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Students Rebuked Over Virginia Tech Shooting Victim Halloween CostumesSaturday, December 08, 2007 STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Photos of two Penn State students dressed up as victims of the Virginia Tech massacre for Halloween prompted a rebuke from the university this week. The pictures, which show the students wearing Virginia Tech shirts covered in bullet holes and fake blood, recently surfaced on Facebook.com, a social networking site. The students were not disciplined, but Penn State condemned the actions in a letter sent to Virginia Tech officials. "We're appalled that these individuals would display this level of insensitivity and lack of common...

WASHINGTON -- Since the Virginia Tech shootings last spring, the FBI has more than doubled the number of people nationwide who are prohibited from buying guns because of mental health problems, the Justice Department said Thursday. Justice officials said the FBI's Mental Defective File has ballooned from 175,000 names in June to nearly 400,000, primarily additions from California. The names are listed in a subset of a database that gun dealers are supposed to check before completing their sales. The surge in names underscores the vastness of the gap in FBI records that allowed Seung-hui Cho to purchase the handguns...

Not even a year after the most horrific school shooting in this country's history, the debate has been brought back to college campuses. The debate as to whether students should be allowed to carry a concealed firearm into a college classroom has been a prevalent topic among special-interest groups, university administrators, lawmakers and students alike since that fateful April 16th morning in Blacksburg, Va. The heart of the debate focuses on whether allowing concealed weapons in a classroom setting can save lives if a catastrophe such as the one at Virginia Tech happens again. Since the tragedy, groups such as...

WASHINGTON - The number of mentally ill people named in a federal database barring them from buying guns has more than doubled since the Virginia Tech shootings earlier this year, the Justice Department said Thursday. The increase follows stepped-up reporting to a federal database used to screen the backgrounds of potential gun-buyers. Attorney General Michael Mukasey announced the increase at an afternoon speech in Park City, Utah. The number of people identified in the national instant background check database as having mental problems grew from 174,863 three months after the April 16 Virginia Tech shootings to 393,957 this month. "As...

RICHMOND Gov. Timothy M. Kaine called Tuesday for new restrictions on firearm sales at gun shows but stopped short of declaring passage of the legislation as a high priority for the 2008 General Assembly session. Under current law, background checks on buyers are not required by unlicensed dealers who privately sell and trade firearms at the shows. Kaine endorsed closing the loophole, saying it provides an opening for felons and mentally ill people to buy weapons they are otherwise forbidden to purchase. "You either want felons to have guns or you don't," Kaine said on a morning radio show. "You...

SAN MARCOS, Texas - Mike Guzman and thousands of other students say the best way to prevent campus bloodshed is more guns. Guzman, an economics major at Texas State University-San Marcos, is among 8,000 students nationwide who have joined the nonpartisan Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, arguing that students and faculty already licensed to carry concealed weapons should be allowed to pack heat along with their textbooks. "It's the basic right of self defense," said Guzman, a 23-year-old former Marine. "Here on campus, we don't have that right, that right of self defense." Every state but Illinois and Wisconsin...

BLACKSBURG -- Several thousands people gathered on Virginia Tech’s Drillfield this morning to form a giant message of thanks to the world for its support after the April 16 massacre. Photos of the event are posted on hokiesthanktheworld.org. Dressed in the school colors of maroon and orange, and surrounded by fall foliage of the same hues along the Blue Ridge Mountains, the crowd was arranged to form Tech’s "VT" logo, and under it, "THANKS YOU." At 11:10 a.m., a satellite aimed to capture the image as the thousands waved up at the sky.

A student at Memorial University in Newfoundland was arrested Tuesday afternoon after he was found with a pellet gun on campus. A professor later confirmed that the student, Chris Hardy, had performed a Monty Python sketch using the pistol for an engineering class project. But despite the fact that the gun was used for comedic purposes, Memorial, like other Canadian universities, didn’t take the incident lightly. The university lauded the efforts of security services for apprehending Hardy, who was not charged, within two-and-a-half hours. The quick and decisive response was typical of Canadian universities, including the University of Winnipeg, where...

Virginia Tech officials gave out more than $8.5 million on Monday to people who were wounded, lost loved ones or survived the shootings at the Blacksburg campus on April 16. The "bulk" of the money, according to university President Charles Steger, was being disbursed "to 79 families and individuals." "There is no right way to disburse these monies, but we believe the best way to continue the healing is to put as much as possible in the hands of those who have suffered most," ... some of the recipients will get "the disbursements over time in the form of free...

WASHINGTON (Map, News) - The father of a student killed in the shooting massacre at Virginia Tech endorsed a Democratic state Senate candidate Monday, further politicizing the deadliest shooting ever on an American higher-education campus. Joe Samaha, whose daughter, Reema, was among those killed inside Norris Hall on April 16, announced his support of Janet Oleszek in her 37th Senate district race against Republican incumbent Ken Cuccinelli. Candidates have discussed their ideas for making campuses safer throughout the campaign and are often asked about the Virginia Tech shooting during citizen forums. Samaha is believed to be the first parent of...

Virginia Tech officials said Tuesday they have distributed more than $8.5 million in donations to help victims of the April shootings. Families of the 32 people killed by student gunman Seung-Hui Cho were eligible for cash or a combination of funds and endowed scholarships in the victims' names. Money also went to more than two dozen who were injured in the classroom building when Cho killed 30 people and then himself on April 16th. Payments also were made to people who were uninjured but were in the classrooms during the shooting rampage. University President Charles Steger said a total of...

During the week of October 22-26, 2007, college students throughout America, organized under the banner of Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, will attend classes wearing empty holsters, in protest of state laws and campus policies that stack the odds in favor of armed killers by disarming law abiding citizens licensed to carry concealed handguns virtually everywhere else. In 39 U.S. states, thousands of collegiate students and faculty—age 21 and above—are licensed to carry concealed handguns throughout their day-to-day lives. And they do so without incident. However, despite the absence of any compelling evidence that these licensed individuals would pose...

Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) - A gun-control bill that advocates say could have prevented the April killings of 32 people on the Virginia Tech campus has hit a roadblock in the Senate. The measure would provide money to states to ensure that they properly update the national database of those prohibited to purchase weapons. It has support from both handgun control groups and the National Rifle Association but Democratic Senator Charles Schumer of New York says his colleague Republican Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, has derailed any hopes of quick passage. Under federal law, people with criminal records and those who...

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - Virginia Tech plans to test its expanded emergency notification system this week, nearly six months after the mass shootings on campus. The system uses text messages, voice mails, e-mails and online instant messages to alert the campus community during emergencies. University spokesman Mark Owczarski says the school will test its ``VT Alerts'' system sometime this week. Nearly 18,000 students, faculty, and staff have subscribed to the system since it was launched in July. That's over half of the university community. The school had already been looking into expanding its alert system when student Seung-Hui Cho (sung-wee...

A three-legged robot with an unconventional and graceful walk has been developed by US researchers. Like humans, it exploits gravity to save energy with each step, but it also flips its entire body upside-down with each stride. The fearsome alien tripods in HG Well's book The War of The Worlds are described as moving like "a milking stool tilted and bowled violently along the ground". STriDER (Self-excited Tripedal Dynamic Experimental Robot) has a far more graceful, and acrobatic, gait (see video top right) that sees its body flip 180 degrees with each step. A second video (bottom right) explains more...

·11250 Waples Mill Road ·   Fairfax, Virginia 22030    ·800-392-8683   Panel On Virginia Tech Murders Pushes Anti-Gun Agenda   Friday, August 31, 2007   Yesterday, the “Virginia Tech Review Panel” released its report on April’s horrific mass murder on campus.  Most media attention has rightly focused on failures of communication. These include failures to share information between university officials, mental health counselors, campus police, and killer Seung Hui Cho’s parents, as well as the university’s failure to promptly notify students, faculty and staff promptly about the first two shootings on campus.  Yet while the panel effectively reviewed those issues, it used...

With school starting, the attack at Virginia Tech that left 32 dead is still people's minds. But Virginia Tech's report on how to prevent future tragedies is pretty disappointing. And one glaring omission remains. The report failed to ask whether there were any common feature among the different multiple-victim public shooting tragedies. All these attacks shared something in common: citizens were already banned from having guns in those areas. Indeed, every multiple-victim public shooting of any size has occurred in one of those gun-free zones. Virginia Tech has rigorously enforced its gun-free zone policy and suspended students with concealed handgun...

Public Safety: A governor's report on the Virginia Tech shootings says earlier warnings might have helped reduce the carnage. It says nothing about VT's complicity in denying the murdered their right to self-defense. After the release of Virginia Tech's internal review of the shooting spree in April that left 33 dead, it was hard to imagine a more clueless document on the tragedy being released. But the report released Wednesday by an eight-member panel headed by Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine takes the prize. VT's review called on police, counselors and other university personnel to monitor students whose behavior might indicate...

Virginia Tech officials might have saved lives if they had notified faculty and students sooner about the first two shootings on campus, a panel concluded in its investigation of the April rampage that left 33 dead. "Warning the students, faculty and staff might have made a difference. ... So the earlier and clearer the warning, the more chance an individual had of surviving," said the report, which was released late Wednesday night.

Could a member of the Bar elucidate on whether even if VaTech knew more of Cho, would FERPA (The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974) not have allowed them to act against him ahead of time. My head hurts just reading the legislation.

BLACKSBURG, Va. -- Days of debate have produced no rational explanation for the Virginia Tech massacre other than the fact the gunman began by placing no value on his own life. Someone who is prepared to die is lethal, as suicide bombers have proven too often. But while government policy throughout the Western world has been turned upside down to combat terrorism, many of us react to the carnage unleashed on Monday by throwing up our hands in despair. That's because doing something about mentally disturbed people such as Cho Seung-hui before they commit a serious crime is unacceptable to...

RICHMOND, Va. - The gunman responsible for the April massacre at Virginia Tech was a sickly child — shy, frail and leery of physical contact by the time he was 3. His teachers said he began showing suicidal and homicidal tendencies by the eighth grade. ADVERTISEMENT A new report that provides the most comprehensive look yet at Seung-Hui Cho also shows his parents, teachers and mental health counselors wove a safety net that held him together through most of high school. Then, in his junior year, Cho declared "there is nothing wrong with me" and turned away from treatment, the...

Few tragedies make their victims feel more helpless than multiple-victim shootings. Imagine the terror: Unable to escape, simply waiting for the killer. Virginia Tech’s just released report on how to stop future tragedies was pretty disappointing, and this coming week’s Virginia Governor’s task force report isn’t likely to be any better. The university proposes more counseling ... But one glaring omission remains: The report failed to ask whether there were any common features or similarities among the different multiple-victim public shooting tragedies. And what happens if these policies fail? Should there be some ultimate protection upon which the university can...

...Professors and school administrators at Virginia Tech could not have known of Cho's emotional disability -- Fairfax [high school] officials were forbidden from telling them. Federal privacy and disability laws prohibit high schools from sharing with colleges private information such as a student's special education coding or disability, according to high school and college guidance and admissions officials. Those laws also prohibit colleges from asking for such information. The only way Virginia Tech officials would have known about Cho's anxiety and selective mutism would have been if Cho or his parents told them about it and asked for accommodations to...

BLACKSBURG, Va., Aug. 20 (UPI) -- U.S. scientists are developing portable pyrolysis units that can convert poultry litter into bio-oil in a system that addresses biosecurity issues. Virginia Tech Associate Professor Foster Agblevor, who is leading the research, said the technology can convert poultry litter into three value-added byproducts -- pyrodiesel, producer gas, and fertilizer. The pyrolysis unit heats the litter until it vaporizes, the scientists said. The vapor is then condensed to produce the bio-oil and a slow-release fertilizer is recovered from the reactor. The gas can then be used to operate the pyrolysis unit, thereby making it a...

Disaster Looms in Pakistan Decorum was abandoned as accusations ricocheted between the wood-panelled walls of Pakistan's national assembly on Monday night. "Murderers! Murderers of innocent people!" screamed an MP from a religious party, his yellow turban shaking as he wagged a finger towards the government benches. Five female parliamentarians, their faces concealed behind black and white burkas, slapped the benches with open palms. Another mullah stood up and started shouting. The speaker strained to maintain order. Others were less captivated by the debate on last month's siege of the Red Mosque, in which more than 100 people died. One...

Two students, 15 others hospitalized on day shooting memorial dedicated

The Brady Campain Paul Helmke vs GMU Students for Concealed Carry on Campus Debate. The Gun Control President is super sleazy.

RICHMOND — College students are pushing for their schools to allow them to carry guns on campus, saying they should have the right to protect themselves in a situation like the one in which 32 Virginia Tech students and faculty were fatally shot.

College football coaches tend to be a paranoid bunch. With the proliferation of the Internet and, more specifically, fan message boards, there aren't many secrets in college football anymore. Even Frank Beamer, this journalist's last hope for open access, has gone to the dark side. He closed Virginia Tech's practices during preseason camp after suggesting that someone might have tipped off Georgia as to what plays the Hokies were going to run in last season's Chick-fil-A Bowl. In a clandestine effort, we've enlisted our sources from coast to coast to uncover a few of college football's secrets heading into the...

Little Red gets straight As in “Campus Personal Security 101” — and Dad sleeps better for it. I don’t think any parent who has ever sent a child off to college got through the day on Monday, April 16th, without a lump of ice forming in their guts. Mine was the size of the ’berg that sent RMS Titanic to its chilly tomb. I’m surprised it didn’t melt, given the heat of my rage. In answer to the question, “Who killed our kids?” we were ultimately shown a photo of a psychotic — Seung-Hui Cho. But as I looked...

<p>WASHINGTON -- Two weeks before students return to classes at Virginia Tech, a Senate panel voted yesterday to strengthen the national instant background-check system for gun buyers.</p> <p>Responding to the Virginia Tech massacre, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted unanimously to advance a measure aimed at closing gaps in the national background-check system.</p>

On the Web sites where conservatives gather to read and chat each day, Fred Thompson, the as-yet-unannounced Republican presidential candidate, has been laying out his positions on dozens of issues, with little public notice and plenty of rhetorical flair. The Virginia Tech massacre, he said, showed that students should be allowed to carry guns "to protect themselves on their campuses," and he said the university's ban on guns may have contributed to how long the shooter was able to keep killing. He compared scientists who insist global warming is ruining nature to those true believers about 400 years ago...

Some state lawmakers want to create a fund for victims of the April 16 shooting at Virginia Tech that left 33 people dead. Any significant action on the proposal is likely several months away -- the General Assembly meets in January -- but several state legislators say the idea is increasingly becoming a topic of conversation. "I feel it's altogether appropriate, in this case, for the commonwealth to do this," state Sen. John S. Edwards, D-Roanoke, said during a phone interview yesterday. "I would strongly support this." Edwards, whose district includes Blacksburg, the home of Virginia Tech, believes money for...

"EDWARDSVILLE, Ill. (AP) -- A Southern Illinois University student was arrested after authorities say he threatened a "murderous rampage'' similar to the Virginia Tech shootings that left 32 people and the gunman dead. A gun dealer had alerted federal authorities about the man, saying he had seemed overly anxious to get a shipment of semiautomatic weapons, according to an affidavit filed in court by a police detective. Olutosin Oduwole was charged Tuesday with attempting to make a terrorist threat, a felony. He remained jailed Wednesday in lieu of $1 million bail."

State Police searching Virginia Tech duck pond By Dawn Jefferies / 10 On Your Side Jun 25, 2007 It was here, at the Virginia Tech duck pond witnesses reported seeing Seung Hui Cho the morning of April 16th. Today, the duck pond is being drained. Virginia state police say they're leaving no stone unturned. Back in April, 10 on your side was there when teams searched the area, only saying it was a routine part of the investigation. Teams will come out and search this area again but they have to wait until the water drains. Last week, the Washington...

To register for Emory & Henry’s new emergency alert system: www.ehc.edu/studentlife/studentalert.html EMORY – Faster information could save lives. It’s the concept Emory & Henry College is considering in implementing a campus-wide alert system that sends text messages to various types of communication devices. "Since Virginia Tech, this has sort of taken center stage," said Dirk Moore, a spokesman for the college. "The importance of it became all the more clear, so we’ve pushed." Pamela Gourley, E&H dean of students, said many colleges are using alert systems like e2Campus, which uses a Web site to send a text messages to cell...

House tempers background checks for guns By JIM ABRAMS, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON - The House Wednesday passed what could become the first major federal gun control law in over a decade, spurred by the Virginia Tech campus killings and buttressed by National Rifle Association help. The bill, which was passed on a voice vote, would improve state reporting to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System to stop gun purchases by people, including criminals and those adjudicated as mentally defective, who are prohibited from possessing firearms. Seung-Hui Cho, who in April killed 32 students and faculty at Virginia Tech...

WASHINGTON - The House Wednesday passed what could become the first major federal gun control law in over a decade, spurred by the Virginia Tech campus killings and buttressed by National Rifle Association help.

In the aftermath of the bloodbath that 23-year-old Seung-Hui Cho unleashed on a peaceful Virginia Tech campus only a few months before, American citizens were left to endure an unendurable tragedy and to deal with an ineffable grief that had enveloped all of America. But, mostly, they were left with a multitude of questions that needed answering: Did Virginia Tech do enough to protect its students after its authorities grew aware that a gunman was wreaking havoc on its campus? What was it, really, that finally drove a student to coldly and methodically extinguish 32 promising lives in what the...

One of the things that's got to be going through a lot of peoples' minds now is how one man with two handguns, that he had to reload time and time again, could go from classroom to classroom on the Virginia Tech campus without being stopped. Much of the answer can be found in policies put in place by the university itself. Virginia, like 39 other states, allows citizens with training and legal permits to carry concealed weapons. That means that Virginians regularly sit in movie theaters and eat in restaurants among armed citizens. They walk, joke, and rub shoulders...

HAMPTON -- Lauren McCain is still talking to people and sharing her faith. Six weeks after she was killed in the April 16 massacre at Virginia Tech, the 20-year-old from Hampton is beginning to attract attention from churches and Christian groups across the country through an 8 1/2-minute video clip -- filmed less than two months before her death -- in which she talks about her faith and her belief in an afterlife. Her father, David McCain, in his first public comments since her death, said the video is a fitting legacy for his daughter. "That was her desire," he...

Columbia, S.C. (AP) -- To prevent school shootings, some South Carolina legislators want more guns on campuses. A House subcommittee approved a measure Wednesday that would allow concealed weapon permit holders to carry guns onto public school campuses, from elementary schools to universities. Supporters say having trained and armed gun owners in schools could prevent massacres like the April 16 shootings at Virginia Tech, where one armed student killed 32 people. Only Utah currently has a law allowing concealed weapons on campuses. "We're not talking about kids. We're talking about responsible adults," said Republican Rep. Jeff Duncan, who sponsored the...

New York mayor informed the law bars purchases by undercover private agents Gov. Timothy M. Kaine yesterday defended a new Virginia gun-rights law, saying it is designed to keep "rogue folks" from making "freelance gun purchases." Attorney General Bob McDonnell wrote a letter to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg last month telling him about the law that would prevent the mayor from sending undercover private investigators to buy guns in Virginia. The law will take effect July 1. McDonnell's letter was written April 13, three days before the Virginia Tech massacre, and not made public until this week. McDonnell, as...

A Blacksburg Middle School student has been charged with trying to sell stolen guns at school at least three days last month -- including April 16, the day 32 people were shot just a few miles away on the Virginia Tech campus. Blacksburg police Capt. Bruce Bradbery confirmed Monday that a 14-year-old boy was charged April 25 after it came to light that he had been trying to sell guns at school. Police withheld the boy's name because of his age.

I realize hindsight is 20/20, and I hate Monday morning quarterbacks, but sometimes an event is so horrific in nature that analysis of why it unfolded and ended the way it did should be explored from every possible angle. If you can suffer another article about Virginia Tech, please allow me to offer my take on the latest bloody massacre that has sent America reeling. Every group with an agenda is still using the aftermath of this tragedy to tout their causes. While the pro-gun folks and the no-guns bunch hurl blame at each other, forums are held and committees...

This time it may be the Democrats who are getting religion. Former Sen. John Edwards invoked "My Lord" when asked about moral influences on his life in the first Democratic presidential debate. At a campaign event on the day of the Virginia Tech massacre, he offered a prayer and — in a pointed break from Democratic candidates' usual wariness of offending religious minorities — closed with the words "in Christ's name." Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. comfortably works in references to his faith at public appearances. Even before his presidential candidacy, he gave a well-received speech arguing for a greater role...

ALBANY -- A renowned poet who taught the Virginia Tech killer found his presence so intimidating it felt like he was "controlling my classroom," the professor said in an interview. . . . The evening wasn't all solemn, though. Giovanni's often profane jokes about men, Jesus, and especially the Bush administration kept the crowd in stitches, though most of them can't be printed in a family newspaper. And from this article:But it wasn't what the celebrated poet said about the massacre that provoked one of the loudest reactions from her audience of University at Albany students Thursday. What really got...

It’s not often that I agree with Rick Perry or Ann Coulter. In fact, this is the first time. Commenting on the slaughter at Virginia Tech, Nasty Ann said: “Only one policy has ever been shown to deter mass murder — concealed-carry laws. A comprehensive study of all public, multiple shootings in America between 1977 and 1999 . . . found that concealed-carry laws were the only laws that had any beneficial effect . . . reducing multiple-shooting attacks by nearly 60 percent. “How did that deranged loner get a gun into a Gun-Free Zone? By the way, the other...

Sent from Warner Bonderman, our Roanoke District President of the United Methodist Men: Jarrett Lane, a civil engineering major from Narrows, Va., was in Dr. G.V. Loganathan's classroom in Norris Hall when he was shot and killed. A senior and recipient of a special scholarship for engineering students, he had just celebrated his 22nd birthday in March. His former teachers at Narrows High School spoke of him in glowing terms, remembering him as a talented student, four-sport athlete, and valedictorian. Here is a wonderful story of God's Grace: This is from Mark Cox. On Sunday morning April 15, 2007, Jarrett...