21 Shot dead at Virginia Tech - Page 2

unconfirmed: Death toll is up to 25 - it was a single shooter with two handguns.

Victim confirms it was an Asian guy ... college age ... in a maroon hat and a dark leather jacket.

Crazy fucker, one way or the other. People can be seriously fucked up sometimes...

Was the gunman a student?

The problem is that the technology exists. The cork has been pulled and the genie has escaped, so to speak. Since it would be impossible to uninvent the technology, the question becomes one of further restriction. Looking at the history of firearm restriction in the United States is an interesting study.
The earliest restrictions were local. Some western frontier towns had carry restrictions that were selectively enforced. Locals were seldom, if ever stopped but transients were often asked to check their firearms in town. After the civil war, most restrictions were designed to keep firearms out of the hands of minorities. The first federal restriction came with the National Firearms Act of 1934.
NFA '34 placed a tax and essentially licensure on certain firearms and components, including automatic and select fire firearms (machine guns and those switchable to machine gun fire), silencers, short barrel rifles, and short barrel shotguns. Of all restrictions, this one has been the most successful. Since passage of NFA '34, there has only been one case of a licensed gun being used in a crime. The next major federal restriction came with the Gun Control Act of 1968.
GCA '68 established a licensing for firearm dealers, forbid the interstate sale of firearms directly to the consumer, established restricted categories of people (convicted felons, dishonorable discharged, et al), and included restrictions on ammunition. GCA '68 has been amended several times since its inception, including the addition of misdemeanor domestic violence as a category for restriction, the National Instant Criminal background Check System (NICS) and the "Semi-Automatic Assault Weapons" ban, certain provisions of which have sunset. The results of GCA '68 and its amendments have been less than successful, especially when compared with NFA '34.
Firearms were more readily available in the 1950s than in the latter half of the 20th century and the first part of the 21st century. Murder has always been illegal.
There is a point of diminishing returns. When does making more things illegal stop someone determined to break the law.

Wow, I just saw this on CNN. Terrible.
Sometimes you just have to sit and think, if you aren't safe at a place of learning, like a college, where are you really safe? (rhetorical question, btw)

JB

Getting an online degree looks pretty good right now... Seriously, how fucked up do you have to be to kill even 1 innocent person, never mind 25.

Oh my god, CNN is now saying 31 dead.

JB

How did he get this far without anyone taking him down? Jeez.

I dunno. Likely most people would have been taken completely off-guard.

wait... the shooting was in 2 different buildings, but one gunman?

The death-toll is likely to get much higher. I have a contact that's the head of the EMS department there. Here's the IM's he sent me on his way out the door...

Him [1:52 PM]: I am on phone now with an ic that was there

Him [1:52 PM]: He is saying they "black tagged" 31 on one floor alone so there will be probably close to 50 if not more DOA....

Him [1:52 PM]: it is gonna be way worse than first reported

But, he shot people earlier in the day at the dorm, right? Then, seemingly, nobody did anything and he was free to go around and kill more people. Shouldn't they have shut things down immediately until they figured out what had happened? I guess they had no way of telling whether the earlier shooting was an isolated incident or not. But jeez, when my kids are in college, I would hope that the institution would err on the side of caution and if students are shot in any way, cancel classes and tell everyone to go home at least for that day to figure out what's going on. That said, this psycho probably would have found some way to kill people regardless....

Zjpj,
They did lock down the classes, I think we should wait to see what the actual VT representatives have to say. Press conference at 4:30 according to CNN.

JB

According to Fox news, the death toll is up to 32 now.