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[bibliothecula]

Bush's statement has made me very, very angry.

[prytania3]

This is such a sad thing, and I'm having a hard time believing it happened in Virginia, I know students at Tech from my hometown.

I hope any forumites we have at Tech are all right.

I will say a prayer for everyone there.

[old_school]

Bush's statement has made me very, very angry.

Well .. he'll be making an address at 4:15 EST .. let's see what he does then.

Death toll reaches 31.

[illuminata]

My nephew is at VT. He called his mom right after the shots were fired to say he's under a table in the library and is ok- but he still heard the screams and shots and very likely will know some one who's not ok. My god, what will it take to get rid of assault weapons in the US? So sad.

[bio_prof_]

This is so awful.

[dr_evil]

Bibliothecula, I'm glad your friend is ok!

What a terrifying story!  *Hugs* to anyone who knows someone at VA Tech.

[chiclette]

Back when it was just one reported death, I remember wondering if this happens in other countries.  Now that it is at least 20 dead.....I think I know the answer. 

[/quote]


Yes.  It has happened in Canada -- witness the shootings of female engineering students at Universite de Montreal, and more recently, the Dawson College shootings, also in Montreal.  About 25 years ago, there was a shooter at my younger sister's highschool.  A male student took a hunting rifle off the wall in his father's study, went to school, shot 3 others and himself.

Gun-culture is becoming more widespread in this country than it ever was.  The "right" to bear arms???  Please.  What more will it take to convince people?  

[case_insensitive]

I'm still waiting to hear if friends there are ok. None of them should have been in those particular buildings....

what will it take to get rid of assault weapons in the US? So sad.

Impossible. And if you do, then only the bad guys will have them. :o(  Then, it gets worse.

The tragedy at VT makes me think about how vulnerable we all are on all our campuses. There is nothing to stop this kind of event from happening where I teach. I know many will disagree, and make arguments like "guns don't kill people, people do," but for me the VT shooting is just more evidence that allowing citizens to own and carry weapons is a terrible idea.

No, it's proof you can't stop every one from getting something they shouldn't have and doing something they shouldn't do.  Laws don't stop this sort of behaviour.  Outlaw guns and you'll still have outlaws with guns.

I doubt you'd think this way about citizens and guns if you'd grown up in Hitler's Germany, which outlawed ordinary citizens (not just Jews) from many things... and thereby kept a vice-grip over society.

We are particularly vulnerable on campuses because in most states (even those with pretty easy concealed carry laws) a campus is a no-carry location. So, even someone with the right to carry, who is licensed and even trained in self-defense, isn't supposed to carry there. So, if someone who pays no attention to laws comes on a campus and starts shooting, he can keep shooting until the police show up because the ordinary citizens who could stop him have been told they are not allowed.

Why do you think these things happen in schools and universities and churches?  Because those are the places where almost no one is going to be capable (because of laws or lack of training or whatever) or willing (because of beliefs) to fight back.  Banning guns will never stop this sort of thing being targeted at our most vulnerable places.

Yes, it happens in other countries. Just watch the news.  Since, in most places, including the US, ordinary citizens don't fight back for their own survival, these sorts of things happen.  One example comes to mind, the huge shooting in Port Arthur, Tasmania, Australia 1996.

What will you do if someone like this ever walks into your classroom?

That's a question worth thinking about...

[helpful]

I'm still waiting to hear if friends there are ok. None of them should have been in those particular buildings....

what will it take to get rid of assault weapons in the US? So sad.

Impossible. And if you do, then only the bad guys will have them. :o(  Then, it gets worse.

The tragedy at VT makes me think about how vulnerable we all are on all our campuses. There is nothing to stop this kind of event from happening where I teach. I know many will disagree, and make arguments like "guns don't kill people, people do," but for me the VT shooting is just more evidence that allowing citizens to own and carry weapons is a terrible idea.

No, it's proof you can't stop every one from getting something they shouldn't have and doing something they shouldn't do.  Laws don't stop this sort of behaviour.  Outlaw guns and you'll still have outlaws with guns.

I doubt you'd think this way about citizens and guns if you'd grown up in Hitler's Germany, which outlawed ordinary citizens (not just Jews) from many things... and thereby kept a vice-grip over society.

We are particularly vulnerable on campuses because in most states (even those with pretty easy concealed carry laws) a campus is a no-carry location. So, even someone with the right to carry, who is licensed and even trained in self-defense, isn't supposed to carry there. So, if someone who pays no attention to laws comes on a campus and starts shooting, he can keep shooting until the police show up because the ordinary citizens who could stop him have been told they are not allowed.

Why do you think these things happen in schools and universities and churches?   Because those are the places where almost no one is going to be capable (because of laws or lack of training or whatever) or willing (because of beliefs) to fight back.  Banning guns will never stop this sort of thing being targeted at our most vulnerable places.

Yes, it happens in other countries. Just watch the news.  Since, in most places, including the US, ordinary citizens don't fight back for their own survival, these sorts of things happen.  One example comes to mind, the huge shooting in Port Arthur, Tasmania, Australia 1996.

What will you do if someone like this ever walks into your classroom?

That's a question worth thinking about...

I am amazed CI that you have that opinion. You are otherwise reasonable. No one, absolutely no one, should have the right to own an semi automatic or assault weapon. There is absolutely no reason to own one other than to kill people. To defend the right to bear arms as Bush has done today is just not on.....

I will try and keep my reaction to your statement from influencing how I respond to any of your posts in the future, but I guess I will still wonder....

[pink_]

Bush's statement has made me very, very angry.

Me too.

[spork]

How could one person cause that much carnage?

Lots of ammunition, people in confined spaces, shock and confusion.

The following is not intended to be inflammatory, though it may sound that way:

The deaths and injuries are a tragedy, but should be kept in perspective; for example, over 40,000 Americans die in auto crashes each year, of which over 15,000 are related to the consumption of alcohol.

Descriptions of the student and possible program of study, if correct, fit a pattern of psychological maladjustment that many of us have seen before, whether as students or faculty.  I would like to see all the touchy-feely "college is the new high school" campus life programs scrapped in favor of serious psychological assessment for students that show signs of substance abuse and/or mental illness.

As for a 2 hour time span between the first shootings in the dorm and the second shootings in the classroom building, someone, or some people, within the VT or Blacksburg police forces will be in big trouble.    Controlled searches should have been initiated immediately, from the dormitory outward, until the campus was cleared and the shooter(s) apprehended or killed.

[john_proctor]

Here's a crazy idea:

How bout we try to get 24 hours, or at least have enough respect to let the body count get finished, before we turn this into a political debate - pro or con gun control or pro or con fill-in-political-figure's-name?

Trust me, they'll be time tomorrow.

[larryc]

I would favor widespread gun control with an aggressive roundup of the tens of millions of existing handguns and assault rifles.  That said, the genie is out of the bottle in this regard and it is probably too late.

What we have in the U.S. is probably the worse of both worlds--widespread gun ownership combined with a series of laws and regulations that make it difficult approaching impossible to legally carry a gun in most places.  Guns are banned in virtually every school and campus, so you have a huge concentration of defenseless people in a society brimming with guns. When some crackpot snaps and goes to campus with a sackful of guns and ammo, they are the next thing to invulnerable.

The solution is to either a) take away all those guns, or B) allow gun owners to take their guns more places. I prefer A but think B is more practical. I would support either.

[rowan1]

Here's a crazy idea:

How bout we try to get 24 hours, or at least have enough respect to let the body count get finished, before we turn this into a political debate - pro or con gun control or pro or con fill-in-political-figure's-name?

Trust me, they'll be time tomorrow.

Here here!

The death toll just keeps going up.  This is a time for sorrow, not political debate.  Time enough for that tomorrow, at least for some of us.

My heart goes out to all those personally touched by this.  It is frightening that our classrooms can so easily become a place of fear.

[case_insensitive]

I am amazed CI that you have that opinion. You are otherwise reasonable. No one, absolutely no one, should have the right to own an semi automatic or assault weapon. There is absolutely no reason to own one other than to kill people. To defend the right to bear arms as Bush has done today is just not on.....

Let's think about our words carefully. Do you know the difference in a semi-automatic weapon (which most weapons are these days) and an assault weapon? I think not or you wouldn't put those in the same phrase.  Don't parrot what you hear others saying. Do some research and use the terms faithfully.

Just because we disagree doesn't, by definition, make me unreasonable.

Why can you talk about banning this or that, but I can't have an opinion on this day?  Hardly fair, is it.

If anyone at all in those buildings (professor, janitor, whomever) had been a licensed carrying citizen, the shooting could have been stopped.  That is a plausible fact.

I'm a graduate of Va Tech, so don't act like I don't care what happened there. I care more than you can imagine.

Think back to 9-11.  Why did that plane go down in the PA countryside rather than hitting some important building in DC?  Because people were prepared to fight back.  I think few of use are prepared to fight back (with weapons or weaponless).  I think most of us are just scared that something bad will happen to them and the police won't get there in time.  Odds are, if something bad like happened like what happend today, the police will not get there in time to save any number of folks.  The police are not our personal body guards.  This is an unreasonable expectation on anyone's part.

Everything I posted before is true.  Read your state laws and see if it isn't so.  Universities, schools and churches are the most vulnerable places we have.  Period.  Therefore, this is a question worth thinking about:

What will you do if someone like this ever walks into your classroom?  

So, what will you do?

I will try and keep my reaction to your statement from influencing how I respond to any of your posts in the future, but I guess I will still wonder....

What a sad statement.  Not everyone is going to agree with you always.  Does that mean you  have to rethink every post of every person who ever disagreed with you on one topic?  It could be really hard to be one of your students and not agree with every thing you say in class.

So much for tolerance of divergent opinions...

How you feel on this subject won't color my reading of your posts on any other subject, I assure you. I believe dialog is good, even if we do not agree.