only losers use guns (VA Tech discussion)

[Doreen Peri]

It's been a long and horrible day... Mass murder is mass murder... no matter the number.

Sure, empires slaughter thousands, and that is horrid but the topic is a random act of violence against innocent students.

Can we say this is nothing in comparison? Of course not!

I'm very upset. I know most people are. My heart goes out to the families... this is so very tragic!

Someone said to me today, "Why don't we hear about the thousands of people who die every day of starvation? What about all the people being killed in Iraq and Afghanistan? What's the difference? It's OK for a country to do it?"

I'm paraphrasing. I didn't say it exactly like he did but I'm trying to paraphrase what was said to me.

OK well I'm ashamed of all people who kill, of all violence. Why am I ashamed? I'm ashamed that this can happen to one individual or to a nation.... something that causes them to want to kill and to carry it out. For what? It's all so very sad. I'm supposed to be a writer, but I have no words.

You can't compare one incident to the next. You can't compare numbers of people. You can't compare when someone does it alone or when an entire govt does it. You just can't compare. Every incident is different. ONE life is just as important as thousands of lives.

I am just so sad tonight...

[Raggedman]

This is the kind of news that makes one yearn for the good ol' days when the talking heads had nothing else (of interest) to rant about, save for a dead skank of a creature, her progeny, and much speculation on said progeny's patrimony...

Ah morons...Yes, anyone who kills innocents in any manner is lacking something....human

Guns? I dunno....I like owning them, but then, I'm not a sociopath.

Merely anti-social

It occurs that these guys go about the whole murder-suicide thing exactly backwards.

[hester_prynne]

I think it gives for a lot to think about....speculate about....
I guess some of the graduates from where Stella is now attending high school are at Virginia Tech and they are waiting for word on a few students.....
It's a cryin, shocking shame, that someone would be so out of touch with reality and humanity that they would justify some feeling that perhaps is not comfortable by killing.
I can't help but think that this is but a part of horrors to come. I mean look at the example our leaders give out. Kill without compromise or negotiation in order to have power or your way.....to be "king of the mountain".
I heard a counselor type talking on tv today about how the schools are not being examples anymore. Boundaries, compassion, care for human life, respect, discipline are just not on the roster anymore.
There is blame sure, but it can't be blamed. We have to eat it now because we have let it come to this.
It's a tragedy, an unbelievable darkness, unfortunately, only to get darker if we all just keep "living life like nothing has happened".
How far do you go beyond the novelty of things before conveniently forgetting about it.
Then, when it happens again, even worse, we are surprized?

I say let's get off the novelty train and get down to business about changing this crap we've let come to this. We got the numbers, we just don't have the awareness enough yet I guess.....
Crying helps give and release the incredible pain of this.
I hope everyone can feel the pain of this and cry at least.....
I sure feel sorry for folks that don't feel anything at all....
H

[bohonato]

How far do you go beyond the novelty of things before conveniently forgetting about it.
Then, when it happens again, even worse, we are surprized?

After growing up with Columbine, going through public schools in North Detroit (bomb threats, kids ODing, fights, robbery, stabbings, arson, you name it, we had it. Worst day ever, friend of mine was stabbed in the back with an 8 inch kitchen knife. Almost died, blood all over the halls.) I'm not surprised. Honestly, while its tragic, I'm not shocked.

We had metal detectors at high school. Didn't think I'd have to ever deal with it at college. Though, we do have rapes in Michigan colleges quite a lot. And that student at EMU over in Ypsi that was found decomposing in her dorm room. I guess that's life. Survive college, survive anything.

[eyelidlessness]

Handwringing for the privileged

School shootings* are like a wake up call to the dead. Not the victims, but the dead-hearted, dead-minded people who deal in death every day, who can't any longer see the blood they drown themselves in. And like the dead, they just never seem to wake up.

Between four and six Americans die every day because they encounter police. 25,000 people starve to death each day. 21 children and nearly 60 adults, Americans all, were killed by the US government in Waco, Texas on 19 April, 1993.[no citation, surely since they're American the numbers are well-known... right?]

This isn't a dismissal. Of course it's sad that 32 college kids were shot and killed. But the focus is upsetting. A dozen dead Iraqis might briefly hit the news wire (if their killers were Arab and not collaborating with the US). Routine murder of dissidents in US-allied countries like Saudi Arabia or Uzbekistan barely raise an eyebrow. For decades, the Israeli military occupation of Palestine has depended heavily on millions of US dollars per year, and while a lot of attention is paid in American media, it's both vastly disproportionate to the role Americans play and nearly never critical of the occupation.

It's like the old saying, violence is as American as apple pie. While kids at Columbine might be excused of their ignorance, college students shouldn't be. Journalists shouldn't be. You shouldn't be, and I shouldn't be. Until the braying over the innocence of 32 students is proportional to the din of conscientious Americans who simply won't take murder and misery for granted anymore, who among us really has a right to complain? It's dishonest and cynical.

What's worse, while today's college shooting was likely not preventable, all of the other atrocities I've listed are or were. And there's likely a connection between victim and atrocity: where did their tuition come from? Where will their education lead them? To what bureaucratic killing machine will they lend their talents, and from which did they derive their privilege?

The dead-hearted and dead-minded among us should honor the real dead by committing to ending the violent culture that fosters this sort of atrocity.

* ... terrorist attacks and workplace shootings count, too.

[Scootertrash]

Just awful and unexplainable...beyond all reason and rationality how someone could be so sick and messed up, so cruel as to wish to snuff the life out of perfect strangers...all those people...just terrible.....what is it about American culture or society that drives our nutbars to turn into homicidal maniacs against perfect strangers? I dunno about how crazy people go off in other countries, but for some reason I get an idea that school murder rampages are uniquely American

here's a page/site where a bunch of VT people are posting:

http://www.digg.com/world_news/I_don_t_ ... e_students

[Doreen Peri]

Just got an email letting me know that a daughter of someone I used to work with was one of the victims.....

[stilltrucking]

close to home

sufficient the evil
for the day thereof
life goes on


sorry doreen
condolences

[Lightning Rod]

Stupid Bob called me on the phone yesterday
this was just after the story broke and facts were sketchy.
Knowing that he was a gun expert, I asked him if he thought that one shooter could have made that many kills. He said 'sure, two pistols and a jacket full of clips and I could get a hundred.'

SB went further to assert, "If even one of those students or faculty members had been packing, then there would likely not have been so many killed."

I'm no gun fan, but I think he is right. At some point, especially in close quarters and short time, we have to take responsibility for protecting ourselves. The robber or the madman is not going to take a coffee break while you call the cops.

I have to come down on the same side of this as GW. We have the right to bear arms. It is slightly amusing that Bush feels impelled to uphold the second amendment when he pretty well ignores much of the rest of the Constitution. But if more people exercised this right and carried guns, then even a nut with buck-fever like the guy at Va Tech would consider twice before assaulting a group of people when he knows that there is a reasonable expectation of return fire. Manners would also improve.

I hope this doesn't become a gun control issue when it is a crazy man issue. The Constitution gives us the right to bear arms, not to behave like a ballistic mad person.

[stilltrucking]

Yeah I was having this same conversation with Geoff about that subject.



I got no problem with people having guns. We got to the most heavly armed civilian population outside of afghanistan.


You touched on another subject that I was talking to Geoff about too. How this will be used to spin bad news, yeah now Bush has an issue to build talking points to support our war on terrorism, moms apple pie and the right to arm bears.

anything that takes the focus off an identical event that is happening daily in Iraq is bad news for me. Only thing is its just farther away and somebody elses children, friend, relative...

Sorry thanks for the music by the way. about the only comfort I can take.

[MrGuilty]

Clay my good man
It must be your job to freak me out
GW

I'm thinking GW who the hell is that?
GW HEGEL?

Then oh my god no
not him

he would take your gunz in a new york nanosecond
cause he believes it is his job to defend the american people

not the constitution.

thanks for the music

[eyelidlessness]

Just awful and unexplainable...beyond all reason and rationality how someone could be so sick and messed up, so cruel as to wish to snuff the life out of perfect strangers...all those people...just terrible.....what is it about American culture or society that drives our nutbars to turn into homicidal maniacs against perfect strangers?

We have parades for them when they do.

I dunno about how crazy people go off in other countries, but for some reason I get an idea that school murder rampages are uniquely American

Not true, though it looks like we have a semi-monopoly.

Oh yeah, forgot to get this one:

he would take your gunz in a new york nanosecond
cause he believes it is his job to defend the american people

not the constitution.

You're right. Not only is it delusional to believe conservatives are really interested in protecting your gun rights, it's delusional to believe Bush is a conservative in any sense.

[e_dog]

these crazy wacko gunslingin kids that shoot up schools are the same ones that kill civilians in iraq, probably. we need to find the troublemakers early, ... and enlist them in the army.

but l-rod and his buddy George W. Bush are right: theres a constitutional right to bear arms. there are risks with rights. better a few kids get shot than that we live in a police state. gun control freaks ought to focus on truly dangerous products like cars and tobacco and briefcases and american flag lapels, not small arms.

its a sad fact, tragic event. we live in a society based in violence.

at least in europe disgruntled kids attack the system, riot and fight with the cops, burning cars. here, they just attack other kids and teachers, for christ sake.

[Scootertrash]

its a sad fact, tragic event. we live in a society based in violence.

at least in europe disgruntled kids attack the system, riot and fight with the cops, burning cars. here, they just attack other kids and teachers, for christ sake.

Back in the 1960s and early '70s the American kids knew who the enemy was.

"They've Got the Guns but We've Got the Numbers "

-- J. Morrison

[stilltrucking]

Just curious. I suppose I should be watching the news more often. But you all seem to be assuming he was an american kid. The only description of him I have heard was the he was "Asian" could he have been in the country on a student visa. That is proablaly unrelated but I wondered about it. Some of you are saying violence as american as apple pie. Is that a condition one would get after being in america for a few months or years if it turns out he was not an american after all. His identity is still a secrete which seems odd to me.

Pure speculation on my part. I await the facts.