There are 32 dead today, in the largest one man shooting in America at VT... Please pray for them.. If you don't pray, give a moment of silence in reverence to those that died...

:sad:

Names have not been released.

:sad: :sad: :sad:

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What the Snarkpitters listen to!

Another tragic chapter in a history of school gun crime in the USA. Very sad indeed.

Just read about it in the paper, apparently the number is up to 33 dead and 30 wounded. :sad:

It's horrible that so many young people with their entire lives in front of them had to die.

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What the Snarkpitters listen to!

Just another black-op. Sad they need to do things like this for gun control.

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Condemnation without Investigation is the Highest Form of Ignorance!

I really don't think is the time to be espousing conspiracy theories Doc. That's to say nothing of the fact that any conspiracy theory can be quickly explained by the statistics on mental health (worldwide) and the loose gun laws in the USA. 2 + 2 really does equal 4 this time. Not everything is a conspiracy.

no, the sad thing is Christmas morning, birthdays etc. for more than 30 families.

The fact that there's ass-hats from every corner that can't see this past their own agendas is frightening, not sad.

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i eat paint

Dunno, just seems odd that not even 6 months ago, at that college, they were talking about the need for gun control there.

And then boom. Look what happened.

Coincidence or conspiracy... needs to be questioned further, IMO.

? posted by fishy
The fact that there's ass-hats from every corner that can't see this past their own agendas is frightening, not sad.

• doesn't that statement go both ways, bro?

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Condemnation without Investigation is the Highest Form of Ignorance!

Conspiracies can be found in anything if you are looking for them - fact is most of them are a load of bollocks mate. Now is not the time to be spouting these theories, whether there's truth in them or not.

People have needlessly died, show some damn respect.

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You Got To Get Through What You've Got To Go Through To Get What You Want But You Got To Know What You Want To Get Through What You Got To Go Through

/debates internally whether or not to post...

A lot more than 30 people die early, violent, unjust deaths every day, leaving sad family and friends, and there's still more people than the Earth can realistically support given our current level of energy inefficiency and greed. I'll try to get around to shedding a tear, no promises though. I probably would if I knew any of them, but I don't so I probably won't.

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o

this is hardly the time or place to spew your conformity-driven filth, doc. shoo, shoo

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the players tried to take the field
the marching band refused to yield

Government-induced school-shootings conspiracies? Ok, that really isn't sane anymore.

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Why snark works.

DocRock said:
Dunno, just seems odd that not even 6 months ago, at that college, they were talking about the need for gun control there.

And then boom. Look what happened.

Coincidence or conspiracy... needs to be questioned further, IMO.

I think I read in the paper that shots had been fired at the school before, which could be the reason for talk about gun control.

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What the Snarkpitters listen to!

Words cannot describe how traumatising it would be for those who witnessed it and how sad it was for those who perished

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Just Kidding

Just Kidding

Bewbies said:
this is hardly the time or place to spew your conformity-driven filth, doc. shoo, shoo

Hmm, I thought this was a forum where we discussed things generally.

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Condemnation without Investigation is the Highest Form of Ignorance!

tact and general decency are generally preferred. why the f**k would you think it's ok to post this nonsense..? and so soon after its happened? i'm beginning to think you do this out of shock value; not because you believe any of it.

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the players tried to take the field
the marching band refused to yield

You're entitled to your opinion, bro, just like the rest of us. Nope, I don't post it because of shock value. And I sure as hell don't post it to make fun of anyone who suffers because of it.

I posted because I thought it was a black-op. Just like Columbine and all the other stupid events where innocents were murdered to justify an end. My opinion has been stated: they did it because they want gun control.

When people die, more and more innocent people are convinced to give up freedoms so they don't die the same way.

It's a white-wash and a farce. These people died needlessly.

Look whats happening now all over the world: WE NEED MORE GUN CONTROL! WE NEED TO GIVE UP OUR RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS! WE NEED TO SURRENDER TO THE GOVERNMENT SO THEY CAN TAKE CARE OF US BECAUSE WE DON'T WANT TO GET SHOT ON THE STREET!

Me? I sure as hell ain't giving up my right to bear arms. I wanna defend myself just like the next guy. But if they keep running these black-ops, they're gonna "convince everyone" that we need to give up our guns.

Sorry, I'm keeping my gun til the end.

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Condemnation without Investigation is the Highest Form of Ignorance!

That guy wasn't even from the US - and was in a mental institution 16 months before.

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Why snark works.

<P _extended="true">[quote]'He Could Be a School Shooter'</B>

A Virginia Tech professor said Cho's work in creative-writing class was so disturbing that he had been referred to the school's counseling service.

Professor Carolyn Rude, chairwoman of the university's English department, said she did not personally know the gunman.

But she said she spoke with Lucinda Roy, the department's director of creative writing, who had Cho in one of her classes and described him as "troubled."

"There was some concern about him," Rude said. "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. But we're all alert to not ignore things like this."

She said Cho was referred to the counseling service, but she said she did not know when, or what the outcome was. Rude refused to release any of his writings or his grades, citing privacy laws.

Professor Roy told the New York Times she tutored Cho individually in the fall of 2005 after his writings and behavior had intimidated his classmates.

During the sessions, she said, he wore sunglasses and a baseball cap pulled low on his forehead.

"He seemed to be crying behind his sunglasses," Roy told the newspaper.

She also said she had been so worried about tutoring Cho that she developed a plan with her assistant ? if she mentioned the name of a dead professor, the assistant would know to call campus security.

The Web site The Smoking Gun on Tuesday posted a play Cho allegedly wrote last year. Entitled "Richard McBeef," the violent, possibly darkly comic one-act play concerns an argument between the title character and his 13-year-old stepson, who accuses him of murdering his father and of pedophilia.

The play seems sympathetic to the stepfather, who tries to defend himself in vain against his wife and stepson's accusations. It ends on an ambiguous note, with the stepfather swinging a "deadly blow" at the boy.

"When we read Cho's plays, it was like something out of a nightmare," former classmate Ian MacFarlane, now an AOL employee, wrote in a blog posted on an AOL Web site.

"The plays had really twisted, macabre violence that used weapons I wouldn't have even thought of."

He said he and other students "were talking to each other with serious worry about whether he could be a school shooter."

Poet Nikki Giovanni, one of his professors, told a cable news channel Wednesday that her students were so unnerved by Cho's behavior that she had security check on her room and eventually had him taken out of her class.

Some students had stopped coming to class, saying Cho was taking photos of them with his cell phone, she said.

Giovanni told the Washington Post that after one instance when Cho recited his poetry in class, seven out of 70 students showed up for the next meeting.

She asked about the absences, and was told the other students were afraid of Cho.

"It was not bad poetry. It was intimidating," Giovanni said of his writing. "At first I thought, OK, he's trying to see what the parameters are. Kids curse and talk about a lot of different things. He stayed in that spot. I said, 'You can't do that.' He said, 'Yes, I can.' I said, 'No, not in my class.'"

"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."

A Virginia Tech police spokesman said Tuesday Cho had been issued a speeding ticket on April 7 for driving at 44 mph in a 25-mph zone on campus. His court date was set for May 23.

Cho has not been tied to two campus bomb threats in the past three weeks, but a note detailing a third bomb threat was found near the bodies in Norris Hall.

On Wednesday morning, yet another bomb threat had campus police evacuate Burrus Hall, another school building.[/quote]

this isn't a matter of opinion. it's a matter of tragic facts. students visually identified the shooter as they ran for their lives. these weren't black-ops commandos, it was a seriously messed up and deluded individual. (you should be able to relate.) did he have some sort of mind-control chip planted in his head leading to the shootings? maybe that'd make your theory actually make sense.

as for gun control ... i'll put it this way: if any one of those victims happened to also be carrying a gun, there could have been return fire. victim #4 could have shot Cho dead, and ended the ordeal before 28 more had to die. people need to be able to protect themselves.

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the players tried to take the field
the marching band refused to yield

Sorry for being so European, but if anyone carried a gun all the times, there'd be hundreds of "snap out" moments with people getting shot. Maybe an armed guy guarding the campus or something.

But the cold war style "if we both got nukes, everything is balanced" attitude is wrong IMO.

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Why snark works.

this isn't a matter of opinion. it's a matter of tragic facts. students visually identified the shooter as they ran for their lives. these weren't black-ops commandos, it was a seriously messed up and deluded individual. (you should be able to relate.) did he have some sort of mind-control chip planted in his head leading to the shootings? maybe that'd make your theory actually make sense.

Never said anything about commandos. I'll bet ya that within a few days, it will come out that the shooter was on some kind of mind drugs. Probably prescribed by some psychiatrist he had been seeing. If it comes out that he had been doing these drugs, it wouldn't be the first time. Read some history on previous shootings and I'll bet ya anything those shooters were on the same type of drug. It's all about gun control. Period.

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Condemnation without Investigation is the Highest Form of Ignorance!

Dude, where do you come up with this crap? If it means that much to you, go create your own thread so that we can further lower our opinion of you. This is not the time nor the place to be making up stories. I really worry about your mental state if you think that your own government kill people off on such a grand scale simply to stop idiots like you from carrying guns.

I've defended you in the past Doc, but now I see the error of my ways.

As I said before, people have died unjustly, they and their families deserve some respect in their time of grief.

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You Got To Get Through What You've Got To Go Through To Get What You Want But You Got To Know What You Want To Get Through What You Got To Go Through

You all are more comfortable with watching Dancing With the Stars and seeing Brittany Spears shave her head. I even bet you guys think Don Imus was in the wrong and needed 3 days of constant coverage on the mainstream news sites. I bet you think he deserved to be fired, and I bet you think Rosie O'Donnell needs to be hung for standing up for what went wrong on 9/11 and building 7 collapsing.

Just keep your head buried deep, folks. I'm done here and won't be back.

You are all total lost causes. Shame on you and God help us!

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Condemnation without Investigation is the Highest Form of Ignorance!

reaper47 said:
Sorry for being so European, but if anyone carried a gun all the times, there'd be hundreds of "snap out" moments with people getting shot. Maybe an armed guy guarding the campus or something.

But the cold war style "if we both got nukes, everything is balanced" attitude is wrong IMO.

I'm thinking the same thing. If two people get so pissed at each other they want to kill each other, it's better if it ends in a fist fight than a gun fight.

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What the Snarkpitters listen to!

We predicted you would react in this way Doc. Needless to say, as an informant of the SHADOW GOVERNMENT ILLUMINATI ALLIANCE I have informed my superiors in the NEW WORLD ORDER. A team of agents is on the way to kidnap you and erase any thoughts you have of individual liberty, INSTEAD REPLACING THEM WITH LOVE OF "DANCING WITH THE STARS" and the one you call "BRITNEY SPEARS".

You cannot elude the power of THE GLOBAL "GREYS" CONSPIRACY we are the all seeing and all knowing.

"by the power of grey-skulls".... :heee:

.....knock knock doc.... :wink:

Doc B... :dodgy:

@DocRock:
Tact [takt] (n.)
1. a keen sense of what to say or do to avoid giving offense; skill in dealing with difficult or delicate situations.
2. a keen sense of what is appropriate, tasteful, or aesthetically pleasing; taste; discrimination.

Show some.

And toward the people who seem to think American gun owners are loose cannon cowboy hotshots with a chip on their shoulder and something to prove: Anyone who wants to carry a gun and is qualified to do so (not mentally ill, not a felon), can, and there AREN'T people getting shot left and right. Banning guns would not keep them out of the hands of criminals, the gun-wielding criminals would just have less opposition.

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o

First let me say I support the 2nd Amendment on the grounds that the people may use arms to overthrow their government. I think an abolishment of gun laws would work like the abolishment of prohibition of alcohol, the negative effects on society would increase for a short period of time, and then fall below the level during the prohibition.
On the other hand, I wouldn't trust most of my high school with a plastic fork, let alone a gun. My opinion hasn't been fully formed.

Conspiracies exist, but calling the flavor of the week news event a conspiracy so soon is rash. Collect evidence, and rebuttals to that evidence, and be prepared to defend your position. Do not make a generalization just for the hell of it. Accusations of mind control do not make a conspiracy. I have yet to see some actual evidence in favor of the conspiracy.
While tact is also important, we can overlook a tragedy to see the underlying cause.

I don't think the issue surrounding this tragedy is gun control, I think it's a lack of action on the part of the school administration. They saw the warning signs, and yet they did nothing. They could've prevented this.

I think it's stupid that parents are paying for their children's college education, but, due to US privacy laws, they are only allowed to see their children's grades after signing a form, they can't know if little Billy has been going to class, or what his teachers think of him, etc. If Billy's got a screw loose, I doubt he'd tell Mom and Dad himself.

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Also change the texture of the dock. Docks are rarely tile. -Facepunch
As I Lay Dying

I don't think the issue surrounding this tragedy is gun control, I think it's a lack of action on the part of the school administration. They saw the warning signs, and yet they did nothing. They could've prevented this.

Agreed. But you have to admit that it's weird that someone who showed such clear signs of mental instability could acquire 2 guns. I think he bought them legally.

He was in a mental institution for aggressive behavior.

"Cho Seung Hui was declared ?mentally ill? and an ?imminent danger to others? by a judge nearly 18 months before Monday?s attacks."

I don't get it why you're defending his right to bear arms? There should be limits. It's not about the people that haven't been declared an imminent danger to others, it's about the people that have.

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Why snark works.

Even if there were full gun control, or better gun control to restrict access to the mentally ill, there is still going to be a trade in guns which doesn't follow the letter of the law. If he wasn't able to obtain a gun through the normal channels, the criminal underworld is always willing supply weapons to those who seek them.

It's the same thing when holding a gun or knife amnesty - the UK government recently lauded the success of a knife amnesty, only for there to be a frenzy of stabbings in the past few months. Those who have the desire to seek and keep weapons will find them and certainly will not surrender them for the greater good.

I'd side with your initial thoughts that a campus security program should have been in place, certainly a better response to the initial shooting could have averted some damage. Even then, considering the size of an average university campus, this looks like a simple but sad case of an unavoidable loss of life.

To me, the big question is why didn't any of the faculty seek professional help for him? Psychological problems don't just go away or get better on their own, and some students and teachers were actually afraid of him. Seems pretty damn negligent to me.

If you ask Dr. Phil though, video games are the real culprit here.

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o

Well, here's another one: It's not that easy to get guns illegally.

Maybe it is, in third world countries or the saddest corners of some US ghetto (and the question why it would be so easy to get them illegally still remains). But this guy wasn't a criminal mastermind. Not in the "scene" or whatever.

Where would you go to get a gun? Where would you look for? Is there an illegal gun dealer advertising in the internets to the general public? Close to a campus, perhaps? Certainly not anywhere near to where I live. I bet you had to spend quite some time in the real underwold to get even close to an illegal arms dealer.

I just found this pic in a news post in which the guy is posing with a hammer. A hammer!

I don't believe that getting a gun illegally is so easy for your average deranged college kid. I don't believe it. He wasn't the kind a person who walks up do some underworld type of guy asking "Hey bro, you know where I can get me a gun?". He wasn't the kind of guy who would leave the house in the first place.

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Why snark works.

According to swedish newspaper he was mimicking a korean movie.

that hammer picture makes it kind of difficult to take him seriously. he needs a PS makeover..



much better.

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the players tried to take the field
the marching band refused to yield

ROFL

I stand by my original sentiment of "it's hard for me to care all that much, 33 out of 6.5 billion isn't all that much."

I should start taking bets as to whether it will get as much coverage on major news outlets as Anna Nicole Smith's death...

I QUIT THIS THREAD.

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o

According to swedish newspaper he was mimicking a korean movie.

Old Boy! Awesome movie.

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"Azelito, stop being a f**king bitch. All I see you do is complain and insult people in your recent posts. We don't care, go find a razor you emo pansy..." -Windows98

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting reaper47</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>
Agreed. But you have to admit that it's weird that someone who showed such clear signs of mental instability could acquire 2 guns. I think he bought them legally.
</DIV></DIV>
If I remember correctly, he bought them illegally. I saw an interview with they guy who had sold him the guns, and apparently he didn't feel any regret. He said that even if he hadn't sold them to him someone else would have.

It could be that it's easier to acquire guns illegally because they're so easy to acquire legally. Now anyone old enough can buy alcohol and then sell it illegally, but if alcohol was illegal this would be much harder. I think it's the same with guns. In Sweden for example, I think most people would have serious trouble getting their hands on any guns, so I agree with reaper.

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What the Snarkpitters listen to!

I actually found out recently that if i were determined enough that i could acquire a gun illegally if i wanted to. It would be hard. I think i have to through a friend of a friend of a friend to do it but i was surprised that it even possible for me. For anyone livening outside the USA, know it is not easy for the average jow to get there hands on an unregistered pistol. And this is coming from someone who lives unconformabley close to Detroit.

All good points, but even if unable to acquire a gun legally, I still feel he would have been able to obtain one. Recent reports in the UK (which has a far more violent culture than Austria or Sweden, so I don't think it would be fair to compare two European states with either the UK or US) suggest that large numbers of the guns being circulated amongst urban areas are simply reactivated replicas.

Anybody who was determined to get a gun could easily buy an airsoft pistol, find reactivation instructions and get hold pf some ammunition. EVEN if the killer were still unable to obtain his weapon through such channels, if the drive was high enough, he would improvise. Knives, petrol bombs, nail bombs, pipe bombs etc.

I just feel that gun control is highly unlikely in the United States due to the national mindset, and even if it were to pass, how the hell do you take 200m guns out of circulation successfully? You can't.

The handgun ban and amnesty following the Dunblane massacre in Britain, 1996 was so successful because registration of guns previously was so stringent, and in reality, there wasn't many gun owners in the first place.

It wouldn't happen from one day to the other. But the US are an example for a country where stricter gun control would make sense and would certainly have a positive impact in the long terms. It could take 20 or 50 years, but every second news report from the US makes it clear that any lunatic can buy a gun at a local store there without a problem.

But it likely won't happen and wouldn't change much anytime soon.

I think the psychology of such events is much more important. People and the media love to see this as some act of purely illogical, satanic evilness. That's wrong IMO. It's up for the people involved to mourn, and for all the other people following this on the news maybe a moment of shock and anger. But then it's important to look into who this guy really was, what drove him to do this and most importantly finding a way to talk to people like him before something happens.

It didn't even come at a surprise. People knew he was a potential danger. What's most interesting for me is what people could have done. They even reported him to the police, he was convicted of some aggressive behavior, sent to a hospital and still it ended so tragically.

Most of the school shooters in recent years even tried to seek help before they snapped out but there obviously isn't any for this kind of people. Maybe it's possible to find a way to talk to them, to contact them ect.

it's hard for me to care all that much, 33 out of 6.5 billion isn't all that much

I'm surprised you say that. It's far below anything DocRock said.

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Why snark works.

It's the truth. I feel sorry for the family and friends of those that died, but I'm not going to lose sleep over it knowing:[quote=me]A lot more than 30 people die early, violent, unjust deaths every day, leaving sad family and friends, and there's still more people than the Earth can realistically support given our current level of energy inefficiency and greed.[/quote]

Everyone dies. I'm still alive and I've got better things to do than grieve over some people I didn't know, lots of people die every day, I'm not gonna grieve 24/7. Sorry if my cynicism offends you.

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o

Its sad, and tragic for the family of those who got killed but Snickers has it...

people die

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Signature? What signature!?

Anybody who was determined to get a gun could easily buy an airsoft pistol, find reactivation instructions and get hold pf some ammunition...

What? I have a good airsoft gun myself ( http://www.softairgun.net/proddetail.php?prod=J05263&cat=100 without the orange ) , I can't imagine its frame holding up to real gun fire. Where do you get a airsoft gun that can? googling now :biggrin: .

I don't loose sleep over it, but it's quite a unique situation. The world's over-population problem can't be solved by shooting random kids at a university.

Two different things, and comparing the two doesn't really work IMO and is, indeed, very cynical.

I can't really escape the VT shooting as any newspaper, and TV report seems to be about it right now so I might as well form an opinion about it. Events like this usually do cause a change in politics, so the discussion matters at least on some level.

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Why snark works.

This was a tragic event. For once I am glad that I was gone all week because I wouldn't have been able to keep silent after the insightful posts from Wichita.

This thread didn't need me adding my own tripe.

One thing that makes you wonder. There are much worse tragedies around the world every day than this event, yet it got way more media.

Although I do not think that numbers should dictate importance, IE only 32 got killed at VT but 140 died the same week in Iraq was it? But there was just way to much importance delegated to this.

Yes, it was bad, but only when compared to recent other events in the US. Not globally.

/me bows head for all the peoples whom have died needlessly this year....

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The best things in life, aren't things.

The reason why it was a bigger deal for me is because i was there a couple of days before it happened. I went through the dorm and the building that was attacked. So it's a bit more real for me. dunno...

parakeet said:
The reason why it was a bigger deal for me is because i was there a couple of days before it happened. I went through the dorm and the building that was attacked. So it's a bit more real for me. dunno...

Don't get the feeling that I am trying to trivialize this. Far be it. We each need to take it in as important a way that each of us feels is warranted.

I do know how you feel. The kid Adam Walsh was killed just down the road from our home In Okeechobee Florida.

So, I know how tragedy in a local sense feels.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Iraq, pah...

You're all pretty hypocritical. Does anyone really care more about the people dying in Baghdad just by dismissing the VT shooting? Excuse me but that's BS.

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Why snark works.

With your rampant cynicism and short tongue, you really need a dose of http://www.gwil.org , reaper!

</pimp>

OMG, since when are you blogging, Gwil?

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Why snark works.