Breaking News...

Virginia Tech. shooting

- University officials say 33 dead, including gunman

- Four hospitals report 29 wounded

- Attacks mark deadliest school shooting in U.S. history

- Student describes situation as \"mayhem\"; says 2 students jumped from window

To find more info on this horrific event, goto: http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/16/vtech.shooting/

\"The gunman at Norris Hall, who police say took his own life, was not carrying identification and has not been identified.\"

^Quoted from the website I gave above. I really don\'t think this was an act \"...out of fun\"

OMG ITS 33?! Last i heard it was 31 =[ gosh its so sad.

"might have been some emotional problem at home or school"

There is no might.

He caught his gfirlfriend with another guy and went on a rampage, i don't know if he actually got them or not though.
Twas on the news this morning.

What kind of world is it when you're afraid to go to college/school?

Its really sad.
I heard about it this morning.

I took the sticky off this, because, i didn't see why it deserved one.

As for the subject, I really hope this push along the idea of a ban on guns in America.

I heard about this last night. :|
Saddening, eh.
Poor students, and families.

People are such morons.

"As for the subject, I really hope this push along the idea of a ban on guns in America."

I don't think that is ever going to happen seeing as it was written by the forefathers of the constitution.

But banning it would seem a good idea..

The gun is merely the tool, and the one holding it is the weapon.

The big question that everyone is asking is," why didn't the school close or have a lock down after the first shooting?"

And I agree with you Kristen, not everyone checks their emails all the time.

The shooting was horrible...And I will pray for all of the families of those wounded and those dead, also I will pray for the killer's family as well.

It's too bad I live in Britain...

We live in a messed up world, and Guns are far to easy to get hold of. It's just so sad that someone would do something like this.

"Anyone else watching the memorial service? It's live atm."

^^I would be watching it, but I am in class at the moment.

Well, considering that there have already been several colleges and universities that have been closed due threats and bomb scares; I'd say these kind of horrific events will never come to an end. You can have all the security you want, but there will always someone out there that will go to drastic messures to persue such a thing as this.

Oh yeah I remember watching that on the news this morning. I also listened to it on the radio, what a shocking event. Before that the worst school shooting I think was in Texas were a guy got onto a tower and starting shoting people. What's wrong with people today?

"What's wrong with people today?"

^^People today are not as educated or disiplined as people in the earlier days. Schools don't disipline students the way the should be, and Parents aren't teaching or disiplining their children that much anymore.

T.V. Violence, Violence via video games, the internet, peers, etc. All of which is becoming a bigger problem in todays society than ever before. Society as a whole has to step-up and get their act together to ever see change, otherwise violent acts such as the Virgina Tech shooting will never come to an end.

Peace, Joe

Lets keep in mind this is the latest in a series of academic shootings. And yet, it is still very easy to get a firearm in America, so who is the victim and who is to blame?

In britain we have no gun licences, though there are still guns around, they are quite hard to come by unless you have plenty of money or the right contacts, two things most high school and college kids don't have.

I don't give two shits about the American constitution, it was written a long time ago, and things have changed, people have changed, and the laws of the land should reflect that and protect them from themselves.

I am not say banning guns will sort out the social problems that seem to inspire people to use them on each other, but it would make that much harder for one or two people to kill large numbers of their fellow human beings.

"Lets keep in mind this is the latest in a series of academic shootings. And yet, it is still very easy to get a firearm in America, so who is the victim and who is to blame?"

I think it is merely a ploy to shock and reform society...Criminologically speaking Durkheim said that CRIME actually brings people together. Well I can quote him, but rather than make it seem more academic, I am paraphrasing to illustrate my point. Well I actually digressed, but I am just saying Crime (Is needed to change societal norms and values)....

But if we are talking morally I would say what the killer did, and what every man and woman incl. child having the intentions of the killer did, doing or going to do is horribly wrong. But look at what happened, the whole nation, including the Atlantic documented this, and will live down in history.

One by one your dream will come true...

Oh and by the way, in Britain, yes guns may be a odd occurance, but there are other weaponry ways to kill...

This worlds getting worse and worse. . .

In new zealand, you have to go through a thing before you can get a gun? someone experimented or soemthign on tv about it, and its so easy a thirteen year old colud pass it

theres this person i know, who every pay day he goes and buys knifes, he pays with cash, has about 20 knifes, a chainsaw, it scares me, but its so easy for him to go and get all these knifes! what makes it worse is hes been taken out of school cos he took a knife out onto another student, hes been in a phsyc ward how ever you spell it and his MUM even says hes a danger to himself and society. he once took out a knife and started to cut his arms in class, in front of everybody. knifes might not be the same to guns but there still bloody dangerous. he carries atleast two pocket or any kind of knife with him everywhere he goes, and siad hes thinking about buying a gun, i asked him, would he ever use it? and he said "if any one f**** with me then yes i will." hes a bit of a weirdo if you ask me and he creeps me out but its so easy for people to get hold of these things, and noone does anything about it
and then you walk around school and you see boys playing with wood guns they made them selves and they carry it in their pocket, yeah i know its just a wood gun but they think there cool, and they carry it around and pretend their gangsta.
.....................................................................

yip

After the first two were shot.
I think the school should of done more than just send emails out to all the students.
Like Kristen said not everyone checks their email.
I would not feel safe in a school like is.

I mean once at my school. When I was in year 11.
We had a bomb threat which happened to be a prank.
But they didn't send out emails to everyone saying to evacuate. We got told to by the teachers and such.

I think its just pathetic.

|Sarah|

I actually just submitted a poem about this massacre.
I live very close to Virginia Tech and I am a senior in high school. Many of my friends attend Tech and unfortunately, 5 of the victims, and the shooter, came from my area. I knew one of the girls that was killed and it has been devastating. So many people around me have been affected by this tragedy. A girl I was in chorus with for three years was on the same floor of the first shooting, and a girl I played soccer with for two years was on the floor above the first shooting. One of the people that graduated from my high school two years ago jumped out of a window and broke his leg and another girl was one of four that walked out of a classroom with 25 people in it ... the rest of the 21 were either dead or too injured to move. She played dead and got out.

It's way too close to home for me.
God Bless anyone who has any connections to the victims. May God be with you all.

Americans are too protective of their gun rights, on have your say on BBC there were a lot of Americans being defensive over their right to own guns, and even if you did illegalize them to anybody but say FBI and police, there'd still be people smuggling them in. There should be systems in the schools where they can contact other classrooms to warn them that there's somebody in there with a weapon.
It's sad because the children are obviously so obedient and innocent like in the other school shooting their teacher told them to sit beneath the desk and wait, and they did, which gave them no incentive to fight back. But yeah we were watching the news updation when it happened and obviously anybody who can do this has something mentally wrong with them; apparently he did this to kill his girlfriend who dumped him which I think was his first kill. but it's just sick and the people supposedly helping outside need to get their act together and learn to react and DO something faster. and, "Oh and by the way, in Britain, yes guns may be a odd occurance, but there are other weaponry ways to kill..." I don't really think that's relevant, considering a) it'd be too slow, and b) too many of the so called "killers" would actually be too weak minded to stab a lot of children in a row or something. x

Someone said something today i completely agree with..

"America are proud of the right to bear arms? Well i'm proud of the right not to"

Ditto.

Apperantly the gunman was a stalker.

The only sad thing is the people who've been killed, not the fact that he's now dead.
If NBC were warned inbetween the first killings whilst the other killings were about to go on, why didn't the police just go into the school? Surely a huge group of policemen with guns can take down ONE man.
I give a pat on the back to all the people who never did anything. well done for sparing people's lives.
x

Its easy to look back in hind sight and see what the school SHOULD have done, but if it didn't happen that day, it would have happened another. Even if they had notified the students immediately after the first shooting and locked down the campus, the gun man would have been back another day to complete the task. The police had "reason to believe" that the shooter had left the state after the first shooting and they believed that it was a domestic dispute that had ended.

It's all so sad, and right now, what happened doesn't matter ... it's the victims and their families that we need to focus on -- because by talking about the shooter, we're giving him everything he wants.

.

I disagree Bob. Whilst it's true that if a person is mentally unstable enough to want to kill people in large numbers, they will I'm sure find some way to do it.

Having guns so easily available to almost anyone in America is however, making it very easy for a lone person to kill a large group and this is wrong, and it's high time the American government stopped being so cowardly and banned them.

Guns are meant to do only one thing, kill other lifeforms. By allowing access to them to anyone who wants one, the American government are actively encouraging people to use them for their intended purpose.

If I was angry enough to kill someone, and any one of us could potentially get into that state, I'd not want a gun readily available to me, or anyone else for that matter. It's just bad thinking, old fashioned and anyone with a drop of common sense can see that a total ban in long overdue.

I agree with Kevin. I'm an American, and a very proud one, however I believe when the founding fathers wrote for the "Right to bear arms", not only was that a different time, but I feel the true meaning of that right has been lost. To me, the right to bear arms is in defense of one's country from enemies. Guns don't kill ....people do....and face it....as a society there are many sick people out there who value nothing! I think the easy accessability of firearms in this country is ridiculous.

The treatment of the mentally ill in this country is another issue. Many are shuffled from place to place and turned away.....swept under the rug so to speak. The attitude...if we don't talk about it , it doesn't exist. The laws need to be changed. People need to have access to treatment, and those diagnosed with a mental illness should be treated like anyone else with a disease...with prompt and intense medical care....even more so...those that are perceived to be a danger to themselves and others should be confined until that treatment deems them suitable to live in society safely. I'm also for throwing right to privacy to the wind in these cases and anyone with a mental illness should be entered into a national registry that is searchable when doing a background check when buying a firearm....that should be a mandatory part of the screening process.

Ok...Guns don't kill people...People do.

That may ring true, but so does any weapon...In Britain, guns may not kill people...But I believe knifes are a great substitute for it...

But what is the fine line that determines someone to be "sane"? There isn't one ... thus making mental illness extremely ambiguous and vague. The english department, the police, and the mental hospitals that the shooter was affiliated with all let him go -- thinking that they were justified in saying that he didn't pose a threat to himself or others in society. Someone SHOULD have done more, but who? The faculty at Virginia Tech couldn't contact his parents because he was over 18, and he has the right for privacy. No charges were pressed against him when the police were called for his stalking. No one took action about his writing further than private tutoring from the chair of the english department.

As for gun violence - I'm torn on the issue. I do agree that we should have the right to own guns, however I believe that the ability to obtain and purchase those guns should be more extensive.

Also, many of the guns that have been used (not in the Virginia Tech shooting case) were illegal weapons. Even if we ban the selling of guns, people will work that much harder to get them.

There is a line on who is sane and who isn't, really all I think is if you can kill a large group of people without regretting it or feeling empathy you're obviously not sane. And it's not that you can't tell, it's the people who try to tell. I don't believe in "gun rights", unless you're being persistently stalked or have a REASON to own the gun, not just killing. let's face it, it's a weapon. you kill with it. handing them around to anybody is America's free ticket to hell. surely after this you thought they'd be making some changes.
x

How do you know for sure what somebody is capable of UNTIL they do it? This is why I think it's so hard to determine who is sane and who isn't sane. What is the definition of 'insane'? In-fact, what in the hell is the definition of 'normal'? Extensive tests were never done on the shooter, as they should have been, but how were they to know what tests to complete or what actions to take when the guy never spoke? He was a threat, but he was a silent one -- the most destructive kind. For those that don't speak, it's hard to throw accusations at them.

What urks me is that this guy was sold not one gun but TWO guns while he had a background with history of mental illnesses, how in the hell is that legal? He also wasn't a U.S. citizen, only a resident. Why are we selling guns to people that aren't even citizens of the United States? Why wasn't extensive research on his background warranted before he purchased the guns? These are the aspects of the Constitution and the U.S. Laws that we need to change. We may not be able to outlaw the possession of guns, but we can try to CONTROL it.

And I would like to clear a few things up-
The girl that he killed was NOT his girlfriend, just a girl he stalked. (The police had been contacted by the cops twice, but no charges were pressed.)
This was definitely not a random crime, it was clearly pre-meditated.

The guy was sick.

(The police had been contacted by the **school **twice, but no charges were pressed.)

sorry!!! I made a typo!!

Guns don't kill people, guns give PEOPLE the power to kill.

May they rest in peace.

Wow. i was so ticked off.

we had a moment of silence for the familyies of those who were killed.

My Principal said(basicly) Please join me in a moment of silence for families of the 32 victims. and im like .. Hello dont you feel sorry for the gunman's family, he dies too, and they have to live with the fact that their son, cousin, brother ended 32 lives. i feel sorry for the shooter, for all he went through that brought him to that point.

i got really ticked off.

Edited by self due to controversial content