At least 20+ dead students in Virginia Tech; shooter dead

Catching up - Anyone else see the footage of todays incident showing a couple of officers putting someone down and (looked like) cuffing him? They had been reporting that the gunman was supposedly dead from self inflicted gunshot wound. So I was trying to figure out why they were treating this guy this way.

]Do we have an update on that?

Also, a kid that had called in a report to MSNBC was talking about todays events and made several references to a similar incident last year on this same campus.

That would make me wonder why there was a two hour delay in warning the students or shutting down the campus.

This guy was very much alive and was not bleeding from what I could see.

revel wrote:

oralloy wrote:

aidan wrote:

I know fear and protectiveness and defensiveness were ingrained in me as a woman in America. I didn't know how much a part of me it was, until I moved somewhere and realized I didn't need to be afraid anymore. But I know once I go back, it'll come right back. What a sad statement to make about one's own home country.

Don't think you really have to be afraid here either.

She would if some here who are advocating having people with gun permits carry guns on government property so if some crazy guy/girl start shootin, a bunch of crazy guys/girls can start shootin back.

The people who are shooting back would be unlikely to be crazy.

BLACKSBURG, Virginia (Reuters) - A gunman killed 32 people at a Virginia university on Monday, calmly gunning down students attending class and then killing himself in the deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history.

Most of those killed were students attending classes at a hall at Virginia Tech, where the gunman apparently used chains to lock the doors and prevent the victims from escaping, university and police officials said.

Fifteen people were wounded, included those shot and students hurt jumping from windows in a desperate attempt to escape the gunfire, officials said.

One student told CBS News the killer was an Asian male, about 6 feet tall, who walked into his German class and shot a student and professor before systematically shooting nearly all of the other students in the room.

"I hid under the desk and he proceeded to shoot everybody else in the class, practically," said Derek O'Dell, who suffered an gunshot wound in his arm. "There were probably 15 to 20 people in the class and he shot 10 to 15 of them."

He said the gunman, who was wearing a black leather coat and maroon hat, fired several shots from a handgun, reloaded and resumed shooting. The man left the room, but returned and fired into the door before leaving again, O'Dell said.

By the time police reached the second floor of the building, the firing had stopped and they later found the gunman lying dead in a classroom.

"It was probably one of the worst things I've seen in my life," said campus police chief Wendell Flinchum.

Television images of terrified students and police dragging bloody victims out of the building revived memories of the infamous Columbine High School massacre in 1999 and is likely to renew heated debate about U.S. gun laws.

The rampage began two hours earlier at a dormitory a half-mile away where a male and a female student were shot dead as other students began crisscrossing the sprawling campus for morning classes.

Police said they had thought it was an isolated incident and believed the gunman had left the campus, drawing criticism that they were slow to warn other students of the danger.

Flinchum said police had a preliminary identity of the gunman, but disclosed only that he was a male.

He said two unspecified weapons had been recovered by police, and that there was a male "person of interest" connected with the first shooting who police had been questioning when the second shooting occurred.

"We are trying to determine if the two incidents are connected. Part of that will be the ballistics test."

Flinchum earlier said it appeared there was only one gunman. The Washington Post said law enforcement sources told it that one person was responsible for both incidents.

The death toll was worse than a massacre at the University of Texas in Austin on August 1, 1966, when Charles Whitman, a 25-year-old student, killed 13 people and wounded 31 in a 90-minute spree.

"Today our nation grieves with those who have lost loved ones at Virginia Tech," President George W. Bush said.

TWO HOURS BETWEEN ATTACKS

The first shooting was reported to campus police at about 7:15 a.m. in West Ambler Johnston Hall, a dormitory housing some 900 students. It was followed by more shooting at Norris Hall, site of the science and engineering school.

During the two hours after the first shooting some students had ventured out again. University police were still investigating the first shooting at the dormitory when they got word of gunfire at the classroom building.

"I'm really at a loss for words to explain or understand the carnage that has visited our campus," Virginia Tech President Charles Steger said at a news conference.

Steger, facing questions over the university's initial response, stressed that its efforts to alert students could not possibly reach the thousands of people moving around the campus at the start of the school day.

"We had no reason to suspect any other incident was going to occur," Steger said of the first shooting.

But some students expressed anger that e-mails warning about a possible gunman were not sent out until more than two hours after the first attack.

An emotional prayer service was held Monday night and among those attending was emergency room physician Joseph Cacioppo, who said the wounded were shot multiple times.

"This guy was just, he was out to kill everyone he came in contact with, not just to shoot the gun, he was out to kill them," Cacioppo said. "... Everyone that we saw in the emergency room had more than one wound. Most of them had three."

More than 30,000 people die from gunshot wounds in the United States every year and there are more guns in private hands than in any other country. But a powerful gun lobby and support for gun ownership rights has largely thwarted attempts to tighten controls.

In 1999, two student gunmen killed 12 other students and a teacher before killing themselves at Columbine High School in Colorado.

"We live in a society where guns are pretty well accepted," said Jim Sollo, of Virginians Against Handgun Violence. "There are 200 million guns in this society and obviously some in the wrong hands."

Virginia Tech, with 26,000 students and some 100 buildings on 2,600 acres, is located in the town of Blacksburg and set in lush rolling hills in the southwest corner of the state, about 240 miles from Washington.

Catching up - Anyone else see the footage of todays incident showing a couple of officers putting someone down and (looked like) cuffing him? They had been reporting that the gunman was supposedly dead from self inflicted gunshot wound. So I was trying to figure out why they were treating this guy this way.

]Do we have an update on that?

if cerealkiller is right , he must be living in the safest country in the developed world . since most countries in the developed world have much lower crime rates than the united states , i wonder if cerealkiller would enlighten us why that is so .
perhaps cerealkiller has never experienced what it feels like to live in a "safe" country .
to get an idea what that is like he might want to read aidan's entry ... but i'm not going to hold my breath .
hbg

I guess ceral killer and his/her ilk want us to have big legal shootouts in schools with every lay man tom/dick/harry out there toting a gun and shooten' it. Yea, that will really help the violence go down.

For instance, in a 3 way race between Obama, Giuliani, and Hitler, Hitler would clearly be the least of the three evils.

oralloy wrote:

For instance, in a 3 way race between Obama, Giuliani, and Hitler, Hitler would clearly be the least of the three evils.

That remark reveals an ignorance which is very offensive to people who had to live with this least of three evils, such as half my family, thank you very much.

The crazy part was not really the key word. I meant it would have been just been a lot worse had a bunch of people with no prior training to just start shooting back with all those other people around. We have professionals trained who know what to do in dangerous situations like that. I don't believe the idea has been thought out too well.

What confuses me is that people can walk into a store and buy hundreds of rounds of ammo with no questions asked. If I try to buy a package of over the counter cold medicine, I have to sign a book and show I.D. Can't we do the same for ammo? This kid had hundreds of rounds of ammo, and yet no one asked "why." What about a "brass for loads" rule. The second amendment protects the right to bear arms, not the right to fire them. Restrict ammo sales, not gun sales.

If there needs to be a national database of purchases, let it be for tracking all forms of ammo purchases. That way people would have a 10-day waiting period before the ammo is handed to them and they cannot go around to dozens of stores to purchase batches of ammo to get around the quota rule. There would sure be a lot less bullet holes in the neighborhood traffic signs if people had to conserve their indiscriminate use of their quota of ammo for times of emergency.

Who do the first responders shoot at when they arrive on the scene, the crazy idiot who invaded the campus or workplace, or the crazy idiot defending himself by brandishing his own gun? What about the third guy who panics at the bullets flying in all directions and starts shooting his own gun at both of them? How do the first responders know the difference between them when split second decisions leave lives at stake?

The real problem lies in the willingness to use the guns, which is IMO a result of a culture of fear and violence. In Finland we have very relaxed gun laws, but very low firearm-related crime.

Butrflynet wrote:

What confuses me is that people can walk into a store and buy hundreds of rounds of ammo with no questions asked. If I try to buy a package of over the counter cold medicine, I have to sign a book and show I.D. Can't we do the same for ammo? This kid had hundreds of rounds of ammo, and yet no one asked "why." What about a "brass for loads" rule. The second amendment protects the right to bear arms, not the right to fire them. Restrict ammo sales, not gun sales.

If there needs to be a national database of purchases, let it be for tracking all forms of ammo purchases. That way people would have a 10-day waiting period before the ammo is handed to them and they cannot go around to dozens of stores to purchase batches of ammo to get around the quota rule. There would sure be a lot less bullet holes in the neighborhood traffic signs if people had to conserve their indiscriminate use of their quota of ammo for times of emergency.

As far as logging ammo sales, there is no constitutional barrier. But such logs will not be allowed because of the potential for governmental abuse.

A 10 day waiting period, or limitations on the amount of ammo, is crossing the line though, and is unconstitutional for the ammo for any gun that people have the right to have. The right to have the gun includes the right to have ammo for the gun.