University Shooting Worst in US History...and I'm there now

[smikey]

It's good to here from you porsche, in know that you are all right and going home.Were any of them close friends.My families heart goes out to you and the others.Terrible just terrible.

[Cleatus703]

After Columbine, police have developed the "Active Shooter" response plan - basically, you have someone shooting in a facility, be it a high school, a college campus, or a shopping mall and you need to take him out. In the pre-Columbine era, the plan was to wait 'til SWAT got there, methodically clear the building, room-by-room, isolate the shooter and then get them out of there by whatever means necessary (negotiation preferred, subdued but alive (tear gas) as a second alternative and dead as the worst option). Post-Columbine, police have realized that the first officers on the scene have to get into the situation and move to the sound of the guns and respond. The disturbed individuals have simply too much opportunity to do whatever they are seeking to do (burn the place down with a gallon of gasoline, shoot the place up, stab hostages, whatever) to allow them time and space.

What we saw on the media was the same four clips over and over yesterday - fat guy getting his rifle and running, setting up behind the tree, cop stopping ambulance to tell him where to park, and miscellaneous emergency vehicles. This may be the information age, but don't think for a second that just because that's all you saw, that's all that happened. That's all the cameraman saw that was "sexy", so that's all that got sent back.

BTW, one of the worst instances of mass murder in US history? Not committed with a gun. Committed with a gallon of gas and a match. http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/mass/happyland/index_1.html
It's not the guns. It's the people.

[King]

The whole gun control issue is pretty much non-existent. The fact of the matter is, as chris rock said, "guns don't kill people, stupid motherfuckers with guns kill people."

You don't see people in Mongolia, Khazakstan, and the like where there are 400 million AK47's and shit shooing up small villages because they can't handle life. You could kill a lot more people w/ that kind of weapon than a handgun, naturally, and its just a good thing that most of those kinds of weapons are extremely accessible to the general public.

[Chacal]

Looks like the media missed a good opportunity to be part of the solution in self-imposing a total blackout of any information regarding the killer, and covering the victims and the suffering instead.

They do this for suicides and it works.
Publishing the name and any information regarding the killer should become a criminal offence because it directly causes more such incidents to happen.

[Darknut]

First off, he killed most of the people before the police got there. The response time could never be fast enough. It's not like the police materialize out of thin air when crime is being committed. You have to wait for a report then drive there then observe the scene and take action. That all takes time. Mean while it only takes a few minutes to kill numerous people. In the certain circumstances you could wipe out 30+ people in less than five minutes with a single hand gun.

Second, guns are not the problem here. The amount of crime committed with legally obtained firearms versus the amount of legal firearm owners is very low. Additionally, the same incident could occur with any number of weapons that are not firearms. Your logic in blaming firearms is flawed as the real problem is the will, the desire, to kill. People have been murdering each other since the dawn of man and that will not change. These things are just tools for their destructive will. The other problem is that people die when their body sustains a significant amount of damage. Given that there are numerous things your body depends upon for your survival there are an infinite number of ways you can kill people should you choose to do so. Besides, if he couldn't have used a gun he probably would have either used a blunt object or edged weapon or if he was really dedicated, built a projectile weapon or bomb. None of these things are hard to make since they only require an elementary understanding of engineering—you see that people manage to build these things in prison without any real parts and sometimes they even make the ammunition/explosives.

Additionally, seeing as murder is often committed without firearms, that really deals a blow to your argument that he could not have killed any of these people without a gun.

Need I remind you that a gun is not a sentient being and therefore is incapable of operating solely under moral conditions? Why blame an inanimate object for the crime? Why don't you blame the fact that knives are legal to own when somebody gets stabbed to death?

[petersapien]

Publishing the name and any information regarding the killer should become a criminal offence because it directly causes more such incidents to happen.

Very true, as well Darknut has a good point, police dont materialise out of thin air, by the time anything could have been done the incident in almost every situation is over. If a lunatic is on the warpath banning guns wont help because the person will find some other way to kill as many if not more people. Sure it may require more work than shooting someone but that isnt going to stop someone from doing what they will.

[Chacal]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liviu_Librescu

[jenky33]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liviu_Librescu

i wonder how many people there are in the world these days that would do something like this man did. People are called heroes for tons of reasons, its nice to read about somebody actually deserving of the title.


also this tragedy will unfortunately be set as the next benchmark for others that want to get famous by going on a killing spree. I know that its very pessimistic of me to think this but unfortunately thats the way some delusional/psychotic people are going to look at it. Because everyone always has to one up the previous tragedy by making it even more horrific and utterly pointless.


edit: found a page on msnbc where the victims are listed, with info about most of them
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18143312/?GT1=9246

[PafMei]

My only point about the link was that the video at the very bottom with cop from the UT shooting, celebrating the 40thA of the shooting. This is what cops used to be like. Watch his testimony. Pretty good example of the way it used to be. Just my thoughts.

[PafMei]

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/april2007/170407cantprotect.htm

Quote:Porsche_997
Sergeant First Class

PafMei don't post this horseshit. Stop giving the blame to the police, they did all they could given the situation. "Cowardly Cops"??? FFS!!


My only point about the link was that the video at the very bottom with cop from the UT shooting, celebrating the 40thA of the shooting. This is what cops used to be like. Watch his testimony. Pretty good example of the way it used to be. Just my thoughts.

[Porsche_997]

Hopefully some of you caught the candlelit vigil on TV. I was there, and got some pictures. It was a really powerful event. Video coming soon.

[cavalierlwt]

Yes, availability of guns does tie directly probability of something like this happening. But it's all a balance, a tradeoff. You basically can play this game where you save lives at the expense of freedoms or convenience.
Fact is, thousands of people in the US could be saved if we lowered the highway speedlimit to 45 MPH (and enforce it). Seriously, deaths drop off sharply below 55 MPH, nevermind 65 and 75MPH. But we're willing to trade that convenience (speed) for lives. There's always a break point to it I guess.
Same with food, we could throw a massive tax on foods high in calories, sugar, fat etc, to the point where it promoted a much slimmer nation. Bear in mind being fat in America is probable directly or indirectly the number one killer by far. Again, a tradeoff in freedom vs safety.
Every country/culture has their sensibilities of what is acceptable and what isn't, what's worth sacrificing for the greater good, and what isn't.

As long as we are willing to accept the consequences...

[SavageParrot]

Your logic in blaming firearms is flawed as the real problem is the will, the desire, to kill.

Yes I agree but firearms make it easy. 1 psychopath with a knife is not going to be able to kill 30 people in a mass killing. It's about minimising the damage not removing the problem. You country deals way to much in black and white you tend to forget there are shades of grey...

I find it amazing that you are all happy to blame the press for this but not the firearms manufacturers. If you want to apportion blame it all lies with the shooter himself. No-one else. If you want to help stop it in the future then you need gun control. Period.

Emo kid + knife = failed suicide and whiny poetry.

Emo kid + Gun = carnage

Imagine hitler without the german army. What do you have? A less funny version of charlie chaplain living in an asylum being fed baby food with a spoon. I'm not saying no guns no problem but there a direct correlation between the loss of life these lunatics inflict and the amount of firepower they can procure.

[Stl Lunatic]

You cannot blame anybody but this gunman. I suggest everyone take a step back and try to understand the situation law enforcement was given when they arrived at the scene. The entrance doors were chained, thus requiring tools that police did not necissarily have at emidiate use. From what I heard when Police arrived the shooting had already begain. Try to imagine hearing gun shots ringing out again and again inside a building your obveosely not going to willingly want to enter. Plus the police reaction procedure is to secure the area and wait for orders which were likely unable to be made in time before the deed had been done. I imagine when everything happened it was so caotic that decisions werent made so they decieded to just stay since it was already out of their hands.

This horrible ordeal should deffinently send a message to our school systems that every college and public school should have a plan in order to combat a scenerio of this nature. I believe communication is key in preventing and keeping damage to a minimum.

At my school the basic plan is there is an intruder alert/drill where on the intercomm the office says "the fax machine is down". Then everyone locks the doors and hides away from any windows.


This event is so very tragic. I hope it will be a wake up call to our nation. But then again this is far from the first smoking gun in our country.

sad...so very sad...what a waste...

[SavageParrot]

Your logic in blaming firearms is flawed as the real problem is the will, the desire, to kill.

Yes I agree but firearms make it easy. 1 psychopath with a knife is not going to be able to kill 30 people in a mass killing. It's about minimising the damage not removing the problem. You country deals way to much in black and white you tend to forget there are shades of grey...

I find it amazing that you are all happy to blame the press for this but not the firearms manufacturers. If you want to apportion blame it all lies with the shooter himself. No-one else. If you want to help stop it in the future then you need gun control. Period.

Emo kid + knife = failed suicide and whiny poetry.

Emo kid + Gun = carnage

Imagine hitler without the german army. What do you have? A less funny version of charlie chaplain living in an asylum being fed baby food with a spoon. I'm not saying no guns no problem but there a direct correlation between the loss of life these lunatics inflict and the amount of firepower they can procure.

The amount of crime committed with legally obtained firearms versus the amount of legal firearm owners is very low.

Of course the percentage of illegal guns used for murder/robbery/driveby shootings is higher becasue those are criminal activities undertaken by criminals. I guarantee you that the percentage of illegal guns used in accidental duck hunting accidents is practically 0. it's just common sense that would be the case.

It's also a bit pointless as all those so called illegal firearms were once legal firearms before they got stolen. A gun is a gun it's designed to kill that's it's function it's not like a knife which could have any number of functions a gun just has one. Some guns are even more specific than that, a hand gun for example is specifically designed to kill humans. I see no reason why anyone needs to own one under any circumstance.

Likewise that statistic about being x number of times more likely to be murdered by an illegal firearm than a legal one is pretty damn flawed itself as you are more like to be killed accidentally by a legal firearm than you are of being murdered by either type.

I have yet to hear a convincing reason why gun control wouldn't work beyond it's being impractical and I'm of the opininion that just because somwthing is hard doesn't make it worth trying.