The death toll appears to be going up by the hour and there is great confusion on the campus. There are thirty two reported dead so far, and almost as many injured.These deaths and injuries seem to have occurred at two widely separated places, a dormitory and a classroom building.
Hot Air says that there were portents of trouble earlier this month. Here’s one of his many updates:
Update: More oddness from Fox: “On April 13, the campus closed three of its academic halls after they received a letter stating that explosive devices were in the building. Classes were canceled for the remainder of the day. A bomb threat was also made against Torgerson Hall on April 2.”
In other words, something has been coming down since early in the month. Whatever it was - and is - may be very hard to trace back to its origins until the killing is over and the person or people involved have also killed themselves. Slaughter on this level doesn’t leave its perpetrators alive.
Another Hot Air update:
Update: According to NBC, the killer used two 9mm handguns and killed himself. It’s officially the deadliest campus shooting in U.S. history.
President Bush is supposed to give a nationally broadcast speech later on today. I don’t know if I can bear to listen.
Virginia Tech is not far from us. Our son is planning to do graduate work there in oenology. My heart sinks at the thought. He and the Baron went to see the head of that department last December and now I’m wondering if the man is alive.
So many children we know are there, or have been there. It’s hard to take this in…
NOTA BENE: Do not post comments about the need for gun control laws. I will delete them. That stupid idea has been demonstrated to be false on the merits, so get a new argument. I am in no mood to put up with sanctimonious know-nothings. There will be enough of that from those useful idiots who are proposing a cabinet-level Department of Peace.
If you feel impelled to voice such sentiments, go where you’ll have a sympathetic audience. It won’t be on this venue, however.
[post ends here]
20 comments:
"So many children we know are there, or have been there. It's hard to take this in..."
Beslan?
But please note, all: there are still no details. "Asian" in American reporting doesn't mean what it does in British reporting (where it is code for "Muslim", just like "youth" in French reporting). 48-hour rule at the very least.
And the tragic irony is that a little over a year ago, VA Tech spokesman Larry Hicker was celebrating the defeat of a bill that would have allowed CCW holders to carry concealed on campus:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=55226
"I'm sure the university community is appreciative of the General Assembly's actions because this will help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on our campus" (emphasis mine).
God only knows (literally) how many more people would be alive today had that bill passed.
Yep, Zionist, I'm also holding my breath in curiosity for the name of the "Asian" fella.
Sickening. But the leftists will announce that more gun laws are needed to prevent this sort of thing. You know the old "sure it's already illegal, but now we'll make it even more illegal."
Worst thing about it is the rumor that the School said nothing to the students about it for over an hour. I hope for the sake of the students that it's not true. If it is, then God help the University administration.
Here's the story from last year on World Net Daily:
More than one year before today's unprecedented shooting rampage at Virginia Tech, the state's General Assembly quashed a bill that would have given qualified college students and employees the right to carry handguns on campus.
At the time, Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker said he was happy to hear of the bill's defeat, according to the Roanoke Times.
"I'm sure the university community is appreciative of the General Assembly's actions because this will help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on our campus," the Virginia Tech spokesman said.
And there was a fatuous response in the Roanoke Times on their campus watch page from that time. The person said the defeat was a good thing, and s/he knew it was good because they'd googled national opinion on gun-owning and most people felt it wasn't safe.
Useful idiots, all.
If I can find that article (the Roanoke paper has the world's record for a slow load), I'll put it up.
BTW, another VA college, Hampden-Sydney, one of the oldest Southern colleges (founded by members of Princeton) may be the only one with an armory for student weapons. An all men's school, they like to hunt, and they bring their weapons to school during hunting season...
gt whacko--
It's my understanding that when the first dorm shooting happened, the guy was on the loose so the campus and other police went around the school with megaphones asking students not to leave their buildings. The warnings were largely ignored.
What should have been publicized were the threats they were getting. OTOH, maybe they were talked about on campus venues. But I doubt about it, or I'd have heard.
Remember the statement last week about how "fanatics" had plans for taking over schools ala Breslan? Heard of any plans to deal with that scenario? Didn't think so.
Tom
Gun bill gets shot down by panel
In Virginia, "HB 1572, which would have allowed handguns on college campuses, died in subcommittee..."
One CCW holder could have ended this with a bullet to the back of the shooter's head.
What I find particularly sickening is that so many news reports are saying "a tragedy that has claimed 33 lives, including the gunman's."
If this is not a semantically-criminal example of implied moral equivalency, I don't know what is.
It's not just our moral order; the rational and logical order of things has been turned into an Escher-like display of terminal absurdity.
If I propose Blank Ammunition, will I be banned?
;-)
---
Hi bleep, Hi bleep,
it's off to work we go.
No, Doug--
I presume firing with blanks is your usual m.o.
And it feels almost real, no?
Better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6.
Follow legal follies at your own peril.
Y'know, if I thought I knew where the gunman was, and I could reach him...I'd probably get shot trying to reach the SOB. Hand guns don't work so well in hand to hand, but folks are very reluctant to let go of them....
(It'd be ludicrious, because I'm small, female, and have no real training-- but give me a baseball and he'll be so busy holding his knee he'll never take another shot.)
Gun control means hitting what you aim at.
NOTA BENE BENE: Wow! I guess that "Gate of Vienna" takes the "moral dictatorship" stuff regarding itself seriously. I mean, given that you who - in light of previous statements - seem to be less than gainfully employed, are nevertheless now reminding us others of what we can or cannot say, it's just - I don't know - sorta ironic, 1984-wise. Reminds me in a way of our friends on the Wazuristan border, if you get the drift of what I'm saying.
I certainly in any case will not contest your wishes regarding taping our mouths shut on gun laws. But perhaps in the interest of fair consumer labelling, you could change the name of this site to "Preaching to the Choir - No Others Welcome". (Of course, your own phrase "Sanctimoninous Know-Nothings" would be even better.) That way at least, it is clear for others that any pretension you have towards defending Western Civilisation by alluding to the actions, names, and deeds of persons far better and nobler than yourselves, via their reflected glory, is only a mendacious sham.
Rough, I recommend you keep quiet out of RESPECT. This is very personal for them right now...don't you see that? If you've not lost anyone you know in this way, then you don't get why she DOESN'T WANT TO HEAR IT.
Besides, theoretically, gun control doesn't work. I've done research on this for the DC area...VA is the most 'lax' & has the lowest crime rate, while DC prohibits even mace & has the worst crime rate!
If you don't know this, or do & continue the gun-control mantra, then you are a 'Know Nothing.'
Back to my original reason for posting:
1.
I love how Hincker states he wants people to 'feel' safe, rather than 'be' safe.
I watched this live all day yesterday (home sick), and I noticed 1 groups culpable, in addition to the shooter: the university for calling this an 'unfortunate incident' rather than a shooting.
No wonder the students showed their typical apathy to the whole scenario!
2.
I was livid with Jerry River's (Geraldo's real name) interview with the university president this morning (sick again today) when he asked how they thought the first shooting was a murder-suicide without any guns around????
Is he not aware that processing the scene most likely took at least 1-2 hours, which was just enough time for the killer ro reach Norris Hall?
That's my problem with some people, that they seem to know 'everything' but after the fact!!! Big whoop...try doing this job in real life. They might just get it then.
Clarification: When the university posted online for students to stay off campus/in their rooms, they stated the reason was an 'unfortunate incident' and not a shooting.
Rough"--
In what elementary schoolyard did you learn to argue?
What in heaven's name does our employment status have to do with what we permit or do not permit on our blog?
That's your first categorical error.
And then there's your ad hominem attack about us being some kind of moral dictatorship. Ummm...which polity is that we rule? Our own blog? That's called free speech, chum, not dictatorship.
Actually, you have at least two other name-calling fits in your comment, but everyone else can see your bloomers hanging out for themselves, so I won't bother repeating them.
There is neither logic nor cogency in anything you have put up here.
I suppose one could infer from what you say about the duct tape and dictatorship that you are unhappy because I set a limit on commenters who want to talk about the need for gun control. But since you appear -- from the content of your remarks here at any rate -- to be unable to say directly what you mean, any inference would have to be a guess.
But good for you, pal. Your statements are so lame that I'm not going to delete you. It's much more interesting to watch you swing in the wind...i.e., the hot air created by your own irratiocinations.
I'm disabled and can't work; the Baron is employed part-time.
However...since we own our home with no mortgage, drive junker cars, and live carefully, I'd be happy to pay for a course for you.
Specifically I offer a class in rhetoric. You need one desperately, given the level you display here. Take me up on my offer and you could learn to make coherent, reality-based arguments and back them up with facts.
Jabbing at someone because they set limits you don't like, or because they're unemployed are tactics that one ought to have left behind in grade school.
So let me know where you what school you want to attend to take a rhetoric class and I'll send them the money. Audit only, though. You can pay for your own credits. The only other proviso is that the course must be applied Aristotelian concepts.
Before you can run, you have to walk -- that's why I called your comments "lame" -- they couldn't get up and walk if they tried. And that's why you need Aristotle.
It's never too late, Rough. Just think --learn some rhetorical principles, apply them wisely, and you'll be "Rough *and* Ready."
Dymphna,
Logic and rhetoric are always lost upon emotional 10-year olds. I think some Ritalin or a videogame may be more appropriate to distract our friend's unimaginative brand of verbal hooliganism into something more at his level.
Thank you for leaving his post up, though, that made for some humor in this otherwise somber time. We love you, Dymph.
I think the solution mihgt be in setting up flags in teh system the got teh guns 31 days apart....hello...exactly 31 days??? Also, if they were to stop selling hollow point bullets, it might help.
I made a tribute site here is anyone wants to check it out
www.virginiatechvictim.com
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