How to stop the next campus killing

The First Post ^ | April 19, 2007 | Alexander Cockburn

[brityank]

How to stop the next campus killing

There are lessons to be learned from the Virginia Tech massacre, says alexander cockburn

Since there undoubtedly will be a next time, what useful counsel on preventative measures can we offer faculties across America?

Arm teachers and students. There have been the usual howls from the anti-gun lobby, but it's all hot air. America is not about to dump the Second Amendment giving people the right to bear arms.

A better idea would be for appropriately screened teachers and maybe student monitors to carry weapons. This is not as outre as it may sound to European ears. A quarter of a century ago students doing military ROTC training regularly carried rifles around campus.

Five years ago Peter Odighizuwa, a 43-year-old Nigerian student, killed three faculty members at Appalachian Law School with a handgun, but before he could wreak further carnage two students fetched weapons from their cars, challenged the murderer with guns levelled, and disarmed him.

Ban anti-depressants. What should be banned from campuses are not weapons but prescriptions for anti-depressants. Eric Harris, co-slayer (with Dylan Klebold) of 12 students and a teacher in the Columbine school shootings in 1999, was on Luvox, a Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor (SSRI) of the same class as Prozac and Zoloft. Initially Harris had been prescribed Zoloft, but told his doctor he was having suicidal and homicidal fantasies. So the doc shifted him to Luvox.

Sixteen-year-old Jeff Weise, who killed 10 schoolmates at Red Lake High School on an Indian Reservation in 2005, was on Prozac. The manufacturer said four per cent of children in one of its tests of Luvox developed short-term mania. Other studies of the SSRI anti-depressants have claimed they have a 15 per cent chance of prompting suicidal or homicidal reactions.

Cho Seung-hui was on a prescription drug. The likelihood of it being an anti-depressant is high, since campus doctors dispense prescriptions for them like confetti.

Replace campus police with student volunteers. The stupidity of the campus cops at Virginia Tech will undoubtedly cost the college hefty damages.

There was plenty of evidence that Cho Seung-hui was a time bomb waiting to explode. Students talked about him as a possible shooter and refused to take classes with him. His essays so disturbed one of his teachers with their violent ravings that she arranged a secret signal in case she needed security during her tutorials.

When the mass murder session began in the engineering building the police cowered behind their cruisers until Cho Seung-hui finished off the last batch of his 32 victims, then killed himself. Then the police bravely rushed in and started sticking their guns in the faces of the traumatised students, screaming at them to freeze or be shot.

Make laxity in supervision grounds for termination. More than one teacher felt Cho was scarily nuts. They recommended counselling, then didn't bother to review the conclusions. And it has emerged that Cho was actually institutionalised as a psychotic and suicide risk in 2005. Yet when he returned to campus the administrators didn't even tip off his roommate.

College administrators live in constant fear of declining students enrollment. At the first sign of trouble they cover up. So, there's a double killing in a Virginia Tech dorm at 7.15am, after which Cho has time to go home, make his final home video, walk to the post office, mail his package to NBC and then head off to the engineering building with his guns.

The college's first email to students goes out more than two hours after the first killings were discovered. The ineffable Warren Steger, college president, says later: "You can only make decisions based on the information you have on the time. You don't have hours to reflect on it." Two dead bodies, a killer somewhere on campus, and Steger makes his big decision to do nothing. Don't hire stupid administrators.

[brityank]

College administrators live in constant fear of declining students enrollment. At the first sign of trouble they cover up. So, there's a double killing in a Virginia Tech dorm at 7.15am, after which Cho has time to go home, make his final home video, walk to the post office, mail his package to NBC and then head off to the engineering building with his guns.

The college's first email to students goes out more than two hours after the first killings were discovered.
~~~~~
Two dead bodies, a killer somewhere on [or near] campus, and Steger makes his big decision to do nothing.

[brityank]

More info:

From citizen journalists to online sleuths ^

[johnny7]

Repeat... and repeat again: PC killed the 32 students at VT

[CindyDawg]

That isn’t a bad idea. Train volunteer students and teachers , if they won’t remove bans.

[Wormwood]

Ban anti-depressants.

The logic supporting this claim is deeply flawed. Sorry.

[Brilliant]

Don’t publish the names and photos of the perps, and certainly don’t publish their manifesto. Deny them the notoriety.

[ctdonath2]

While the logic is flawed, there is a connection which must be examined.

[Leftism is Mentally Deranged]

I agree with what he stated above.

[Sam Ketcham]

How to stop the next campus massacre:
1. Make it illegal to buy or sell to insane people - oops, that is already law. Perhaps the courts need to place the info in a national data base.
2. Make it illegal for non-Americans citizens to own or buy or be sold weapons. Ooops, same as above and input the data into - oops that is already done.
3. Seal the border to prevent illegals from entering and claiming to be Americans. NOW
4. An armed Citizen is a secure and safe citizen. It is evident that “sanctuaries” and gun control on honest citizens doesn’t work.

[Larry Lucido]

Surprising to hear a communist support general gun ownership, since they usually only support gun ownership by communist party operatives and fellow thugs. But I imagine that he envisions that the “student volunteers,” carefully screened for their socialistic tendencies, to be the ones carrying.

The rest of the article is armchair monday morning quarterbacking.

[brityank]

The rest of the article is armchair monday morning quarterbacking.

Just what we're all doing; you, FReeperdom, amd I -- trying to make sense of it all.

[rellimpank]

-—yes—amazing from Cockburn, although I do remember stumbling across him making sense once or twice in the last 35 years or so-—

[Dead Dog]

I would add another way to stop this. Denegrate the shooter.

Imagine if this guy had tried this in the sociology department and ended up getting raped by the VT offensive line. That would make a headline that not even Kip Kinkle would have been impressed by. (not to disparage the VT Offensilve line, they have my respect).

In a similar vain I would propose the next shooter get's taken down and (befor the cops crawl out from behind their cover and concealment to save him) water boarded in a public toilet until he
1). Cries on film
2). Renounce whatever religion they are, and profess adherence to the Church of Scientology (remember, this is about discrediting them)
3). Pledge their life to the Holy Crusade against the Thetans,
4). Swear to honor the Hajj by pilgraming to Hollywood annually to bikin wax Tom Cruises Left Buttcheak.
5). Tearfully confess to being unimpressive to women
or Alternatively..Declare themselves to be Mr. Bean.

It all has to be done before the cops save him, and it needs to be on Youtube before ABC can make a folk hero out of the putz.

[bikerMD]

Since there undoubtedly will be a next time, what useful counsel on preventative measures can we offer faculties across America?

There are a million winning Super Bowl coaches sitting in their recliners on Monday.

[Joe 6-pack]

"Don’t publish the names and photos of the perps, and certainly don’t publish their manifesto. Deny them the notoriety."

I have mixed feelings about this...as irresponsible as our press is and has been for several decades, we still have a first amendment. Likewise, in the war on terror, control of information is vital. If the press had been restricted in publishing what we know so far about VT, any number of terrorist groups would be free to claim credit for the incident, leading to public confusion, speculation and furthering the ends of these groups. Likewise, knowing the name may elicit past acquaintances and associates who could provide further info / evidence regarding the subject.

To the NYT's credit (wow, am I actually giving them credit for something?), they deliberated about publishing the Unabomber's manifesto, and working closely with the Investigative Support Unit (profilers) at the FBI, doing so led to the ultimate identification of Kaczynski by his brother in Chicago...

[silverleaf]

Ban anti-depressants
Major BS. Would you also ban depressed people? Or only ban depressed people who are receiving treatment?

Otherwise the rest of the article makes some points. Campuses need armed security with 5 minute alert response time. And/Or faculty with approved gun carry rights.

[Publius6961]

Five years ago Peter Odighizuwa, a 43-year-old Nigerian student, killed three faculty members at Appalachian Law School with a handgun, but before he could wreak further carnage two students fetched weapons firearms from their cars, challenged the murderer with guns levelled, and disarmed him.

I think not enough has been said about this.
Even as we discuss the VT massacre, the MSM has a perfect record of witholding this fact from the American public.

Note also that even this critique timidly refers to them as "weapons" (baseball bats? brass knuckles?).

[Trailerpark Badass]

While the logic is flawed, there is a connection which must be examined.

The connection is that crazy people are more likely to be on anti-depressants.

[Brilliant]

I don’t have any problem with them publishing the Unibomber’s manifesto. He was still on the loose, and there was a chance it would lead to his capture.

But this guy is dead, and it’s clear that he did it for the notoriety, just as did the Columbine killers, and the Amish schoolhouse killer. No purpose is served by publishing it, other than to make money, and plant the idea of a copycat in the mind of the next nutcase who wants to call attention to himself as his last act before committing suicide.

[Publius6961]

Don’t publish the names and photos of the perps, and certainly don’t publish their manifesto. Deny them the notoriety.

I most emphatically agree that the piece of garbage's name should never be mentioned, but as to the remainder, I just as emphatically disagree.

It was embarrassingly this morning for the moron police superintendent to express "regret" that NBC aired the images and ramblings of the killer.

That's not his job!!

Has he yet expressed "regret" for timid, incompetent law enforcement to have utterly failed in preventing 29 deaths?