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Horrible shooting at Virginia Tech. CNN reporting that at least 22 people have been killed, and at least 28 have been injured. But there are no official numbers and no official statement as to motive for the shooter.
For all of our readers who have family and friends at the campus, our hearts go out to all of you. As news comes in, we'll try to update. Please feel free to share in the thread below.
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PEACE!
Christy!
why?
What a shame and a damn shame at that. Can we stop with the killing, everywhere please.
-GSD
It’s an awful tragedy that shouldn’t happen to anyone, but it happens 2-3 times a day in Iraq.
Can we please have some respect for the victims and their families? Let’s have the Second Amendment debate another day, please.
Jesus god. My thoughts and prayers go out to the victims.
They have a cell phone movie with audio from outside the dorm. Sounds very much like a semi-automatic because there are more than 6 rounds in a row.
There may have been 2 shooters and 2 shootings 2 hours apart.
Not to self-promote too much, but here’s a photo of Norris Hall, where I understand some of the violence happened. It’s a place that has fairly deep resonance for me, because I took classes there when I was a little kid. I took this photo a few years later, and that’s my brother on the front steps, on the left side.
The version on Flickr is much lower resolution than the medium format scan, which shows the detailed brickwork. If anybody wants the hi-res scan, let me know.
Until we implement and enforce strict gun control laws in this country, we’ll always have plenty of our own terrorists.
Crazy, scary, so sad. As a college prof with a daughter at one college and a son about to go to another, well, we’re all praying for the injured kids…
Christy: Is it possible to take off the Enjoy at the end. It seems kinda…
Oh. Sorry. It’s that icon thing. What is that, anyway?
Sad and frightening beyond words.
And this kind of thing is happening on a daily basis in places like Iraq and Afghanistan and Darfur.
It is time to stop the senseless killing everywhere. Period.
Prayers and blessings to those who will now have to find ways to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives.
May the memories of the innocent students endure as a blessing… It’s an especially painful irony that Virginia is the home of NRA HQ.
For all of us, including those of us with kids off at college, this shooting strikes hard. My oldest boy attends another Big U., and the threat of armed nutters makes me want to chain him to my ankle.
raven at 7 — Sounded like a semi-automatic to me as well on the video. And for that many rounds to be going, even for that short bit of video, seems to me that someone planned a bit and brought extra clips. What a nightmare.
Veritas78 @ 5
Mrs. Tarquin Biscuitbarrel @ 15
A lot of people still get the creeps around Austin’s tower. I’ve been on the campus a few times, and I couldn’t help looking up there to make sure…just in case…
Diary from a Kossack who is on campus.
Gang, I know that this sort of thing is really stressful. But don’t take it out on each other or I swear I will shut the comments off for the day.
Compassion, discussion, venting — all okay. Trying to smack each other around to let off some steam? Not okay. I’m making this clear in advance before emotions run any higher than they already are.
That video clip appears to police officers shooting at the perpetrator….
-GSD
Christy Hardin Smith @ 16
Not just extra clips. One of the students on MSNBC has apparently mentioned that one of the shooters had a vest “covered with magazines.”
I friend of mine who lives in Blacksburg has two daughters at VT (fingers crossed)
And a weird question…
If there were two shootings, a few hours apart, weren’t the police already there to investigate the first? And a second could still occur?
LJ/Aquaria @ 22
Clips are magazines.
I have a good friend and colleague who teaches there. My thoughts and prayers go out to him and his family, and all the victims and their families.
all i can offer now
is my intention that
the victims’ families
find peace — that is
all there is, at the
end of it all, i think — as
i, too, know more than a
little of columbine. . .
may they find peace.
and may the victims be
at peace — let us all
work for it, pray for it,
sing for it, dance for it. . .
and forever take the side of it. . .
as a community, perhaps we make
this our intention for this day. . .
p e a c e
MSNBC reports that there was one shooter — earlier they misunderstood that there was a shooter in custody and one dead. They are both the same person.
2 9mm Handguns, 12 round magazines and you can keep one in the chamber.
Tragedy. Just awful. Will the families ever recover?
Sounds like VaTech needs a better security department from all the info coming in about warnings. outta here.
raven @ 25
Perhaps I wasn’t clear. It wasn’t the clips I was referencing, but the extra. This wasn’t extra. This was a whole shitload of ammo.
In response to Raven & Beth Mechem over on the Abramaoff thread: Yes, I don’t know much about guns and I don’t understand why anyone would do something like this.
I’ve got to say though that responsibility for 600,000 dead Iraqis and 3,300 dead Americans plus about one million wounded rests squarely on the shoulders of Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz and the rest of the neocons and their enablers. To my way of thinking, their crime dwarfs what happened at Virginia Tech. Yet, I understand that ranking the relative importance of the two means nothing to someone who has lost a loved one. Nothing is more painful or incomprehensible and no one ever gets over it.
My sister-in-law teaches at VA Tech. Not in the Engineering dept, so I don’t think she’s among the casualties. Still, this has got to have the whole campus traumatized.
And I do know a few things about clips/magazines. I did have to pass that shooting part of the military.
MSNBC reporting that the shooter had two 9 mm handguns and that he shot and killed himself.
Perhaps I wasn’t clear. It wasn’t the clips I was referencing, but the extra. This wasn’t extra. This was a whole shitload of ammo.
Got it, this should answer the question of how one person could do all this damage. These are people who were in a confined space with no way out.
Senseless killing. What a tragedy. There are too many of these types of incidents happening in and around our schools.
Too often the shooters are alienated from their peers. We need to look around and do all we can to reach out. This all goes back to the alienation that is so much a part of our culture.
May the families who are affected all find peace.
Peterr @ 34
Mine too, she normally goes in very early but didn’t becuase she was late on her taxes.
Just got a fast email from my S-I-L that she’s OK as are the folks she works with. Sounds like she’s trying to reassure everyone about her safety quickly, and I’m guessing she will share more later today or tonight when she gets a chance.
My son would be so mad if I went and woke him. I always want to make sure he’s okay at times like these…
one last thought before I go out the door. This may seem callous, but I suggest pups watch and record FOX on this all day. I can promise they will give anyone watching more material to back our contention that they are NOT news and need to be saddled by the FCC. They will time and again make egregious, thoughtless and plain old made up statements all day about how this is all the fault of the left.
Sadly, Virginia makes it easy to have guns:
Under Virginia code Virginia Statute 15.2-915 localities may no longer regulate the firearms with sole exception of regulation of discharge of firearms.
To my way of thinking, their crime dwarfs what happened at Virginia Tech.
i hate to say this, but this is going to draw the msm away from many important political issues that would have dominated the news cycle this week. after the illegal wars of aggression, the mounting scandal rate, and the unconscionable number of religious zealots in this administration, is there anyone out there who can put anything past them? anything?
I have already seen a troll on another site rolling out the speculation as to the ethnic/relgious identity of the killer.
These are bad times.
-GSD
Terry Olson @ 30
are you peeking in from work?
GSD @ 46
White male according to the tube.
CNN or MSNBC - don’t know which was on, reported the shooter had killed his mother and his wife last night.
What a sad, sad day for everyone.
Yet another violent, heart-wrenching tragedy.
The kind that happens every day in Iraq, though. 22 dead in Baghdad is a slow news day there anymore.
Just sayin’.
Oops, sorry, that was a wrong case. The VT suspect is still at large I belive
You know, soon after I came home from Vietnam I got into an argument with my mother when I said that the Manson murders and My Lai were the same kind of thing. I suppose that’s the point people are trying to make with these statements about Iraq and Va Tech.
dreamcatcher at 51 — Morva was involved in an incident last summer at Virginia Tech.
raven @ 48
MSNBC reporting shooter an Asian American student who took his own life.
OMG!!! and to think i was worried about the flooding in my basement which isnt as bad as i first thought - and as i came upstairs i hear news of a shooting at Va tech - damn its horrible - easy access to guns especially in Va but thats another story - my prayers go out to families of those who’ve been killed and wounded i am so sad i’m really at a loss for words…..
dreamcatcher @ 51
…in August 2006
First I was a little taken aback by folks relating this to Iraq…..but you know, you’re right.
Every day, all the time, the rampant murder of innocents.
raven @ 52
Bingo. I didn’t think I was being silly.
-GSD
Just imagine what the families of students and employees of VT are going through now trying to discover whether their loved ones are OK, have been injured or worse. This tragedy is going to effect people throughout the U.S. and maybe families overseas too.
To read about what the FBI found in the Columbine investigation, go here:
http://foia.fbi.gov/room.htm
Then go to A-Z, find Columbine, and read on. There is/was a group called Trench Coat something, that was behind the Columbine shootings. There is a dialog in the documents between a student and a member of that group from a website that the FBI got a hold of, and in it, the group member says there are going to be a lot more events like Columbine and worse. Very interesting read. Obviously, we don’t know if this is connected or not yet. That Trench Coat group is neo-nazi in origin. I don’t know if they still exist or not.
OT
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales Sandbagged Novation LLC Prosecution
http://www.pressrelease365.com.....n-1293.htm
This story has me in tears. I’m so sorry for the pain and loss this terrible shooting has caused. I’m also furious (though willing to reserve judgement) at the thought that it’s possible the lockdown from the first shooting was lifted too soon allowing the second shooting to occur.
hang a left @ 61
I’m glad to see that story percolating up.
We in Bridgeport, West Virginia are so saddened by this senseless violence at your university. Our prayers and deepest sympathy are with you all.
oddmommy @ 57
Just to be clear. My prior post was not to denigrate the depressing severity of this tragedy, just that now we’ll have all this ENDLESS fucking media coverage and “analysis,” while innocent people continue to get blown to body parts every day in Iraq, with 1/100th of the notice and awareness at best.
.
CNN web says VA Tech had bomb threats & evacuations last Friday and on April 2.
The damn world is melting down.
newspaperbrat @ 54
That’s based entirely on what a “student” said, allegedly wounded himself and called MSNBC??? How does MSNBC know that was a legit call???
Annual deaths by gun in the US are proportionately about 40 times what they are in the next highest country in the developed world, which is, I think, France.
This suggests there may possibly be something wrong with our culture and attitudes towards weaponry IMO!
Mason @ 33
I personally do not see anything wrong with drawing a parallel between this and Iraq. We opened the horrific Pandora’s box of killing in Iraq over 4 years ago. Yet until it such horrors visit their own doorstep, so many Americans still just don’t seem to care. They’re just tired of war but they don’t really think about the innocent victims. I have to listen to a guy down the hall spout enthusiastically about war in the Middle East at least twice a week.
That this is a tragic, heart-breaking event goes without saying. But people who are insensitive to the violence we unleashed in Iraq yet are shocked and saddened by this incident ought to think hard about what our country would be like if such acts of random violence like this happened on a daily basis around the country.
The media will absolutely flip out over this, shamelessly exploit the hell out of it, and bring us no closer to an answer about why it happened than what we have right now. It will be a disgusting spectacle I will try to avoid. And all too familiar.
Interview with a wounded student - says the shooter was an Asian male who appeared to be in his 20’s.
Ed*ard Teller @ 42
Well, we all remember the outrage the mighty moral Republicans heaped upon Big Dawg for damaging the tender moralities of America’s youth with his immoral acts. Setting such a poor example of pious rightousness would cast the next generation into the pits of deviant acts.
The mouthpiece of the rightards is a degenerate junkie and their “warrior” is a phone sex enthusiast who thinks harass is two words.
And the titular head of the Republican Party sets the example for wholesale slaughter as the solution as opposed to diplomacy.
I’m just sayin’.
lolo @ 47
Shhh!
To all those affected by this tragedy:-
Cover your heart with both hands and you will feel lots of love coming to you. Be strong, crying can be very cleansing, but let love fill your heart and you will have the strength to overcome any tragedy.
In Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11, he showed that Canadians have more guns per capita, yet our rate of gun- related violence is a pittance compared to the U.S.
One of the casualties of Bush’s illegal wars is that resources were diverted from reducing gun- violence and all other crimes. That and MORE children being left behind, which leads them to crime and violence.
Banning guns or giving everyone a gun will not solve violence, teaching people how to co- exist and respect others as we do in Canada (and Western Europe) is the only answer.
Love To All
Over the weekend the NYT had a distressing piece on compensation to families of killed Iraqis. Something like $2,000 per corpse or life, depending on your point of view? Wonder what the price of these lives will turn out to be? My guess is whoever is found negligent will provide more than $2,000 per death. But then, other countries don’t value life the way we do.
Abu’s gotta be hopin that the VT story spills over till tomorrow and muffles the screams from tomorrow’s lie-a-thon.
despairing @ 74
You can bet the lawsuits against VT are already bein’ scratched out on yellow legal pads.
And, oh god, Bush will exploit it too. I’m already feeling nauseous.
I’m sorry, this is horrible. By no means do I mean to diminish the tragedy of it all. But we all know the media vultures are already circling and it just makes me sick to my stomach to think about all the exploitation ahead.
It’s been 24 years since I was briefly a grad student there, but it’s still a place I’m fond of.
Horrible, to hear that something like this has happened there.
TeddySanFran @ 6
No Disrespect, Teddy, but don’t you really mean “never?”
Lincoln,
Garfield,
McKinley,
JFK,
Medgar Evers
Malcolm X
MLK,
UT, Charles Whitman
RFK,
The attempts on Ford,
Congressman Leo Ryan
Lennon
The attempt on Reagan
The attempt on JP II
George Moscone,Harvey Milk,
The San Ysidro “McDonalds Massacre”
Columbine
and now this one.
Hundreds of Thousands of ordinary people over two hundred years.
Crimes of passion and acts of impulsive stupidity abounding.
When is the time?
Rumor: Killing spree over girlfriend
Mandrake @ 77
Newt used to exploit these things to blame Democrats. Will he now?
Mandrake @ 77
Mayber the shooter was “affiliated with al Qaeda.” See what happens if we don’t stay the course?
VTech students interviewed by CNN don’t want to leave the school. Just one more thing about techies that I will never understand.
ABC now reporting 29 dead in VA shooting…
So sorry for the VT folks.
“There’s been a disturbance in The Force.”
—–
I’ve got major tinfoil around this, though. Like Columbine, and other school shootings. The DC sniper(s). Manson and Jim ‘Kool-Aid’ Jones.
Some ‘nice game of solitaire’ is being played.
Parallax View. Conspiracy. JFK (imdb)
Not to mention the premise of “Handmaid’s Tale”.
—-
Again, condolences to the VT community. Each person on campus, and friends and family are like witnesses in Dealey Plaza Nov. 22, 1963.
—-
edit: ET is correct. FOX will be the spinner whatever the ‘cover story’ is. Lone gunman, etc. Be skeptical.
agree with all that’s been said about the sickening barrage of media coverage on its way. If they could devote an entire solid 10 days to f*****g Imus….
I don’t know if anyone may find some comfort in these words, but I offer them humbly because they have helped me to survive to see yet another day and eventually to even welcome its coming.
We are beings of light residing in our human bodies for only a brief time. We will rejoin the ones whom we have loved, but never really lost.
Whether what I have written is true is unimportant because we would be living in the mythical garden of eden if all of us honored each other as immortal gods in the making.
Why is truth so difficult to grasp?
Peace everlasting be with each of you and all of us, forever.
LS @ 60
The Trenchcoat Mafia was NOT involved in the Columbine shootings — that was what the Goth kids at Columbine were called.
Columbine was the work of two very disturbed young men, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold — one (or both) of them had gone off their SSRI prescription days before the shootings.
Wikipedia on the Columbine massacre and an excerpt from the Harris and Klebold entry:
I’m wondering when they’ll start blaming Marilyn Manson, even though he hasn’t done s**t in years. How about Slipknot? Maybe they’ll do as a substitute. And instead of D&D (sooooo 80s), how about Yugi OH or Magic: The Gathering or Halo or Metroid Prime?
Loo Hoo @ 72
ok but say YooHoo to LooHoo, please!
Mandrake @
69
I think the main thing to remember is that things like this happen in Iraq every fucking day. For us, thank the Lord, it’s a rarity; for them, this is the norm.
This is what we have done to their country. No repentance can possibly suffice.
ck 88,
I refer you to the FBI…go read what they learned.
Faux News: At least 32 dead.
“Bush will exploit it”
Well it will fuel gun control fires and goopers usually benefit in the long run from that- but I don’t see how he can directly exploit it.
ck 88. The TCM is/was not limited to students at Columbine according to the material I read in the FBI files.
despairing @ 74
I doubt that Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, the neocons, and their enablers place any value on the 3,300 dead American soldiers.
rwcole @ 94
Give him a little time to discuss this with God and I’m sure he’ll find a hook for it that fits politically.
Goopers would PAY to have demonstrations about gun control right now- that would bring in BIG NRA campaign contributions at a very important time.
White House spokesman said President Bush was horrified by the rampage and offered his prayers to the victims and the people of Virginia.
“The president believes that there is a right for people to bear arms, but that all laws must be followed,” spokeswoman Dana Perino said.
Please impeach him now.
Badwater @ 81
Dunno but I’m guessing that Dinesh D’Souza guy will take a stab at it.
I wonder about this asian male report. There is a photo of cops with an asian male on the ground but he is cuffed and alive. Someone may have seen that and made an assumption.
Montag-
Well some goopers are probably hopin that the shooter was an illegal alien- but clusterfuck may not want to fight that one.
rwcole @ 94
Just an excuse for him to give some kind of statement and deflect the public’s attention away from the Abu scandal.
Can someone please get D’Souza and Romesh Powar decent jobs, they are embarrassments to all us brown people.
raven @ 214
Just great. Nice to know that your life is being threatened by someone who’s already transported half his consciousness into the Happy Killing Zone. Then again, a lot of people probably couln’t do something like this if they were still plugged into the Here and Now.
Mandrake:
Now THAT he WILL do.
Petrocelli @ 104
That would mean they would have to work for a living. No way would they tolerate that. Wingnut welfare isn’t called that for no reason.
raven @ 101
They just said that there are tons of international students at VA Tech. It is a huge campus. What is strange are the reports of bomb threats and other incidents happening there as well.
Petrocelli @
73
Thank you, Petrocelli. I lived in Canada for quite a while in Toronto & Montreal, most peaceful yrs. of my life. God bless Canadians for their kind, generous, courteous attitude toward others.
God’s help to all affected by this tragedy @ Virginia Tech.
Badwater @ 99
As I said earlier on the Abramoff thread, when is enough really enough. At some point, doesn’t the Congress have to start impeachment proceedings?
raven @ 101
Could you direct me to a link of that photo? Much appreciated.
LBrowne @ 105
Fuax says the asian dude in the photo was one of their reporters and released. This doesn’t mean the reports were not true but I think we go some fog of war going on.
raven @
52
Please elaborate, Raven. You believed Manson & My Lai were ??? (The result of a scarring of the public psyche of sorts due to Vietnam, etc.???)
Just trying to understand what you’re saying here. I personally believe we (humanity) go through a debasement of self in times like these. A “Lord of the Flies” effect, if you will.
sunny @ 111
I’m sseing it on the tube, sorry.
Badwater @ 99
The man is incapable of being horrified by the killing of innocent human beings regardless of where it happens, unless it involved immediate family. Maybe. I do not believe he has normal human feelings. It seems a travesty to even issue such statements of feigned horror. I guess this is where the revulsion comes in.
I play Wii games with my kids and after every match, they show the winner smiling and happy with the words, “You Win” across his face and the loser dejected and head bowed with “You Lose” across his face. What a powerful subliminal message this sends to kids.
Part of the WH statement on this:
It sounds wishywashy. (JMO.) I’d like to see a bit more outrage and sorrow.
29 dead? This is bigger than Columbine.