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S. Smith
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Posted: Apr 17th, 2007 01:35 am |
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The incident on the Virginia Tech campus where all the people were killed today is incredible. The last count of those dead that I heard was 32.
What could have driven someone to this type of action?
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Jim Flynt
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Posted: Apr 17th, 2007 01:59 am |
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| Edited by Poster. Last edited on Aug 5th, 2007 11:20 am by Jim Flynt
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TCat
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Posted: Apr 17th, 2007 03:02 am |
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I'm sure the larger cause is a mental or emotional problem and not interaction with movies or games. The same "obsession" could be triggered by the real violence portrayed in the news or, even in a particularly graphic book.
While I'm no video game fan myself, I don't think they are to blame for what all they get blamed for. Violence has been around a lot longer than these games and movies. Parental neglect and family problems are much more prevalent these days and a more likely cause. And by neglect, I mean parent being too lazy to take an active interest in what is going on in their kids lives and what they are experiencing.
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TCat
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Posted: Apr 17th, 2007 03:11 am |
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By the way, here is my new favorite quote from Bush reported in response to the incident:
A White House spokesman said President Bush was horrified and offered his prayers to the victims and the people of Virginia. "The president believes that there is a right for people to bear arms, but that all laws must be followed," spokeswoman Dana Perino said.
Insensitive and dumb.
Geez!
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StewartM
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Posted: Apr 17th, 2007 03:50 pm |
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| A lot of parents lost their babies yesterday, my thoughts and prayers are with them....let us grieve our dead today and point fingers next week......
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mstone
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Posted: Apr 18th, 2007 01:06 pm |
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TCat wrote: By the way, here is my new favorite quote from Bush reported in response to the incident:
A White House spokesman said President Bush was horrified and offered his prayers to the victims and the people of Virginia. "The president believes that there is a right for people to bear arms, but that all laws must be followed," spokeswoman Dana Perino said.
Insensitive and dumb.
Geez!
TCat,
Interesting couple of comments from you there. First, you state, "I'm sure the larger cause is a mental or emotional problem and not interaction with movies or games. The same "obsession" could be triggered by the real violence portrayed in the news or, even in a particularly graphic book." "While I'm no video game fan myself, I don't think they are to blame for what all they get blamed for. Violence has been around a lot longer than these games and movies."
Then in your next post you selectively quote a single line from a long press conference about this tragedy. Insensitive? How? This was a response to comments and questions being asked about this issue. Perhaps the timing was bad, but would you have preferred that the spokeperson have said "no comment" or "now is not the time to answer your questions" when asked by reporters? Dumb? How so? Are you saying that people do not have a right to bear arms? Are you saying that all laws need not be followed? I'm a little confused.
Who knows what set this guy off? I don't. I don't know if he ever played a video game, saw violent images in a movie, or ever saw a news program that "portrayed violence". I don't know what his family life was like. All I know is that he killed innocent people for no good reason.
I think that when all the facts are disclosed that there will be a long laundry list of warning signs that were missed or ignored. There will be missed opportunities that could have prevented this. There will be mistakes that were made before, during, and after the incident. All that said, let's focus on the victims, the families, and the real issue... How can we prevent such a tragedy from ever happening again.
By the way, here is my new favorite quote from Bush reported in response to the incident:
"A White House spokesman said President Bush was horrified and offered his prayers to the victims and the people of Virginia."
We should all do the same.
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Aberystwyth
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Posted: Apr 18th, 2007 09:02 pm |
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Thanks to all who have commented so far. I very much agree with the sentiment that now is the time for prayers and compassion, which I believe is always true. And I am appalled, but not surprised, by all the second-guessing and blaming that is underway in the national media. That said, I do have some thoughts and please forgive me for having so many words …
Guns. While I sympathize with the right to bear arms, I don’t believe it is practical for everyone to carry a concealed weapon. One “security expert” on television said if the students and faculty had been carrying guns, then the tragedy would have been averted as they could have killed him first. Gosh, and then what, the SWAT team arrives and shoots everyone with a gun. I don’t own a gun, and hopefully never will. But I believe that people are the problem, not guns per se. Easy access to guns is a contributing factor, and this killer obtained his guns legally, but that is just one factor.
Safety and security. Yes I think schools should be safe places, but I don’t think we should over-react and make every campus an armed camp. The fact is that a student is much more likely to be shot and killed at home by a family member than by some stranger on a school campus.
The Two-Hour Window. Some think the whole campus should have been locked down, that the University made serious errors in judgment. I disagree. You can only make a judgment based on what you know and understand. There was no reason to think that the first incident wasn’t over, that someone else might occur. It makes a much sense to me to lock down the Virginia Tech campus after the first incident as it is to lock down all campuses. Because nobody knew where “he” went. He could have driven here to Greensboro. Someone might be about to open fire again, right there on the Virginia Tech campus, or here. Maybe. Might be. There is simply no reason to believe it is going to happen. It could happen, anywhere, at any time. And you just can’t prevent this from happening by locking down everything. So I applaud the Virginia Tech administration for how they have handled all this. They did the right thing, based on what they knew at the time.
Causes I. This is a tough one. From what they are now saying, the killer had some problems, including stalking women, taking candid photos of women, writing about violence, being a loner, etc. All of which “may” be of concern, although quite frankly being a loner doesn’t in itself bother me. The focus on violence, the mental illness, etc., that does bother me. And so yes there were signs, but none of the signs were conclusive. That’s how it is with human nature. There is no absolute cause and effect relationship between any of these signs and signals and actual violent behavior. Maybe statistically there is some correlation, but that does NOT mean that just because someone exhibits these signs that he is therefore dangerous. Because many people exhibit these signs, and do NOT go on to be mass murderers. So we cannot predict human behavior. Which makes it very hard to prevent this sort of thing from happening.
Causes II. Another so-called “expert” said that ONE of the reasons for increasing frequency of this sort of thing, school shootings, etc., is that discipline in schools and respect for authority in schools, has eroded over the years, and CORRELATES with increased violence on the part of students. I happen to agree. When I was in school there was widespread respect for authority and school administrators were fair but firm when it came to discipline. When my kids were in school, it was a bit looser, but still there was good discipline in schools. But that has changed. More recently, when I was teaching at NWHS the thing that impressed me the most was the lack of discipline, the lack of concern for discipline on the part of the school administrators. It was the reason I left. Not for money, but because the school administration would not support teachers on matters of discipline. There were six students in my classes who I considered seriously disturbing, who had absolutely no respect or consideration for teachers or other students, who were continuously disruptive and disrespectful. I’m sure there were many such students in other classes, and even though the vast majority of students were decent kids who did their best, the fact that the school tolerated such widespread lack of discipline is simply appalling to me. School administrators were more concerned with being popular with students and parents than creating a healthy learning environment for everyone. SO, I believe that this is a contributing factor to subsequent violence in schools.
Causes III. Bullying. Yes, I know most of you will probably disagree with me on this, if not on everything else I say, but I believe it is unhealthy for us to tolerate bulling. Kids who are bullied do not necessarily grow up to be killers, but they are much more likely than kids who have not been bullied. Being the recipient of bullying leads to anger and other strong and largely suppressed emotions. That coupled with the widespread “glorification” of violence on television, etc., leads to potential violence. Notice that I said potential. I was bullied when I was in school. But I got over it. Left me feeling considerable sympathy for those who have been bullied. But being bullied does NOT excuse subsequent violence. But in our society bullying is “normal” … and we tend to avoid the loners instead of reaching out to them.
Okay. Probably said too much as it is. But I am bothered by this massacre. As I was by Columbine and the Amish schoolhouse shootings, and similar senselessness. But I am bothered also by the unintelligent second-guessing and blaming that is going on. Nobody ever seems to focus on the real problem, the underlying psychology of the shooter and how it came to be.
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Cracker Jax
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Posted: Apr 18th, 2007 10:36 pm |
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Wow Aberystywth. That's a lot to digest.  I'm gonna have to re read it in a minute, but I think I agree with most of what you said. I certainly agree that the school did the best that they could with the info that they had. When I watched the convocation yesterday, one of the most touching moments was the standing ovation and the excessive amount of applause that the VT students and other attendees gave to the President of VT to show their support for him.
I also own no guns, and hope I never need to, and personally, I'd be fine if we weren't allowed to have them. BUT I understand why the NRA and others are fighting so hard to keep this freedom. I think the VT episode is an example of how our civil liberties can become "inconvenient freedoms".
MSNBC is now reporting that the shooter sent a package to NBC that had a video and some disturbing photos of himself. There was other stuff too, that they are supposedly going to go over in a moment. They have disclosed that he was declared INSANE and then released to live a normal life. I just tuned in, so I don't know who declared him insane.
One of the students they just interviewed stated that there should be a connection between the "gun sellers" and the folks who declare people insane. Good point I thought.
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Aberystwyth
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Posted: Apr 18th, 2007 11:00 pm |
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| Indeed, Cracker Jax, I also find the “community” spirit there to be heart-warming. And hopefully as this community heals they will be even stronger. I am continually amazed at how friendships forged during our early years can endure and grow over the intervening years.. My kids are even more connected with their friends from h.s. and college than I am, by staying in touch via email and websites like facebook. While I have never been a Virginia Tech fan, I am impressed by the sentiment expressed by many of the colleges and universities around the country in the last two days, namely, that today we are all Hokies.
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macca
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Posted: Apr 18th, 2007 11:27 pm |
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I heard that there is a call for everyone to wear burgundy and orange on Friday to show support for Virginia Tech.
BTW: I agree with you, too, A. I think we can still have our "right to bear arms" without making guns whose main purpose would be to kill another person so readily available to anyone who wants to buy one.
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GRITS
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Posted: Apr 19th, 2007 12:22 am |
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macca wrote: I heard that there is a call for everyone to wear burgundy and orange on Friday to show support for Virginia Tech.
Yes, I have been informed to show support Friday by wearing the VT colors in support of one of my nurses that lost a cousin in the massacre. Show your support for everyone, for it is a tragic circumstance and now everyone must heal.
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Cracker Jax
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Posted: Apr 19th, 2007 02:13 am |
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You know what? I can't get the parents and the sister of that killer off of my mind. What they must be going through..... I heard yesterday that they've left their home because of the media circus outside.
I suppose only time will tell whether or not they had any inkling that something like this could happen, but I would assume that they were instrumental in his being in the mental instution (where he was declared insane) in the first place.
If that's the case, how terribly, terribly sad for them (and the VT community) that they did not get the help that they needed.
Be sure to add them to your prayer list. 
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DOGGETTJA
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Posted: Apr 19th, 2007 02:43 am |
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Cracker I agree. The family must be devastated. They interviewed a Korean neighbor of the family years ago who said Cho and his sister studied all the time and they were held up as examples of what you had to do to get ahead. She had seen Cho's father not to long ago and he was very happy because his children were going to be so successful.
I don't know whether the family had him comitted but the police did. He was harrassing girls and then his friend called the police ans said he was suicidal. They had him comitted. I sort of understood it was while he was there at Va Tech.
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GRITS
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Posted: Apr 19th, 2007 12:43 pm |
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DOGGETTJA wrote: He was harrassing girls and then his friend called the police ans said he was suicidal. They had him comitted. I sort of understood it was while he was there at Va Tech.
Usually if this type of behavior is exhibited while on campus, and it is reported , most of the time the student is expelled because the university considers this type of student to be dangerous not only to himself but others.
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mstone
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Posted: Apr 19th, 2007 09:03 pm |
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macca wrote: I think we can still have our "right to bear arms" without making guns whose main purpose would be to kill another person so readily available to anyone who wants to buy one.
macca,
What's the purpose of a firearm? Your statement (guns whose main purpose would be to kill another person) is odd to me. Of course that's what guns kept for personal protection are designed to do. They aren't built or designed to scare someone, or wound someone. They are the last line of defense. I've been trained that if you pull your weapon, you must have reconciled in your mind that it's the only alternative. It's you and/or your family's life versus theirs. Even for the most hardened human, that decision should be very, very difficult to make.
How are guns "readily available to anyone who wants to buy one"? If you're talking about legal gun ownership, it's ain't as easy as you make it seem. It takes days to get a permit. You have to go to the police department in person and pay for the background check by the sheriff's department. If you want a concealed carry permit, there's a HUGE cost, extensive training, and additional background work. I say - GREAT. I have no problems with any of this, but let's not make it sound like you walk into Walmart and walk our with a pistol.
I agree with you Cracker, What process failed that allowed someone declared "insane" to be allowed to purchase anything more dangerous than a butter knife?!? I had not heard he'd been officially declared insane, but if that's the case somebody needs to be held accountable for letting him out on the streets - and to be able to possess a firearm.
It's disappointing that folks are giving any attention to the gun issue. This particular forum isn't the place to discuss that. In my mind, this forum is really about the victims - and about prevention.
Finally, the President's comments at VT were powerful. Healing starts with prayer. President Bush and others understand this and communicated it very well. I pray that every victim's family finds comfort in HIS presence.
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