Forums / Miscellaneous Discussions / Virginia Tech Shooting in US

absolutely shocking, do you know the killers motives?

Reminds me a lot of the shooting in Montreal, Canada last year at Dawson College.. lone gunman on a college campus, shooting 20 people and then himself.

But that shooter only killed 1 of the 20. He used a semi-automatic rifle, but it was a 9mm peashooter. The person that died wa*beep* 9 times.

This V-tech guy must have had some more serious firepower to kill 32 and hit another 30.

What's scary is that the shooter was so accurate, he killed most in 1 shot.

What I find annoying is that the media is like a circus about it. They should just shut up and let the families alone.

They also say there is a possibility of another shooter.

Well, the majority of the injured is those that jumped two stories to get out of the classroom, and then the bullet wounds of course but I keep hearing (not sure of the validity of this) is that one classroom of students, they were lined up and shot execution style, so no accurace be required.

i'm sure the details will come out soon enough

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18148802/

He had multiple clips of ammunition so if he ran out he just reloaded his weapon so that explains why he shot so many people. He also wrote grotesque stories. One of his stories was a boy fighting his stepfather which ended in the boy grotesquely killing his stepfather with a Rice Krispie. A Professor urged him to get pyschiatric help but he didnt listen.

i didn't know that yet ... but , yes, Drunken, ... that sure makes you wonder ...

maybe the cops were just waiting for him to kill himself?  (they call that a judgemental error)  (and yes, the media should give less time to things like this, this event is not really representational, although the fact remains that these things seem to happen more in the US than elsewhere ...)

This kid was Demented thats alot of the reason. read the plays he wrote. http://newsbloggers.aol.com/2007/04/17/cho-seung-huis-plays/

but whats sad is this has happened before... and im sure it will happen again. His name is Cho Seung, an asian 23 year old with a 3 year major in English, there was something wrong with him, he was obsessed with violence as most Civilian shooters are. With Family problems and all that, he really just needed help.

The reason the school did nothing is the police suspected the boyfriend of the first victim, and had him pulled over on the side of the highway questioning him when they got the call for the second round of shootings.

So they thought the police had everything under control, hence why they didnt do more.

rox,that is not funny :(

isn't media great? instead of sending these photos directly to police, they decide to send them to the world first... then hand them over to police.

hmmm, it's not becuase you don't like it that it shouldn't be shown ...

I think the interesting thing about him, is that he defies all
stereotypes. In some ways, we have all been ingrained that evil guys
have a mean look, lead a dishonest life and stick out from a crowd.
This one is just a regular guy, which makes it so hard to understand.

"why was it so easy for him to get hold o*beep*un"?

a question i have heard so many times and is so relevent, but everyone ignores it, either because they feel its irrelevent or because they are ashamed that getting one is so easy

how about you have to have a lisence from the police?

a license that proves you've done tests and stuff and are capable in handling a weapon in a responsable way?

not like it is now (if that info is correct, as i'm not an american), you can buy a gun without any trouble, straight over the counter? like buying a bread?

it is not stripping away freedom, it is ensuring more safety for inocent bystanders ...

and ofcourse, this will not prevent this from happening, but if there are less weapons around, won't they be harder to come buy?

See? That's the typical response that I'm receiving from my european brethern (and sistern? if that is a word, lol.). Alright, let's talk guns.

Now as I established earlier, I'm all for background checks and things of that nature. By all means, check and see if we're sane or criminals. Now then, gun laws can vary state-by-state, so it's pretty difficult for me to make a blanket statement that'd cover all of 50 states in the US. However for the most part, a criminal background check is required for purchasing a firearm. So, it's much harder (obviously) than buying a loaf of bread. Other checks may be required as well (since I haven't bought a gun in a while, I can't give you the most up-to-date proceedures.)

Now, the problem as it applies to Cho was there wasn't any criminal background that'd warrant not issuing him a gun. Also, if you seen the first couple pictures of the ones he sent, you wouldn't know he'd be a killer just by looking at him. Now, there were some 'warning signs' prior to the trigger of this issue, but nothing that the system would be able to act on.

Now then, let's talk about innocent bystanders and protection. If you were a robber, and you knew everyone had the posibility of carrying a gun under their jacket pocket, would you want to risk your life trying to catch whatever's in my wallet? Probably not. However, if everyone WASN'T armed, and you had an illegal gun, you could probably steal stuff all day before someone notified the police.

Also, there's plenty of shooting ranges and gun-safetly classes out there, so there's no excuse for a responsible individual not to be able to attend one of those and know how to use their weapon in the right way.

"and ofcourse, this will not prevent this from happening, but if there are less weapons around, won't they be harder to come buy? "

Nope. Think about it, to successfully pull this off, you'd have to shut down EVERY SINGLE gun manufacturer, and gun retailer, in the entire world. Then you'd turn gun manufacturing into something like the moonshine runners were in the American prohibition period. In fact, that's a good example. Liquor was totally illegal across the nation, however secret clubs were made that'd sell it, people still made it and distributed it, and made a LOAD of cash because it was illegal. (Think other stuff like weed as well).

If you take weapons out of the hands of law abiding citizens, you're just making them weaker for people who could still get ahold of guns anyways. Besides, when your life is at stake, would you rather be able to defend yourself right then, or wait for police protection to arrive in 5-15 minutes?

Now please, bear in mind, I'm not a psychologist, or anything of that nature. There's a million reasons why that kid could get screwed up, and I honestly don't know a 'cure' for it. You could check his medical history and see if the kid was stuck on ridalin and thus lost the ability to 'cope' with stuff in the world.

The people 'knew' that something was wrong with him, and even some teachers were pointing out how screwed up the kids was, but the 'system' wouldn't allow them to do much about it. Counselling was advised, but 'couldn't' be enforced.

You could blame his parents for doing something or not doing something to him. You could blame some other teacher for teaching him these world views. You can point blame at just about anyone or anything, as the media is doing right now.

I'm not going to delve into this argument very much because since details haven't been revealed and this is really outside of my realm of knowledge, I'll let someone else take a stab at it.

This guy was crazy. Has anyone considered, that the price of a free society is that occasionally, some whackjob is going to be able to go on a killing spree, whether it be in a hail of bullets, or being a silent dark alley killer.

I love and respect most Americans I have met, but their gun laws are just f*cked. People are shot every day in the US, its crazy. Guns are too readily available in America, and the statistics on gun deaths for the US vs other Western countries supports this. It's time for a policy maker to stop being weak and at least look at altering the 2nd amendment for a modern age.

And the fact that guns are allowed is just so stupid.Guns provoke violence..

If you would compare victims of america with other STABLE europe countries.

You would see that the victims by firearms would be ALOT less.

The fact that every *beep* could get a gun just makes me sick.

Access to guns isn't the reason - there are many countries in the world (e.g. Canada) where isn't much harder to get one, including handguns - as long as you have the permits and don't have a criminal record.

It is a reflection of their society, and has much deeper roots then a "band aid" solution like "stronger gun laws". You do know Americans have the constitutional right to gun access?

I think we need to change the law, NO firearms permitted. Only lawenforcement has them, but not at home, no, only at the police station where they pick them up before going to work. Every once in a while, without warning, check houses and people for guns. Give them jailtime if they have firearms. Ban firearms. Be strict, Ew its Crusty is right, there is no sissy politician needed. But a hard ahole, one that only thinks of his goal. Banning guns 100%, only police has them. Every one with guns, 3 years or so jail. Then soon enough everyone will trough away their guns...then the killing will be done with baseballbats, then at least you wont have 30 kills, but 3...

how would that solve anything? criminals would still have guns and killers would still be killing.

might reduce accidental killings...