[Sadipriss]

I guess a lot of people remember the shooting on a highschool in the US (colombine)

this time it's an university that got "hit" by a random shooter....

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/16/vtech.s...index.html

33 peaple dead including the shooter and one person arrested and a 2nd shooter



seriously you'd think after these incident they would try getting a better drip on arms and shit..... I wonder if they will do so now but then again.....
let's not get our hopes up....

[Lynk Former]

Hasn't there been a few since Colombine?...

[Analog]

I'm not sure how much gun control would help. If this guy wanted to kill a lot of people, there are several ways to do it. He just happened to be very, very proficient with guns. That's not to say he couldn't have built bombs to do the same thing.

Also, this hits a little close to home for me. I happen to work in the engineering department of a company only a few hours away from Virginia Tech. We have several people that graduated from VT in my group. We even have recently worked with Coop's that still attend VT.

I'm really hoping that I don't recognize any of the names of the victims when they are finally released

[Moelman]

Hasn't there been a few since Colombine?...

Yeah but this is the biggest school shooting in the US.

Its very sad news.

[PJ-Animation]

I was very upset when I heard about this earlier today. Thirty-one people died there.

[Maverick]

at least thirty-one...

We had a shooting in Argentina, i think it was around 2004 when a 15 year old kid picked his father's gun and killed 3 of his classmates.

I'm not sure how much gun control would help. If this guy wanted to kill a lot of people, there are several ways to do it. He just happened to be very, very proficient with guns. That's not to say he couldn't have built bombs to do the same thing.

yes, but most (if not all) of these incidents involved guns, I don't think anyone can find another easy way of killing many people.

[darktruth]

There was a similar incident down here in Melbourne a few years ago where a university (college for the US people) student went on a shooting rampage at Monash University in Clayton. It's very disturbing to always hear these incidents and I'm attending uni myself. It's very rare that we have these types of shootings in Australia though.

[Geass]

Watch as conspiracy theories starting turning radars towards the content of the hard drives in the computer that teh shooter might have used and then the "Games are Bad" bandwagon is gonna sprout up.

Yes, we need gun control but at some point its gonna be ridiculous, I mean, you can only have so much gun control that only the police can use guns, then it becomes some what odd.
Odd enough, if most guns where banned, would the shooter have resorted to a crossbow?
I hope this was a random shooting and not some sick vendeta such as columbine.

[Sadipriss]

I'm not going for a complete ban on guns for the populace,
but a bit more hmm regulation and information about using nd obtaining such guns....

I always had the HUGE impression getting a gun in the US is WAY easier then most other western countries...

[Chimasterwang]

I also have that impression =P
Some states you allowed to carry guns and stuff i think >_<

[Lynk Former]

@ Darky: Yeah, two people were killed, I think.

But the worst shooting we've ever had was the Port Arthur Massacre... I think it's been the only big shooting in Australia and it freaked the entire country out, enough to tighten firearm laws even tighter than they already are, and firearm laws are extremely tight down here in Australia.

The firearm laws in the US amaze me and the lax attitude I see from folks in the US amaze me. About the only people who use guns down here are the obvious criminals, the police and other law enforcement officers, farmers and people who need them to deal with animals. Everyone else cannot own a firearm for any reason.

Yes, guns don't kill people, people do... and obviously people who do go on these kinds of shootings do have some issues, but the bottom line is that we have the same kind of people down here in Australia, the difference is is that they can't get their hands on guns to do the damage in the first place.

[Scar da Kookee]

31 people.
that means that it wasnt just normally a 'omg flip out!' situation.
31 people means that he had and performed the action of 'unloading' and 'reloading'
regardless of what weapon, most clips (if it was a carbine weapon) hold at most 30.

me i havent seen the article. saw a little on the news, was just a little busy. but thats sad. 31 people and several wounded.
must have reloaded at least 3 or four times..

[Sadipriss]

The firearm laws in the US amaze me and the lax attitude I see from folks in the US amaze me. About the only people who use guns down here are the obvious criminals, the police and other law enforcement officers, farmers and people who need them to deal with animals. Everyone else cannot own a firearm for any reason.

to me replace "Amaze" with "Scare"

I posted this thread after a pretty infuriating reply on a post of a friend of mine by a former fried who is terribly in "love" with the US's "Freedom" imago.

[Analog]

Well, after reading more about the event... and especially the two hour gap between the shootings, I'm more inclined now to blame the "guns" as an accessory than I was before. I'm just amazed at the ratio of dead to wounded. 32 dead and 15 wounded??? How was he able to kill so many with just two handguns??? It's crazy.

And I won't be surprised to hear a link to a "video game culture" either, because I don't know any other way that someone can get so proficent at killing other people. A target at a shooting range doesn't 'react' like a person does when its shot. How can someone like a university student just stay so calm while killing so many? I just don't understand it...

[Geass]

Hand guns, then he must have carried a few clips with him. No way he could have walked on to the facilites on campus with a rifle, carbine or shot gun and gotten past a few suspicouse people. This person seems to have premeditated the act, especialy if he was able to do that much damage.

Also if the video game link comes to mind, remember, its escapeism until someone takes it to seriosly. And who knows, the greatest possibility for pinning the blame is going to be Jack Thompson of couse of all people, since he has such an agenda and vendeta against them.

Here is his wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Thompson_(attorney)

But note how this time it was handguns? I have a suspiscion that possibly either the gunners are getting smart or maybe just becoming more proficient and not as egotistical with weilding a pump action shotgun or carbine rifle or machine gun.

[Analog]

A few other things that have come out recently:

1) The shooter was a South Korean who had lived in the US since 1992. Interesting angle there is was he required (and maybe pressured) to go back to South Korea for a manditory military stint? (or had he already served?)
2) He had only bought the guns at most a month before the shooting
3) He had lots and lots of ammo in his vest and backpack, and frequently reloaded during the event.

It's still just crazy to think what he 'accomplished' with just two handguns though. Incredibly sad.

[Stormfalcon]

The worst part was that after the shooting, the killer literally shot himself.

Why would he want to kill himself after taking the lives of others? Why didn't he just kill himself in the first place and leave everyone else alone?

[Chimasterwang]

Younger people killing that many people usally ends up with them killing themselves i think, maybe not someone check =P
If i went on a sudden rampage at college i would probibly kill myself to, imagine what state you would be in when you done it and then after.

[Lynk Former]

I'm guessing some people are ignorant of the phrase "Going out in a blaze of glory" or "If I'm going down, I'm taking everyone with me" ...

To be perfectly honest... NONE of this surprises me at all.


EDIT: Ugh, here we go, the media is a buzz with people looking at videogames as the cause for this shooting... apparently they discovered that Korean's play videogames... wow, really? ... but of course, even with these allegations being made, they will be dismissed in favour of more... intelligent explanations as to why this guy did what he did.

[Geass]

Speaking of games and the media, like I said, the same dude, Jack Thompson is on all over this.

http://news.com.com/2061-10797_3-6176816...&subj=news

[Sadipriss]

much of mediawhores jumping all over it saying this and that etcetc ....

[Lynk Former]

It's a really cheap thing to do too...

[Sadipriss]

hey you know how they are:
Everything for getting the most viewers and attention

[Black Howling]

I have been watching this alot actually and everyone that has spoken about it, is blaming video games and stuff, the buzz over here is he shot his ex girlfriend first then tore into the university frecking scum bag >>

[Lynk Former]

It's easy to see why though.

Most people out there have no grasp at understanding this guy. But to make it worse, they try to find a quick explanation to ease their fears because they feel if it can be explained, they can do something about it.

The problem is that it's too freakin complex. You can't just point at videogames or violent movies or whatever else that comes to mind and expect it to be the definitive sources of what has influenced a person to commit such actions.

[Black Howling]

Yeah agreed Lynk but what could drive someone to do something so horrorable

[Lynk Former]

That will take time to determine by those who actually have brains, not by the general public and people with certain things to prove to say what is and isn't. I'm sure they'll come up with clear facts... but what is done, is done.

The saddest part is that this won't be the last time and the things that caused this one to take action will affect the next one... and no one will be able to do anything about it. It's impossible to control society that way.

[Black Howling]

Need to do something about the whole way the states handles fire arms -.-

[Lynk Former]

That'll prevent shootings of this kind if done correctly, yes. But like I said in a post earlier on, people like this will still exist no matter what you try to control.

[Black Howling]

That'll prevent shootings of this kind if done correctly, yes. But like I said in a post earlier on, people like this will still exist no matter what you try to control.

Yeah that's true there will always be someone.

[Analog]

I think the one point that will still concern some people is how to know if the guy (or girl) next to you isn't the next mass killer? I suppose I have a "need to know" this guys motives to help identify another one. And yeah, I know I will likely hit the lottery three times before that ever happens, but still... :P

And another thing that bothers me about this whole event: In the news for just a moment was a note about 127 (yes, a hundred and twenty seven) Iraqi's killed today. And then it was back to the school shooting, just like that.

Interesting that we shut the country down for one instance, but barely blink an eye when four times as many people are killed. I think to the american people:

Iraqis<<<Americans

Sad, but true

[Lynk Former]

Yeah, a workmate of mine was commenting about the same thing. She's pretty pissed off about the attention this is getting over Iraq.

But about the whole knowing if the person next to you is a mass killer thing... you're not one until you actually commit the act XD uptil then you're just someone who doesn't abide by the social normalities that society has set around you.

It's funny though, the only things videogames create are videogame geeks XD and they're hardly killers...

[Analog]

Hehe, true. It's really hard to find the time and money to go buy guns, practice shooting them, and stake out a site when all your time and money is spent buying and playing video games. :P

[kyubichan]

1. The guy must've been nuts.
2. The guy must've just wanted to make a statement (about violence, etc, I dunno), then afterwards thought "hey, I don't want all that nagging from my mom after all this". So he shot himself.
3. An alien zapped him and controlled his brain functions.

It is rather disturbing when a supposedly "normal" person randomly kills people.

And on the violence/shooting note, about a week ago my aunt went to our hometown for vacation. We found out yesterday that some family friends got ambushed, one went to the hospital (was shot) and the other was kidnapped. My aunt's managing things there now~ taking care of their kids, contacting the police, and quite possibly will pay the ransom when the kidnappers send a note... what a vacation.

[Black Howling]

1. The guy must've been nuts.
2. The guy must've just wanted to make a statement (about violence, etc, I dunno), then afterwards thought "hey, I don't want all that nagging from my mom after all this". So he shot himself.
3. An alien zapped him and controlled his brain functions.

It is rather disturbing when a supposedly "normal" person randomly kills people.

And on the violence/shooting note, about a week ago my aunt went to our hometown for vacation. We found out yesterday that some family friends got ambushed, one went to the hospital (was shot) and the other was kidnapped. My aunt's managing things there now~ taking care of their kids, contacting the police, and quite possibly will pay the ransom when the kidnappers send a note... what a vacation.

sounds awful Kyubi

[kyubichan]

Which one? 1,2, 3 or the vacation thing?

Oh hey, someone said on the news, they say the guy had some mental illness.

So he was nuts.

[Chimasterwang]

Or they might be saying that because they think only someone with a mental illness could do such a thing =P
Gah that sounds pretty bad Kyub, nice of your auntie to help out though.
Edit: Must use smilies XD

[Analog]

Well, we don't have to guess at what he was thinking anymore. The guy sent his "reasons" to a national news network... in-between the two shootings!!!

Link

The more I hear about him, the more I'm not surprised by what he did. The thing I'm left wondering now is what happened to his childhood. It seems like he was always very, very quiet and anti-social.

[Geass]

The guy was nutters, he idolized the Cloumbine shootings and called them martyrs. I mean the whole idea of even how stupid it is that is poping in my mind right now almost sounds like a plot from SAC.

its like the Unabomber really, he even ahda manifesto and all these tapes, he wants to be known and stuff

MSNBC Yahoo Link
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070418/ap_o...h_shooting

[Chimasterwang]

Ah finaly i read something about this happening other than reading this thread.
One thing though “This may be a very new, critical component of this investigation,” said Col. Steven Flaherty, superintendent of Virginia State Police, the lead agency investigating the shootings. “We’re in the process right now of attempting to analyze and evaluate its worth.”
What XD