Shooting at Virginia Tech Campus

[lomasmoney]

I'm sitting here studying for my finals, and across the television comes a breaking story that a gunman has killed 22 and wounded 21 others on the campus of Virginia Tech University. The gunman is though to be dead, but I have the feeling this will be a massive story that will lead to questions of how safe college dorms are, since that was where most of the damage has taken place from what I can gather

 

Here is a link that details the mayhem going on in Blacksburg http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/16/vtech.shooting/index.html

[Lord of The Curry]

Fucksakes. You Yanks and your school shootings. Maybe some psycho can clap up a mall or community center for a change next time.

 

The saddest part is that on the "Forces You Into Learning A Lesson" scale this doesn't even register.

[MarvinisaLunatic]

It was 1 dead 2 hours ago with the gunman on the loose..now its 21 with the gunman dead and they didn't go far for the 2nd round of shootings..wowzers...doesn't seem like the police were looking to hard for 2 hours..

 

I dont think they should be busting out the C word yet..how the hell do we know if the shooter was a student at Va Tech? And I think theres a difference between a high school and a college.

[Lord of The Curry]

C word?

[Guest Eagle Man]

What's the C word? Cunt? I'm not making the connection.

[k thx]

Columbine?

[Lord of The Curry]

Conspiracy? Collusion?

[lomasmoney]

I'm gonna guess the C word is something referencing Columbine. The fact that this happened in a college is way more suprising because that makes it even more random. A college campus is a huge place and it doesn't make much sense that someone would go off and shoot people that he didn't know. Apparently information is coming out now that the shooter was looking for his girlfriend at the dorm where most of the shootings came place, and also that the RA was shot as well. It still hasn't been reported if the gunman was a student or what. But this whole thing is fucked up, it might be even more fucked up than Columbine because its even more random

[Guest Eagle Man]

Columbine makes sense, I just didn't think of it as sacrosanct. Anyway, this does add a new dimension to school shootings, because they've traditionally been the province of the high school crowd. I can't recall anything of this scope on a college campus, and really, that's quite scary.

[k thx]

I've heard rumours that there could have been a second shooter, but I'm guessing that's unsubstantiated.

 

It'll be interesting to hear the reason for this.

[Lord of The Curry]

CNN is once again busting out the awesome reporting. On the main screen it's flashed "22 Dead" and the ticker below, at the same time passed by with "1 Dead, 21 Injured."

[k thx]

CNN is once again busting out the awesome reporting. On the main screen it's flashed "22 Dead" and the ticker below, at the same time passed by with "1 Dead, 21 Injured."

Injured to death.

[EricMM]

If this was supposed to be some sort of anniversary of Columbine, that was like four days early...

 

This is crazy.

 

But people are going like, "Gee, how could this happen here?" Of course it can happen. The second amendmant says it can, it just depends on human nature that it NOT happen.

[Slayer]

You Yanks and your school shootings.

Just us Yanks, huh

 

Maybe some psycho can clap up a mall...for a change next time.

May-be

[Lord of The Curry]

3 shootings in the span of.......20 plus years? Awesome point-making. And I didn't say it's just America.

 

It's just mostly America.

[MarvinisaLunatic]

C word?

I figured it was obvious...Columbine of course..wow..

 

and its 21 dead + the shooter = 22 dead and there were also 21 injured that aren't dead..

[Lord of The Curry]

Slayer forgot to bring up the one kid getting shot in Taber, AB shortly after Columbine. Thought that would've been a no-brainer.

[Slayer]

3 shootings in the span of.......20 plus years? Awesome point-making.

I'm sure some extra research would find more than "three shootings in 20 years", but two of those popped in my head right away and the third just happened to be grouped in there.

 

And I didn't say it's just America.

Coulda fooled me!

[snuffbox]

This is more Austin than Columbine.

[k thx]

This is more Austin than Columbine.

Gimme a Hell Yeah.

[The Amazing Rando]

I have a friend that's an engineering student there, and I haven't heard from her all day. I'm a little worried, but at least I know she was not in that residence hall, as she lives on the other side of the Drill field.

[Lord of The Curry]

CNN is sticking to its lone gunman theory but some are saying that the locations of the shootings would indicate that this was more then more person. Death tolls on various websites and channels are ranging from 21 to 28.

[lomasmoney]

True, but most people forget about the shootings in Austin since they took place so long ago. But this is scary as fuck, I don't live in the dorms anymore, but I could easily see this happening on my campus, which could be even worse considering the condensed nature of the campus. I mean imagine walking to class and all of a sudden someone just starts firing off shots. For whatever reason this happened, I can be sure that almost all of these dead people were probably innocent and this person was just some asshole who couldnt deal with breaking up with a girlfriend or failing an exam. The question I always wonder is why this type of stuff happens with more frequency in the States than anywhere else. It can't just be due to the Second Amendment, there is something deeper here that needs to be addressed because this situation will raise so many questions as to how to stop something like this from happening again, which you can't really do because its impossible to predict something like this

[jwpeer]

and for the person that asks why it's never malls/shopping centers.

 

Schools are very likely targets for shooting because most of them have a 'no weapons' policy, so generally the shooters are free to run rampant for quite awhile till the authorities can respond or they decide to kill themselves.

 

In this case it looks like it may have been -multiple- shooters. Which is really scary.\

 

 

And a lot of it probably has to do with the amount of stress people get put on them by our society/people around us. In the US if you don't suceed at college you're generally regarded as a failure and in many communities/families it's a very EXTREME focus. And people often get involved in degrees they can't handle, but feel pressured to be in (Since in our country financial success is the only worth by which you're measured, in some ways, in some peoples eyes)

 

 

So the social pressures in this country are pretty high on some people...which is really frightening.

[Guest mst3krules]

I was sitting and watching the coverage of this today and the weirdest thing was that they were saying "1 dead" for so long and I switched to CNN where it suddenly said "20 dead" and I was like . It was stunning to see the death count go up so fast. It's all so sickening.

[Lord of The Curry]

If the jaw-dropping smiley were ever appropriate, I guess now would be one of those times.

[2GOLD]

Reminds me of Higher Learning, which was pretty much just the sniper moment in Austin re-enacted with more skinhead problems.

This is horrible and a horribly high body count, but it's happened before.

[Guest mst3krules]

Now abcnews.com is reporting it's up to 29 dead. I also think it had to be more than one person doing this.

[Boon]

VA Tech's website is saying two shootings and confirmed 22 dead.

[EVIL~! alkeiper]

The question I always wonder is why this type of stuff happens with more frequency in the States than anywhere else. It can't just be due to the Second Amendment, there is something deeper here that needs to be addressed because this situation will raise so many questions as to how to stop something like this from happening again, which you can't really do because its impossible to predict something like this

 

The U.S. population is a hair short of 300 million, so you'd more occurrences with greater frequency just by simple mathematics.