School Shooting in Virginia Tech

[RJ]

It's probably because I'm an Australian, but to me, more guns only make more problems. Allowing teachers to carry guns into class doesn't really sound anymore safer, unfortunately.

[Alondro]

Gun control laws woulkdn't have saved people in this case.  He'd planned this for days, possibly weeks.  If it hadn't been a gun, it likely would have been a bomb, or poison gas, or who knows what else.  We who work in and around the medical profession have seen enough of these cases to know that if they have killing someone on their mind, they will find a way unless physically restrained and prevented from acting.  The only way to save lives would have been to keep him locked up, which should have happened after so many clear indications that he was near the break-down point.  The more I hear about the dozens of warning signs this guy was giving off, the more I'm convinced that no one learned anything from Columbine and all the 'security measures' and 'zero tolerance' policies were, as usual, nothing more than feel-good tripe with little effectiveness.

In an era where kindergarteners are nearly expelled for simply pointing their fingers at each other and making shooting sounds while playing cops and robbers, how on earth did he manage to stay under the radar while consistently writing about death and violence and making numerous threatening actions?  This was a systemic failure of monumental proportions.

He was obviously schizophrenic and had a clear psychotic break.  I've talked with several people in my lab who worked in the psychiatric ward of Upenn, and they agree, especially after seeing the video of his ramblings and ranting.  That age is actually the typical age for males to have sudden manifestation of psychotic delusions in classic schizophrenia.  He could have even been kept for 14 days for observation after the fire and stalking incidents and in that time diagnosed with schizophrenia with psychotic delusions, but not even that was done.

[Kasarn]

Gun control in the USA is pretty much a state power. You just end up with a hodge-podge of laws and the net result is that law abiding citizens have fewer guns while those who would commit a crime are unaffected. Not that it would really matter because he bought the guns legally.

As for his mental state: hindsight is 20/20.
Truth is, you can raise all the red flags you like about somebody but nobody will do anything until after they've gone and done something really stupid. Then everybody starts talking about how they knew something was going to happen.
From what I've heard, a teacher recommended him to counseling and his records showed that he went to one session and that was it. No doubt he just stonewalled the counselor and his case file was thrown into the too hard basket because he hadn't actually done anything to himself or those around him.

edit: so I went and watched the BBC report on him and it seems he had quite a bit more experience in the mental health system than that... never the less, if the person hasn't actually done anything serious, there's not really much that can be done unless they want to be helped.

And I'm kinda wondering how they failed to ring the alarm too. I mean, if the shooter was busy in one classroom, couldn't a nearby classroom hear it and call the police or the office or something?

My understanding is that the alarm was raised via the PA system.
It's just that the alarm wasn't raised very quickly when he killed the first two because the school assumed it was an isolated incident.

[RJ]

I saw the video he made on the news. Geez, he freaked the hell out of me. Is it possible that is what he was doing during the time he disappeared between the first and second shootings?

The media has been throwing around the question of 'was there someone else behind the camera?' too. I don't believe so. They're just creating more paranoia.

[Roureem Egas]

-_- I had Media Studies on Wednesday, and my teacher decided to bring in some of the national newspapers so we could study the media's reaction and coverage of the situation... As usual, the Aussie media managed to miss all the points and go to 'a friend of a friend in Australia whose friend 'survived', though being 20km out of town when it happened'.

I'm just wondering how the hell the university failed to ring the alarm and evacuate the campus. I'm really angry about that- you'd think that with all the security measures that have popped up in the past few years, that something like this would have been reported and treated immediately. Instead all we have to show is 33 people dead. It's just sad.

Though, I'm also wondering about how the media is going to treat the shooter. I heard on the radio that he was known for some rather disturbing behavior- including his particularly violent creative writing. I'm a writing student, but I still find that so weird.

Anyway... If this isn't a sign that gun laws should be stepped up, I dunno what will be.

I'll just reply to the part about the failure of alarm ringing. Based on what I've seen and read around the net, it seems that a bunch of colleges here in America don't actually have any real PA system like in high school. I attend a college where there's at least 13000 students and have been around for two terms. In all that time, I haven't seen a single speaker outside the school's theater. So the school's idea of sending information to students is to email them to their school email accounts. I have heard that other colleges are thinking about using IMing as a way to send information instead.

About how the media is handling it so far...Cho sent a video to a news station and they decided to show it. I haven't seen it myself, and I frankly do not want to see it. The newspaper is talking about it too, and has an article about media ethics, like "do we show this?", "How much do we show?", or "should we even show images?"

[Toric]

I remember the days when people would wait at least a couple of weeks before complaining about how they were 'so sick of people talking about it'. Not a couple of days.
Oh America and your ADD.

You're absolutely right. I should've waited until MSNBC posted a photo of the shooter in his "Last Action Hero" pose on the front page of their website before I started ranting. I understand why they would, it's good shock value and it'll get people to read the article. I know it got me to read. They've replaced that photo since then, I can only imagine the heart attacks some people might have from starting up their browser and seeing that.

And I would like to stress that my complaint isn't that people are talking about the event at Virginia Tech. My complaint is HOW they are talking about it. I've heard people argue about how many people exactly died and who among us had the most updated info. I'd already heard of politicians using this tragedy as an excuse to talk about video games and violence, the possibility of terrorist attacks (the guy had already been identified as a student who'd lived in the U.S. since childhood. That alone should rule out terrorism.) and otherwise using the tragedy as a tool for advancing political agendas just hours after I'd heard about the shooting itself.

I'm probably overreacting to this whole thing, but those examples just seem wrong to me.

[Dakata]

It's probably because I'm an Australian, but to me, more guns only make more problems. Allowing teachers to carry guns into class doesn't really sound anymore safer, unfortunately.

Who says the teachers have to have guns?

...it seems that a bunch of colleges here in America don't actually have any real PA system like in high school. I attend a college where there's at least 13000 students and have been around for two terms. In all that time, I haven't seen a single speaker outside the school's theater. So the school's idea of sending information to students is to email them to their school email accounts. I have heard that other colleges are thinking about using IMing as a way to send information instead.

And why do barely any colleges have any PAs? It's dumb for them to use email. The students wouldn't know that they're probably gonna DIE unless they're at a computer. AND WHAT IF THE INTERNETS IS DOWN

...the school assumed it was an isolated incident.

Isolated incident? Explain plz.

[Roureem Egas]

The first shooting, a girl was killed whose name I don't remember right now. One of her friends contacted the police and thought the first girl's (ex-, I think) boyfriend killed her over an argument, since she knew he had guns.

[Kasarn]

...the school assumed it was an isolated incident.

Isolated incident? Explain plz.

An isolated incident something that happens that is unrelated to other things (e.g. unpredictable future events).

As a non-sequitur, if you prefer.
Two people are killed therefore thirty people will be killed, two hours later, on the other side of the campus.

[Toric]

It's probably because I'm an Australian, but to me, more guns only make more problems. Allowing teachers to carry guns into class doesn't really sound anymore safer, unfortunately.

Who says the teachers have to have guns?

...it seems that a bunch of colleges here in America don't actually have any real PA system like in high school. I attend a college where there's at least 13000 students and have been around for two terms. In all that time, I haven't seen a single speaker outside the school's theater. So the school's idea of sending information to students is to email them to their school email accounts. I have heard that other colleges are thinking about using IMing as a way to send information instead.

And why do barely any colleges have any PAs? It's dumb for them to use email. The students wouldn't know that they're probably gonna DIE unless they're at a computer. AND WHAT IF THE INTERNETS IS DOWN

The issue with this lies in the lack of a universal schedule. I attend a small college (for two more weeks) with classes in only two buildings. Even though this is such a small campus, a PA system would largely be ineffectual on a day-to-day basis because not all college students take the same classes. Classes are staggered in an attempt to prevent cases of one student needing to take two classes that are scheduled at the same time, which results in a very diverse set of schedules for students.

I don't have class for 8 hours a day. On mondays, wednesdays, and fridays, I have classes in the morning, and on tuesdays and thursdays I have classes in the afternoon. Another student could have all her M,W,F classes in the afternoon and all her Tues,Thurs classes in the morning. And another student could have absolutely no classes on Wednesday or Friday. To use a PA system to make important announcements, you must first assume that everybody who needs to hear the announcement will be within earshot of a speaker. When I'm not in class I'm usually in my room on campus, and thus I would not hear such an announcement. (At least I hope not, that would be quite annoying.) Neither would any of the students who live off-campus. Thus a PA system would be impractical except in situations where only those on-campus would need to hear an announcement, which is rare enough to not seem worth the expense.

Thank you for joining me on another episode of Toric Talks in this Thread Way Too Much.

[Damaris]

Although we cold surmise that most people who were in their rooms would be able to recieve an e-mail message of some variety- or the adult in charge of each dorm could be dispached to hang signs prohibiting anyone from leaving the building.  The only people missed, at that point, would be the off campus kids.  Depending on the school, that could be quite a few, or a just a handful.

[Darkmoon]

Hey now, don't start getting on Dakata for being insensitive. He wasn't nearly as bad as I've been in the past.

Sides, it was only 30 people. We've got like 230 million people in this country. 30 is like... people to spare.

[Damaris]

oh, gods.

[Darkmoon]

Whaaaaaaat? Did I say something?

Okay, stupid question. Every other thing that comes out of my mouth is offensive. I realize this.

However, there is a point. It's tragedy. It sucks that it happened... but it was also like 5 days ago now, and yet it's the only thing they seem able to discuss on the news. It's not news anymore. Giving this fucker attention for 5 days only play into what he really wanted. He didn't this to be famous, even if it was posthumously.

[thegayhare]

the sad part of this is it's already being twisted this way and that for political goals

One pundent complaining about the wussification of america was bitching about how he managed to kill 33 people with out them ganging up on him.  This was done in a rathewr blatent blame the victumes motif with a "How could 33 people be lined up against a wall and shot.  they were so passive as to wait there turn, they should have rushed him, blah blah blah"

Hell rush limbaugh is blaming liberals for the whole thing since the shooter was obvously a liberal cause he said he hated rich people. 

hell I didn't have much faith in human decency or common sense but after hearing stuff like this  I think it might be time for humans to just throw in the towel and give anouther group of primates a shot at running the world

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Sod the primates. Bring in the roaches. :-/

[superluser]

However, there is a point. It's tragedy. It sucks that it happened... but it was also like 5 days ago now, and yet it's the only thing they seem able to discuss on the news. It's not news anymore.

The truth embodied in this demands to be quoted.

100 years ago, no one would have heard about this outside of the county.  Now, with the CNN addicts, it's wall-to-wall coverage of people pretending to genuinely care about people that they've never heard of before and will forget before next week, when the eminently more important task of dissecting American Idol or whatever will make those people's pain worthless.

I hate to say it, but I don't care about those people.  I didn't care about them last year, so why should the fact that something bad happened to them make them any more significant to me?

It's the same thing (albeit for a much longer time) with 2001-9-11.  I was pretty ticked off for the next few months.  And I was still pretty irked by 2002-9-11.  But by 2003-9-11, It was time to move on.  Let it go.  We don't need fake silver dollar commemorative coins from the Northern Marianas.  They didn't have this crap with Lee Harvey Oswald or Bernie Goetz.

My heart goes out to all those people.  It really does.  But I can't be expected to care about everyone in the world on an individual basis.

[Darkmoon]

I honestly didn't care THAT much about 9/11. It was tragedy, yes, but... eh... I didn't live in New York. I had to family in New York. My life was in no way tied to New York. So I just really wasn't phased.

[Shadrok]

I honestly didn't care THAT much about 9/11. It was tragedy, yes, but... eh... I didn't live in New York. I had to family in New York. My life was in no way tied to New York. So I just really wasn't phased.

I have to say I'm kind of like you are on that.
tragic, but most lose of life is.

I think with events like this some people lose the main focus on things.
We shouldn't be looking at who was killed, as much as how and why they ended up that way, so that it can be stopped before it can happen again.

I agree we should feel sad for the ones who lost love ones,  (don't get me wrong) but not to the point that nothing is done about the issue at hand.

If I remember a quote right
"An once of prevention is worth an once of cure" or something like that.

(even if it was originally aimed at STDs I think it's fits)

The thing that gets me on the school shooting is the time gap between the shootings and the lateness of the alarm, which gets a lot of people.

I think (or at least hope) the school knows now that e-mails may be good for class changes but are not for "DANGER, WILL ROBINSON! DANGER!" messages.

[RJ]

I think it's this week, at least 11 years ago that Australia suffered the Port Arthur Massacre. 35 people were killed, it was pretty horrific. The guy didn't keep it to one area, he killed people all over the place. The massacre ended up being the catalyst for Australia's strict gun laws.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

If I remember a quote right
"An once of prevention is worth an once of cure" or something like that.

"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." Or, at least, I believe that's what you'll find it is. In metric, for those of us who deal with that, "a gram of prevention is worth a kilogram of cure."

*cough* and yeah, email is a non-time-delimited service, done on a "best effort" basis. All email is done on a best-effort basis, and is not guaranteed delivery - it's "we'll try, but we can't say it'll get there." Now, it's very good at it, generally speaking (barring MS Exchange) but as far as it goes, email is still not expected to arrive unless things go well. If things go wrong, it gets lost.

... it's just so good at it, people presume it'll always get there, first time, every time. And that simply does not always happen...

[Ryudo Lee]

I honestly didn't care THAT much about 9/11. It was tragedy, yes, but... eh... I didn't live in New York. I had to family in New York. My life was in no way tied to New York. So I just really wasn't phased.

My grandfather (on my mother's side) died on that day.  Not in New York, but in Jefferson, LA, in Oschner Hospital.  Leukemia.  9/11 doesn't phase me so much as it makes me remember my grandfather.  I remember going back to college that afternoon to make a biology class, and the prof made a speech and then started crying about the whole 9/11 ordeal.  It would have had more of an impact if I wasn't dealing with my grandfather's death and if all the other students weren't calling for nukes to be dropped on Afghanistan.  But yeah, after that, someone put up a photoshopped picture of the twin towers in the shape of a hand flipping the bird, and it just kinda died down after that.

[Alondro]

I honestly didn't care THAT much about 9/11. It was tragedy, yes, but... eh... I didn't live in New York. I had to family in New York. My life was in no way tied to New York. So I just really wasn't phased.

Uhm... the point was that America was ATTACKED BY TERRORISTS WHO WANT TO DESTROY OUR COUNTRY.  It was not merely a tragedy.  Hurricane Katrina was a tragedy, the coal mine explosion in Virginia was a tragedy, and this shooting rampage was a tragedy (though one that could have been avoided had people heeded the warning signs).  9/11 was a declaration of war; Bin Ladin openly said so.  And in case you'd forgotten, Washington DC was hit and there was a fourth plane on the way. Thank God this kind of mentality wasn't in place after December 7th, 1941. 

I am thoroughly convinced that if the people living in America today had instead been in existance during WWII, the Axis would have won by 1943.  Americans today couldn't stomach a war in which tens of thousands of American soldiers died every day, and we were initially losing battle after battle.  People go beserk over a war in Iraq which has had an incredibly low mortality rate for its longevity, yet then don't care when their own country is attacked, unless it directly affects them.  The hypocrisy and abject absurdity of that line of thinking is simply beyond my comprehension.

[Kasarn]

THERE ARE ONLY TWO TYPES OF PEOPLE: REPUBLICANS AND TERRORISTS!!!

[bill]

The cool thing about this tag is that it makes people waste even more of their time reading your posts.

[Kasarn]

CORRECT
I had a more eloquent post but, since Alondro was baiting, I thought trolling would be better.

[bill]

It's not.

[Ryudo Lee]

Well this is a day and age where people are a lot more "free" to make their own decisions.  Back in the 40's, yeah, people were a lot more into this stuff because that's all they had.  Now with the internet and mass media, people are able to make their own decisions and make their feelings and ideas known.  You can now not support the war and not get the sh*t kicked out of you for being unpatriotic.  People are more sensitive now than they were 50 years ago.  It's just another form of evolution, only this is more sociological than anything else.

[Alondro]

People are more sensitive today?  Is that a joke?  I hope you're not serious.  You must really live a sheltered life to think that's the case.

No one protested the war in the 1940's?  Oh yes they did!  That's just not in many of the high-school history books because no one listened to them!  Most people had the common sense to know they were facing a ruthless enemy that would never listen to reason.  It also didn't help that most of the lead protestors at the time were socialists who'd openly supported the Nazis and the Soviet Union in the 30's (remember that the USSR was originally part of the Axis until Hitler prematurely decided to turn against them)... not exactly gonna win any publicity points there.

There is no way to reason with a group whose purpose is to rule the world and kill anyone who won't obey them.  They've already given up reason by deciding to conquer the earth.

[Aridas]

I don't even LIVE in the US and i've been chastised for not caring about 9/11.