Virginia Tech Campus Shut Down - Shooting Incident

[wade moore]

Originally Posted by molson

They're saying colleges should include a handgun the packet new students get with their dorm room keys, etc?

Well, no.. but they're saying kids should be allowed to have them and that "if just one kid in that Norris building had a gun"...

I have heard some say that the faculty should be armed though... to the point that they seem to be implying that the schools should actually be giving them guns...


I don't buy into most of what they say, but i get a certain entertainment value out of the Right-Wing radio shows now and then ..

[adubroff]

Originally Posted by BrianD

Fox is discussing whether gun-carrying bans make sense on college campuses and suggesting that this tragedy could have been much less worse if other kids had guns. Somehow this just seems like trouble.

I think you might be trading 1 incident with 30 dead for 100 incidents where somebody gets liquored up and kills 2.

[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by adubroff

I think you might be trading 1 incident with 30 dead for 100 incidents where somebody gets liquored up and kills 2.

The type of person that gets liquored up and shoots someone generally A)isn't the type to go through with getting gun permits in the first place and B)isn't the type to be deterred from having their gun on campus by an additional regulation. This isn't to say that VaTech would have been at all prevented (although I'm sure the Fox folks are bringing up Pearl, MS and App St), but these campus anti-gun laws are generally redundant and only taken seriously by the conscientious, law-abiding folks you really don't have to worry about.

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by adubroff

I think you might be trading 1 incident with 30 dead for 100 incidents where somebody gets liquored up and kills 2.

Everyone said the same thing when Florida revised their gun control laws and forgot to include the ban on open carry. All the talk of the "Wild West" went for naught.

This also tends to overlook how many other destructive weapons people have at their disposal when they get liquored up and angry (like cars). And I'm not just talking drunk driving: UNC had an incident not too long ago where a ticked-off kid drove his SUV into a crowd.

You want an objection to this that you have a shot at winning, you need to talk about the number of accidental shootings that will happen when that many irresponsible people with no training start carrying guns around and shooting their feet off, having it go bang when showing it off to someone, etc.

I'm anti-gun-banning, but I'm all for forms of gun control that require training classes and certifications and the like before you can own or carry one.

[Axxon]

Originally Posted by wade moore

Well, no.. but they're saying kids should be allowed to have them and that "if just one kid in that Norris building had a gun"...

From what I can tell though, just one student in that Norris building did have a gun.

[sabotai]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

I'm anti-gun-banning, but I'm all for forms of gun control that require training classes and certifications and the like before you can own or carry one.

But that would make too much sense!

[Vinatieri for Prez]

Originally Posted by Toddzilla

I'll feel much better when they stop showing the pictures and playing the video of this psychotic mass-murdering asshat and devote some time to the stories of the victims and their families. Quit glorifying the killer by giving him the exposure he wanted for crying out loud.

In all fairness, I have seen several media outlets telling stories of the victims.

[Toddzilla]

If we had a society where many more people carried concealed weapons, how do you think the fuckbird who shot up Virginia Tech would have approached his mission then? Remember, he was mentally ill, so he wouldn't have reasoned it was a bad idea - more likely he would have gone in with body armor, maybe bigger weapons like an assault rifle, etc.

The scenarios that certain people like to suggest would happen if only more people carried guns are not based in reality or founded under reasonable assumptions IMO.

[sabotai]

Originally Posted by Mizzou B-ball fan

Do I have criminal tendancies if the thought of Jack Thompson being wrapped in duct tape and thrown in a river is appealing to me?????

I'd question the mental stability of someone who didn't.

[BrianD]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

I'm anti-gun-banning, but I'm all for forms of gun control that require training classes and certifications and the like before you can own or carry one.

From the discussions I heard on Fox, they were mostly saying that the certified gun-club folks with permits should be allowed to carry guns on campus. They were also talking about arming campus security and possibly the teachers.

Does anybody know anything about what it takes to be campus security? It has been a while since college, but I don't remember our campus security being much different than mall security. Certainly not the kind of people I would expect to be armed.

[BrianD]

Speaking of all the gun control talk, does anyone know where Cho got his guns? It probably isn't terribly meaningful, but I'd be curious if he got them through legal channels.

[adubroff]

Originally Posted by BishopMVP

The type of person that gets liquored up and shoots someone generally A)isn't the type to go through with getting gun permits in the first place and B)isn't the type to be deterred from having their gun on campus by an additional regulation. This isn't to say that VaTech would have been at all prevented (although I'm sure the Fox folks are bringing up Pearl, MS and App St), but these campus anti-gun laws are generally redundant and only taken seriously by the conscientious, law-abiding folks you really don't have to worry about.

My premise, and I think it was so when and where I went to college, is that those generally law abiding folks tend to experiment with alcohol. It's the one law that every law abiding college kid, pretty much breaks one to many times. I myself broke it several times a week until it stopped being illegal for me to break it.

Anyway, if you have a couple drinks (especially if you're new to drinking), you're more prone to violence. Right now, that violence generally takes the form of a fist fight. Generally, the fist fight is happening by two "law abiding" kids, who just happen to be drunk. If 1000 fist fights break between people who are generally law abiding (which I imagine most of the fights are) and none of the people have guns, none of them will elevate to gun violence. But if these kids choose to arm themselves with guns, then you're going to see some of these more or less harmless fist fights become gun fights. It's the law of averages.

Here's the thing though, the ratio of "fist fights" to "psychos who go on shooting sprees" is probably much, much, much more than 1000:1. If there's one fist fight per University per day (there's about 4000 colleges in the US), that's 1.5 million fights per year. If 30% percent(which is the percentage of our adult population which owns a gun) of these involved somebody armed, that means that in 450,000 cases, we're going to have somebody who's armed and involved in violence. If a mere 1 in 1000 of these elevate to gun play, then were have 450 gun incidents per year.

We've gone years since we've seen a psycho on college campus go on a shooting spree. They don't happen that often. I think the last one is in 1966. If we were losing 450 people a year to isolated drunk/high violence escalation, every year back to 1966, we'd have lost 18,000 people(should be scaled back for smaller populations/lower college attendance, but it's merely illustrative) this way. Even if you assume that allowing people to arm themselves would have completely prevented Cho's act, it would have saved 33 lives.

[Axxon]

Originally Posted by Toddzilla

If we had a society where many more people carried concealed weapons, how do you think the fuckbird who shot up Virginia Tech would have approached his mission then? Remember, he was mentally ill, so he wouldn't have reasoned it was a bad idea - more likely he would have gone in with body armor, maybe bigger weapons like an assault rifle, etc.

The scenarios that certain people like to suggest would happen if only more people carried guns are not based in reality or founded under reasonable assumptions IMO.

It's reasonable. When nutbar brings in an assault rifle we let the student bring assault rifles. When he escalates to a tank we let students bring tanks.

We're gonna need to build runways though for when they start bringing in jets but it's a small price to pay.

Won't someone think of the children.

[wade moore]

Originally Posted by BrianD

Speaking of all the gun control talk, does anyone know where Cho got his guns? It probably isn't terribly meaningful, but I'd be curious if he got them through legal channels.

At least one of the guns was bought legally at a local gun store - it's been reported pretty heavily in the stuff I've seen.

[JonInMiddleGA]

I guess I just don't get the degree of upset about the information on the shooter being out there.

It's simply more interesting to me to ponder the question of why he went over the edge versus the countless number who have had similar experiences & feelings but didn't open fire. And answering that question (regardless of how unlikely it is that I'm going to solve it sitting in my den) certainly has value for future application. Is it as simple as "he was f'n nuts"? Or is there something more specific, something that makes the difference between shooting & not?

As for stories that focus on the victims, I really don't feel equipped to deal with the sadness/tragedy of that aspect of the story for long periods of time. You're talking about a nightmare, but I believe most people can only try to absorb so much of that at one time.

Not to say in any way that those stories shouldn't be told or don't deserve telling, I'm just thinking about why people would be more drawn to one than the other.

Meanwhile, my wife offered another perspective on the coverage that I don't think we've even mentioned here much. She said she was most interested in the stories told by the survivors, those who escaped their encounter.

[adubroff]

Originally Posted by wade moore

At least one of the guns was bought legally at a local gun store - it's been reported pretty heavily in the stuff I've seen.

Both...and he waited the 30 day waiting period also.

[Coder]

By giving this guy the attention he wanted, people who are in similar situations, with the same circumstances, are consistantly being informed that killing people gives them recognition.

Stop showing the crap.

I don't want to call these people idiots or nutjobs.. they're ill.. they need help and care.. but not this.

[stevew]

Another thing that seemed amazing to me is that it appeared that apparently quite a few of the doors didn't have locks. From the way the events sound like they unfolded, I would think that could have prevented quite a few of the deaths. At least it would have bought more time for people to escape via the windows, assuming he would try to shoot down the doors.

[Coder]

Originally Posted by Coder

By giving this guy the attention he wanted, people who are in similar situations, with the same circumstances, are consistantly being informed that killing people gives them recognition.

Stop showing the crap.

I don't want to call these people idiots or nutjobs.. they're ill.. they need help and care.. but not this.

Dola and selfqoute..

got a little carried away trying to get my message out, but what I'm referring to is the photos of the guy with guns, and the videos being shown. This does NOT belong in the media.

[JHandley]

Originally Posted by Toddzilla

If we had a society where many more people carried concealed weapons, how do you think the fuckbird who shot up Virginia Tech would have approached his mission then? Remember, he was mentally ill, so he wouldn't have reasoned it was a bad idea - more likely he would have gone in with body armor, maybe bigger weapons like an assault rifle, etc.

The scenarios that certain people like to suggest would happen if only more people carried guns are not based in reality or founded under reasonable assumptions IMO.

This is only half the problem with putting more guns on campus. The second half is stray gunfire.

It's already been discussed here that people do not act as calmly as they think they would in a situation like that. There was initial wonder that no one bullrushed this guy. Knowing that in high stress, high confusion situations, people are not at their best both physically and mentally, how accurate do you think the other students are with a gun?

I'll even give a generous guess of 75% (overly generous in my mind, but makes the math easier) accuracy. That means when one of the other students fires at the original shooter, 3 of those 12 bullets are not going to hit the shooter, but are going to hit something. Now multiply this by however many students actually have the wherewithal to realize they have a gun, and actually shoot. Could be as many as 5 students shooting at this guy. That's 15 more bullets in the air than were there if it's just the shooter.

I really can't understand the concept that putting more bullets in the air makes anyone safer. If they end up accidently shooting 5 other students before he has a chance to shoot 4, where's the gain?

[Vinatieri for Prez]

I am deeply saddened by the VT violence and death to the innocent students and professors. But, to start arming students and staff at every U.S. college in light of the death of 32 victims (I'm not giving that guy the credit to include his death in that number) just doesn't make sense. It really doesn't. It's 33 versus the millions of people who still attend college in the United States. And I don't make that comparison lightly because I do respect the victims and their families. But it just doesn't make sense, especially when I believe it is very likely that such actions will undoubtedly and most certainly (and I don't think that can be argued against) lead to the deaths of more innocent victims through the use of the additional guns on campus that wouldn't otherwise be there.

Now that doesn't mean somethings shouldn't be changed. But arming staff and students isn't one of them. What about assigning one armed security guard/campus police to all buildings with classrooms? Would that be way out of line financially for the colleges to do? Would students be willing to pay an additional $100 a year for that in tuition. I'm just throwing that out there.

[King of New York]

Originally Posted by stevew

Another thing that seemed amazing to me is that it appeared that apparently quite a few of the doors didn't have locks. From the way the events sound like they unfolded, I would think that could have prevented quite a few of the deaths. At least it would have bought more time for people to escape via the windows, assuming he would try to shoot down the doors.

In the campus building where I teach, the doors cannot be locked from the inside. They can only be locked from the outside, and the only ones with keys are campus security, not faculty--the purpose of the locks is to prevent vandals from breaking into empty classrooms, not to protect people already inside the classroom.

Like I said earlier: a college classroom is one of the last places on earth you'd want students and staff to be in an incident like this. Often there's only one door, and there's no way to lock that door.

[Draft Dodger]

Originally Posted by adubroff

Both...and he waited the 30 day waiting period also.

there is no 30 day waiting period in Virginia - there's a quick background check that reportedly takes just a minute or so. They do limit you to purchase one handgun a month - he bought one in February, one in March, and then purchased ammunition at a number of locations around town since then. all purchases were indeed legal.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Vinatieri for Prez

Would students be willing to pay an additional $100 a year for that in tuition. I'm just throwing that out there.

Likewise, I'm just throwing out some quick math, maybe I'm missing something here but best recent figure I can find is that the median police officer salary is about $45,000

Looks like about 27,000 full-time students currently at VaTech, so $100 each = 2,700,000 or enough for 60 full time police (not counting supervisors, overhead, etc). From the looks of the campus, etc., that wouldn't be nearly enough to put one in every building. Even if you overlook the startup costs, and just have tuition increase cover the salaries, you'd be looking at several times that amount best I can figure.

[adubroff]

Originally Posted by Draft Dodger

there is no 30 day waiting period in Virginia - there's a quick background check that reportedly takes just a minute or so. They do limit you to purchase one handgun a month - he bought one in February, one in March, and then purchased ammunition at a number of locations around town since then. all purchases were indeed legal.

My mistake. I meant he waited the 30 days to repurchase. I apologize!

[Fighter of Foo]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Is it as simple as "he was f'n nuts"? Or is there something more specific, something that makes the difference between shooting & not?

I don't think anyone will ever know the answer to this.

Making drastic law/policy changes based on one time events almost always ends poorly (see 9/11).

Not arguing whether or not any changes need to be made, but there's almost a 100% chance of overreaction, especially coming from people with a preconceived agenda.

[stevew]

Originally Posted by King of New York

In the campus building where I teach, the doors cannot be locked from the inside. They can only be locked from the outside, and the only ones with keys are campus security, not faculty--the purpose of the locks is to prevent vandals from breaking into empty classrooms, not to protect people already inside the classroom.

Like I said earlier: a college classroom is one of the last places on earth you'd want students and staff to be in an incident like this. Often there's only one door, and there's no way to lock that door.

I'm just curious if there has been any discussion about this between you or your colleagues. Not that you want to live in fear or any of that shit, but re-keying the doors to allow them to be locked from the inside seems to be a reasonable safety precaution, that could save lives in a future incident.

[rowech]

Well, at our school, we had our first suspension. Kid was given in school suspension (because out of school affects our attendance and therefore our $ from the state) for saying about the whole deal, "I could've done better" They are also making him see a psychologist.

In addition, our elementary schools went into lockdown when the teachers heard "gunfire" while on recess. They were taken inside and locked down only to find out it was people working on machinery at a nearby golf course.

[BrianD]

Originally Posted by Draft Dodger

there is no 30 day waiting period in Virginia - there's a quick background check that reportedly takes just a minute or so. They do limit you to purchase one handgun a month - he bought one in February, one in March, and then purchased ammunition at a number of locations around town since then. all purchases were indeed legal.

The timing of this seems interesting. Was he really planning this for the last 2 months?

[Ryche]

Originally Posted by BrianD

The timing of this seems interesting. Was he really planning this for the last 2 months?

And if so, was he truly mentally ill or just plain evil? Does the desire to kill 30+ people automatically equal mental illness?

[Axxon]

Originally Posted by Ryche

And if so, was he truly mentally ill or just plain evil? Does the desire to kill 30+ people automatically equal mental illness?

The lack of a plan for escape moves him from plain evil to the mentally ill category IMHO. An evil guy doesn't off himself in this case. He practices his smirk for the inevitable cameras he'll be facing.

[flounder]

I just found out the Westboro Baptist Church assholes are going to be in town to protest Ryan Clark's funeral. They should burn in hell.

[Passacaglia]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Likewise, I'm just throwing out some quick math, maybe I'm missing something here but best recent figure I can find is that the median police officer salary is about $45,000

Looks like about 27,000 full-time students currently at VaTech, so $100 each = 2,700,000 or enough for 60 full time police (not counting supervisors, overhead, etc). From the looks of the campus, etc., that wouldn't be nearly enough to put one in every building. Even if you overlook the startup costs, and just have tuition increase cover the salaries, you'd be looking at several times that amount best I can figure.

I'd imagine that if every university the size of VT hired 60 (or more) officers, the salary for them would go up, or the quality would go down.

[Coder]

Originally Posted by flounder

I just found out the Westboro Baptist Church assholes are going to be in town to protest Ryan Clark's funeral. They should burn in hell.

I thought there was a law forbidding protests at funerals? Specifically put in place to prevent them (the Westboro Baptist Church) from doing just that.

[flounder]

I just looked it up and I think the law in Georgia only bans them from protesting within 500 feet of the building where the funeral is being held.

[Greyroofoo]

I think that protesters just have to be a certain distance away.

[Toddzilla]

I imagine if the hired security guards for each buildings - while it would no doubt make them safer from minor forms of violence or larceny - the guard would simply be the first person killed by a homicidal maniac.

[sabotai]

Originally Posted by flounder

I just looked it up and I think the law in Georgia only bans them from protesting within 500 feet of the building where the funeral is being held.

If I had the resources, I'd offer to build a nice, tall wall at 499 feet from the funeral. (If that's the law in VA as well)

[st.cronin]

In large part, "mentally ill" is just a social construct to explain behavior we don't understand. For that matter, so is "evil."

[Axxon]

Originally Posted by st.cronin

In large part, "mentally ill" is just a social construct to explain behavior we don't understand. For that matter, so is "evil."

I don't know that I agree with that definition. I can understand how someone can do something like he did but frankly, I think it's batshit crazy, I mean, mentally ill. Not the legal definition but a darned useful one.

[SportsDino]

The United States does not negotiate with terrorists who would use violence as a bargaining chip, even though there are some tragedies that are worth avoiding at a cost, because to do so would ensure that more tragedies would occur to extort that cost.

A terrorist though seeking glory as their only reward is given the media coverage not only of the tragedy, but publication of his manifesto for free on national media with endless repetition. He is given glory of the exact sort he desired, and no matter how much we would feel it serves just to display his horrid nature... we can do nothing that would please him more.

Every time we show that you can hold the worldwide media in your palms through commiting the grossest atrocity you can imagine we are encouraging repetition of such violence more than any video game, music video, or other aspect of a normal person's life could ever do. It speaks most of all to the primary target audiences, future psychopaths seeking attention and the unfortunate morbid curiousity of modern man.

The media should not keep these videos under wraps for the benefit of the victims, they should keep them as sealed evidence to prevent more people being killed to provide a podium for sick minds. There should be a public backlash against the viewers at any cost philosophy, and some introspection by the American public as to why creatures like this man exist and encouraged by our attitudes towards seeking fame of any kind, at any price... and so readilly supplying that audience whenever someone has the awful audacity for extreme violence.

[molson]

Originally Posted by SportsDino

Every time we show that you can hold the worldwide media in your palms through commiting the grossest atrocity you can imagine we are encouraging repetition of such violence more than any video game, music video, or other aspect of a normal person's life could ever do. It speaks most of all to the primary target audiences, future psychopaths seeking attention and the unfortunate morbid curiousity of modern man.

If someone wanted to be on the front page of CNN.com by tomorrow, they could do it. Everyone in the whole country would know their name. That must be a pretty powerful thought for someone he feels nothing to lose, and who has no sympathy for humanity.

[JonInMiddleGA]

SportsDino -- sounds nice ... but there really seems to be jack shit to back up your theory.

I've seen/heard little that indicates any desire that he be remembered or glorified, other than perhaps by those he was trying to (for lack of a better phrase) "get even" with. There's just nothing in this that seems to be ego-driven, more like lack-of-ego driven if anything. I'm not seeing anything that backs up your pseudo-intellectual claims and barring evidence to the contrary I've got to call bullshit on that line of reasoning.

Seems to me that there's a whole lot of people who aren't willing to deal with the stark reality of the existence of this sort of creature and would rather avoid acknowledging it instead of trying to deal with both it's existence & the reasons behind them. I strongly believe we do that at our own peril.

Very good people die for no apparent reason every single day. That doesn't minimize the scale of this terrible event nor the individual impact, but the reality is that if this had been an isolated domestic incident at the residence hall, hardly anyone would have heard or thought about it for more than fifteen minutes. Only because of the scale is this anything other than a passing blip in the news.

[Ryche]

Originally Posted by st.cronin

In large part, "mentally ill" is just a social construct to explain behavior we don't understand. For that matter, so is "evil."

That's pretty much what I'm thinking in this case. Who has ever heard of someone who is not mentally ill doing something like this. Just seems like an excuse in a lot of cases. Not that there's no such thing as mental illness, but if everyone who does something crazy is considered mentally ill, then an individual is never responsible for his/her actions.

[Vinatieri for Prez]

SportsDino, maybe I'm off too, but you're comparison is lacking. Terrorists normally seek change through their efforts (hence the idea of using violence to bargain). Psycho killers like this seek revenge and that's all. At least that's the way I see it. While the 9/11 hijackers were seeking glory in some respects (it was not so they would be in the press). Under your theory, we should all have just forgotten about 9/11 and pretend it didn't happen.

[adubroff]

Originally Posted by Vinatieri for Prez

SportsDino, maybe I'm off too, but you're comparison is lacking. Terrorists normally seek change through their efforts (hence the idea of using violence to bargain). Psycho killers like this seek revenge and that's all. At least that's the way I see it.

Even if one is to accept the paralel, government and the press should not act in the same manner to similar situations. They are different entities, with wholly different goals and functions in our society.


Freedom of the press means the weather guy tells you when it's going to snow, not just when it's going to be 80 and sunny.

[Wolfpack]

Originally Posted by adubroff

Freedom of the press means the weather guy tells you when it's going to snow, not just when it's going to be 80 and sunny.

I think it's more accurate to say that freedom of the press means the weatherman can tell you it's going to snow, even if the government says it'll be 80 and sunny and the government cannot stop him from saying so.

Unlike, say, North Korea, where I'm sure it's 80 and sunny all the time...hey look, our Dear Leader made another hole-in-one....

[adubroff]

Originally Posted by Wolfpack

I think it's more accurate to say that freedom of the press means the weatherman can tell you it's going to snow, even if the government says it'll be 80 and sunny and the government cannot stop him from saying so.

Unlike, say, North Korea, where I'm sure it's 80 and sunny all the time...hey look, our Dear Leader made another hole-in-one....

There ya go...

They are not supposed to act in the public interest either, it's not part of their function.

[BrianD]

Originally Posted by adubroff

There ya go...

They are not supposed to act in the public interest either, it's not part of their function.

Well, reporting on the government free of censorship is in the public interest...

[adubroff]

Originally Posted by BrianD

Well, reporting on the government free of censorship is in the public interest...

It can be. I'm not sure if SportsDino's point is that they should have censored themselves or somebody should have censored them in this case, but one could(he did)make an argument that maybe not reporting as graphically on the killer might have long term public interest benefits. I'm not 100% certain I buy his argument, but I am 100% certain that I don't care whether it's right or wrong. I think it's so important that they report what they do on an overall basis that I'm willing to live with copycat killers and the like. Free press has a cost to society in certain instances. I am willing to pay that cost.