[spydrz]

Originally Posted by ehhhwik

In Canada, we have some what similar gun laws, but all guns can only be purchased if you have a gun license, there are also 2 types of gun licenses: one is for rifles (not automatic) and the other are for concealable weapons like handguns, and these licenses can only be obtained through courses and certification by the federal gov't (not provincial)

fyi, in Canada, automatic weapons (M-16, M-4, AK 47s) are illegal for purchase and is almost impossible to obtain, only semi-auto or single shot rifles can be purchased at stores

my point is, in Canada, our gun laws aren't that strict either when you think about it, but how come these horrific public shootings only occur in the US, and the other questions is, why at schools?? aren't schools a place of peace and learning??

1/10th the population = 1/10th the amount of crazies...

[poldim]

so this has been an interesting day....

I didn't have class until 11:15 and the cancellation email came out before 11, not that I was going to go anyway...my E90 already got vandalized, I don't need it to get a bullet hole through it.

My friends roommate skipped his 9 am class, this class was one of the ones shot up by the kid and he shot the professor in the face.

[Dleo]

Originally Posted by poldim

so this has been an interesting day....

I didn't have class until 11:15 and the cancellation email came out before 11, not that I was going to go anyway...my E90 already got vandalized, I don't need it to get a bullet hole through it.

My friends roommate skipped his 9 am class, this class was one of the ones shot up by the kid and he shot the professor in the face.

glad your ok man!!

[s4iscool]

Wow, good that you and your friend are ok...any other information to share?

[poldim]

Originally Posted by ehhhwik

my point is, in Canada, our gun laws aren't that strict either when you think about it, but how come these horrific public shootings only occur in the US, and the other questions is, why at schools?? aren't schools a place of peace and learning??

because american's have their life padded from anything bad, so when this girl cheats on him he decides to kill her and the cheater and then 30 more people...

from what I've seen, people need to let a little more reality into american life and then your girl cheating on you wouldn't make you go postal

[poldim]

Originally Posted by s4iscool

Wow, good that you and your friend are ok...any other information to share?

the kid was asian? i know a lot of you are, but so is one of my good friends, and we've been busting his balls all day for it. my ex called me and ask where he was...as a joke

[RedStripe]

OMG. This whole thing is crazy.

Poldim, glad to hear you are ok. Give us some more of the 411.

[Stellvertreter]

Originally Posted by spydrz

1/10th the population = 1/10th the amount of crazies...

nicy try... Population in the US compared to the rest of the world? .. and how many of such gun shootings at schools or colleges were in the rest of the world?

[spydrz]

Originally Posted by Stellvertreter

nicy try... Population in the US compared to the rest of the world? .. and how many of such gun shootings at schools or colleges were in the rest of the world?

Canada has 1/10th our population. I was merely answering his question.

[ATG]

Originally Posted by poldim

because american's have their life padded from anything bad, so when this girl cheats on him he decides to kill her and the cheater and then 30 more people...

from what I've seen, people need to let a little more reality into american life and then your girl cheating on you wouldn't make you go postal

Totally agree. Also, a lot of Americans have a dramatically inflated sense of entitlement to everything. It's just bizarre when a fired employee goes back to the office and shoots his boss and all of his co-workers. Oh, the poor guy was mad because his plan to buy yet another x-box or big screen tv got fucked up by an evil corporation...

or maybe, it's the constitutional right to be entitled to a pursuit of happiness? "Oh, shooting real people is much more fun than playing an action game!"

In any case, there is some major fuck up in the mentality of some Americans. I can even understand a murder during a robbery (although it is no less excusable and as much horrible), but just shooting people as if they were some electronic images or cartoon targets is beyond my comprehension.

Dima, I'm glad you're ok.

[Stellvertreter]

Originally Posted by spydrz

Canada has 1/10th our population. I was merely answering his question.

I know.. .. and I was just trying to give a hint that in countries with laws on firearms such incidents are very very rare. sure ... if you really want to get a weapon you can, even here in Germany. However, it is really difficult .. which is good.

[spydrz]

Originally Posted by Stellvertreter

I know.. .. and I was just trying to give a hint that in countries with laws on firearms such incidents are very very rare. sure ... if you really want to get a weapon you can, even here in Germany. However, it is really difficult .. which is good.

I don't want the government to have that kind of power. That's scary to me.

[shragon]

in the latest article i have read, it seems as though the university didn't handle the incident very well. why would they assume that the gunman had left the campus??

Gunman kills 32 in Virginia Tech rampage

By SUE LINDSEY, Associated Press Writer 3 minutes ago

BLACKSBURG, Va. - A gunman opened fire in a Virginia Tech dorm and then, two hours later, shot up a classroom building across campus Monday, killing 32 people in the deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history. The gunman committed suicide, bringing the death toll to 33.

Students bitterly complained that there were no public-address announcements on campus after the first burst of gunfire. Many said the first word they received from the university was an e-mail more than two hours into the rampage — around the time the gunman struck again.

Virginia Tech President Charles Steger said authorities believed that the shooting at the dorm was a domestic dispute and mistakenly thought the gunman had fled the campus.

"We had no reason to suspect any other incident was going to occur," he said.

He defended the university's handling of the tragedy, saying: "We can only make decisions based on the information you had on the time. You don't have hours to reflect on it."

Investigators offered no motive for the attack. The gunman's name was not immediately released, and it was not known if he was a student.

The shootings spread panic and confusion on campus. Witnesses reporting students jumping out the windows of a classroom building to escape the gunfire. SWAT team members with helmets, flak jackets and assault rifles swarmed over the campus. Students and faculty members carried out some of the wounded themselves, without waiting for ambulances to arrive. A student used his cell-phone camera to record the sound of shots echoing through the stone classroom building.

The massacre took place at opposite sides of the 2,600-acre campus, beginning at about 7:15 a.m. at West Ambler Johnston, a coed dormitory that houses 895 people, and continuing at least two hours later at Norris Hall, an engineering building about a half-mile away, authorities said.

Two people were killed in a dormitory room, and 31 others were killed in the classroom building, including the gunman, police said.

"Today the university was struck with a tragedy that we consider of monumental proportions," Steger said. "The university is shocked and indeed horrified."

Steger emphasized that the university closed off the dorm after the first attack and decided to rely on e-mail and other electronic means to notify members of the university, but with 11,000 people driving onto campus first thing in the morning, it was difficult to get the word out. He said that before the e-mail went out, the university began telephoning resident advisers in the dorms to notify them and sent people to knock on doors to spread the word.

Virginia Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum would not say how many weapons the gunman carried. But a law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation was incomplete, said that the gunman had two pistols and multiple clips of ammunition.

Flinchum said that some doors in the classroom building had been chained shut from the inside.

Police said they were still investigating the shooting at the dorm when they got word of gunfire at the classroom building.

Some students bitterly questioned why the gunman was able to strike a second time.

"What happened today, this was ridiculous," student Jason Piatt told CNN. "While they send out that e-mail, 20 more people got killed."

Students and Laura Wedin, a student programs manager at Virginia Tech, said the first notification they got of the shootings came in an e-mail at 9:26 a.m., more than two hours after the first shooting.

The e-mail had few details. It read: "A shooting incident occurred at West Amber Johnston earlier this morning. Police are on the scene and are investigating." The message warned students to be cautious and contact police about anything suspicious.

Student Maurice Hiller said he went to a 9 a.m. class two buildings away from the engineering building, and no warnings were coming over the outdoor public address system on campus at the time.

Everett Good, junior, said of the lack of warning: "I'm trying to figure that out. Someone's head is definitely going to roll over that."

"We were kept in the dark a lot about exactly what was going on," said Andrew Capers Thompson, a 22-year-old graduate student from Walhalla, S.C.

At an evening news conference, the university president and police chief said they were still investigating whether the shootings at the dorm and the classroom building were related. But earlier in the day, the chief said he believed there was only one gunman, and he was dead.

Edmund Henneke, associate dean of engineering, said he was in the classroom building and he and colleagues had just read the e-mail advisory regarding the first shooting and were discussing it when he heard gunfire. He said moments later SWAT team members rushed them downstairs "but the doors were chained and padlocked from the inside." They left the building through a construction area that had not been locked.

Henneke said it is unfair to criticize the school over the delay in warning.

"People are absolutely making too much of that. You do what you can," Henneke said. "We have a huge campus. You have to close down a small town and you can't close down every way in or out."

At least 26 people were being treated at three area hospitals for gunshot wounds and other injuries, authorities said. Their exact conditions were not disclosed, but at least one was sent to a trauma center and six were in surgery, authorities said.

Up until Monday, the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history was in Killeen, Texas, in 1991, when George Hennard plowed his pickup truck into a Luby's Cafeteria and shot 23 people to death, then himself.

The massacre Monday took place almost eight years to the day after the Columbine High bloodbath near Littleton, Colo. On April 20, 1999, two teenagers killed 12 fellow students and a teacher before taking their own lives.

Previously, the deadliest campus shooting in U.S. history was a rampage that took place in 1966 at the University of Texas at Austin, where Charles Whitman climbed the clock tower and opened fire with a rifle from the 28th-floor observation deck. He killed 16 people before he was shot to death by police.

Founded in 1872, Virginia Tech is nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains of southwestern Virginia, about 160 miles west of Richmond. With more than 25,000 full-time students, it has the state's largest full-time student population. The school is best known for its engineering school and its powerhouse Hokies football team.

The rampage took place on a brisk spring day, with snow flurries swirling around the campus. The campus is centered around the Drill Field, a grassy field where military cadets — who now represent a fraction of the student body — practice. The dorm and the classroom building are on opposites sides of the Drill Field.

A gasp could be heard at a campus news conference early in the day when the police chief announced that at least 20 people had been killed. Previously, only one person was thought to have been killed.

A 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

After the shootings, all entrances to the campus were closed, and classes were canceled through Tuesday. The university set up a meeting place for families to reunite with their children. It also made counselors available and planned an assembly for Tuesday at the basketball arena.

After the shooting began, students were told to stay inside away from the windows.

Aimee Kanode, a freshman from Martinsville, said the shooting happened on the fourth floor of West Ambler Johnston dormitory, one floor above her room. Kanode's resident assistant knocked on her door about 8 a.m. to notify students to stay put.

Police said there had been bomb threats on campus over the past two weeks by authorities but said they have not determined a link to the shootings.

It was second time in less than a year that the campus was closed because of a shooting.

Last August, the opening day of classes was canceled and the campus closed when an escaped jail inmate allegedly killed a hospital guard off campus and fled to the Tech area. A sheriff's deputy involved in the manhunt was killed on a trail just off campus. The accused gunman, William Morva, faces capital murder charges.

[Dleo]

to generalize that these school shootings only happen in america is just ignorant, this link has just *some* school shootings world wide and I am sure it is not a FULL listings of ALL shootings:

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0777958.html

some countries mentioned in the link include:

Canada, Scotland, Netherlands, Germany, Russia, Bosnia, Argentina, Sweden, etc...

the bottom line is, these shootings can happen ANYWHERE at ANYTIME, and there is no 'profile' of a typical shooter due to the fact that every case is different.

[Stellvertreter]

Originally Posted by Dleo

to generalize that these school shootings only happen in america,...

I didn't say that.

[poldim]

There is a big accusation from the media that Tech didn't close campus as soon as the first murders were reported. This is bullshit.

The 7:15 AM 911 call was not for gunshots but rather a report that someone fell out of their bed. The EMT/police show up to find one person dead and another one dying, they instantly tried to figure out what happened and witnesses told them the shooter left the building and headed toward the parking lot. They locked down the building.

If they canceled class at 8:15 after everyone was already in class, this killer wouldn't have been limited to the 30 he killed, his limit would be everyone he found outside walking around. Either 11 or 14 thousand people have class at 8 am on Monday. I think it was the correct choice with the information they had at that time.

[Dleo]

Originally Posted by Stellvertreter

I didn't say that.

never said you did, its just a statement that i think is worth being said because the thread seems to be heading into a direction that has nothing to do with this tragedy.

[ATG]

I see your point and without a doubt, idiots can be found in every country. But look at the percentage of the incidents that occurred in the U.S. in comparison to other countries ... Maybe it's the high quality of life and lack of real problems that causes people to lose their mind here, I don't know. But it seems that incidents of unmotivated or mental problem-based mass murder are more frequent in the U.S., at least based on the national news reports.

[Dleo]

Originally Posted by ATG

I see your point and without a doubt, idiots can be found in every country. But look at the percentage of the incidents that occurred in the U.S. in comparison to other countries ... Maybe it's the high quality of life and lack of real problems that causes people to lose their mind here, I don't know. But it seems that incidents of unmotivated or mental problem-based mass murder are more frequent in the U.S., at least based on the national news reports.

Agreed, quality of life and culture play a role.

But the US does have some of the most relaxed gun laws as opposed to the rest of the world. There is a direct relation between number of guns the population has to number of violent crimes committed with guns.

Obviously the more guns that the population holds will equal to more unstable people easily having access to these weapons and committing such crimes.

[ATG]

Good point.

[mosport70]

Originally Posted by ehhhwik

In Canada, we have some what similar gun laws, but all guns can only be purchased if you have a gun license, there are also 2 types of gun licenses: one is for rifles (not automatic) and the other are for concealable weapons like handguns, and these licenses can only be obtained through courses and certification by the federal gov't (not provincial)

fyi, in Canada, automatic weapons (M-16, M-4, AK 47s) are illegal for purchase and is almost impossible to obtain, only semi-auto or single shot rifles can be purchased at stores

my point is, in Canada, our gun laws aren't that strict either when you think about it, but how come these horrific public shootings only occur in the US, and the other questions is, why at schools?? aren't schools a place of peace and learning??

Tell that to the parents of the students in Montreal.

[astra]

woke up this morning and it was on the sydney news... terrible... the death toll is mmore liek 30 something now? what is the word coming to?