This photo was captured on the football field at the Virginia Tech convocation. Original Source:ä¸­æ–°ç½‘ http://news.online.sh.cn/news/gb/content/2007-04/18/content_1927629.htm
This photo was captured on the football field at the Virginia Tech convocation. Original Source:ä¸­æ–°ç½‘ http://news.online.sh.cn/news/gb/content/2007-04/18/content_1927629_2.htm
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Thousands of faculties,staffs and students of Virginia Tech stood on the drillfield for vigil. Original Source:æ–°åŽç½‘ http://www.southcn.com/news/international/specialreports/qj/tp/200704180623.htm
In Seoul, Koreans mourned for the victims in the shooting. "May all the victims' souls rest in peace". Original Source:æ–°åŽç½‘ http://edu.ce.cn/foreign/xy/200704/19/t20070419_11089930.shtml
Haiyan Cheng,who experienced the shooting with her students in the Norris Hall on April 16 was talking with the journalist. Original Source: xmnext.com http://news.xmnext.com/world/shehui/2007/04/18/304206.html
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By Bae Ji-sook Staff Reporter The Virginia Tech massacre by a South Korean student shocked the entire nation, including netizens. On Tuesday, netizens posted articles expressing their shock as well as paying condolences to the victims of the tragedy. On portal Web sites, special categories were made to express how sorry they feel for the victims and their survivors. Everyone said that there should never be violence that threaten other people's freedom and lives. After CNN and other reports broke the news that the suspect is Cho Seung-hui, a native Korean living in the United States with a green card, many people were astonished. ``I couldn't believe that someone like me was really involved in this brutal murder,'' a netizen (ID hahaha) said. Other people showed the same response as they said they have begun to feel more responsibility for the case when they found out that a Korean was involved. Others said that the case looked similar to some cases happening in the Korean military where young soldiers try to desert from their barracks out of love or relationship issues. There were also rising concerns over the safety of Koreans living in the U.S. According to some reports, in Centerville, where Cho has lived with his family, American students throwing bread at Korean students were reported. In Los Angeles, some students were threatened by their peers who told them to go back to their own country. ``At the moment many people are concentrating on the issue of private weapons, and there are not many people accusing Koreans. However, I assume there will be some more talking about his ethnicity, and the hatred will pour out,'' another netizen (ID: Menia) said. Some are concerned whether the case would bring a bad image to the country and work as a setback to issues the country is trying to push such as a visa waiver or hosting PyeongChang Winter Olympics. Those who are willing to visit or study in the U.S. are worried over the possibility that getting visas would become more difficult. ``Back in 2001, I remember that getting a visa was quite difficult right after the Sept. 11 tragedy and I hope it would not happen this time,'' said Koh, a 25-year-old student who is planning to study in the U.S. There are also questions raised over studying abroad at a very young age _ quite the fashion in Korea at the moment. As domestic media in the U.S. referred to Cho as a ``loner,'' people are now questioning whether sending their kids abroad for study is a good idea. There were constant reports of children feeling lonely and causing problems with drinking, doing drugs or having sex problems, but the massacre has triggered the debate on whether such studying is really needed. Cho flew to America when he was a little kid, and is said to have not made himself accustomed to the different culture. ``I think his being alone made him a loner, and made him do something horrible. And would you still say that won't happen to your child?'' a blogger grandchyren asked. The netizens plan to hold a candle vigil for the victims of the massacre at the Seoul City Hall plaza on Sunday evening. bjs@koreatimes.co.kr -- Original Source: Korea Times http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/nation_view.asp?newsIdx=1205&categoryCode=117
BU assessing safety, mental health concerns By: Barbara Rodriguez Posted: 4/18/07 Boston University officials are still assessing how Monday's deadly shootings at Virginia Tech will prompt any changes in BU's security and mental health services. Officials will be monitoring the campus "climate" during the next few days, speaking with the Office of Residence Life and other departments that work with students, said Dean of Students Kenneth Elmore. More than 100 BU community members gathered on Marsh Plaza yesterday afternoon at a candlelight vigil to remember the victims, many of whom were Virginia Tech students and a few professors. Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old Virginia Tech senior from South Korea, shot and killed 30 people in an academic building around 9:15 a.m., two hours after he killed two students in a residence hall Monday morning on the Blacksburg, Va. campus. Cho injured more than 15 others and shot and killed himself following the second shooting, police say. Marsh Chapel officials have been talking with students in person and through email, said Marsh Chapel dean Robert Hill. Representatives from the Florence & Chafetz Hillel House and the Newman House, which houses the university's Catholic Center, were also available at the vigil. "I was surprised by the number [of people at the vigil]," Hill said. Elmore and BU Police Department Chief Thomas Robbins attended a city safety meeting at the Boston Police Department headquarters yesterday afternoon where representatives from 19 area schools discussed ways to improve safety protocols and communication among city and local agencies, Elmore said. "We will be in a continual assessment," addressing BU's training response, how departments communicate with each other and the various city and state agencies they work with, he said. "We know we've got a network of public safety," Elmore said. "It is still important to assess [BU's] crisis response." BU officials are continuing to offer chaplain and counseling services. Marsh Chapel officials are inviting students to gather at 11 a.m. today at the chapel for another moment of prayer, Hill said. "Our hearts really go out to the people in Virginia," he said. "We know what it means to grieve." Many faculty members, parents, students and staff contacted the Dean of Students Office yesterday with suggestions and concerns about how BU could handle a campus shooting, Elmore said. Elmore, who hosts weekly conversations with students in the Howard Thurman Center, will focus the first portion of Friday's discussion on the shooting, while a behavioral medicine representative will be present for counseling. "There's lots of issues about violence and people's personal safety," Elmore said. The Albert and Jesse Danielson Institute, one of BU's psychological facilities, is also offering students counseling services despite an extensive waiting list to be treated, said Clinical Director Dr. Jorge Stavros. Stavros said if students contact the Institute with an "acute reaction" to the shootings, the office will make an appointment for them immediately. As of last night, no students had contacted the Institute in regard to the shootings. Elmore is encouraging BU community members of the BU community to reach out to others and alert officials if they suspect someone behaving suspiciously. "If it doesn't feel right to us, we have to report it," he said. "I'm always encouraging students to be mindful about their own personal safety." -- Original Source: The Daily Free Press - April 18, 2007
Publicado por Batz Friday, April 20, 2007 Todos vimos/leÃ­mos sobre la matanza que hubo en Virginia Tech esta semana. Un suceso terrible que personalmente me sorprendiÃ³ mucho por estar tan cercano al pueblo al que me fui de intercambio en 1997, y a donde muchos de mis amigos fueron a estudiar tras graduarnos de la preparatoria. Por las fechas en que terminamos la escuela, supuse que no habrÃ­a nadie que yo conociera, pero igual me hizo sentir gran pesar. Que pena que fuera asÃ­ como viera a mi ex casa por las noticias, en vez de algo de lo lindo que conocÃ­ en ese aÃ±o. La noche siguiente, estando en el MSN, me encontrÃ© con mi novio de esa Ã©poca [y durante 4 aÃ±os]. Nos saludamos y me dio una muy mala noticia. Me dijo que uno de los estudiantes asesinados es [era] amigo suyo, y hermano de una de mis compaÃ±eras de generaciÃ³n: Jarret Lane. Su hermana Alicia y yo no somos amigas, pero compartimos mucho tiempo juntas en el equipo de basketball. Como dije antes, todos pensamos que el suceso fue terrible, pero ahora que me da como un calambre pensar lo pequeÃ±o que es el mundo, y que con esta sociedad cada vez menos propensa a solucionar sus frustraciones de forma sana, nos vemos mas expuestos a ataques como este. Narrows es un lugar muy chiquito, todos se conocen y ahora se encuentran inmersos en una tristeza general que me ha llegado hasta acÃ¡. So sad... -- Fuente Original: Batz' Journal http://batzjournal.blogspot.com/2007/04/virginia-tech.html Licencia de uso: Creative Commons AtribuciÃ³n-No Derivadas 2.5 MÃ©xico.
Creative Commons AtribuciÃ³n-No Derivadas 2.5 MÃ©xico
Sepultan en Puerto Rico a vÃ­ctima de matanza en Virginia Tech
BAYAMÃ“N | AP Abril 24, 2007 Tras una ceremonia en la que nadie quiso hablar de la matanza que cobrÃ³ su vida, el estudiante puertorriqueÃ±o de la Universidad Virginia Tech Juan RamÃ³n Ortiz Ortiz fue sepultado este martes en un funeral privado. En lugar de hablar de su muerte, sus amigos y familiares prefirieron hablar de su vida. Fue lo mÃ¡s cercano a la perfecciÃ³n, expresÃ³ JesÃºs Ortega sobre su amigo desde la infancia. Ortiz Ortiz fue una de las 32 personas que matÃ³ Cho Seung-Hui, un estudiante de literatura inglesa de 23 aÃ±os de edad, antes de suicidarse con una pistola el lunes de la semana pasada. Juan fue un Ã¡rbol que dio fruto a temprana edad: benignidad, paciencia, justicia y amor. Celebremos hoy la vida que con tan sÃ³lo 26 aÃ±os Juan compartiÃ³ con nosotros, dijo el profesor Amado VÃ©lez, de la Universidad PolitÃ©cnica donde estudiÃ³ el joven. VÃ©lez destacÃ³ que la timidez del joven era opacada por sus acciones: Hablaban mÃ¡s de lo que la alocuciÃ³n podÃ­a decir. Durante los actos fÃºnebres, los padres del joven ingeniero acompaÃ±aron en todo momento a la viuda Liselle Vega CortÃ©s, quien tambiÃ©n se encontraba en Virginia Tech al momento de la masacre. El trÃ­o permaneciÃ³ silencioso y en aparente calma durante la triste jornada de despedida, en la que amigos como Ortega volvieron a sonreÃ­r al recordar el amor de Ortiz Ortiz por el ritmo de salsa, al que dedicÃ³ parte de su vida. Era tan fanÃ¡tico de la salsa que una vez... puso mÃºsica de salsa (en el automÃ³vil) y se llenÃ³ de tanta alegrÃ­a que se bajÃ³ del carro y bailÃ³ en el mismo medio de la acera, relatÃ³ Ortega. Para el pÃ¡rroco de la Iglesia San JosÃ©, JosÃ© MarÃ­a Almendariz, la muerte de Ortiz Ortiz fue inexplicable. No hay ninguna explicaciÃ³n humana para el dolor que no sea mirando a Cristo, expresÃ³ a los mÃ¡s de 200 amigos y familiares que abarrotaron la Iglesia San JosÃ© de BayamÃ³n, a las afueras de San Juan. La matanza de Virginia Tech ha sido considerada la peor masacre estudiantil en la historia contemporÃ¡nea de Estados Unidos. -- Fuente Original: El Universo.com - Guayaquil, Ecuador http://www.eluniverso.com/2007/04/24/0001/14/E53E61E6CC9C4BA6A5C38563C829AFA0.aspx
JosÃ© DarÃ­o Maldonado Jefe Unidad de Negocios Internet DIARIO EL UNIVERSO jmaldonado@eluniverso.com
Aug. 20, 2007 Anytime a tragedy occurs we ask ourselves how it could have happened and how it can be prevented from ever happening again. So in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech massacre, gun rights advocates began calling for the repealing of bans on carrying concealed weapons on school campuses. The national organization of Students for Concealed Carry on Campus is one such group. There are eight chapters of Students for Concealed Carry on Campus in Texas, the most of any state. Current Texas law forbids the carrying of concealed weapons in places like school campuses, places of worship and government property -- even if a person is licensed to carry. Arlington senior Andrew Sugg, head of Baylor's SCCC chapter, seeks to make it possible for students to arm themselves at Baylor. Groups like these have to use circular logic to reach their conclusions. Because a deranged individual brought guns onto campus, Sugg and others believe they should be allowed to bring theirs in order to protect themselves. What the gun lobby conveniently forgets is that the mental history of Virginia Tech gunman Seung-Hui Cho should have prevented him from ever obtaining a gun in the first place. Cho's mental history was recognized by a Virginia court in 2005, and due to inconsistencies between federal and state law, he was not entered into the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. The problem is not with the laws, but with the ability of the system to work properly. If it did, Cho would not have been able to purchase a gun and the conversation may not have gone in this direction. While it is clear that the response time of Virginia Tech's campus police was inadequate, this does not mean we should allow anyone who has gone through a criminal history check and a safety course to be a substitute for law enforcement. This vigilante attitude of circumventing the responsibility of law enforcement could potentially create many serious problems. The majority of people who receive licenses to carry concealed weapons are responsible individuals, but they do not receive nearly the same level of training to handle situations that police do. Although they do not receive the same amount of press coverage as a school shooting, accidents involving guns are far more common. According to the Centers for Disease Control, there were 776 accidental deaths and 75,685 injuries from firearms in 2001. It would be naÃ¯ve to say that if bans on guns at these locations are repealed, there would be no accidents as a result. The purpose of banning concealed weapons in certain places is because the state has a responsibility to ensure the safety of its citizens in those locations. How wise would it be to allow someone to carry a concealed weapon to a stadium? A church? Better yet, how about an airport? Baylor police chief Jim Doak was quoted in Baylor Line magazine saying it would be "unwise" to lift campus bans. We couldn't agree more. Baylor SCCC has good intentions at heart -- making campus safer. But before we arm ourselves, there are other steps we can take that are both easier to implement and less double-edged. One step is to have better emergency planning. School lockdowns for threats are commonplace at our nation's high schools -- the capacity for emergency response should be no different in colleges. Another step is to better enforce the laws and have tighter background checks. Too many loopholes in state and federal laws are allowing people who shouldn't be able to, to get guns. Even if state laws are changed, Baylor as a private institution has the right to ban concealed weapons on its own. We hope it continues to keep its rules in place, even if state schools allow concealed carry on their campuses. -- Original Source: The Lariat http://www.baylor.edu/Lariat/news.php?action=story&story=46387
Julie Freeman (Julie_Freeman@baylor.edu)
We here in Virginia at William & Mary, we felt a shock wave go thought out our campus on Monday . Many of our students went to high school with the victims, but just being in the same kind of environment made us feel vulnerable and sadden. Governor Kaine has declared, Friday, April 20, a statewide day of mourning for the victims of the Virginia Tech tragedy and their families. Virginia Tech families members across the country have united to declare Friday, April 20, and "Orange and Maroon Effect Day" to honor those killed earlier this week and to show visible support for Virginia Tech students, faculty, administrators, staff, alumni, and friends. For this reason I'll only upload this 1 photo today in honor of the victims We Remember: â€¢ Ross Abdallah Alameddine â€¢ Christopher James Bishop â€¢ Brian Roy Bluhm â€¢ Ryan Christopher Clark â€¢ Austin Michelle Cloyd â€¢ Jocelyne Couture-Nowak â€¢ Kevin P. Granata â€¢ Matthew Gregory Gwaltney â€¢ Caitlin Millar Hammaren â€¢ Jeremy Michael Herbstritt â€¢ Emily Jane Hilscher â€¢ Jarrett Lee Lane â€¢ Matthew Joseph La Porte â€¢ Henry J. Lee â€¢ Liviu Librescu â€¢ Partahi Mamora Halomoan Lumbantoruan â€¢ Lauren Ashley McCain â€¢ Daniel Patrick O'Neil â€¢ J. Ortiz-Ortiz â€¢ Minal Hiralal Panchal â€¢ Daniel Alejandro Perez â€¢ Erin Nicole Peterson â€¢ Michael Steven Pohle, Jr. â€¢ Julia Kathleen Pryde â€¢ Mary Karen Read â€¢ Reema Joseph Samaha â€¢ Waleed Mohamed Shaalan â€¢ Leslie Geraldine Sherman â€¢ Maxine Shelly Turner â€¢ Nicole Whit Original source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/littlerottenrobin/466050433/
Permission: http://www.flickr.com/photos/littlerottenrobin/466050433/
By Behzad Varamini Apr 25 2007 Gain Through Loss Hours after students cowered behind desks and played dead in hopes that Virginia Tech killer Cho Seung-Hui would spare their lives, minutes after the body count was made public and started to climb, it took only seconds for the gluttonous demons in dark corners of men's souls to perk up and devise a plan on how to best capitalize on a tragic story that even satisfied the devil himself. Atheists and evangelicals, gun-toters and arms opposers, and other talking heads with punches to throw delayed healing by using the backdrop of the tragic killings to guilefully push their own agendas. Amidst these vultures, perhaps the most flagrant exploiter of the catastrophe was NBC News, who decided to air self-taken photographs and a homemade video of Cho multiple times over national airwaves, just two days after the events took place and literally hours after the videos were received. In between the first and second set of murders last Monday, April 16, the killer put the finishing touches on the video and overnighted it, along with a series of photographs, to NBC News headquarters. Soon after the tapes of wrath aired, NBC President Steve Capus made a statement assuring Americans that the network struggled with the decision to release the videos. In the end, however, NBC pinned their collective conscious into submission and granted the psychotic killer a public posthumous forum, completing the final phase of Cho's demonic plan. Just a quick look at the pictures and videos makes Capus' motives clear. Stamped into the top-left corner of the video and every still of Cho is the NBC news logo â€” peacock and all. NBC News anchor Brian Williams admitted in a later interview that airing even part of the video would promise the killer the martyrdom he hoped to achieve. In the name of profit, NBC served as an instrumental accomplice, helping make Cho's plan come to complete fruition and allowing the friends and families of the victims the opportunity to look into the eyes of the gun-wielding killer, the same eyes their loved ones saw before losing their lives. Releasing the video helped further what Cho started, burying the lives of the innocent underneath layers of dirt and self-serving agendas. Feeling disgust after being repeatedly showered with sponsored images and videos of the killer, I began to wonder how much information was publicly known about the innocent victim's lives. Online newspapers such as the New York Times provided brief bios and one or two photos of each victim. Hometowns, majors and quotes from friends provided abbreviated and filtered second-hand accounts of the victim's lives; accounts which didn't seem to satisfy my suddenly aching need to find out who these kids really were, what they did for fun and what they hoped and dreamed of. As unthinkable as it may seem, links to MySpace profiles provided what is probably the most personal and endearing insights available about the victim's lives in their own words. The first MySpace profile I came across was that of freshman Lauren McCain. Lauren was a 20-year old international studies major from Oklahoma. Her brother Joel was listed as her hero. She hoped to have children one day and wanted to meet Andre the Giant because he was "sooooo cool!" Of all the details on her page, none proved more horrifying than time-stamped comments from friends which evolve from hellos and jokes to urgent pleas asking Lauren to call her parents to grieving memoirs describing her as a great role model and friend. Further agonizing are Lauren's pictures. Several display her presumable love of nature and outdoors and she stands in front of a botanical garden in one shot and in another overlooks the horizon on a sunny day in San Diego. Littered with goofy comments and exclamation points, Lauren's profile began to reflect a young and lively girl. As much as I ache to help, situations like these leave me feeling completely unqualified as a voice and helpless as a human being. I know Virginia Tech has established a Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund to assist victims and their families. Though I am hesitant in suggesting a financial contribution at the expense of the valid criticism that money won't make things better, I trust the fund was established because families and the school legitimately need help and I ask everyone to consider donating. Though I never knew Lauren and only know about her what she decided to reveal on her MySpace page, I am convinced that the world is a lesser place without her and the other 31 people lost in this immeasurable catastrophe. I pray healing and comfort will come swiftly to all those affected so that one day soon, we can begin to live life the way it was originally intended, before wretched souls began turning innocent loss into their own gain. Behzad Varamini is a graduate student in Nutritional Sciences. He can be contacted at bv29@cornell.edu. Gain Through Loss appears alternate Wednesdays. -- Original Source: Cornell Daily Sun - April 25, 2007
Jonny Lieberman <jdl46@cornell.edu>, <lieberman.jonny@gmail.com>
Valentine's Day in DeKalb: Two, Three, Many Virginia Techs?
Ben Agger and Timothy W. Luke Last Thursday, February 14th, 2008, Steven Kazmierczak reportedly shot and killed five students, and then turned a weapon on himself at Northern Illinois University. At least sixteen students were wounded in the rapid-fire shootings in this large NIU lecture hall during class. We have few certain details about the shooter, except that he used four weapons, two of which were purchased legally within the past weekâ€”a shotgun and a 9mm Glock semi-automatic handgun. Ironically, he purchased two magazines and a holster for the Glock from the same online vendor which sold Cho, the Virginia Tech shooter, one of his guns through a dealer transfer last spring. Apparently, he was a good student (a former sociology major at NIU) who had no police record. He was pursuing graduate studies in social work at the Urbana campus of the University of Illinois. It was also rumored that he recently had ceased taking mood-modifying medication and had broken up with a live-in girl friend. He was 27 when he died in the large NIU lecture hall. Yet, there was another side to him. He enlisted in the U.S. Army in September 2001, but soon was "administratively discharged" within six months. More recently, he took a job as an officer at the Rockville Correctional Facility in Indiana in September 2007, but he failed to complete his preliminary training after only two weeks, and then never returned to work. The shooting in DeKalb, Illinois occurred almost exactly ten months after the shootings at Virginia Tech last April, when 33 died, including students in classrooms, some of their professors, and the gunman himself. On November 7, 2007 Pekka Eric Auvinen walked into his high school in Tuusula, Finland, and shot eight people, killing five, and then also turned the gun on himself. There are parallels between these three bloody events: The shooters were young males; they used deadly semi-automatic weapons; they burst into school classrooms to do their damage; they took their own lives. There were apparent differences, too, although as yet we know next to nothing about the 'real' Steve Kazmierczak. Cho had already been identified in the Virginia mental health system as a troubled individual, and a potentially dangerous one at that. And Auvinen and Cho left video and written manifestos. In his testimony, Cho acknowledged the inspiration of Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, who killed twelve of their high-school classmates and a teacher at Columbine in Colorado on April 20, 1999. How are we to understand the sequencing and connections among Columbine, Virginia Tech, Tuusula, and now Northern Illinois? It is unimaginable that the Valentine Day's Massacre in DeKalb would have occurred in the way that it did without Virginia Tech having occurred, as the December shootings in Finland also demonstrated. Tech is imbedded in DeKalb as its prototype and possibility. Kazmierczak might have found other ways to kill and to die without the example of Tech (and Columbine or Tuusula before it), but he surely framed his actions last Thursday within the scenario of last April in Blacksburg, Virginia. This is not to suggest that DeKalb is simply a copy-cat killing. What did Klebold, Harris, Cho, Auvinen, and Kazmierczak have in common that led them to enact these epic killings and suicides, on school grounds? It seems they were alone in a crowd; they were alienated, lacking social ties. Whether they were mentally ill or not is somewhat beside the point. They might have been stopped, helped, redirectedâ€”yes, even medicated. We are intensely interested in the experience of being alone in a crowd, in Cho's case as an Asian-American outsider on a big-time college/fraternity campus, which considers itself 'Hokie Nation,' â€”the illusion of tight community achieved through the gridiron Gemeinschaft of the Virginia Tech campus. And in the hours after the NIU attack, the response in DeKalb, Illinois and around the nation was to appeal to the school's athletic mascot, the Husky, and tout "Huskie Spirit." Perhaps we know only this: people more on the inside do not tend to commit mass murder and then take their own lives. It cannot escape notice that the killers at Columbine, Blacksburg, Tuusula and DeKalb were men. Women usually do not embark on shooting/suicide escapades, even though not even a week before on February 8, 2008 at Louisiana Technical College a female student shot two classmates and then herself in a classroom. Four of the five killed at DeKalb were women students, and many of those killed in Tuusula and Blacksburg also were female. This is a potent admixture: social isolation, male gun culture, fantasies of revenge. Were the killers evil madmen predestined to wreck havoc? Were they beyond social influence and redirection? They committed mad acts, to be sure. But there is a thin boundary between those who keep their demons within, and at bay, and those who erupt. The answer to these acts of deliberate madness lies not in armoring our campuses but in acknowledging people's interior turmoil and trying to help, where possible. This is difficult amid a sea of faces in large college lecture halls. But can we afford to reduce such acts merely to irreversible psychopathology? Columbine and Virginia Tech have now become a set pieceâ€”a media spectacle--with a certain inexorable momentum. Ben Agger is professor of sociology and humanities at University of Texas, Arlington. Timothy W. Luke is professor of political science at Virginia Tech. They co-authored a book There is a Gunman on Campus: Tragedy and Terror at Virginia Tech forthcoming in April 2008. -- Original Source: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Blog http://rowmanblog.typepad.com/rowman/2008/02/valentines-day.html
Tim Luke (twluke@vt.edu) Ben Agger (agger@uta.edu)
April 18th, 2007 by Ben The tragic massacre this week at Virginia Tech will be one of those events that you will remember how you first heard the news, where you were when you heard it, and what you were doing at the time. Like September 11, 2001, it will stick to the national memory for the rest of our lives. The shooting was the most violent act perpetrated on American soil since September 11. Coming almost eight years to the day after the Columbine shootings, the VT murders are the latest and most violent example of the psychotic, suicidal student rampage. Like Columbine, the VT shooter, now identified as senior English major Cho Seung-hui, was calculated and cunning. He chained potential exits shut to prevent possible escape routes. He was carrying multiple clips of ammo. He lined up students and shot them execution-style. On the Monday night newscasts, the networks went all-out, providing coverage with limited commercial interruption, and many reported directly from the campus. If you listened carefully you probably heard the most repeated phrase of the night: "This is the worst incident of gun violence in American history." This is true. But the story really has very little to do with guns. Did the anchors get hung up on "the worst incident of airplane hijacking" angle when covering September 11? The story has everything to do with a psychotic "loner" who decided it would be better to take as many innocent people with him when he ended his own worthless life. Acts of mass murder always follow a predictable pattern. First, there is the period of shock. Depending on the magnitude of the incident, this phase can last for days, even weeks. Then there is the healing process: the dead are mourned and remembered, moments of silence are observed around the country. Finally, there is the "let's-not-let this-happen-again" phase. With September 11, this phase was complex and expensive. More airport security. "No-fly" lists. Federal air marshals. All of these steps have doubtless made our skies safer and have helped prevent a repeat attack. With shooting sprees, like Columbine and Virginia Tech, the final phase revives the gun-control advocates from their slumber. "See," they say, "look what guns do. They kill people. Guns are bad." Do guns kill people? Or, maybe, is it actually people that kill people? We could prevent another September 11 by banning all airplanes. That would solve the problem, right? We would all just have to drive cars or ride riverboats everywhere. Maybe bring back the horse and buggy. No biggie. Already the gun control lobby is licking their lips. Senator Diane Feinstein (D-Cal.) said in a statement that she believed the killings at Virginia Tech would “re-ignite the dormant effort to pass commonsense gun regulations in this nation.” Of course they will. It's the preventative instinct. We could try to prevent another Virginia Tech by banning all handguns, but it's a lot easier to keep an airplane out of the air than it is to keep a gun out of someone's hand. Let's start with those evil airplanes first. Just as we learned on September 11, the issue is the attacker (in that case, radical Muslims, who we now know want to kill us all), not the weapon. If Cho Seung-hui didn't have access to a handgun, would that have stopped his homicidal plans? Doubtful. He would have just found another way to kill peopleÃƒÂ¢Ã¯Â¿Â½Ã¯Â¿Â½a homemade bomb, perhaps. Tragic as they are, school shootings will never disappear. We can't wage war on psychotic students like we can on radical Islam. The best way to stop future campus rampages is to allow students to carry handguns. If just one student or professor had had a gun in one of those classrooms, there might be a lot more Virginia Tech students alive today. -- Original Source: http://joneckert.eckertservices.com/wordpress/?p=61 Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5
Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5