The events that took place at Virginia Tech, on Monday, were horrible.
Sadly, every major network and local affiliate are plastering as many pieces of stock footage from the scene of the shootings, as well as scenes from Columbine and locations of other school shootings, in a ghoulish dance macabre, which is producing a great deal of horror, and providing absolutely no useful news.
Now the critics have come out. "We need more gun control" We need better campus policing" blah, blah, blah.
The police response was appropriate.
The security measures were as good as they can be.
You can't prevent this kind of horror. No way, no how. Not here in the U.S., with a small campus police force, not in Baghdad with 20,000 soldiers.
Unless anyone has any questions about the types of firearms used or about the appropriate security/police response, this is the first and last I will say on the subject.
If you are the praying sort, your time would be better spent praying for the dead, the wounded, their families and others affected by this tragedy.
Turn your televisions to a different channel.
God be with you,
GF
15 comments:
Thanks for the offer to explain the guns. I can't understand how he could do so much carnage with handguns. On Monday I had visions of much larger machine-type weapons.
I also agree with turning off the news. There is nothing more to report. It happened.
I absolutely agree, and have refrained from saying anything on the subject.
As for gun control, everything was done entirely legally. Nobody had any idea the guns would be used for this. Same with the response time after the first shootings - they did what they could and didn't know the second shooting would happen.
Ok, I'm off my small soapbox.
I agree. I've stopped watching the news about this. Plus, I'm sick of reporters interviewing reporters because they can't find anything else to say.
I was also wondering how he did so much damage with hand guns. I kept thinking he had to have an assualt weapon or something.
They can discuss gun control on TV as much as they want but this is the South. That discussion isn't going to go anywhere.
Again, having had guns in the house when I was growing up (and lots of them), we were taught safety and knew better than to mess with them.
What I think we should be focusing on is the fact that all the warning signs were there with this guy and nothing was done. Our mental health system stinks, on ice, and ever since Reagan cut funding in the 80s, it's been a downhill slide...
I completely agree... I think the security measures that were taken were appropriate! How were they to know that this guy would go to the other side of the campus 2 hours later and start shooting again??
Why make a big deal about security? Because at this point that is all they have to talk about!
The media gets so carried away at times like these. Yes, it is important that we know about it, because it is a true disaster, and only in understanding this kind of thing can we better prevent it from happening in the future. And it should be the number one news story.
But the fact that it happened itself is enough for a news story. They don't need to dig for more and more and more.
This morning, on the radio, I heard a report that police across Canada are "bracing" for copy-cat acts. At the end of the report, the "journalist" quietly mentioned (practically mumbled it), that the police say that while something like that is statistically more likely to happen soon after a similar event, it is still extremely unlikely overall.
It is natural that in the face of such an event, the police would review their own practices to see if there is any room for improvement. That's not news, just smart operation of any kind of organization. So, the radio station had to find a way to "scary" it up to make it seem like news.
Talk about fear mongering.
What angers me so is reporters trying so hard to get students who were eyewitnesses to "admit" that Virginia Tech was at fault for not adequately warning them.
What is impressive, though, is that many of these students are refusing to be coopted.
One guy said, "But really, no one checks e-mail in the morning anyway, so it wouldn't have mattered if V.T. had sent the e-mail two hours earlier."
Hindsight is 20-20.
so true - you simply cannot shout out "gun control" when something like this happens. Someone who wants to do this type of harm WILL find a way to do so...and I am actually fairly pro gun control (but recognize the "other side" as I'm married to a southern man who was raised with guns in the house).
I agree!
If it bleeds, it leads!!!
Sickening...
My husband read the book
"Face of Fear" (I think that's what he said) ... he feels that by showing this freaks video and pics of himself will no doubt inpire other freaks to do the same thing...
I would be curious to know if this freak had violent video games in his room...
my bet is that he did...
Oh.. and don't get me started on violent video games, such as Grand Theft Auto....Wolfenstein...
My thoughts on video games etc... are this: I was born in 1963, I was a young teen in the mid-70's at the perfect age for Space Invaders and all of the "blow stuff up" video games. I learned to shoot as a 14 year old Boy Scout, I enlisted in the Marine Corps at age 17, I make a living teaching well-meaning people how to kill other people. If anyone should be freakishly violent, it is me.
It isn't the guns.
It isn't the games.
This sad soul was just sick, sick, sick.
Oh, and SMID... it would be easy to do that much damage with two handguns. This guy was an armed amateur against unarmed near-adults.
I hope that this doesn't sound really nuts, but I could have done much worse, much faster.
No it doesn't sound nuts.
My husband took an all day class called the "Killing Game" and it made so much sense...
these kids constantly playing these horribly violent games .. where you kill people etc ... blood everywhere.... it desensitizes them ...
don't you agree?
Back when my older son was a kid.. I only saw Mario Bros, PacMan,
yes Space Invaders etc ... but those are quite different that Grand Theft Auto where you kill cops.
But yes, in the end....
it is the "person"... not the guns or games...
Terri,
It is a combination of factors. Things like the desensitization to violence; poor coping skills; social issues; life experience; home-training; personal values or lack thereof.
Put them all together and you have a volatile mixture.
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