I don’t exactly like the way he tells the story of the Dartmouth College murders. To start with, the perpetrators, Parker and Tulloch, had approached other houses over the previous months, as Steyn notes. But in some cases they did get in, but left without accomplishing their grand design of a thrill kill. Then, when in the living room of Half Zantop, they suddenly seized him and cut his throat. His wife rushed in, and was then attacked “and stabbed a lot of times.” They then cut the throats of their victims again. They did not take their bank cards or objects of value, so it was not really a robbery.
Steyn makes it sound as if the gullibility and liberal opinions of the two professors made them sitting ducks for murder. But that is not really so. I do not know if they had a gun, but even if they did, Half Zantop would not have answered the door holding it. He had little rational reason to fear for his safety:
Ranked as the safest campus among the Ivies, Dartmouth is a place where student are used to boasting about the sense of security and confidence at their school. In the past half century, there has only been one other murder: two Ethiopian students were killed by a jealous boyfriend more than a decade ago.
From what I read, the two murdered professors seemed like great people.
On campus, memorial services were held for the Zantops, who are remembered as active and cherished members of the Dartmouth community.
Now comes the creepy bit, which is a possible link between the Dartmouth murders and Virginia Tech. Both took place on a Holocaust memorial day.
The fact that the deaths occurred on the day set in Germany for remembering the Holocaust has been suggested by the media to be of no coincidence.
Both born in Germany, the Zantops, though not Jewish, spoke very publicly about their feelings about the Holocaust. Audrey McCollum, a psychotherapist and a neighbor of the Zantops, says the couple's political activism was fueled by their "shame, guilt, fury, and horror" about Nazi atrocities. ABC's "Prime Time Live" reported that literature about the Third Reich, white supremacy, and Holocaust revisionism was found in Tulloch's bedroom.
Some people here on FR said that there were neo-nazi symbols on Chu’s stuff as well. There might be something going on that we are not aware of.
Finally, the Dartmouth murders were accomplished with knives. They are a good argument that gun control is not an effective measure in itself, as there are lots of weapons, many of which cannot be banned. If an energetic young psycho comes at you with a knife, you have probably had it, regardless of gun laws.
Flag to my post above.
Thanks for the info -- I had not heard the details of these two events as you describe them (it sure wasn't covered in "the news"), and It's a good bet Mark Steyn was not aware of these points either.