The Clockwork Mansion

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/16/vtech.shooting/index.html

I hope everyone here from Blacksburg Virginia's alright.

I heard 33 people were killed and that the guy that murdered everyone was a 23 year old English major.

I've seen quite a bit of discussion in class today about this topic, and on another forum that I haunt. It's terrible, to say the least. According to my professors, it's also a bit illuminating.

My teachers won't shut up about it. :<

And I heard it was an asian guy who was like, 19. I think.

...*Stares at KOH's avatar* :3 KAWAII ~<3

Quote from: Dakata on April 17, 2007, 08:13:05 PM
My teachers won't shut up about it. :<

And I heard it was an asian guy who was like, 19. I think.

...*Stares at KOH's avatar* :3 KAWAII ~<3

33 people were killed. Show some fucking respect.

I have two friends in VT.

They're alright, but they lost some of their friends yesterday.

The whole thing is horrible :/

Quote from: Dakata on April 17, 2007, 08:13:05 PM
My teachers won't shut up about it. :<

And I heard it was an asian guy who was like, 19. I think.

...*Stares at KOH's avatar* :3 KAWAII ~<3

First off...

Sorry to sound like a bitch, but that's really insensitive. And this is coming from someone who is hardly EVER offended. What happened was a tragedy--to keep it simple--and it deserves a lot more respect, like Gar said.

Okaaaay, away from biting Dakata. Everyone watch the kitty. :januscat That's it. Now follow it below.

The idea of a school shooting still comes across as something out of a nightmare to me, especially since the school I go to is pretty peaceful (despite the fact it's near a bloody SHOOTING RANGE... blegh) and filled with nice kids. I'd never want to see anything bad happen to my teachers or friends, so imagining something like this... yeah. It makes me ill.

I guess it'd be pretty stupid to say on a public board that the families of those who have been killed or hurt are in my thoughts. But they are.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

I've got friends in VA Tech, and couldn't contact them for a while. They seem to be fine, though.

It is a tragedy. I got family down there an hour away from the college and I heard that they are speculating there may have been two shooters. The first shooting happened around 7amish....then the second around 9 I believe......mabye its just me, but why would the shooter leave campus for atleast an hour and a half.....you'd figure that would be the last place you'd go due to the heightened security, and the police and all....even if they didn't get the word out atleast until around the time the second shootings began....

It just doesn't seem right.

Quote from: Gareeku on April 17, 2007, 08:48:47 PM
33 people were killed. Show some fucking respect.

Sorry. But it gets fucking OLD when EVERYONE at school keeps talking about it. (And I'm in a shitty mood too.)
"HEY, DID YOU HEAR WHAT HAPPENED AT VT?"
"ANY OF YOU GUYS HEAR ABOUT THAT VT SCHOOL SHOOTING?"
"I JUST HEARD ABOUT THAT SCHOOL SHOOTING AND..."

DRIVES ME INSANE. *Leaves the thread*

While it's your perogative to feel that way, then next time I suggest not posting in the thread at all.

Let's let Dakata's feelings on the matter drop, anyone- we don't need to spend five pages dissecting it now, and I definitely forsee that happening.

Has there been any new news?  I don't keep up with any news sites that have been following the story.

I think I just saw something on TV that was detailing everything about the person and blah blah blah... all these things the news article here pretty much said nothing about. I'm not sure if it was this, though... I didn't stick around long enough to see what it was, or if it was some other shooting.

Dakas comment was unnecessarily insensitive, however I'm afraid I share the same mindset;  yeah it sucks, and it's a tragedy for the victims and those who knew them, but my mourning is not going to change the situation any.  So 32 people are killed in a school shooting, it's all over the news, flags are at half-staff, etc., while people are starving to death every day.  How many?  I don't know, because it's apparently not that big of an issue to be mentioned anywhere in public media, but I can guarantee that it's a hell of a lot more than 30 people.

Such a shocking day it was too.....It hurts me so

I will keep this as short and non-aggressive as i can because 1. if I don't I'm sure it'll kick up even more flames and 2. part of it is most likely the result of pre-graduation stress. This is my opinion, and I think it is something that Dakata was leading towards. If you disagree, my PM box is wide open.

I've heard the news. Thirty people were shot dead at an institute for higher learning before their shooter's rampage was permanently ended. Bright minds with shining futures ahead of them lost their lives. It's tragic, yes. It's terrible, yes. I'm honestly sad for the victims both injured and deceased, as well as their friends and family and those who were affected by this horrible event.

That being said, I strongly dislike tragedies like this being treated as gossip, which is what seems to be happening as I observe national media, my college community, and other social circles. This is a hot subject right now. People are already forming their conclusions as to what caused the shooter to do this deed, while others are eagerly approaching friends and family as the first to tell them the big news and express their sympathy.

Public mourning is perfectly fine, it is in fact admirable to me. Frantically telling others about it and discussing it like it's the latest development in Lost is not, in my opinion. It's a tragic, emotional event, but something about hearing it in every group conversation I'm in strikes me as wrong.

I apologize if this post has offended anyone, I will remove the above portion if necessary, and I give my assurance that it I am not targeting ANYBODY here, but treating a tragedy as the latest hot topic strikes me as disrespectful for those who experienced it.



That being said, [at the understood risk of being a hypocrite] I do feel for the families of those who died. Hearing that the potential of a loved, bright young life has been extinguished must be more terrible than I can imagine.

*shrugs* Yea it sucks, but I'm still dealing with the people who were present during the murder/suicide that occured 2 semesters ago on my own campus across from my dorm at the time.

As much as I dont wish to sound insensitive, the topic really interests me more from a criminal justice perspective then a sympathetic perspective. Gods i hate thinking that i seem too insenstive about this :-/. Perhaps this country is becoming too desensitized to violence and death...

Its just as a CJ major, its interesting to me the details of the event, and that it is the largest mass shooting in the last 40 years......

I guess I understand people's annoyance at it being discussed as a "topic of the month" or something, but let me ask you this; can you HONESTLY say you've never discussed an event in that manner? i HIGHLY doubt the answer is a "no".

Take the holocaust - 6 million people died in that sickening act of evil, yet people make jokes about it and discuss it in a matter-of-fact manner. Hell, people are now doing that about 9/11, as horrid as it sounds. The reason why I blasted Dakata like that is because it was extremely insensitive. It's a major news event. What the hell do you expect? For people not to talk about it? Come on, switch your brains on, please.

Think of what the families of the students who were killed must be going through. 32 families lost someone they love, and thanks to one man who they can never see be brought to justice, they will never see the young men and women they loved again. If you can feel anything about that then, in my honest and blunt opinion, you are fucking sick.

And yes, I know people are dying every day. You think I don't know that? Loss of life is a tragedy, no matter the situation.

My point is, is that while it may be annoying to hear about it like a hot-topic or something; it's just part of society. Get over it.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1611569,00.html?xid=rss-topstories

Methinks it was more than stress that caused it.  He left a "you made me do this" note.

Quote from: Gareeku on April 18, 2007, 08:13:08 AM...it's just part of society. Get over it.

I could just as easily say death is a part of life and to get over it.

He was treated for depression and showed every classic profile point of a psychotic personality.  His writings were filled with obscenities and violence, and also showed the random, disjointed style stereotypic of violent sociopaths.  The professors and teachers he had even notified the counsellors about him after reading his writings.  But, thanks to the idiotic, illogical nonsense that you can't force treatment upon these people until they actually do something criminal (which he had, actually; setting a fire in the dorm and stalking women on campus.. and why he wasn't in jail for that already is beyond me), leads to things like this.  This is simply the worst example of what happens when clearly deluded and violent individuals are allowed to roam around.  As one who watches the news, "American Justice", "Cold Case Files", and court TV frequently, I can say with absolute assurance that this kind of thing happens too frequently.  The warning signs are always there, people are afraid of being sued and having the ACLU descend upon them if, God forbid, you force someone to be treated so they don't murder someone else. 

Yes, lets defend the rights of the criminally insane, while to hell with those innocent people who's rights they end forever.

for a while many places have been kicking around the idea of letting certain professionals carry guns to work with them, encouraging it actually, for thier self protection and the protection of others.

on the top of the list are teachers and plumbers. i have no idea why a plumber would need self protection but this scenario just cries out to me that if the teachers had been armed they could have saved two dozen lives.

i would suggest that anyone reading keep an eye and ear out to see if their regional governments are putting this to a vote and say "YES! arm my teachers! save some lives cause you sure as hell aren't going to arm the honor roll"

i remember going to high school, shortly after the columbine shooting. to me it was senseless how they handled 'school safety' by drilling us on coordinated huddling and hiding. the doors on the classrooms could be smashed down by anyone determinated and possessing half of my strength, so they present no obstacle, most of the classrooms actually HAD stuff which could be used as weapons to defend yourself if you waited by the doorway to protect your class....specifically the first school shooting drill i was in took place in machine shop- there were enough sledgehammers and pry bars for everyone NOT INCLUDING the various pieces of sharp, heavy, strong pieces of  metal scraps which could be swung very easily.

QuoteWe sleep safely in our beds because rough men wait in the dark to visit violence on those who would do us harm

Quote from: Hazzy on April 18, 2007, 10:39:39 AM

Quote from: Gareeku on April 18, 2007, 08:13:08 AM...it's just part of society. Get over it.

I could just as easily say death is a part of life and to get over it.

Oh right, yeah sure. People going into a university and gunning down students is part of life. Riiight, yeah... Use your brain, plzkthnx.

However in a way though he is not entirely wrong Gareeku. There are an average of 2 mass murder events in America each month. The number of large scale mass murders like this occur at a far greater rate in the last 40 years, and its become a common part of our society. That said, an event of this magnitude is still shocking and terrible and no matter how many times it occurs, it will continue to be such when it occurs.

Now then, on the concept of what these people generally are like. Have a really bad day, lots of stress from life on your shoulders and add in a swirl of depression from thoughts of not being able to cope then look in the mirror. Unfortunatly, there has yet to be a decent profile created to fit the type of person who goes out and commits this type of act without massing in half of society into it. From studies theyve done on the different people who have done this over the years since Whitman in Austin Texas, they have seen virtually no signs of insanity, sociopathy, or psychopathy. To most criminal profilers and analysts, they seem to be ordinary people.

Thats why creating a profile is so difficult, because they dont suddenly snap and even though it is planned out, they dont have signs of criminal behavior in their pasts. And I'm sorry Jack Thompson, mass murders on this scale were occuring way before the advent of violent video games, so they arent to blame either.

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.

*shrugs* Im not really sick of talking about it. Like I said earlier, as a Criminal Justice major, I find this to be extremely interesting. Perhap's they should examine Cho's brain like they did Whitman after his college shooting?

Gar, it's not that I don't give a shit. But idiots at my school are using it as an excuse to be a lazy fuck and stuff. And it gets annoying when I can't even ask someone to borrow a pencil or something without them asking if I know about it.

They'll look all sad and pathetic in front of the teacher, and tell him/her how "depressed" he/she is about the incident, and he/she'll ask if she can do the classwork later/tomorrow, and when the teacher says "YES, YOU POOR CHILD :<", they'll go sit next to their friends and talk and be happy. Like the shooting never happened and everything is gumdrops and rainbows.

Same thing happened when some guys at my school who went to a part, got drunk (They were underage. BUT NO ONE CARES ABOUT THAT. >:O) and died in a car accident. All of my classmates kept talking about it, but when I asked them what the victims' names were, they didn't know. And they also used their deaths as an excuse to not do classwork/homework.

I think using someone's death to talk to your friends about boys and sex and whatever-else is more insensitive and jerk-ish than wanting everyone to shut up about it.

Quote from: Brunhidden da Muse on April 18, 2007, 01:15:52 PM
i remember going to high school, shortly after the columbine shooting. to me it was senseless how they handled 'school safety' by drilling us on coordinated huddling and hiding. the doors on the classrooms could be smashed down by anyone determinated and possessing half of my strength, so they present no obstacle, most of the classrooms actually HAD stuff which could be used as weapons to defend yourself if you waited by the doorway to protect your class....specifically the first school shooting drill i was in took place in machine shop- there were enough sledgehammers and pry bars for everyone NOT INCLUDING the various pieces of sharp, heavy, strong pieces of  metal scraps which could be swung very easily.

QuoteWe sleep safely in our beds because rough men wait in the dark to visit violence on those who would do us harm

I remember doing similar drills in school after Columbine and I agree on the whole safety protocol being inadequate.

For example when we had bomb threats/drills they would take the entire school to the same spot in the parking lot. Now if it had been the real deal where a student was planning to blow it up they wouldn't put it in the school but in the parking lot.

Luckly most were drills.

Quote from: Teroniss on April 18, 2007, 03:51:45 PM
*shrugs* Im not really sick of talking about it. Like I said earlier, as a Criminal Justice major, I find this to be extremely interesting. Perhap's they should examine Cho's brain like they did Whitman after his college shooting?

I'm a Criminal Justice major as well. Doesn't mean I continually analyse it all the time instead of actually feeling some emotion.

Quote from: Dakata on April 18, 2007, 04:39:05 PM
Gar, it's not that I don't give a shit. But idiots at my school are using it as an excuse to be a lazy fuck and stuff. And it gets annoying when I can't even ask someone to borrow a pencil or something without them asking if I know about it.

They'll look all sad and pathetic in front of the teacher, and tell him/her how "depressed" he/she is about the incident, and he/she'll ask if she can do the classwork later/tomorrow, and when the teacher says "YES, YOU POOR CHILD :<", they'll go sit next to their friends and talk and be happy. Like the shooting never happened and everything is gumdrops and rainbows.

Same thing happened when some guys at my school who went to a part, got drunk (They were underage. BUT NO ONE CARES ABOUT THAT. >:O) and died in a car accident. All of my classmates kept talking about it, but when I asked them what the victims' names were, they didn't know. And they also used their deaths as an excuse to not do classwork/homework.

I think using someone's death to talk to your friends about boys and sex and whatever-else is more insensitive and jerk-ish than wanting everyone to shut up about it.

If you had actually said that in the first place I wouldn't have gone off on one.

-_- 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 agree with Brun, teachers should be armed and stuff.

I mean, the school drill at my school is pretty stupid. Get in the classroom, lock the door, hide in the corner, and if you can't get in a classroom in time, you're fucked, just go to the damn office (I don't see how that's a good idea at all). And when it's "safe", the principal has to come and unlock everyone's doors. One by one. And no, he can't just say "KAY GUISE ITS SAFE" over the intercom, because he might just be held hostage. Oh sure, like the principal's gonna get over 2000 people killed. And it's not like, you know, the shooter could kick the [old and wooden] doors down. (My school -is- like 80 years old) He could probably take the principal's keys too.

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?

:/ 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.

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.

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.

Quote from: Dakata on April 19, 2007, 05:59:26 AM
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.

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.

Quote from: RJ on April 19, 2007, 03:33:36 AM
-_- 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?"

Quote from: Zina on April 18, 2007, 03:45:08 PM
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 (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v613/Rictor_Lasanti/1E62BE7A9138E196F289583B9A4A3.jpg) 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.

Quote from: RJ on April 19, 2007, 08:13:04 AM
:/ 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?

Quote from: Roureem Egas on April 19, 2007, 11:35:04 AM...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? :S 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

Quote from: Kasarn on April 19, 2007, 10:13:36 AM...the school assumed it was an isolated incident.

Isolated incident? Explain plz.

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.

Quote from: Dakata on April 19, 2007, 08:54:09 PM

Quote from: Kasarn on April 19, 2007, 10:13:36 AM...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.

Quote from: Dakata on April 19, 2007, 08:54:09 PM

Quote from: RJ on April 19, 2007, 08:13:04 AM
:/ 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?

Quote from: Roureem Egas on April 19, 2007, 11:35:04 AM...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? :S 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.

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.

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.

oh, gods.

:banghead

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.

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

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

Quote from: Darkmoon on April 22, 2007, 01:39:37 AMHowever, 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 (http://www.nationalcollectorsmint.com/category_landing.jsp?path=-1&id=4688).  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.

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.

Quote from: Darkmoon on April 22, 2007, 09:35:03 PM
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.

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.

Quote from: Shadrok on April 22, 2007, 10:52:08 PM
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...

Quote from: Darkmoon on April 22, 2007, 09:35:03 PM
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.

Quote from: Darkmoon on April 22, 2007, 09:35:03 PM
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.

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

It's not.

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.

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.

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

Oh, I''ve been chastized for it. I was called one of the Taliban once for sayin my mind on the matter. (rolls eyes) whatever.

Look, I really don't see any purpose to having this thread open at this point. It's flame bait and rehashing. Unless one of the other admins disagrees, I hereby dub this thread "locked."

:drama

:locked

but... it... was... already... locked...

It didn't tell me it was locked when I decided to post... which is odd...

It told me, before llearch did his magic padlock dance.

Nothing magic about this particular incantation, though. I was merely dancing in agreement...

2 hours later.

:dface You locked it.

*cough* Uhm... uhm... Mab did it!

(runs away)

Oh, thanks for the explanation. Thank god we have a Voice of Truth amongst us.

Wait? I did what?

Is Amber Williams gonna have to choke a bitch?

Yeah... choke Bill. >)

 :<

It was superluser, it was all him!

Oh, score! Nice! Blame the people that can't post here...

I think Zina was probably in on it to. I've seen her around here. She's dodgy.

... You're one to talk. What was it your comic had? Penis-zombies or something?

Sex-organ-golems. Entirely different.

Ah, of course. My apologies.