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

[[ecgn] btt]

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.

We put a man on the moon, I am sure we could remove most all guns.

Parrot you have to understand that the U.S. is founded on a piece pf paper. What is written on that paper is something that most of us will die for. Changing it is not a popular view.

[Porsche_997]

Again, don't let this get too political. (*cough* above posts)

Here's a video I shot of the vigil.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=CfXVHOByNIs

[PafMei]

I think this will end up being an attack of the 2nd admendmnet. The reson the 2nd admendment was in place was for the rights of the people to stand up against the goverment if it ever became tyrinicle. It is a give right. I don't think less guns would of been the solution. Even with a full ban on all guns, this guy would of been able to get a gun.. ie... crime... The sad fact is that if VT would of not had a full ban on all guns maybe one of the student could blown this guy away. However every teacher should have a lock box with a code in each classrom with a gun. Only the teacher knows and then is able to unlock the box and blow the person away. People kill people. Guns don't kill people. Why did it take more than 2half hours from the first shooting for the campus to respond until the shooting? They had a system in place since the first shooting in August. Why did they have terror drills in this exact building after the first shooting? Why did they have bomb threats last week in the same building? Why did it take two hours plus to send out the warning to the students via emails and the new intercom system they installed after the first shooting in Aug? There is too many why's for me to just go along with the first thing the media is willing to tell the mass sheeple.


Don't get me wrong it is very sad for the people whom lost there lives. What is more sad to me is how people are so cowardly to being patriots and taking this peace of trash out. I guess this is just how our generation is.

[Tchinnychin]

My Opinion

First I am truly sorry for all the lives lost yesterday. I also hope all the people there have a chance to live a normal life after what has happened to them. Let's face it though as the world population grows so will the amount of people that would do something like this. With the media whoring the bad guys in these situations it only makes it worse. Also no matter how much gun control you have as a country anyone if they want it bad enough can get one. Example ( http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,266591,00.html ) In short if you have an agenda to do something horrible like this any means possible comes into play. Cleatus had a good link for the last statement. (from Cleatus) http://www.crimelibrary.com/notoriou...d/index_1.html

BTW Great Video Porsch. Glad you posted it.

[Stl Lunatic]

However every teacher should have a lock box with a code in each classrom with a gun. Only the teacher knows and then is able to unlock the box and blow the person away.

If the gunman knows this he will immediately shoot the teacher. Then the lockbox is useless. Plus, for every nutjob student there is bound to be a nutjob teacher sooner or later. Then again there has never been a teacher that has done anything like this that I know of. That might be a good idea since if the teacher wants to kill someone he will get a gun anyways, he won't do it completely out of convenience. While were at it why don't we assign every adult in the united states a firearm and do away with all no concealed weapon places. Every precaution that can be taken always has a loophole for a criminal to use. If you write a book someone will read it eventualy, if you have to go the bathroom you will, if your hellbent on killing others before taking your own life you likely will...and nothing will likely stop you...

I believe murder schemes of this sort are going to happen despite our attempts to make them improbable.

The only thing we can do is avoid them and try to decrease the probability that they occur by law enforcement and other measures. Otherwise its about the same as a time bomb waiting to go off...unfortunently

[gowhitesox99]

amazing pics and vid Porsche......

[CreepingCharlie]

Why did it take more than 2half hours from the first shooting for the campus to respond until the shooting? They had a system in place since the first shooting in August. Why did they have terror drills in this exact building after the first shooting? Why did they have bomb threats last week in the same building? Why did it take two hours plus to send out the warning to the students via emails and the new intercom system they installed after the first shooting in Aug?

Why? It takes time for the police to respond to the 911 call @ 7:15am for the first shooting. They just don't appear out of thin air. Takes time to get over there, investigate as to what is happening and then take action. Who knows why bombs threats were happening. Still don't know if its linked to the shootings. The reason why it took so long to notify people of the first shooting is b/c of the 36,000 e-mails. Plus some people, like my friend said that she didn't even read her e-mail that morning. She was sleeping when the first shooting occured. Just b/c you send out an warning doesn't mean it will get to everyone on campus. The police thought that the first shooting was an isolated event. They had no idea that 2 hours later the killing of 31 people would occur just across campus. They had reason to believe that the killer left campus as probably most would as to not get caught. You can't forsee the future. The police did everything they could with the information they had at the time.

And having a lockbox that the teacher could get a gun out of isn't a good idea. As Stl Lunatic stated the shooter could know that the teacher has a gun and kill him/her first. Or the shooter just kills the teacher first and then you're screwed either way. And also the whole idea of a teacher with a gun and parents being parinoid as they are already. Just think of what the responces by some parents might be. The backlash.

And yea its easier to say that people should've jumped him and took him down, there were a couple of time students could've, but once your in the situtation things change.

[Jungle_Fowl]

Nice pics and video porsche. It was nice to see everyone get together like that to honour them. It's always sad to hear these things when it happens, because nobody should have to go through this.

As for gun control, banning guns, etc… It may help a bit, but if its not a gun, it will be a knife, or a home made bomb, or a car, or anything that people really wanting to do these types of monstrosities can think of. Gun control laws will help, but it won't stop it.

[Alofwar]

BTT]We put a man on the moon, I am sure we could remove most all guns.

Parrot you have to understand that the U.S. is founded on a piece pf paper. What is written on that paper is something that most of us will die for. Changing it is not a popular view.

Dont you know Tony, it was miswritten, it was ment to say "Every citizen has to bear arms"

I know what your saying Tony, i've spent a good part of last year studying the American and British constitutions, and i've concluded the British one is much better, because of flexability. Having all your rights and the powers of gov all enshrined in a single document thats almost impossible to change isnt good for alot.

1)The American constitution is out of date, many of the points are no longer relavent in a modern civilised society, like the right to bare arms, and its impossibility to change means it can't be updated by what a simple majority want. In the UK, our uncodified constitution means it easy to change and update. In the past what kept Governments from abusing this, and passing laws which go against what people want was respect for political tradition, up until Thatcher in the 80's this tradtion was respected, then Thatcher started her radical neo-liberal crap and threw the traditions which limited government out the window, and Tony Blair carried this on, there were just some thing you just wouldn't do.

2) Americans pick and chose what bits of the constitution they listen to as it suits them. Americans in the south will love the right to bare arms, but they hate freedom of speech. Bush has flaunted the constitution many times, when he introduced a law which took away your right to remain silent, and changed it to if you do remain silent it will be assumed your guilty. Guantanimo bay is another exampleof complete constitutional ignorance, so's the patriot act, which ironically is very unpatriotic.

3) In the UK what keeps our government under control is tradition, common law, pressure groups, the media and suprisingly the unelected chamber of parliment the House of Lords. Thats right, an unelected chamber of government protects our civil libeerties much better than a constitution or the elected chamber the house of commons. The House of Lords has no power to introduce legislation or even block it, it can only delay it by 2 years. But suprising a bunch of appointed life and hereditory peers do look out for our civil rights, they voted against all of this governments legislation that took away civil rights, by voting against it they got it watered down and reduced in scale hlaf the time, the half it was withdrawn completely by the government who were under no obligation to do so.

[Stl Lunatic]

I still believe the best way to combat things like this is effective communication with law enforcement. Instead of having a gun put an emergency switch in an undisclosed location in every room. As technology advances I believe it will become closer and closer to being impossible to commit these acts. Perhaps have this switch connected to an automated door closing system. That has its flaws however since the intruder could set it off and then he and the hostages are stuck within. This a bit out there but maybe have a gun shot sensor in all of the rooms, then have a device set up with it that will release incredibly dense smoke that could give the hostages a chance to flee or atleast give them time to do something to escape harm. Perhaps have these smoke release systems set up with gas that knockes you out(sleep). Heres another idea have every room contain a bullet proof enclosure system. So for example when ever a warningy is sent or the gunman enters the room everyone runs to a known corner.

I heard the this friday it has been deemed a day of respect for those who died. To show remembrance VT students have advised the country to wear orange and maroon.

[Darknut]

I'm not a fan of giving up my freedom's because a few other people abuse them. We could all be safe from everybody if the government stepped in a managed every aspect of our daily life. However, I am content with the possibility of death from a firearm especially given that being stabbed or blown up is usually more painful which are both equally probable. The idea of banning something simply because it may cause a small reduction in overall crime is not worth it.

Crimes are still committed with firearms in countries that have banned them.

Additionally, if you take crimes that were committed with firearms and analyze the case you'll find that should a firearm not be accessible the crime would have been committed with another weapon. I.E. shooting your wife as opposed to stabbing her. You already made up your mind that she was going to die so you just pick the easiest method available to you. I'm sure that if this guy in the VA shooting did not have a gun he would have made some pipe-bombs or used some other edged weapon like a short sword. Pipe-bombs probably would have yielded greater casualties.

By the way, comparing a mere citizen to a man who had an entire nation's resources at his disposal is not a good comparison. Additionally, Hitler didn't initially have the German army but he managed to get into power and build a very powerful army and made an attempt at his goals of domination. Not a very good example of your point that if you took it away he would have been nothing considering that he started out as nothing.

[CreepingCharlie]

1)The American constitution is out of date, many of the points are no longer relavent in a modern civilised society, like the right to bare arms, and its impossibility to change means it can't be updated by what a simple majority want. In the UK, our uncodified constitution means it easy to change and update. In the past what kept Governments from abusing this, and passing laws which go against what people want was respect for political tradition, up until Thatcher in the 80's this tradtion was respected, then Thatcher started her radical neo-liberal crap and threw the traditions which limited government out the window, and Tony Blair carried this on, there were just some thing you just wouldn't do.

2) Americans pick and chose what bits of the constitution they listen to as it suits them. Americans in the south will love the right to bare arms, but they hate freedom of speech. Bush has flaunted the constitution many times, when he introduced a law which took away your right to remain silent, and changed it to if you do remain silent it will be assumed your guilty. Guantanimo bay is another exampleof complete constitutional ignorance, so's the patriot act, which ironically is very unpatriotic.

3) In the UK what keeps our government under control is tradition, common law, pressure groups, the media and suprisingly the unelected chamber of parliment the House of Lords. Thats right, an unelected chamber of government protects our civil libeerties much better than a constitution or the elected chamber the house of commons. The House of Lords has no power to introduce legislation or even block it, it can only delay it by 2 years. But suprising a bunch of appointed life and hereditory peers do look out for our civil rights, they voted against all of this governments legislation that took away civil rights, by voting against it they got it watered down and reduced in scale hlaf the time, the half it was withdrawn completely by the government who were under no obligation to do so.

Thats what keeps us Americans different than you British folk. And all that means is that our gov isn't hasn't had a need to change our consitution. We only had to amend our consitution 17 times in the last 200+ some years. Its good that your gov is upkeeping your rights and everything but I personally don't see a need to fix our constitution. If it works leave it alone. Our Bill of rights is our civil liberties. There would be a great uprising if our amendments were change.

2) Americans pick and chose what bits of the constitution they listen to as it suits them. Americans in the south will love the right to bare arms, but they hate freedom of speech. Bush has flaunted the constitution many times, when he introduced a law which took away your right to remain silent, and changed it to if you do remain silent it will be assumed your guilty. Guantanimo bay is another exampleof complete constitutional ignorance, so's the patriot act, which ironically is very unpatriotic

What the hell are you saying? I don't understand a word of that.

[willy lump lump]

this is sad
1 this guy is bogus.
2 the cops were stunned i am sure each one did the best they could.
3 his room mate of 9 months never spoke to him.
4 va tec drpped the ball.
5 so did lots of people

[Darknut]

What the hell are you saying? I don't understand a word of that.

He's saying that Americans only use the constitution when it is advantageous or only like certain parts of it. Which is pretty much true of any regulated institution and thus kind of pointless to mention or call out.

Although his view of the south is somewhat skewed as there are tons of people down there that love to flaunt "freedom of speech" and hate guns. Some of the stereotypes of the south don't hold as much truth as they used to.

[Cleatus703]

I still believe the best way to combat things like this is effective communication with law enforcement. Instead of having a gun put an emergency switch in an undisclosed location in every room. As technology advances I believe it will become closer and closer to being impossible to commit these acts. Perhaps have this switch connected to an automated door closing system. That has its flaws however since the intruder could set it off and then he and the hostages are stuck within. This a bit out there but maybe have a gun shot sensor in all of the rooms, then have a device set up with it that will release incredibly dense smoke that could give the hostages a chance to flee or atleast give them time to do something to escape harm. Perhaps have these smoke release systems set up with gas that knockes you out(sleep). Heres another idea have every room contain a bullet proof enclosure system. So for example when ever a warningy is sent or the gunman enters the room everyone runs to a known corner.

One of the problems with things like electronic locks is that they have to be set up to allow people in or out of facilities. So if the campus (for instance) goes to lockdown, if you lock everyone out of buildings and the shooter's outside, then the potential victims are trapped with the shooter. If the building locks down everyone inside, and the shooter's inside, then the victims are again trapped with the shooter. Since you typically (as we saw here) would have multiple agencies responding, locking down the buildings makes it more difficult for the police to get in and clear the buildings. And, if as in this case, the shooter is a student who would logically have access to the building in the first place, then selectively locking down the building isn't going to accomplish anything. Also, things like knock out gases have dangerous potential side effects - unlike anesthesia, it's hard to ensure someone gets a regulated dose because you're pumping it into a space and there are a lot of variables...there's no good answer there - just ask the Russians in the theater siege a few years back.

Even things that, based on this scenario, look like common sense fixes such as solid, lockable doors on classrooms, can become a tool for a shooter if they get into the room and lock it down.

I think the materials which have come out over the last day or two, including the NBC materials, demonstrate that this was a seriously disturbed individual and, it appears Chacal's prediction is true - the shooter is getting the media time and the victims are forgotten.