Tragedy in the land of the Hokies

[MattZ]

I have no interest in defending the idea that his parents are to blame. But there is something to be said for all of us being to blame, like Gary said. To the extent we live in and support a community (intentionally or not) where mentally ill folks aren't cared for properly because of lack of funds or lack of understanding or anything else for that matter.

 

Different circles of the community are responsible to differing degrees for ensuring that people who need help get help. I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that his parents (just like all parents) have a responsibility to their kids to do right by them. Saying that "my parents don't know anything about me either" is not relevant to this situation. You are not on the precipice of shooting up a school and sending a video to NBC news about it. And if you were, do you think your parents would know about it?

 

I don't think his parents are to blame for him being ill, but I have a hard time imagining that someone can walk around with these types of thoughts without signs being given to people. And let's face it, someone's family is probably in the best position to read those signs. What may be introverted to the cool kids at school may seem different to a cousin or a brother. This doesn't mean that his parents are to blame, like I said, but I think it's reasonable to wonder what role (if any) the family played in missing signs.

 

Callously blaming the parents is silly. But raising the issue seems reasonable to me.

[cryptique]

I was sittin' in a crummy movie with my hands on my chin

Oh the violence that occurs seems like we never win

 

Love and mercy, that's what we need tonight

So love and mercy to you and your friends tonight

 

I was lyin' in my room and the news came on T.V.

A lotta people out there hurtin' and it really scares me

 

Love and mercy that's what you need tonight

So, love and mercy to you and your friends tonight

 

I was standin' in a bar and watchin' all the people there

Oh the loneliness in this world well it's just not fair

 

Hey love and mercy that's what you need tonight

So, love and mercy to you and your friends tonight

 

Love and mercy that's what you need tonight

Love and mercy tonight

[Sir Stewart]

Yeah.

[YouAReMYface]

For the love of man

Who could understand

What goes on

What is right and what is wrong

Why the angels cry

And the heaven's sigh

When a child is born to live

But not like you and I.

 

Let the angels ring the bells

In the holy hall

May they hear the voice

That calls to them

For the love of man

Who will understand

It's alright

I know it's alright.

 

Down the dusty road

To the forest church

Let wander there

Let me wonder why

On the ocean wave

In the billowing sky

Let wander there

Let me wonder why.

 

Let the angels ring the bells

In the holy hall

Let them hear the voice that calls.

For the love of man

Who will understand

It's alright

But I wonder why.

 

I wonder why.

I wonder why.

[Guest Jules]

Wiki has everything covered.

[bobbob1313]

As I walk through

This wicked world

Searchin' for light in the darkness of insanity.

 

I ask myself

Is all hope lost?

Is there only pain and hatred, and misery?

 

And each time I feel like this inside,

There's one thing I wanna know:

What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding? Ohhhh

What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding?

 

And as I walked on

Through troubled times

My spirit gets so downhearted sometimes

So where are the strong

And who are the trusted?

And where is the harmony?

Sweet harmony.

 

'Cause each time I feel it slippin' away, just makes me wanna cry.

What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding? Ohhhh

What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding?

 

 

So where are the strong?

And who are the trusted?

And where is the harmony?

Sweet harmony.

 

'Cause each time I feel it slippin' away, just makes me wanna cry.

What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding? Ohhhh

What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding? Ohhhh

What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding?

[Sweet Papa Crimbo]

On MSNBC last night, some FBI profiler was being interviewed and he talked about how showing the images may do more harm than good. As he was being interviewed, they ran the images over and over again.

 

 

I saw that...I kept hoping he would shout "TURN THOSE FUCKING IMAGES OFF YOU IDIOTS!!!"

[owl]

I'm waiting for someone to say that they're going to produce his play.

 

Done.

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070420/ap_en_...ia_tech_youtube

[tongue-tied]

well, that's expected. now when someone actually produces the play as in real actors and real money going into it, i'd give it at least another week.

[owl]

True, true.

[Analogman]

Zero tolerance, huh? Gun-free zones, huh? Try this on for size: Columbine gun-free zone, New York City pizza shop gun-free zone, Luby's Cafeteria gun-free zone, Amish school in Pennsylvania gun-free zone and now Virginia Tech gun-free zone.

 

Anybody see what the evil Brady Campaign and other anti-gun cults have created? I personally have zero tolerance for evil and denial. And America had best wake up real fast that the brain-dead celebration of unarmed helplessness will get you killed every time, and I've about had enough of it.

 

Nearly a decade ago, a Springfield, Oregon, high schooler, a hunter familiar with firearms, was able to bring an unfolding rampage to an abrupt end when he identified a gunman attempting to reload his .22-caliber rifle, made the tactical decision to make a move and tackled the shooter.

 

A few years back, an assistant principal at Pearl High School in Mississippi, which was a gun-free zone, retrieved his legally owned Colt .45 from his car and stopped a Columbine wannabe from continuing his massacre at another school after he had killed two and wounded more at Pearl.

 

At an eighth-grade school dance in Pennsylvania, a boy fatally shot a teacher and wounded two students before the owner of the dance hall brought the killing to a halt with his own gun.

 

More recently, just a few miles up the road from Virginia Tech, two law school students ran to fetch their legally owned firearm to stop a madman from slaughtering anybody and everybody he pleased. These brave, average, armed citizens neutralized him pronto.

 

My hero, Dr. Suzanne Gratia Hupp, was not allowed by Texas law to carry her handgun into Luby's Cafeteria that fateful day in 1991, when due to bureaucrat-forced unarmed helplessness she could do nothing to stop satanic George Hennard from killing 23 people and wounding more than 20 others before he shot himself. Hupp was unarmed for no other reason than denial-ridden "feel good" politics.

 

She has since led the charge for concealed weapon upgrade in Texas, where we can now stop evil. Yet, there are still the mindless puppets of the Brady Campaign and other anti-gun organizations insisting on continuing the gun-free zone insanity by which innocents are forced into unarmed helplessness. Shame on them. Shame on America. Shame on the anti-gunners all.

 

No one was foolish enough to debate Ryder truck regulations or ammonia nitrate restrictions or a "cult of agriculture fertilizer" following the unabashed evil of Timothy McVeigh's heinous crime against America on that fateful day in Oklahoma City. No one faulted kitchen utensils or other hardware of choice after Jeffrey Dahmer was caught drugging, mutilating, raping, murdering and cannibalizing his victims. Nobody wanted "steak knife control" as they autopsied the dead nurses in Chicago, Illinois, as Richard Speck went on trial for mass murder.

 

Evil is as evil does, and laws disarming guaranteed victims make evil people very, very happy. Shame on us.

 

Already spineless gun control advocates are squawking like chickens with their tiny-brained heads chopped off, making political hay over this most recent, devastating Virginia Tech massacre, when in fact it is their own forced gun-free zone policy that enabled the unchallenged methodical murder of 32 people.

 

Thirty-two people dead on a U.S. college campus pursuing their American Dream, mowed-down over an extended period of time by a lone, non-American gunman in illegal possession of a firearm on campus in defiance of a zero-tolerance gun law. Feel better yet? Didn't think so.

 

Who doesn't get this? Who has the audacity to demand unarmed helplessness? Who likes dead good guys?

 

I'll tell you who. People who tramp on the Second Amendment, that's who. People who refuse to accept the self-evident truth that free people have the God-given right to keep and bear arms, to defend themselves and their loved ones. People who are so desperate in their drive to control others, so mindless in their denial that they pretend access to gas causes arson, Ryder trucks and fertilizer cause terrorism, water causes drowning, forks and spoons cause obesity, dialing 911 will somehow save your life, and that their greedy clamoring to "feel good" is more important than admitting that armed citizens are much better equipped to stop evil than unarmed, helpless ones.

 

Pray for the families of victims everywhere, America. Study the methodology of evil. It has a profile, a system, a preferred environment where victims cannot fight back. Embrace the facts, demand upgrade and be certain that your children's school has a better plan than Virginia Tech or Columbine. Eliminate the insanity of gun-free zones, which will never, ever be gun-free zones. They will only be good guy gun-free zones, and that is a recipe for disaster written in blood on the altar of denial. I, for one, refuse to genuflect there.

 

 

 

 

25 years murder-free in 'Gun Town USA'

Crime rate plummeted after law required firearms for residents

Posted: April 19, 2007

1:52 p.m. Eastern

 

 

 

[owl]

Who wrote that first article? It seems Kinky-esqye.

 

#2- If the government mandated gun ownership, they better damn well be buying my gun and ammo for me.

 

#3- Guh?

[Analogman]

I wanted people to read it before I said who wrote it - Ted Nugent.

[M. (hristine]

"No one was foolish enough to debate Ryder truck regulations or ammonia nitrate restrictions or a "cult of agriculture fertilizer" following the unabashed evil of Timothy McVeigh's heinous crime against America on that fateful day in Oklahoma City. No one faulted kitchen utensils or other hardware of choice after Jeffrey Dahmer was caught drugging, mutilating, raping, murdering and cannibalizing his victims. Nobody wanted "steak knife control" as they autopsied the dead nurses in Chicago, Illinois, as Richard Speck went on trial for mass murder."

 

You know I'm not a huge fan of gun control (except for far stricter controls in obtaining them, and illegal purchases should be punished at the highest levels), but Terrible Ted really should stick to hunting shows on television. What a cretin.

[quarter23cd]

No one faulted kitchen utensils...after Jeffrey Dahmer

Tasty.

[Dreamin']

Of course, Nugent is ignoring the fact that guns are designed to kill people very efficiently. Thirty-three families would not be grieving today if Cho had been armed with kitchen utensils.

[Reni]

LIMBAUGH: If this Virginia Tech shooter had an ideology, what do you think it was? This guy had to be a liberal. You start railing against the rich and all this other -- this guy's a liberal. He was turned into a liberal somewhere along the line. So it's a liberal that committed this act. Now, the drive-bys will read on a website that I'm attacking liberalism by comparing this guy to them. That's exactly what they do every day, ladies and gentlemen. I'm just pointing out a fact. I am making no extrapolation; I'm just pointing it out.

 

 

http://mediamatters.org/items/200704190008

 

 

oy vey.

[M. (hristine]

oy vey.

I see your oy vey, and raise you a no way.

 

Can I say cretin twice in one day? Yes, yes I can.

 

What a cretin.

[Dreamin']

On MSNBC last night, some FBI profiler was being interviewed and he talked about how showing the images may do more harm than good. As he was being interviewed, they ran the images over and over again.

 

NBC's decision to broadcast the killer's PR video was beyond unethical - IMO, it was criminal. I wish the editors who took the bait and chose to disseminate his call to arms could be charged with reckless endangerment. I'm obviously no legal expert, but there is probably enough evidence of the contagion or "copycat" effect to present a strong argument. Cho obviously chose NBC because he knew they lacked integrity.

 

(Forgive my rant, but I'm still really upset about this.)

[Analogman]

Interesting how he mentioned those dudes in Columbine - who spoke of Tim McViegh, who mentioned the deal in Waco.

[Dreamin']

It was a rallying cry for other so-called "martyrs" to join them.

 

Experts alert for Va. Tech copycats

[ikol]

Of course, Nugent is ignoring the fact that guns are designed to kill people very efficiently.

 

And you're ignoring the fact that fertilizer is designed to make plants grow very efficiently.

[Sweet Papa Crimbo]

LIMBAUGH: If this Virginia Tech shooter had an ideology, what do you think it was? This guy had to be a liberal. You start railing against the rich and all this other -- this guy's a liberal. He was turned into a liberal somewhere along the line. So it's a liberal that committed this act. Now, the drive-bys will read on a website that I'm attacking liberalism by comparing this guy to them. That's exactly what they do every day, ladies and gentlemen. I'm just pointing out a fact. I am making no extrapolation; I'm just pointing it out.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200704190008

oy vey.

 

 

It makes me ... weary.

 

I wish I could remember when Bozos nutjobs (fixed it) like Limbaugh hijacked Conservatism.

[Spawn's dad]

BLACKSBURG, Va. - The family of Virginia Tech gunman Seung-Hui Cho told The Associated Press on Friday that they feel "hopeless, helpless and lost," and "never could have envisioned that he was capable of so much violence."

 

"He has made the world weep. We are living a nightmare," said a statement issued by Cho's sister, Sun-Kyung Cho, on the family's behalf.

 

It was the Chos' first public comment since the 23-year-old student killed 32 people and committed suicide Monday in the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history.

 

Raleigh, N.C., lawyer Wade Smith provided the statement to the AP after the Cho family reached out to him. Smith said the family would not answer any questions, and neither would he.

 

"Our family is so very sorry for my brother's unspeakable actions. It is a terrible tragedy for all of us," said Sun-Kyung Cho, a 2004 Princeton University graduate who works as a contractor for a State Department office that oversees American aid for

Iraq.

 

"We pray for their families and loved ones who are experiencing so much excruciating grief. And we pray for those who were injured and for those whose lives are changed forever because of what they witnessed and experienced," she said. "Each of these people had so much love, talent and gifts to offer, and their lives were cut short by a horrible and senseless act."

 

Authorities are in frequent contact with Cho's family, but have not placed them in protective custody, said Assistant

FBI Director Joe Persichini, who oversees the bureau's local Washington office. Authorities believe they remain in the Washington area, but are staying with friends and relatives.

 

Persichini said the FBI and Fairfax County Police have assured Cho's parents that they will investigate any hate crimes directed at the family if and when they ever return to their Centreville home.

 

The family statement was issued during a statewide day of mourning for the victims. Silence fell across the Virginia Tech campus at noon and bells tolled in churches nationwide in memory of the victims.

 

"We are humbled by this darkness. We feel hopeless, helpless and lost. This is someone that I grew up with and loved. Now I feel like I didn't know this person," Cho's sister said. "We have always been a close, peaceful and loving family. My brother was quiet and reserved, yet struggled to fit in. We never could have envisioned that he was capable of so much violence."

 

She said her family will cooperate fully and "do whatever we can to help authorities understand why these senseless acts happened. We have many unanswered questions as well."

 

Wendy Adams, whose niece, Leslie Sherman, was killed in the massacre, said of the family's statement: "I'm not so generous to be able to forgive him for what he did. But I do feel for the family. I do feel sorry for them."

 

"I do believe they're living a nightmare," she added.

 

Robert Jeffers of Idaho Falls, Idaho, a friend of slain 25-year-old student Brian Bluhm, said: "I hope people can see that the right action to take from all of this is love, not hate."

 

"Based on this sorrowful statement, it is apparent that the family grieves with everyone in the world," Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker said.

 

Cho's name was given as "Cho Seung-Hui" by police and school officials earlier this week. But the the South Korean immigrant family said their preference was "Seung-Hui Cho." Many Asian immigrant families Americanize their names by reversing them and putting their surnames last.

 

While Cho clearly was seething and had been taken to a psychiatric hospital more than a year as threat to himself, investigators are still trying to establish exactly what set him off, why he chose a dormitory and a classroom building for the rampage and how he selected his victims.

 

"The why and the how are the crux of the investigation," Virginia State Police spokeswoman Corinne Geller said. "The why may never be determined because the person responsible is deceased."

 

During the campus memorial, hundreds of somber students and area residents, most wearing the school's maroon and orange, stood with heads bowed on the parade ground in front of Norris Hall, the classrooom building where all but two of the victims died. Along with the bouquets and candles was a sign reading, "Never forgotten."

 

"It's good to feel the love of people around you," said Alice Lo, a Virginia Tech graduate and friend of Jocelyne Couture-Nowak, a French instructor killed in the rampage. "With this evil, there is still goodness."

 

The mourners gathered in front of stone memorials, each adorned with a basket of tulips and an American flag. There were 33 stones

[Reni]

Cho obviously chose NBC because he knew they lacked integrity.

 

Though any of the news networks would have done the same.