. I don't believe in gun control, but when this kind of "crap" happens, it makes me wonder........... My thoughts and prayers go out to everyone involved in this tragedy! Rest in peace..............................................
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Post by Bikerrandy on Apr 16, 2007 15:36:01 GMT -5
Problem with gun control is that it only takes guns away from the law abiding citizens. When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns. The massacre is indeed very sad. My dad lives about ten minutes away from VA tech. What really saddens me is that the gunman is dead. The c*cks*cker got the easy way out.
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one80mike
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Member since February 2007
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Post by one80mike on Apr 16, 2007 19:38:27 GMT -5
I heard about this on the way to work. I felt sick in the stomach. What a tragedy. How sad for those who have lost family and friends. How sad that someones life got to such a place that they decided that doing something like this was the best thing for them to do. People are capable of so many things that are good and beautiful but also capable of such evil and destruction. It saddens my heart.
Mike
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rockinmom
spending too much on rocks
Member since January 2007
Posts: 481
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Post by rockinmom on Apr 17, 2007 10:22:48 GMT -5
I heard of this as well and the tears just started flowing.. I'm so so sorry for everyone.. including the gunman who must have been in a very very terrible place emotionally to have lost it in such a way. It's just a horrible horrible tragedy. Tammy
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adrian65
Cave Dweller
Arch to golden memories and to great friends.
Member since February 2007
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Post by adrian65 on Apr 17, 2007 10:46:52 GMT -5
It,s incredible! How could one single man kill over 30 people? Didn't he reload his gun? That tragedy had hit not only your country. One of the teachers was romanian - israelian. I heared he kept the class door closed and saved some students (who had time to jump on the window) with his life.
Gun control is a partial solution, here in our country the guns are totaly forbidden (even the compressed-air guns) and still there are incidents. The only good thing about gun control is that it's very hard to find a gun, but I think a determided outlaw person can find a way to obtain it.
Adrian
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Post by rockyraccoon on Apr 17, 2007 11:02:24 GMT -5
adrian i heard that too this morning. so tragic and senseless.
kim
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drupe
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since September 2005
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Post by drupe on Apr 17, 2007 11:45:16 GMT -5
I cannot fathom how much hate it must take for anyone to deliberately decide to take the life of so many individuals. Every time he pulled the trigger he had to make the decision to kill another individual. I don't know the answer but I am certain it is not gun control.
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desertdweller
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Member since August 2006
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Post by desertdweller on Apr 17, 2007 13:45:37 GMT -5
Adrian, he put a chain on the doors so no one could get out of the classroom. I heard KTAR news radio here in Phoenix, Az saying it was because of video games that this guy went there and shot all of those people down. "HELLO"......Why do they always try to find something to blame tragic events like this on.
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Post by takilasunrise on Apr 17, 2007 14:24:34 GMT -5
Video games???....give me a break! He snapped and that's all there is to it. I suppose it could be a hate crime, but, I heard it may be over an alleged cheating girlfriend. I never understand when someone loves/hates someone that much that they want to kill them, why don't they just kill themselves right away & not take everyone else with them? I hope they find something that will at least explain why (like emails or blogs on his computer). Not that it will bring all those poor people back, but at least it will aid in closure for the families and friends of the victims, since he won't be standing trial for murder.
From listening to some of the interviews of the students in the classes, he was reloading. They said they saw and heard him drop empty clips and then reload. That was very heroic of the teacher that held the door closed while the students escaped but lost his life in the process.
I still question how they thought "e-mailing" everyone about the 1st killing in the dorm was enough? I understand it would be hard to notify everyone coming on campus, but they should have cancelled classes for the day if they didn't have a gunman in custody or dead! And what happened to intercom systems? I don't think most people would prefer an email over a siren if a tornado was coming! Nope, you can't stop a crazy person, but if they would have taken the 1st killing a little more serious and got the information out, they might have prevented the massacre!
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Post by takilasunrise on Apr 17, 2007 14:39:42 GMT -5
Here's Virginia Tech's own firearm policy.............the gunman supposedly bought the gun(s) last month. I'm guessing since he lived on campus he had the guns with him on campus. Also, though I know basically nothing about gun purchasing regulations/laws, since he was just here on a student visa, how was he able to purchase guns without being a U.S. citizen? There's Homeland Security working at it's best! www.policies.vt.edu/5616.pdfAnd this is interesting.......... www.vsp.state.va.us/Firearms_PurchaseEligibility.shtm
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Post by deb193 on Apr 17, 2007 15:09:02 GMT -5
... actual a legal resident. here in the US since the age of 8, with parents inthe US who are legal residents.
I also read that he went to an honors high-school and was not previuously in trouble, except for a recent speeding ticket and some disturbing creative writting he turned in.
So, the argument that only criminals would have guns if there were tighter gun control does not apply her. I am not sure gun-control would have prevented this, but this canot be used as an argument for no-gun-control. He was law abiding until he snapped. Possibly with more difficult access to weapons he would have doen less damage. Certianly without the extended clips, more people would have run away before he reloaded.
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Post by hermatite on Apr 17, 2007 15:10:30 GMT -5
Well I think hindsight is always 20/20. I work on a large campus...think of it as a town. A murder occurs. Do you lock down the town? shut the stores? No. You warn the people in the neighborhood and get the word out. No one in their right mind could have predicted this carnage...this insanity. They kept the students out of the dorm. And two hours...well...two hours isn't much when you've got 36,000 people to inform. Whats the fastest way to get the word out when you think the worst is over? Email. I dare say that had they shut down campus because of the first murder and nothing else had happened, people would have been eviscerating the campus administration for overreacting and causing needless panic. I think they acted in a way they thought was appropriate... What happened next was unpredictable, tragic, frustrating, terrible. Almost unimaginable. But blaming administration for being slow? I don't think that's right. There's no way they could have known. My thoughts and prayers are with the VT campus at this time. No one should ever have to go through that.
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WyckedWyre
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Post by WyckedWyre on Apr 17, 2007 16:47:45 GMT -5
BLACKSBURG, Va. - The gunman in the Virginia Tech massacre was a sullen loner who alarmed professors and classmates with his twisted, blood-drenched creative writing and left a rambling note in his dorm room raging against women and rich kids.
A chilling picture emerged Tuesday of Cho Seung-Hui _ a 23-year-old senior majoring in English _ a day after the bloodbath that left 33 people dead, including Cho, who killed himself as police closed in.
News reports said that he may have been taking medication for depression and that he was becoming increasingly violent and erratic.
Despite the many warning signs that came to light in the bloody aftermath, police and university officials offered no clues as to exactly what set Cho off on the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history.
"He was a loner, and we're having difficulty finding information about him," school spokesman Larry Hincker said.
A student who attended Virginia Tech last fall provided obscenity- and violence-laced screenplays that he said Cho wrote as part of a playwriting class they both took. One was about a fight between a stepson and his stepfather, and involved throwing of hammers and attacks with a chainsaw. Another was about students fantasizing about stalking and killing a teacher who sexually molested them.
"When we read Cho's plays, it was like something out of a nightmare. The plays had really twisted, macabre violence that used weapons I wouldn't have even thought of," former classmate Ian McFarlane, now an AOL employee, wrote in a blog posted on an AOL Web site. He said he and other students "were talking to each other with serious worry about whether he could be a school shooter."
"We always joked we were just waiting for him to do something, waiting to hear about something he did," said another classmate, Stephanie Derry. "But when I got the call it was Cho who had done this, I started crying, bawling."
Professor Carolyn Rude, chairwoman of the university's English department, said Cho's writing was so disturbing that he had been referred to the university's counseling service.
"Sometimes, in creative writing, people reveal things and you never know if it's creative or if they're describing things, if they're imagining things or just how real it might be," Rude said. "But we're all alert to not ignore things like this."
She said she did not know when he was referred for counseling, or what the outcome was. Rude refused to release any of his writings or his grades, citing privacy laws. The counseling service refused to comment.
Cho _ who arrived in the United States as boy from South Korea in 1992 and was raised in suburban Washington, D.C., where his parents worked at a dry cleaners _ left a note in his dorm room that was found after the bloodbath.
A government official, who spoke of condition of anonymity because he had not been authorized to discuss details of the case, said the note had been described to him as "anti-woman, anti-rich kid."
The Chicago Tribune reported on its Web site that the note railed against "rich kids," "debauchery" and "deceitful charlatans" on campus. ABC, citing law enforcement sources, said that the note, several pages long, explains Cho's actions and says, "You caused me to do this."
Citing unidentified sources, the Tribune also said Cho had recently set a fire in a dorm room and had stalked some women.
Monday's rampage consisted of two attacks, more than two hours apart _ first at a dormitory, where two people were killed, then inside a classroom building, where 31 people, including Cho, died. Two handguns _ a 9 mm and a .22-caliber _ were found in the classroom building.
The Washington Post quoted law enforcement sources as saying Cho died with the words "Ismail Ax" in red ink on one of his arms, but they were not sure what that meant.
According to court papers, police found a "bomb threat" note _ directed at engineering school buildings _ near the victims in the classroom building. In the past three weeks, Virginia Tech was hit with two other bomb threats. Investigators have not publicly connected those threats to Cho.
Cho graduated from Westfield High School in Chantilly, Va., in 2003. His family lived in an off-white, two-story townhouse in Centreville, Va.
Two of those killed in the rampage, Reema Samaha and Erin Peterson, graduated from Westfield High in 2006. But there was no immediate word from authorities on whether Cho knew the two young women and singled them out.
"He was very quiet, always by himself," neighbor Abdul Shash said. Shash said Cho spent a lot of his free time playing basketball and would not respond if someone greeted him.
Classmates painted a similar picture. Some said that on the first day of a British literature class last year, the 30 or so students went around and introduced themselves. When it was Cho's turn, he didn't speak.
On the sign-in sheet where everyone else had written their names, Cho had written a question mark. "Is your name, `Question mark?'" classmate Julie Poole recalled the professor asking. The young man offered little response.
Cho spent much of that class sitting in the back of the room, wearing a hat and seldom participating. In a small department, Cho distinguished himself for being anonymous. "He didn't reach out to anyone. He never talked," Poole said.
"We just really knew him as the question mark kid," Poole said.
One law enforcement official said Cho's backpack contained a receipt for a March purchase of a Glock 9 mm pistol. Cho held a green card, meaning he was a legal, permanent resident. That meant he was eligible to buy a handgun unless he had been convicted of a felony.
Roanoke Firearms owner John Markell said his shop sold the Glock and a box of practice ammo to Cho 36 days ago for $571.
"He was a nice, clean-cut college kid. We won't sell a gun if we have any idea at all that a purchase is suspicious," Markell said.
Investigators stopped short of saying Cho carried out both attacks. But State Police ballistics tests showed one gun was used in both.
And two law enforcement officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because the information had not been announced, said Cho's fingerprints were on both guns, whose serial numbers had been filed off.
With classes canceled for the rest of the week, many students left town in a hurry, lugging pillows, sleeping bags and backpacks down the sidewalks.
Jessie Ferguson, 19, a freshman from Arlington, headed for her car with tears streaming down her cheeks.
"I'm still kind of shaky," she said. "I had to pump myself up just to kind of come out of the building. I was going to come out, but it took a little bit of 'OK, it's going to be all right. There's lots of cops around.'"
She added: "I just don't want to be on campus."
On Tuesday afternoon, thousands of people gathered in the basketball arena for a memorial service for the victims, with an overflow crowd of thousands watching on a jumbo TV screen in the football stadium. President Bush and the first lady attended.
"As you draw closer to your families in the coming days, I ask you to reach out to those who ache for sons and daughters who are never coming home," Bush said.
Virginia Tech President Charles Steger received a 30-second standing ovation, despite bitter complaints from parents and students that the university should have locked down the campus immediately after the first burst of gunfire.
Stories of heroism and ingenuity emerged Tuesday.
Liviu Librescu, an Israeli engineering and math lecturer, was killed after he was said to have protected his students' lives by blocking the doorway of his classroom from the gunman. And one student, an Eagle Scout, survived after using an electrical cord as a tourniquet around his bleeding thigh, a doctor reported.
Kevin and Cindy Deck of Roanoke met at Virginia Tech and graduated from the school. Their daughter Natalie is a fourth-year architecture student, while son Daniel is a freshman business major.
"We both went to work this morning," Cindy Deck said. "I teach school, and by the first bell ringing, I thought, I can't do this. I need to be with my kids. It's just one of those days you've got to be with them."
Her husband added: "We've been struggling with an immediate impulse just to run and grab our kids and bring them home."
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earthdog
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Post by earthdog on Apr 17, 2007 17:05:03 GMT -5
If everyone in this contry was able to have a gun, there would be alot less crime. Sure there would be some instances of wrong doing, but not as much as there is now. Most of the criminals would be afraid to do harm to you, in fear they would get shot at and killed. Just think, if half of those students were carrying a gun, they could have killed the prick right away, maybe one or two dead instead of 30 or 32 kids dead. I feel the same as Randy, it's too bad he killed himself. I'd love to read in the paper one day how Bubba and his friends tortured the guy. I don't care if the guy was a legal resident or not, our Homeland Security sure works good, but thats another post...
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Post by takilasunrise on Apr 18, 2007 14:39:50 GMT -5
Obviously, the background checks on individuals that want to purchase a gun only check for criminal history. Because HIPAA is in place, it's impossible to check for mental instability/illness, which the gunman apparently suffered! And the "requirements" that I posted the link to definitely address mental issues. Who answers those? The purchaser? How many people are going to tell the truth if they know it will hurt their chances. I know there's not a perfect system out there to weed out the undesirables, but maybe a person should have to show references that are contacted when you apply for a gun, just like when you apply for a job or entrance into a school?
It's interesting when America has a massacre how the whole country reacts in horror and sadness, yet EVERY SINGLE DAY in Iraq, there are car bombings, etc. where dozens and sometimes hundreds of people get killed (today is the highest killed so far!), yet we don't react the same way. I know it's war-time, but we don't openly mourn for every US soldier or Iraqian civilian that gets killed, unless, of course you're related to or know the person. Even though it's not an admirable trait (being jaded), I'm glad that I live in America where I feel somewhat safe from attacks (not 100%, but much better than living in Iraq!). I'm speaking of war/terrorist type attacks, not local crime...that I'm always worried about!
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one80mike
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Post by one80mike on Apr 18, 2007 23:29:20 GMT -5
Takila, I guess the closer things are to home, the more we react. Here in Australia the Virginia Tech shootings have been headline news since the incident occured while a bombings in Iraq that have left over 200 people dead have not received nearly as much coverage. We are shocked to hear about an event like what has happened in Virgina but are hardly impacted by the 10 000's killed in civil war in Sudan over recent years. Our world seemed to stand still for months after 911 but we can shrug off the fact that thousands of children die every day due to a lack of clean drinking water. Why? We relate more closely to the US and to US culture than we do to Iraq and its culture. We can envision ourselves as those we love being in class at a university more readily than we can imagine ourselves in an conflict situation like in Iraq.
The more people are like us, the more we see value in them.
It's sad that that's the way we are. Our value should not come from our hair, eye or skin colour. It should not come from where we live, where we were born, how wealthy we are, how old we are or how smart we are. Our value is found in the fact that we are all made in the same likeness. But if we embrace this idea, fully embrace it and hold that every human life is as valuable as any other, it will cost us. We will shed more tears, we will have to respond to more needs and we will have to accept the fact that we ourselves are just as valuable, no less AND no more than anyone else. That everyone deserves the same respect and the same access to the world's resources as we do.
Some times I am just too selfish, too proud, too lazy and too judgemental and I end up forgetting all of this.
Sorry for getting off-track. Just a few ideas I had. Mike
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Post by takilasunrise on Apr 19, 2007 8:36:25 GMT -5
Mike, it's nice to hear another's view, especially someone that is not from America. And you're right, it is hard to relate to another culture's ways and what they have gone through. Earthdog is a member of another forum that has quite a few members from Europe and one from South Africa. They all tend to come across as American-haters. They constantly put down our ways. I don't necessarily disagree with them regarding some issues (fuel consumption) but they tend to have a very arrogant attitude towards Americans and that we are the cause of all the world's problems. We aren't perfect, but we aren't out to ruin the world! We are fellow human beings with the same goals in life. Just because Americans are into their vehicles doesn't make us evil. This country's love of vehicles gives a lot of people jobs all over this world!
Anyway, doesn't it just make you sick about the videos, photos and writings of the gunman that he mailed out in between shootings? But, the media is fulfilling his wishes by constantly showing them! He's getting what he wanted......I hope they stop showing his stuff real quick like! He's where he belongs now.............................bet you he's already met Hitler and some of the other sick mass murderers of the past!
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