VA Tech Incident - Stupid Things People Say

by Seeker4 27 Replies latest jw friends

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  LtCmd.Lore

  I'm reminded of how, following Columbine, the local school board debated making it a mandatory expulsion for a kid to bring a gun to school. I was covering the meeting as a journalist, and I simply had to ask them, "Do you really think that the threat of being expelled from school will be any kind of a deterrant to a kid who has decided to take a gun to school, murder some people and then kill themselves?"

  Absolutely brilliant question/statement.

  Having rules like that simply meen: when a nutball comes to school, he'll be the only one armed, and all the honest students will be defenseless. If any of the innocent people on that campus would have had a gun, a whole lot of lives could have been saved. Laws don't stop criminals, they only stop good people.

  What happened to the right to bear arms? That amendment was made for a reason. Why should the citizens be legally barred from having a fighting chance?
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  nativenyr23

  I'm just waiting to hear the first witness in my family say, "SEE...that's what HAPPENS when you go to college."
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  caligirl

  Excellent points, seeker.

  Since when can any law control a random act of violence, which is exactly what this was? Someone who decides to do this kind of thing is not concerned with the "law". Any logical thought process had already made it's exit, if it was ever there to begin with.
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  choosing life

  I realize this was a large campus, but I still question why they were holding classes over 2 hours after a shooting occured and the shooter had not been identified or taken into custody. The shooter actually walked 1.5 miles across campus before he shot and killed 31 people. He only killed one person in the first incident.

  I agree that you are not going to stop these type of problems with just gun control. I also agree that the best course of action is easier to figure out with hindsight.

  Maybe it would not have made any difference, but I think that all classes should have been cancelled as soon as the incident was reported. It is always better to err on the side of caution. It is not like these type of shooting sprees have not happened at schools before and there were also bomb threats recently before the shooting. I think, as a parent, I would want the school officials to do everything in their power to be prepared and to respond to these type of situations.

  My heart goes out to all who were affected.
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  Satans little helper

  you people will never learn. The whack job that just killed 32 people was able to get guns after a 10 minute background check and showing a couple of pieces of ID. If he was unable to get hold of guns so easily he would not have been able to kill 32 people!

  I am a sporting shooter and own a handgun, to get my handgun I had to be a member of a club for 6 months and get a licence. I then had a 28day cooling off period before I could actually pick my gun up, if you had such sensible gun licencing rules there is a much better chance that he would have been spotted as a nut before committing this atrocity.

  Government cannot, and should not even attempt to protect society from every possible ill situation; having said that there has to be some control on access to items which have no other function than to kill people. You can bullshit all you like about self protection but if this guy had not been able to get his hands on guns then the situation would not have arisen.

  One of the most stupid things I have heard is that if he had not been able to get guns then he could have killed just as many people with a bomb. Explosives and their ingredients are tightly controlled by law, and for good reason; why do you not accept the same restrictions on guns?
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  Jourles

  I have no idea how VT's dorms are laid out compared to the rest of the school, but if it is similar to how Michigan State University(roughly 40k students) has its dorms laid out, I can see how they wouldn't have shut down the school. MSU has dorms spread all around the area. You can drive away from the college - almost a quarter mile away - and end up at your dorm. Some dorms are on-campus, others are just off. If a shooting were to take place here in Lansing at a dorm, it would be highly unlikely that they would shut down the entire school(5k acre campus). The campus police were probably just playing the odds that the shooter wouldn't end up at the other end of the school to continue his killing spree.

  Bottom line is, no one knew what was going to happen or how. Regardless of this student's previous writings, I doubt anyone could have predicted this event and stopped it from happening. He was on a mission, and for him it was Mission Accomplished.
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  BizzyBee

  Yes, the Monday morning quarterbacking kind of makes my skin crawl because it does not recognize that

  1) no one can stop a CRAZY person. By definition a CRAZY person is unpredictable.

  2) Blaming law enforcement doesn't help - especially about situations that are societal. We have created a society that is violent and horribly skewed. We either work to change it as a society (possible?) or try to change it for our familes and ourselves. Beyond that - God help us.
• 

  BizzyBee

  Yes, the Monday morning quarterbacking kind of makes my skin crawl because it does not recognize that

  1) no one can stop a CRAZY person. By definition a CRAZY person is unpredictable.

  2) Blaming law enforcement doesn't help - especially about situations that are societal. We have created a society that is violent and horribly skewed. We either work to change it as a society (possible?) or try to change it for our familes and ourselves. Beyond that - God help us.
• 

  SWALKER

  Bottom line is, no one knew what was going to happen or how.

  The school had 2 bomb threats in the 2 weeks prior to this incidence. The news stated that the gunman had a copy of a new bomb threat and they believe he is the one who called in the threats. I wonder if the the students were told about this? The threats were specific to Norris Hall and should have had extra security measures in place! It appears as if they really dropped the ball on this one.

  Swalker
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  buffalosrfree

  I'm with you Juagarbass, if students or at least some of them had been carrying this asswipe wouldn't have been able to kill as many people as he did. He would have been taken out (killed or wounded) prior to so many deaths. In a society that wants to disarm its citizens so that only the insance, police (which some are also crooks), and the elite few are armed then this type of thing will continue to happen. There should be laws stating that any and all citizens (legal ones that is) can carry concealed weapons. We would sure as hell have a lot politer society if that were to happen. Im all for it.