21 Shot dead at Virginia Tech

Steve B. · Apr 16, 2007

I don't know about this school, but at the University of Washington if this had happened:

- AFAIK there is no centralized announcement system that could put the place on lockdown

-even if they did try, many people would freak out and try to leave, and the place is very spread out and surrounded by city areas so it would be easy for many

-during the day there are only maybe 10-20 cops who could respond, many of them on bicycles, though they are "real" police officers and not just security

-some activist type jackass students would make a big deal out of going to see why we were being locked down and try to get to where the action is because it's probably Bush suppressing the populace, or commies or Zionists or something - not being facetious, I am positive this would happen especially after the taser incident

I feel terrible for the family of everyone involved, and I hate to be the jerk American cowboy that brings this up, but I have to think that one well-trained student legally carrying a concealed pistol could have stopped this much earlier...

[edit - while typing, that response about VA's anti gun policy came up, and I'm not surprised... I doubt they will rethink that thought]

Fearless Leader:

Gotta disagree with this one:

In practicality:

How is one student going to get across a far-flung campus with 20,000 people to find the shooter?
Who conducts the investigation afterwards to see if it's justified? Most police forces have a difficult time doing this.

Theory:

Do you REALLY want, say even 1000, students carrying guns on a 20,000 student campus? Who checks their weapons to make sure they're "stock"? Trains them? Polices (pun intended) them?

I think we've all been watching too many action movies and playing too many video games.

zjpj83 · Apr 16, 2007

In other news, at Columbia University...

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE?!?

New York Daily News
Copyright 2007 Daily News, L.P.

April 16, 2007

Section: NEWS

PERVERT TRIED TO KILL HER. TIED-UP COLUMBIA STUDENT LEFT TO DIE, USES FIRE SET BY CREEP TO FREE HERSELF

JIMMY VIELKIND, LISA L. COLANGELO and MELISSA GRACE DAILY NEWS WRITERS With Ernie Naspretto

TIED UP AND LEFT TO DIE in a burning apartment, a Columbia student used the blaze set by her sadistic ****** to free herself, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said yesterday.

"It appears she was able to escape as a result of the fire," Kelly said. "She was tied, and the flame was used by her to break the bond."

The 23-year-old woman, identified by sources as a student at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, endured 19 hours of **** and torture at the hands of a sick creep in her Hamilton Heights apartment Friday night.

In what Kelly called a "particularly vicious" assault, the fiend tied his victim to a bed, cut her, raped her, burned her with scalding water and chemicals - and then set the woman's futon on fire to cover up the crime, police said.

He was so brutal he **** her eyelids, Kelly said.

The student used the flames to free herself and fled her fifth-floor apartment with her hands still bound to each other to get help from a neighbor, officials said.

The woman remains hospitalized in serious but stable condition.

Cops yesterday were combing through surveillance video for images of the attacker, who followed the woman into her building near City College at 9:30 p.m.

Kelly said detectives were looking to see if there was any evidence the ****** had attacked before, but said, "It does not appear right now to be part of a pattern."

One man said he saw the victim in the basement of the building shortly after she escaped.

"She just kept saying, 'I've been raped,' " said Ronald Ward, 19, who spotted the fire and ran downstairs for help, where he found the building's superintendent, Carl Peroune, trying to soothe the woman as they waited for an ambulance.

"She was down there crying," Ward said.

Police were hunting for the attacker, described as a bald, 6-foot-1, 180-pound black man in his 30s with a goatee and a scar on his abdomen.

Several residents of the woman's six-story Hamilton Terrace building, located on a quiet treelined block of neat rowhouses, said she had moved in within the past two months.

"I've been living in this building 30 years, and nothing like this ever happened," said another resident, Teddy Perkins, 55. "This is real shocking."

Buickguy · Apr 16, 2007

Originally Posted by lawyerdad

Actually, I suspect making it illegal and enforcing the law with at least moderate diligence.would make it much less likely that mentally unstable high school and college aged kids would get ahold of it.

There has been much enforcement of the laws, unfortunately it can't prevent everything.
As a counselor, I'm sure you are far more qualified than I to debate the finer points of prior restraint and its effectiveness. Murder is illegal. I am not familiar with Virginia law but if it is similar to my state, then it is probably illegal to possess a firearm on campus. The myriad of laws the evil coward broke is most likely staggering.

Originally Posted by lawyerdad

Tell the parents of dead kids that their deaths are just a reflection of the law of diminishing returns.
Don't misunderstand. I have great sympathy for the families who have lost their loved ones. In fact, I chose the words evil coward very carefully to describe the murderer.
I will not call him insane. Insanity would be attacking a military base or police station where there are many trained and armed individuals who could have offered a timely and effective answer. Instead, this hideous excuse for a human choose an area where little to no resistance could be offered. Discussion of the finer points of law is best in the crucible of law. That is your bailiwick. I know that in the law enforcement side of things an officer is usually just in time to be a historian in stead of any kind of protector.

LabelKing · Apr 16, 2007

It seems particularly convenient to label these people as "evil" or "cowardly" or "insane".

hopkins_student · Apr 16, 2007

Originally Posted by LabelKing

It seems particularly convenient to label these people as "evil" or "cowardly" or "insane".
Please learn when to shut up.

lawyerdad · Apr 16, 2007

Originally Posted by Buickguy

There has been much enforcement of the laws, unfortunately it can't prevent everything.
As a counselor, I'm sure you are far more qualified than I to debate the finer points of prior restraint and its effectiveness. Murder is illegal. I am not familiar with Virginia law but if it is similar to my state, then it is probably illegal to possess a firearm on campus. The myriad of laws the evil coward broke is most likely staggering.

Don't misunderstand. I have great sympathy for the families who have lost their loved ones. In fact, I chose the words evil coward very carefully to describe the murderer.
I will not call him insane. Insanity would be attacking a military base or police station where there are many trained and armed individuals who could have offered a timely and effective answer. Instead, this hideous excuse for a human choose an area where little to no resistance could be offered. Discussion of the finer points of law is best in the crucible of law. That is your bailiwick. I know that in the law enforcement side of things an officer is usually just in time to be a historian in stead of any kind of protector.

Your observations are all reasonable. To be clear, my comment about enforcement of the laws was meant to refer back to my comment about legal changes making it more difficult to obtain guns -- that is, I was just acknowledging that simply passing feel-good legislation that is not enforced is pointless.

WSW · Apr 16, 2007

Maybe schools should institute "shooting drills" in addition to fire drills. Each school develops a plan in case a shooting occurs on campus, such as having all students and faculty run into the nearest room and barricading it, and practice that plan once or twice a semester.

LabelKing · Apr 16, 2007

Originally Posted by hopkins_student

Please learn when to shut up.

That inane outburst was unnecessary.

j · Apr 16, 2007

Originally Posted by Steve B.

Fearless Leader:

Gotta disagree with this one:

In practicality:

How is one student going to get across a far-flung campus with 20,000 people to find the shooter?
Who conducts the investigation afterwards to see if it's justified? Most police forces have a difficult time doing this.

Theory:

Do you REALLY want, say even 1000, students carrying guns on a 20,000 student campus? Who checks their weapons to make sure they're "stock"? Trains them? Polices (pun intended) them?

I think we've all been watching too many action movies and playing too many video games.

I knew someone would jump on this... of course I didn't mean ONLY one in the whole school. I meant that if one student near this guy had been armed, he might have had a chance to stop the guy.

And yes, I would feel safer having 1% of students carrying licensed pistols on campus. I know the type of people who would consider it and I would trust most of them more than most police officers to be safe, sane and probably better shots as well. And being students, they are just more likely to be around wherever a major incident like this could potentially happen.

I don't fantasize about being the one who could shoot this guy - it would be horrific for anyone to have to do that. But I think most people can agree it would have been better if he had been killed earlier and had less time to shoot innocent people.

whnay. · Apr 16, 2007

Originally Posted by LabelKing

That inane outburst was unnecessary.

So was yours. Tasteless really.

Pennglock · Apr 16, 2007

Originally Posted by LabelKing

It seems particularly convenient to label these people as "evil" or "cowardly" or "insane".

Im having trouble thinking of any circumstances where the shooter was not at least one of the above. Can you, serious question?

Mr. Checks · Apr 16, 2007

To answer one of the earlier questions, there has been a movement recently to certify campus cops as legitimate police officers. Don't know if Virginia has done that.

The University had no idea what to do. They think they will have a list "sometime tomorrow" of who was killed and injured.

The University suggests parents not come to campus to see their kids!

CNN showed the student tape (with 27 gunshots on it) to a police expert, who said, "what I want to know is why the cops are outside and why they don't have their asses inside trying to get the gunman"

The president just dodged the question of why it took 2+ hours to email the students of the first incident. He is in all-out denial and CYA mode.

Dmax · Apr 16, 2007

Someone forgot to tell the murderer that Virginia Tech is a "Gun Free Safe Zone".

There is no way to stop these type of tragedies from occuring. Allowing people who qualified for their respective State's Concealed Carry License to cary their weapons everywhere and not inventing idiotic "Gun Free Zones" is the only way to limit the damage dangerous maniacs like this can inflict.

There are plenty of instances when a citizen with a gun stoped a crimininal intending on killing others. Popular media chooses to under-report this since for some reason it is considered not politically correct.

LabelKing · Apr 16, 2007

Originally Posted by whnay.

So was yours. Tasteless really.

Originally Posted by Pennglock

Im having trouble thinking of any circumstances where the shooter was not at least one of the above. Can you, serious question?
Calling these people completely insane or whatever is simply an easy way for society to mitigate their own losses and go on with their lives. How can you call someone completely evil? That would be a particularly asinine and naive statement.

lawyerdad · Apr 16, 2007

Originally Posted by Pennglock

Im having trouble thinking of any circumstances where the shooter was not at least one of the above. Can you, serious question?

I think the point, which others have raised, was that those are simply labels that at some level serve as a mental crutch. Having labelled him "insane", public opinion is able to write him off as an unexplainable aberration and shrug off a certain amount of collective responsibility for asking why we as a society tend to produce such individuals and what if anything can be done to prevent or mitigate similar future incidents.

21 Shot dead at Virginia Tech

Go Spurs Go

Distinguished Member

Senior Member

Stylish Dinosaur

Distinguished Member

Lying Dog-faced Pony Soldier

Senior Member

Stylish Dinosaur

(stands for Jerk)

Distinguished Member

Distinguished Member

Distinguished Member

Distinguished Member

Stylish Dinosaur

Lying Dog-faced Pony Soldier

FEATURED PRODUCTS

Similar threads

Featured Sponsor

Definitely full canvas only

Half canvas is fine

Really don't care

Depends on fabric

Depends on price

Forum Sponsors

Forum statistics

FOLLOW STYLEFORUM ON: