Tragedy at Virginia Tech

I was surprised to find that no one had started a thread on this yet.

I think it's important for people to have a place to discuss their feelings on events like this. It seems that all too often our own emotions get swept under the rug of our daily life, because we are too busy, too shy, or too disturbed to talk about it. The results can be harmful.

So here it is. Share your thoughts and opinions.
Although i would warn you, because a student at my university was arrested yesterday for sharing his opinion on the matter.

He was in class, and he began talking about how he "understood how someone could be angry enough to kill 32 people", how the unpainted walls of the classroom and the hypocracy of the students and faculty were more than enough to drive him to killing. The class, of course, took it as a direct threat. He was suspended from school and arrested for 'disrupting students or faculty in a university setting,' a misdemeanor.


Any other thoughts?

Don't forget 20 others were injured followed by him killing himself.

I'm not really sure what to say about this yet other then that my heart goes out to the families… and I wish the news media would back off and leave them alone....

__________________

I was too wondering when a thread about this would come up. Personally, I find it very disturbing that a mentally unstable guy can get his hands on guns so easily.

__________________
The novelist does not long to see the lion eat grass. He realizes that one and the same God created the wolf and the lamb, then smiled, "seeing that his work was good".

--------

They had temporarily escaped the factories, the warehouses, the slaughterhouses, the car washes - they'd be back in captivity the next day but now they were out - they were wild with freedom. They weren't thinking about the slavery of poverty. Or the slavery of welfare and food stamps. The rest of us would be all right until the poor learned how to make atom bombs in their basements.

Anyone see this? Maybe this isn't a non-movie topic after all:

Campus Killer 'Copied Movie'

As I mentioned in The Shoutbox, I just saw Oldboy for the first time just two weeks ago. It's rather surreal to see it popping up in this manner now.

I don't think anyone is blaming film yet, but it is interesting that this sort of angle seems to come up all the time. I'm starting to wonder if it's necessary that a deranged mind find some art form to attach itself to? Anyone have any thoughts on this?

I think one reason these killers are so derranged is because they are so impressionable in the first place. They are bound to attach themselves to some kind of ideology, whether it is presented in the form of a movie, television, books, or whatever.

The most important thing is not to blame art. Art cannot do this to people. Film cannot do this to people. I believe firmly that someone who would commit somehting so horrendous would have to have much deeper problems brought on my something much larger. Film is never to blame.

Just looking over the names and faces of the victims here, I am sick to my stomach. All these great people...just snuffed out. Horrible. Just terrible.

__________________

No, not really. Everytime something like this happens the moral guards instantly blame film or literature or music. All you really have to do is take a look around at the society we live in with all kinds of stress, violence, abuse, alienation and materialism. You don't have to be insane to periodically have problems dealing with all of that. So if you're allready nuts you will snap eventually. And more important, which I made a comment on before, the part that someone anyone should have a look at is how someone feeling the way this guy did, being as disturbed as this guy was, can go out and obtain guns so easily.

Apparently the killer also made numerous references in his writings to Bowling For Columbine (which I, personally, find more interesting than any reference to the more obvious Oldboy, South Korean and all) but how do you make a news story out of that? Michael Moore actually promotes the gun culture now?? Moore would love that angle.......

I live just a mere 30 minutes away from Virginia Tech and it's just all been so surreal to think that the worst shooting in America's history took place in, essentially, my own city's backyard. I only knew a few individuals at Tech and thankfully, everyone of them is alright. Still, it has hit the community here pretty hard because when you lose a Hokie, you lose a sister/brother. In fact, I broke down during the convocation the other day. It was moving and so touching.

I am just amazed, however, at just how well the students at Tech have handled themselves in the media. Of course, I am severally disappointed with the way the media has handled this story. And I am not just talking about the bigger networks but, even my own hometown media outlets have upset me greatly.

We also had a student that said the following: "I have no remorse for the victims. It just saved me the trouble of a trip up there to shoot those preps myself." Now, I'm not sure of the kids family/social life but, he has been expelled.

Piddzilla: The man wasn't committed so his mental records were not part of the background checks. To the system, he was a law abiding/healthy citizen.

My heart does go out to all the families affected by the shootings, and I do hope that they can find comfort in this time of darkness.

__________________
"This is that human freedom, which all boast that they possess, and which consists solely in the fact, that men are conscious of their own desire, but are ignorant of the causes whereby that desire has been determined." -Baruch Spinoza

Yes, exactly my point. If he had been committed he had not been a law abiding citizen? I fail to see what that has to do with the total lack of restrictions concerning what guns that are ok to sell and what persons that are ok to buy them. The man was well known for his mental unhealth but wasn't committed since, according to the news media, he voluntarily chose to seek help for his problems. There is something wrong here. The system, anyone?

Piddzilla: The only time your mental health goes on your background check is if you've been committed by the state. Even if you voluntarily commit yourself, it doesn't become part of the system. If he had been committed by a third part such as the state, he wouldn't have been able to buy the guns.

I think you're missing my point.... it is very easy to buy guns in Virginia. The fact that the system allows a person like this guy to buy a gun - committed or not committed is irrelevant - should tell you something about the laws concerning buying guns. Or selling them...

No, I'm not missing your point. I know it's easy to get guns in Virginia, and it's even easier in states like New Hampshire, but I do think you're missing my point. There was nothing to say this guy was dangerous to the two shop owners. To the system, he was a perfect, law abiding citizen. You have to be committed by the state before you medical records become public and that's why he was able to buy the guns. So the fact is not irrelevant, it has total bearing on the discussion at hand.

I think there has been a breakdown in communication, here. John seems to be arguing that there was no way for the gun shop to know that he was mentally unstable. Piddzilla seems to be arguing, if i get his point, that the system is in need of reform so it can, in fact, detect such things. Unless i am totally off base, you two are entering into a debate over different issues.

Having said that, i do agree that there are many places in the United States which need to tighten their firearm selling and handling laws. Background checks are a good start, but is it so farfetched to require psych evaluations in order to purchase guns? I understand it would be a hassle to gun enthusiasts. And Chuck Heston will probably crucify me for this post alone. But i think the idea is in the right step. The fact of the matter is, guns were designed to kill. They are weapons. I do not think it is asking too much to require a stable mind to handle one.

The counterpoint, in this case, is that someone derranged enough to shoot and kill that many people, then himself as well, would have gotten the tools to do it somehow. It could have been a homemade bomb, he could have set a fire or hijacked a bus. He was heading for this terrible breakdown, and i am afraid stricter gun laws would have only changed the setting.

What is it, then, that we need to do? Should universities monitor the material their students are writing? Should his creative writing professor have approached him about the content of his writing? As a film and writing major myself, i think its a ludicrous idea to question every bit of quesitonable content, but would it have prevented the tragedy?

Our problem, i believe, is with the mode of living that the United States has adopted over the last century. There are so many people who make it their profession to tell us that we are not at fault. If we gain weight at McDonalds, slip on a puddle in the grocery store, or get food poisoning, we are conditioned to believe that someone else is to blame. We go to court, dropping hard earned cash on ambulance-chaser attorneys. This is, unfortunatley, how our society works.

So, in this case, we are likewise looking for someone to blame. The gunshop. The University. The Professor. The State. The actuality of the situation, in my opinion, is that there is no single person to blame. Gun laws could have been stricter. Police response could have been tighter. Perhaps more importantly, his peers could have been more attentive to their community, and recognized this troubled individual.

It is because of this last point that i can say honestly that the blame is just as much mine as it is any of those scapegoats in Virginia. We cannot pass this problem off to someone else. All we can do is look for ways to improve in every facet of our society, in hopes of preventing from this occuring again.

In the meantime, I'll be praying for friends and families.

The only problem is, a person's mental health is a private matter unless they are committed. Changing the gun law isn't going to do anything, you have to go to the health system to fix the problem. And I will guarantee you that people are not going to be willing to submit their mental health stats to a database for such a thing.

And here's the counterpoint to your counterpoint. Like you said, guns are designed to kill, while buses aren't. If it's not designed to kill, we shouldn't regulate it to death, but if a product's sole purpose is to end life we own it to ourselves to control the purchases.

They did question/investigate his content but, it posed no threat. We can't start locking people up because they say disturbing things because plenty of people do such things and are not a threat. Also, we can't start arresting people because they make people feel uncomfortable. I know several people at my school that make people "uncomfortable" but, they would never harm a soul. So the answer to your question is a no, it would not have prevented it because it didn't. The only two things that would've stopped this would have been a serious, serious threatening manner being given off by him or tying the bomb threats to him and getting a search underway. Neither one of those two happened.

I feel that the only people that should have really any form of blame, if their stories are true, are his peers. They said they felt threatened by him but, I don't exactly believe them. If they had truly felt endangered they would have made themselves heard. The only problem was, they didn't. So either he was just socially "unacceptable" or, he wasn't threatening enough to constitute investigation/complaints from his peers. I personally think that the students are embellishing their stories with what they THOUGHT could have been shooter material. I don't think they're embellishing on purpose, though. They are just merely doing it subconsciously, I would guess.

You know, I really don't want to see that damn psycho on my TV ever again. Yes, the news is having a bloody field day giving this waste of human life his fifteen plus minutes of fame, and I'd say inadvertantly inspiring other such pathetic people to idolize him. At this point, more people know who he is than any of the people he killed.

Thank you. My point is that the law, the man, the system, whatever term you prefer, allows someone who is completely mad to buy a product which is designed to kill other people as effectively as possible. The fact that someone who has a record can't buy a gun is not only missing the target the law is aimed at, it's also discriminating. The gun lobby claims that guns are needed for Americans to uphold the right to arm themselves with guns as protecion against criminals. A person with a criminal record doesn't have that right? There aren't potential killers among "normal" people? And the point that I've been making all the way up to here is that this last tragedy proves that the state of Virginia's got laws that are far from sufficient when it comes to restrict who can and can not buy a gun. The only right thing to do, of course, is to remove from the market these products with the sole purpose of killing people and introduce a license for all kinds of weapon ownership, preferably accompanied by a thorough education followed by a test that you have to pass in order to have the right to own a weapon.

My question is, why do normal people need all these guns? To run background checks might be a step in the right direction but it isn't enough. To prevent people from shooting each other you need to get rid of the guns.

Then let him make a bomb, set a fire or hijack a bus. All these things are illegal, owning a gun is not. I guarantee you that if gun ownership was restricted the murder rates would go down. This guy walks onto campus with guns and manage to shoot around 50 people (?) before he takes his own life. Give the same guy a knife, a speer or a baseball bat. Before he'd reached to victim number two or three he would have been stopped. And alive. I would also like to see him try to drive into the classrooms with a bus....

There is a reason for why people like to keep guns as protection. They are very effective. And that is the exact same reason to why murderers prefer them.

The rest of your post, Zeiken, deals more with the quilt issue. Who's to blame. I think that's another question and I'm not going to get into that here. I just wanted to make the point that I think it is time to think again before anyone defends the right to carry a gun so strongly.

The system allows people like this to buy guns for the sole fact that we don't make mental health records public. It's not the system that doesn't work, it's the information that the system searches. And he had to pass two background checks (federal and state) before he could buy the gun. It's a federal law that criminals can't carry guns, so it's not just the state's system under question.

The original purpose for the second amendment was to provide citizens a means of protection from the government. In this day and age, however, there's not that much of a threat being imposed upon on citizens by the "big, bad government." I totally agree that we need to do away with the guns, except for hunting purposes (single loading shotguns and barrel loading rifles). There's no need for all these semi-automatics/assault rifles for hunters. Unless bears ambush the hunters, of course.

The reason people carry a gun is for "power" and because they're afraid they're going to get knifed. Ironic, isn't it? We make killing more "effective" to protect ourselves.

The problem is that not everyone with a mental disorder has a mental health record. For instance, Asperger's Syndrome where "the patient" often lacks the ability to understand emotions or to feel emapthy with other people can be hard to diagnose. Some people can have it all their lives without getting help. And just like any other disease, mental illness can strike at any time. Just because a person doesn't have a mental health record doesn't mean that the same person is guaranteed to be mentally stable now and forever in the future. Furthermore, not everyone that commits murder using a gun has a record or is mentally ill. But they do own a gun. So, even if you made mental health records public, which I think would be a terrible violation of individual integrity, it wouldn't do much good anyway.

Lose the guns....