I agree 100%.
There's still hope out there:
http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/vatech_victims/article/0,28804,1612143_1611967,00.html

That's nice, but did they really have to put the GE Ecomagination CLose button right on all the pictures? It's all about the advertising I guess!

Has anyone noticed this huge piece of irony?

At Virginia Tech.... April is "Asian Pacific American Heritage Month."

http://www.aasu.org.vt.edu/

(Click for larger image...)



It also looks like they removed the web site for their Korean American Student Association (KASA).

http://www.kasa.org.vt.edu/

The situation is phucked up enough already without having to bring race into it...

:rolleyes:

Here's something I bet you DIDN'T hear in the news this week.

Last year, a bill was pushed that would have allowed folks to protect themselves on Virginia college campuses. It didn't make it out of committee.

http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/wb/xp-50658

Quoting the article:

"Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker was happy to hear the bill was defeated. "I'm sure the university community is appreciative of the General Assembly's actions because this will help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on our campus."

This was no mere PR hack (he's quite well known in his field). He felt so strongly that he penned an op-ed in the same paper...

http://www.roanoke.com/editorials/commentary/wb/81277

The last sentence is probably most striking:

"Guns don't belong in classrooms. They never will. Virginia Tech has a very sound policy preventing same."

oh OH OH!!!! PLEEEEEASE someone photoshop one of the pics of the guy with the gun subtly into that picture somewhere!!!

The point is not to have 1 in 10 citizens be able to square off with the bad guy. The point is that when a bad guy starts pointing a weapon at you, you are able to defend yourself. If you are able to get away safely, then that is your only goal. This is taught in every concealed handgun training class.

A license to carry is not a license to protect and serve the public. However if you are in a situation where you can save someone's life, what is that a problem? And when the police arrive, they take over, and you would surrender your weapon when asked. That's how it should work.

But in life, there are no perfect scenarios. There is no law that can cover all possible situations. The main thing the general public/media/etc forget is that the bad guys do not play by the rules.

It is also a national right to keep and bear arms. This appears second to our right to free speech. This is a condition to the establishment of the government, not a government privilege.
People forget this.

Well the fundies have already blamed this one on science.

How teaching evolution has caused the massacre

Good times...good times

Keep in mind the primary job of the police is to fill out paperwork after a crime. You'll always hear thet they prevent crime, but lets be honest, how often do they show up before a crime?

Ask a police officer what his #1 priority is & I'll bet he'll say something along the lines of "go home to my family at the end of the day" or something similar. Protect & serve? Himself yes, but society, no.

It has been long established (see Warren v. D.C., et al) that it is a "fundamental principle of American law that a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any individual citizen." Unless of course you're arrested or incarcerated, then they are fully responsible for you. I guess Chuck D was right, 911 is a joke.

In an incredible act of "feel-good" ignorance, "Policy 5616 - Campus and Workplace Violence Prevention Policy" prohibited all firearms for self-defense from the Virginia Tech campus.

As usual, the bad guy didn't follow the rules. This could've ended very differently. On January 16, 2002 armed students at the Appalachian Law School in Grundy, Virginia (about 2 hours from VT) intervened to stop a rampaging student:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachian_School_of_Law_shooting

When Odighizuwa exited the building where the shooting took place, he was approached by two students with personal firearms.

At the first sound of gunfire, fellow students Tracy Bridges and Mikael Gross, unbeknownst to each other, ran to their vehicles to fetch their personally-owned firearms. Gross, a police officer with the Grifton Police Department in his home state of North Carolina, retrieved a bulletproof vest and a 9 mm pistol. Bridges pulled his .357 Magnum pistol from beneath the driver's seat of his Chevy Tahoe. As Bridges later told the Richmond Times Dispatch, he was prepared to shoot to kill.

Bridges and Gross approached Odighizuwa from different angles, with Bridges yelling at Odighizuwa to drop his gun. Odighizuwa then dropped his firearm and was subdued by several other unarmed students, including Ted Besen and Todd Ross.

The media is biased & went out of their way to hide the truth:

http://www.uwire.com/content/topops012402002.html

Unfortunately, the media did not point out that the "intervening" students were armed. A Lexis-Nexis search revealed 88 stories on the topic, of which only two mentioned that either Bridges or Gross were armed. A Westnews search exposed worse results. It revealed 112 stories, of which only two mentioned the armed students.


An example is CNN, the epitome of mainstream big media:

http://archives.cnn.com/2002/US/01/16/law.school.shooting/

Students apparently tackled the gunman, said Ellen Qualls, press secretary for Virginia Gov. Mark Warner.

-and-

Police said as Odighizuwa exited the building three other students grabbed and subdued him.

Heaven forbid you tell people the truth & let them decide for themselves. How on Earth are you supposed to control independent thinkers?

So, apparently, this guy loved the band Collective Soul and their song "Shine".

Clicky Linky

Not to make light of the situation, but sweet merciful crap, that's enough to drive anyone to go on a rampage...and his roommates never saw it coming? "Shine"? Are you fricken kiddin me??

I caught 2 burglars last night. They got one car I caught them doing the second. Man I hate the fact I didn't prevent crime. Your post is so full of shit it isn't funny. Part of the reason we show up after the fact is we are so overworked with little staff. We take detail after detail then have to do reports the rest of the night. Some nights I have no time to be proactive it is just reactive. I am not complaining I love my job just saying it isn't our fault.

And if you think I am not required to provide police protection you are just plain wrong. There are many laws in Illinois which say I will do something such as domestic violence situations. Not if I want to I will or face criminal and civil liability. Not only that if I refused to show up to stuff or my chief told us we didn't have to one of two things would happen. Either he or I or both would be looking for new work. There is no way citizens would (nor should they) put up with that.

Yes I have a family and yes going home is my number 1 priority but not at the sacrifice to my job. If I have to get down and dirty I will. I can just train and do things as safe as I can to go home. But sometimes it goes to shit quick. I have a scar from a drunk hitting me over the head with a bottle. Sometimes it ain't pretty but it happens. Do I think that is part of it? I wish it wasn't but I knew what job I was getting into before I got hired.

Ugh.

So it begins. Leave it to CNN to start the anti gun rhetoric.

everybody turn in the guns editorial

It is going to happen many more times.

The Americans with Disabilities Act opened up college campuses and universities to tens of thousands of mentally ill nutcases. That law made mental illness a disability that cannot be discriminated against.

There are also numerous other laws protecting the privacy of the mentally ill. These laws keep the rest of the population from knowing the number and the extent of the mental illness of those in places such as college campuses. Laws such as the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.

People with mental illness have been granted all kinds of so-called "rights" by the government. That means society in recent years has less legal ability to protect itself from and against those among us with mental illness.

In places like college campuses, the college administrators have no legal authority to keep those with mental illness out of the student body. They even have further legal mandates to protect the privacy of those with mental illness and to also provide them with mental health services.

Virginia Tech for example had 2000 students last year seek mental health services. That is an awful lot of students considering the total student population is 25,000.

I've seen figures as high as 25% of students at some liberal arts colleges seeking mental health services.

Believe it or not, the law says we have no right to know what type of mental illness these people have and what type of treatment these people are seeking.

Even though Cho is dead and after murdering 32 other students and wounding a number of others, Virginia Tech is still protecting his privacy. They will not release his records.

Quote:

Since it's been established that had the law been followed Cho would never have been allowed to purchase his weapons, where are the NRA types who were posting in this thread? I'm not provoking you, I'm genuinely interested in your perspective on a documented nut like Cho being able, through inconsistent application of the law, miscommunication, or whatever it was, to "legally" buy guns.

The NRA doesn't have any problem with anyone being kept from purchasing a firearm because of mental illness or mental health issues as far as I know.

Regarding Cho's purchases, there isn't a clear cut definitive resolution regarding his purchases.

The gun shop certainly didn't break the law.

Cho was also ordered to attend outpatient mental health treatment. The doctors also just asked him if he had suicidal tendencies and he said "No". They basically just asked him a bunch of questions. How many nutcases answer "yes" to being asked if they are a nut? That's basically what happened in Cho's case. What good did any of that do? Those doctors sent him right back out the door as fast as he came in.

No mental health flags came up on his background check. I'm sure the State of Virginia will be looking into the technicalities of the law. Something should have come up regarding the judge sending him to outpatient services.

It may seem odd, but the privacy advocates of the mental health industry may have objections to what information is forwarded to the government regarding mental health services.

We'll have to wait and see how all this plays out with the the advocates for those with mental illness and their privacy rights and what information shows up on background checks.

The privacy advocates always claim if something negative shows up on a background check... such as one for a firearms purchase, it can also show up on a background check for employment.

This is what I find interesting. Does the law specifically protect the records of the deceased?

If so, who leaked his "plays?"

I thought it was his former classmate, who posted them in his blog?

What was that guy's name . . .

Paul H & Bluesky,

I never intended to insult anyone or come across as a cop hater. The simple fact is that nobody can see the future & the very nature of police work means showing up after a crime has been committed. Even in your example you didn't show up until after the first car.

Police work is a dangerous yet vital part of society, but they don't prevent crime any more that firemen prevent fires. They show up & save lives & property, but not until trouble has already started.

The individual is the real first line of defense. The same folks that discourage self defense are the same folks that encourage smoke detectors & fire extinguishers.

As for 911 being a joke, that was harsh, but not exactly wrong. We have people calling 911 for stupid shit all the time. A year or so ago there was some local councilwoman or something who was notorious for calling 911 for all sorts of mundane stuff like directions & crap. The idea that calling 911 is going to somehow magically save you is dangerous & misleading. How many 911 calss are made before a crime has happened?

The bulk of my post seems to have been missed. My major point is that is a similar situation in the same area, it was armed citizens that prevented more deaths. I agree, the police can't be everywhere, thet are overworked & under-staffed.

The administration of VT are directly responisible for tanking legislation that would've allowed concealed carry on campus & were so proud of the fact that they had the PR guy write an op-ed piece for the paper. Now, a year later, that same administration is at least indirectly responisble for these dead students. By preventing students from protecting themselves, they have assumed that responsibilty.

your kidding me right

those "Facts" you posted are nothing more than lies printed by the bozo's who want the NRA shut down.

What they don't tell you is this.
for every country besides the USA a gun has been used to shoot and murder a person.

in the USA those gun numbers include but are not limited too

robberies ending in death involving a gun
car accidents where a firearm was present
home invasions ending in death where a gun was present
defensive firearm actions ending in a death
home accidents ending in a death where a firearm was present

and again I dont have all the numbers cause im at work but those numbers are a joke.

Blue Sky
I'm not attacking you

But England had a school shooting and outlawed all guns
crime jumped so high they had to increase their police force.

holland has a policy that every homeowner has a gun in their home as part of their homeowner policy.

crime dropped drastically

Not to draw this out any further, but don't you think in a small tightly packed classroom, two people shooting each other would have killed MORE people than were already killed?

I'm just throwing that out there...

Maybe.

But I gotta think a homicidal shit walking unmolested with all the time in the world to aim, fire, aim again, fire again, aim again, fire again . . . that's just not that much to make him think twice.

Targets lying on the floor, covering their heads and screaming don't cause a gunman as much of a problem as return fire.

I read that Cho fired up to 200 rounds. How many rounds does a Glock magazine hold? Do they have the capacity to hold 20 rounds?
That means he had enough time to wander through classrooms, reloading up to ten times.

Anyone know if that figure is accurate?

Ok, to play your game, that would have been one classroom full of students...instead of four. Not to mention how different the whole thing would have played out if someone got that prick in the dorm at 7:30am, before he could mail his package and shoot up Norris Hall.

It is an interesting point, and I think its something worth considering for a hostage situation. However, in the case of VT, where a killer was free to do his work over a period of three hours, it doesn't really apply.

Here's another question...and again, I'm just looking for thoughts...

ok, everyone that wants a concealed weapon on campus has one...what if one of those that has a concealed weapon goes nuts? Isn't it better that a student would have to go to all the trouble of having to figure out how to carry something like this out, as opposed to just carrying a gun to class, snapping one day, and tearing the place up, because he has immediate access to the gun on his hip?

But if everyone else is also carrying, then the one that goes scooters doesn't get very far when 15 other people are shooting back.

Mind you, I'd hate to be the one sitting behind him...

People can go "nuts" and drive a car through a crowd at a bus stop (didn't someone do that recently at UNC? Sounds familiar).

Remove all students' rights to own cars?

To go along with the above regarding cars the internet should be banned too. Go to google and just type in stuff like "ammonia nitrate", "bomb recipe", or "how to make an IED." Pretty damn easy to do. If that madman hadnt had his medical records opened and part of his background and been denied the weapons he did use he just would have found some other reason to do this. Its not PC at all but we should lock up freaks like him in mental wards (very different from a prison) so that help and 24/7 attention can be had.

Tim