Posted on 04/16/2007 7:14:16 AM PDT by LexHoskin
Gunman on Campus; Stay inside your building, away from windows; Shooting incident at West Ambler Johnston Hall
(Excerpt) Read more at vtnews.vt.edu ...
Ok - another question. Why would he file off (or try to) the serial numbers on the weapon? If he was going to kill himself? That part didn’t make sense - because they are saying he bought the 9 mm at the Roanoke Gun shop and I saw the interview with the gun shop owner....so he didn’t get a gun off the street. Why try to get rid of the serial number?
Oh, yeah. Eyewitness accounts are always 100% correct. In any event, your 5-hour timeline is still horribly incorrect. Continue with your screed apace.
It's just my opinion, but if you've sworn an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, "legal authority" is there 'in spades.'
(Now, if you really want to lose sleep tonight, just try reading the 10th Amendment the way we all read the 2nd Amendment - the way it was written. They both mean PRECISELY what they say. They are part of the 'law of the land,' just like the 1st Amendment, or the 13th Amendment. Think about that - and then reread the 'Troublesome Tenth'... )
Well the problem is lawyers. When someone commits a crime, regardless of what it is, you should have the authority and the right to prevent it or stop the criminal. This includes shooting a ten year old in the back if he is running with stolen bubble gum. This may or may not be the moral thing to do, but property crimes would go down.
Leni
Obliterating the numbers on guns takes quite a while, even with a fully equipped machine shop.
He didn’t just do that on the spur of the moment. Someone else on the thread has speculated that he may have had an assassination fantasy or plan wherein he would kill a specific someone, drop the gun (which he thought would be untraceable), and then leave without a trace. If so, apparently his plans changed.
I’m only about 500 posts behind on this thread, so forgive me if these have been covered before. But two things have been on my mind:
1. At least a couple of reports had the killer shooting from waist-high. That’s a very unusual way of shooting, especially if you’re trying for accuracy. Yet as has already been pointed out, his killed/wounded ratio was very high. We don’t yet know if that means he was accurate, or if he just pumped many rounds into each victim. But shooting from waist-high is strange.
2. Any word on his parents? When Oregon had their high school shooting, the shooter (Kip Kinkle) killed his parents and booby-trapped his/their house before going to school and killing kids. Cho’s whereabouts for the 2 hours between shootings are still a mystery... I wonder if his parents are alive. I saw a report today that said neighbors hadn’t seen them since Monday, but not sure if that was before or after the shootings. But we would have heard by now if the parents had been killed. I just wonder if there is another crime scene somewhere that occurred in the 2 hours between shootings.
Now that we’ve pondered and debated and argued here, I just want to say please remember the families of these fallen students. I know from experience that they will never, ever, “get over it”. The best they can expect is to develop some scar tissue, like those who were wounded, which will at least hide the pain.
There is simply NOTHING as devastating as losing a child. I think it is especially traumatic when they are at the point in life where they are fully functional, and are ready to go beyond those who raised them, and do greater things. This has not only taken 32 young lives, it will take most of the life out out of an untold number of parents and family members. Please do what you can for them in the years to come, and do not judge them harshly.
We really need to keep an eye out for those who do not conveniently “fit in” with our fast-paced, impersonal society. In your daily lives, please take a moment to be more observant, patient and helpful whenever possible. “All men are created equal” doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t spare a little extra effort on those who are having difficulty coping with life. If we don’t, we’re going to see more and more of this kind of thing.
FYI, a building has at least 4 walls and multiple doors. What one eye-witness saw on one side of the building at one door will be different from what was happening at each of the other sides of the building and each of the other doors to the building.
As many people have said already, we don’t know the whole story yet, so it’s premature to find fault with anyone but the shooter.
SeeBS has already reported that the police have searched his parents’ house - no word on their status.
You may be underestimating the sobering effect the responsibility of carrying a deadly weapon has on the permittee, especially when there is the possibility of being involved in a misunderstood third-party situation. It really makes for some shifts in mindset and heightened awareness.
Obtaining the permit is a maturing experience, in and of itself.
Joe has it right. I have a carry permit, but actually carrying a weapon brings with it a real responsibility that is not to be taken lightly. It’s like you are suddenly on-duty. Obviously not everyone feels this way, but I bet you’d be surprised about the number that do. Responsibility can be quite mind-altering.
I remain unsure. It may be the case that he was simply a very disturbed individual.
Within a 'normal' context it would be easy to paint any 'hit man', effective assassin, or person inclined toward 'wet work' as a troubled psychotic, simply because 'normal' life operates under an entirely different paradigm. It may be that disturbed individuals are attracted to such professions as well. Psych screening is intended to eliminate such folks from many critical roles in our military, especially with WMDs.
Anyone who could seriously plot to slaughter dozens of noncombatant individuals outside of the context of unlimited warfare, regardless of the reason, is already a couple of standard deviations from the mean. There, even, the cold calculus of destroying a nation's ability to fight by wreaking havoc among its civillian population is one which we find generally unpalatable, but have utilized in the past, as has any nation still extant after several hunderd years.
Keep in mind that virtually anyone can be painted in the press as a 'disturbed individual' at some point in their lives. (Look what the press and law enforcement did to Richard Jewell, who was in reality a hero and whose actions may have saved numerous lives in the Olympic Park Bombing in Atlanta. He was villified, accused, and the usual 'loner, kept to himself, etc.', trotted out as the only 'real' damning evidence against him.)
Ever keep to yourself--either working too much or not feeling particularly social? Have a period of grief over a loss of someone or some thing ( a job, for instance)? Have a falling out with someone and comment later "That S.O./B., I'll kill him/her!"?
I have been exploring possibilities in other posts on this thread.
Maybe the dots I have tennatively connected are unrelated, and in one case (not a Chinese National), nonexistant. Such is the nature of trying to figure out what is going on before all the stories are aligned.
I am, however willing to look for those connections--just in case they do exist. Had more people done so, 9/11 might have been prevented.
Maybe it is telling that I have trouble with truly 'senseless' slaughter. For me, logic and rationality demand a deeper cause lurking behind the mayhem and carnage.
Maybe it exists, perhaps not.
At any rate, the professor bought his students time to get out the window, at the cost of his life. "Greater love hath no man...", and he is truly a hero in every sense of the word. May the Almighty bless him with eternity in paradise for that selfless act.
It may be coincidental that his research happened to encompass the topics it did.
For the victims and their realtives and friends, I can only offer my prayers that God will console them in their grief.
For my country, I hope and pray it is not rushed into more of the nonsensical prohibitive regulation which helps make populations larger than most towns I have lived in completely defenseless against such events.
As for the ahooter, I pray for his parents. What horror.
God, who knows so much more than I, will deal with the perpetrator as He sees fit.
I suggest that perfect "hindsight" shouldn't always be an excuse for not using "foresight". VT is not Iraq. The dorm murders can't be compared to a war zone. When a murder occurs on a school campus, everyone on campus should be alerted...by emergency sirens if that is the quickest way to reach everyone.
I question the explanations that the murders in the dorm were believed to be an isolated instance.
Believed to be? And who is the source of that belief?
Dear Appy soon as I read this I e-mailed our regional Emmaus group (NENM Emmaus) & you and all your Emmaus frieds know that we are praying for you, the University, the victums & their families. Out on life’s greatest tradgedy’s come God’s biggest blessings. We just can’t see them now but we will. We are planning on a walk in June so lots of work to be done. DeClores Denco
If you took the trouble to backtrack the replies, you would have seen that I had said EXACTLY that. (Blame the shooter).
Having also been utilized several times in the past week or so...during the phony bomb threats...it is NOT a surprise that the majority of students ignored them.
De Colores
CNN is showing the building surrounded by police with weapons and flak jackets.
What’s up now?
A bomb threat?
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