| Author | Virginia Tech Massacre |
Jim
Super Administrator
Posts: 159
Joined: 30.11.06
 | | Posted on 19-04-2007 08:52 | |
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By now most, if not all, of you know about what happened on the Virginia tech campus a few days ago. This event rocked the entire U.S. from about an hour after it occurred, word had spread across the nation. Unfortunately, since I live in California, all the way accross two time zones, I doubt my ability to pay respects to my fellow Americans physically, so I have decided to do it the best way that I can, digitally.
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/53522380/
This is the picture that I made, and I intend to email it to the school website. I think that they would appreciate it if others were to show their respect as well.
Over here in California we're praying for the families and friends affected by this horrible act of hatred. So I've created this thread so peopel can discuss, and tell about their feelings about waht happened at Virginia Tech, or what their actions are because of it.
The official memoriam website to share condolences and the like is : http://rosa.hosting.vt.edu/index.php/memorial/
Edited by Jim on 19-04-2007 08:55 |
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| Author | RE: Virginia Tech Massacre |
Sin-Mae Chung
Super Administrator
Posts: 372
Joined: 07.12.06
 | | Posted on 19-04-2007 10:25 | |
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| oh god yeah i heard about it here in nz aswell. so sad.. i cant believe that any student or anyone at all would be lead to such destruction. i feel for all those family who lost their loved one. so sad.. students around my age.. its hard to imagine loosing my life as i feel i havent done enough.. and if i feel that.. how do them other kids feel? terrible. just terrible. |
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| Author | RE: Virginia Tech Massacre |
Joe Montgomery
Member
Posts: 124
Joined: 13.12.06
 | | Posted on 19-04-2007 14:25 | |
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ANOTHER UNBELIEVABLY TRAGIC SCHOOL EVENT.
CHECKED YOUR PICTURE I THINK IT IS GREAT.
THANKS FOR POSTING THE SUPPORT LINK TO THE SCHOOL.
NOT TO LONG AGO IT HAPPENED IN GERMANY AND IN CANADA.
I REALLY HOPE THESE SCHOOL TRAGEDIES WOULD END.
THERE HAS TO BE A SOLUTION.
HOW CAN IT BE PREVENTED?
HMMM...THAT IS SUCH A HUGE QUESTION...
SO MANY VARIABLES...
I REALLY WISH IT WOULD STOP.
Edited by Joe Montgomery on 19-04-2007 14:29 |
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| Author | RE: Virginia Tech Massacre |
Alicia Thompson
Super Administrator
Posts: 215
Joined: 23.09.06
 | | Posted on 20-04-2007 13:28 | |
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Joe Montgomery wrote:
HOW CAN IT BE PREVENTED?
HMMM...THAT IS SUCH A HUGE QUESTION...
SO MANY VARIABLES...
I REALLY WISH IT WOULD STOP.
to quote the insensitive dylan moran:
"well, you do all have guns, and they do have a limited range of household applications."
education and gun control laws. Not the kind that violate someones right to own a gun, but the ones out here in australai where you NEED to be educated and lock up your gun in a particular way and prove you can before getting one. We can't carry guns on our person unless we're on our way to a rifle club or similar. needing being educated doesn't violate someones rights, it just means that people shouldn't support ignorance instead of mourning something once it happens.
Laws aren't going to fix everything, but having comprehensive measures in place so you need to go through a whole lot of stuff before actually buying a gun, instead of filling in a form and buying one over the counter would stop a whole lot of people from doing things spur of the moment, just like locking up your gun is going to keep your five year old from finding it under your bed and thinking its a tioy because his toy gun looks just like it.
And forgive me for asking, but besides mowing down innocent people, what use does an automatic weapon have? I mean, its not much fun to go out hunting and mow down a flock of geese with a machine gun, so why is it that people are able to more or less freely buy them? |
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| Author | RE: Virginia Tech Massacre |
Jim
Super Administrator
Posts: 159
Joined: 30.11.06
| | Posted on 21-04-2007 18:47 | |
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My grandfather was a gunsmith, but he managed to do everything according to the laws. He biggest problem with some of the gun control laws against assault weapons wasn't the ban on things like machine guns, but rather how something is considered an assault weapon. For example, he had a perfectly legal deer hunting rifle, but if he were to take off the wooden stock, and replace it with a black plasitic one, it was automatically considered illegal. I don't think there should necissarily be mor or less gun control, but rather smarter gun control. For example not allowing anyone with a violent history or dangerous mental condition own a gun, as well as banning anyone who lives with said individual to own a gun.
Yesterday was 4-20, hitlers birthday, columbine, national kill your braincells day, oaklahoma city bombing, and maco anniversary. Also the VT massacre just happened. Anyways, what happened, is a particularly stupid kid from a school that is only a few blocks away from my school decided he was going to steal all of his parents' guns and make a threat to the school. All of the nearby schools, including the school he threatened, were closed down. Heh, the school I go to is the closest, but we had school that day, we just had a few cops patroling the school.
I don't think they found the guy yet, but I imagine that he was doing this as a publicity stunt, and is just playing off of the other tragedies to accomplish such. I mean it is possible that he intended to do something, but I doubt it, he would have to be incredibly stupid if he thought he could get away with a shooting, right after a shooting just happened, on the aniversary of one of the worst shootings ever, WHILE giving the school a warning in advance.... now I'm not saying that the protection wasn't needed, I'm just saying I didn't really expect anything to happen, and so far, it hasn't.
heres an article about it.
http://www.sgvtribune.com/news/ci_5719698
Edited by Jim on 21-04-2007 18:51 |
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| Author | RE: Virginia Tech Massacre |
Joe Montgomery
Member
Posts: 124
Joined: 13.12.06
| | Posted on 22-04-2007 04:16 | |
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IT IS VIRTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO STOP SOMEONE FROM DOING THIS AGAIN.
I THINK A PRESIDENT ONCE SAID SOMETHING ALONG THE LINES OF......ANYONE CAN KILL ANYONE IF THEY ARE WILLING TO TRADE THEIR OWN LIFE.
ANYONE CAN GET A GUN IF THEY HAVE ENOUGH CASH.
WE ARE NOT ALL WIRED THE SAME WAY AND ALSO DEPENDING ON UPBRINGING OR EVENTS THAT A MIND HAS BEEN THROUGH IN A LIFE. A PERSON COULD BE LIVING ON THE EDGE FOR A LONG TIME AND NO ONE KNOWS ABOUT IT. SOMETIMES ALL IT TAKES IS A TINY LITTLE THING TO PUSH THE PERSON OVER.
IT COULD BE THEIR FIRST OFFENSE.
MAYBE MORE RESOURCES SHOULD BE SPENT ON SAFEGUARDING THE MENTAL STATE OF THE STUDENTS INSTEAD OF SAFEGUARDING BY USING MORE ARMED GUARDS.
MAYBE MORE PSYCHOLOGISTS ON CAMPUS OR SOME SORT OF OBSERVERS TO HELP AND GUIDE.
SCHOOL IS SUPPOSED TO BE A GREAT PLACE BUT THERE ARE A LOT OF BAD THINGS THAT TAKE PLACE IN MANY SCHOOLS.
TEASING, BULLYING, PEOPLE GET BEAT UP, PEOPLE GET ALIENATED....AND SO ON...
SOME SAY AH ITS JUST PART OF GROWING UP OR BOYS WILL BE BOYS BUT I THINK IF THESE THINGS WHERE DEALT WITH THERE WOULD BE LESS OF THESE INCIDENTS.
IM SURE THERE ARE PERFECT "HAPPY SCHOOLS" OUT THERE BUT I THINK MOST HAVE SEEN WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT.
ISAAC GOOD THREAD MAN.
PEACE OUT JOE
Edited by Joe Montgomery on 22-04-2007 14:44 |
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| Author | RE: Virginia Tech Massacre |
Sam Law
Member
Posts: 21
Joined: 18.01.07
 | | Posted on 22-04-2007 11:23 | |
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What always gets to me in these situations is why the people would do something like this- what drives a person to get a gun and try to shoot so many people.
In my opinion, banning guns wouldn't make the slightest bit of difference- if a person is so determine to do it, they will find a way- home made explosives, kives, 5-pence blunted swords are so easy to get a hold of its not even funny and not forgetting that anything really can be used as weapon...
As much as I dislike saying this sometimes, what needs the concern is why a person would want to do this- I apologise for taking the light away from the fact that 32 people have been killed and more injured (24 was it?), but why did he do this? I know he started off with his ex-girlfriend/girl he was stalking, but why did he then continue?
Anyways, I do wish to express my best wishes and deepest regrets to all out there who have been affected personally by this. |
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| Author | RE: Virginia Tech Massacre |
Alicia Thompson
Super Administrator
Posts: 215
Joined: 23.09.06
| | Posted on 22-04-2007 16:31 | |
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Joe Montgomery wrote:
MAYBE MORE RESOURCES SHOULD BE SPENT ON SAFEGUARDING THE MENTAL STATE OF THE STUDENTS INSTEAD OF SAFEGUARDING BY USING MORE ARMED GUARDS.
MAYBE MORE PSYCHOLOGISTS ON CAMPUS OR SOME SORT OF OBSERVERS TO HELP AND GUIDE.
I know I sound like a hippy when I say this, but I honestly think that it's a total lack of love. If students themselves and everyone who hasday to day interations with other people in general kept an eye on eachother, regardless of the fact that they might not like another student/collegue as a person, things like this mightn't happen as much as they do; people snapping because of the stress, acting out because they're lonely or offing themselves because they don't know how to get help for something they feel or they think that noone cares.
In the classes at university I'm in at the moment, there's probably about a total of three hundred people doing the same course, but at the same time, if any of us notices that another class mate seems under the weather, we'll go and talk to the other person regardless of who they are or where they come from. We're close knit in the way that we're happy for other people's accomplishments and mourn for their downfalls and do everything we can to keep eachother afloat.
I dare say that if someone had actuall done something about Seung-Hui Cho and the way he was acting, it may have been prevented. Plenty of people have come forward sharing experiences of him being "menacing", "cold" or "quiet". Some people genuinely are just plain "crazy", but in all honesty i believe that at least 90% of these sorts of cases can be prevented with suport from the people who count: the people who see eachother day in, day out and don't really care about eachother until something horrible goes on. |
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| Author | RE: Virginia Tech Massacre |
Gwennie
Member
Posts: 65
Joined: 20.11.06
 | | Posted on 22-04-2007 19:31 | |
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I was actually in Virginia when this happened, and my family and I had a huge discussion about it in the next few days.
Maybe we should keep in mind that the killer at VT had been deemed "a danger to himself and others" by a psychologist, yet no one made those files available to the school, and the conclusion went unnoticed.
Unnoticed, that is, until after the massacre.
My aunt said something along the lines of: "We are becoming so obsessed with the rights of the individual that we are no longer considering the safety or rights of the masses." Sure, the school might have been sued if they didn't let an emotionally disturbed, potentially dangerous kid enroll there, but is that worth the lives of 32 people?
What do you guys think? |
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| Author | RE: Virginia Tech Massacre |
Jim
Super Administrator
Posts: 159
Joined: 30.11.06
| | Posted on 23-04-2007 04:11 | |
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I totally agree. I think that the school should be able to force the student to seek help. Unfortunatelly, since it is a college and the person was legally and adult (in age) the school was unable to. I think that schools/jobs should be able to give troubled students/employees a choice, go into counceling or drop out/quit the job. This would at least help take care of some of the problem.
Although I think that people should be nicer to each other in general, I think that there is another overlooked problem. A lot of people these days expect everyone to like them (I don't know if its a misconception from the media, or upbringing, or just a trend) and they are unable, if not un-used to it when they aren't respected or treated with as much welcome as they think they deserve, this leads to people sueing over ubelieveable things, and worse. So a main key to the solution is 2 part, first and foremost, be nicer to each other, and secondly don't get so offended at everything other people do; You're going to go through hardships, and not everyone is going to like you, you have to be able to deal with things not going your way. |
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| Author | RE: Virginia Tech Massacre |
Marjolein Mallee
Member
Posts: 39
Joined: 18.01.07
 | | Posted on 27-04-2007 09:08 | |
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| I've posted a condolence and i encaurage all of you to do so aswell, I am deeply shocked by the selfishness of one person, steeling life as it is nothing. I have no words for this |
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| Author | RE: Virginia Tech Massacre |
Aunty Mor
Member
Posts: 294
Joined: 28.12.06
 | | Posted on 30-04-2007 12:41 | |
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Why do so many Americans feel they need to own a gun? I cannot understand the "Its to defend ourselves" mentality. In Britain gun owners are very much the minority. Apart from the odd rifle for shooting pheasants etc. I have never seen a gun let alone owned one.
Many people go off the rails for one reason or another and some kill with little provocation. No laws can totally put a stop to this but making weapons less readily available must mean that less carnage is possible. Nothing can bring those poor students back but stricter controls would lessen the likelihood of it happening again.
My heart goes out to the families of those killed and the students left with such horrific memories. Sadly we seem to live in an age when vengeance not tolerance and love for one another is becoming commonplace and human life (or any life for that matter) is no longer respected.
Edited by Aunty Mor on 30-04-2007 12:45 |
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| Author | RE: Virginia Tech Massacre |
Paula Badger
Member
Posts: 6
Joined: 21.05.07
 | | Posted on 22-05-2007 18:22 | |
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I had a premonition about this and told my daughter. It was the same time exactly one week early, cannot explain it but told it like it happened. How could I relay that awful feeling and the bangs, as no one would or could.
Logic says this lad was of parents who expected a lot more than they got. A failure who is idolised is often above the law in his mind. He planned this to the last detail in his mind and was mad as a hatter, yet no one stopped him. I blame whoever did not stop him before any murders as he is saying or said he is insane, and yes he was.
I think more work should be done on self harmers who are really suicide homiciders who take lives and expect, even want to bow out in international media hence why he posted the tape. He knew he would be a 'movie star'. That was why he killed them all. He made a point. To be this infamous person he had to die. His art was his language and we did not listen to it. |
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