Undeniably the Virginia Tech shooting is a horrendous event. The worst in recent US history, as is concerned with shootings. What has me concerned is what is the safety level of Tulsa schools and colleges? Have they got something in place that would alert students a HECK of a lot better that VT?
Here is some news from KOTV:
http://www.kotv.com/news/topstory/?id=125224
When someone this wacko goes on a killing spree there is no stopping them. We are all regulated enough as it is.
What worries me is if the gun control people are going to start resurfacing again.
We are fine. I'm a college student here in Tulsa, and please don't make my school an airport.
quote:
Originally posted by Johnboy976
Undeniably the Virginia Tech shooting is a horrendous event. The worst in recent US history, as is concerned with shootings. What has me concerned is what is the safety level of Tulsa schools and colleges? Have they got something in place that would alert students a HECK of a lot better that VT?
this is a very tragic story, but the way I see it, a college campus is a lot like a city. 26,000 students is a lot of people to notify and NOT cause pandemonium. If there was a shooting in a city of 26,000, I don't think that everyone would expect to be notified immediately. I think as tragic as it is, the powers that be probably handled it pretty well. No one could predict this. I thought that OU's announcement that they would start locking dormitories 24 hours a day seemed a little bit like overreacting. What if another Whitman came to OU and started shooting people outside then they couldn't get in the building to be safe? I'm sure this is all going to be argued to death in the coming months.
quote:
What worries me is if the gun control people are going to start resurfacing again.
Amen
1) Virginia Tech is about the same size as Owasso on any given school day. There are more than 30,000 people that come and go from that campus each day. What's more, it is spread over 2,600 acres.
I am already tired of hearing the talking heads question why campus wasn't locked down after the first shootings. If there is a murder in Owasso do they shut down the entire city and tell everyone to panic? In my undergrad University of 16,000 or even at U of Tulsa at 5,000; there could be a murder on one end of campus and it would have no effect on other parts of the campus. These are small cities.
Ordering a lock down of the entire campus or canceling classes because of the first double homicide would be a great way to make your college look like an ultra violent place while hindering the education process and making students feel like they are living in a big brother state. In the end, it would have prevented nothing as the shooter was bent on a rampage and would simply have sought out the lock down congregations and murdered them.
Security on a scale this large would require draconian measures only seen at airports and in the Green Zone. Certainly that would not foster the open college learning experience so boldly touted by Universities.
2) Our brethren in Europe are already calling us antiquated barbarians that distort our own constitution to foster a violent society. Furthermore, one paper in Italy actually wrote that the massacre was motivated by the fact that the world views America negatively in recent years. As Europe hands more and more freedom to their governments for the perception of security I'd like to point out their subways are still getting bombed, their schools have suffered more shootings than ours, and their radical movements are still profound.
I love it when people point fingers.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,477686,00.html
3) Gun control. Some sick bastard went on a shooting spree with semi-automatic pistols. Surely a renewed call will go out to ban assault rifles and mean looking firearms (the lobbyists set out to ban the most mean looking firearms with no concern for which ones are actually used by criminals nor their potential for such use).
Guns have been banned in Germany and Australia for years - with no effect on violent crime (with Germany marking increases in school shootings). The United States saw no marked decline in violence during the assault weapons ban nor with increased registration under the Brady bill. It is illegal to own or possess firearms in Iraq - but for some reason there is still gun violence there too.
Lets pretend we took all the guns away. Unfortunately a person could go to Walgreen's and buy ingredients off the shelf to make a backpack into a huge bomb. A stop by Lowe's for some nails and a walk into a cafeteria and we have the same result. Lets ban everything that can be made into a bomb (cleaning supplies, health supplements, petroleum products, lp or propane, fertilizer, welding supplies, ad nauseum) and hope he doesnt just poison the food in a cafeteria or set pizza's out in the student union.
A person with a death wish has always and will always be able to reek havoc on a free society. Ours is indeed a violent society born of a revolution and frontier life. It doesnt appear that society has any real interest in changing, so lets let the lip service pass and mourn the dead and then move on with our lives.
Has anyone blamed Vision 2025, Lottery, or Indian compacts for this tragedy yet?
quote:
Originally posted by cannon_fodder
1)I am already tired of hearing the talking heads question why campus wasn't locked down after the first shootings. If there is a murder in Owasso do they shut down the entire city and tell everyone to panic?
My only issue with the whole lock down thing is that the murderer was still on the loose and with a murder that just happened on school grounds. They should have had additional officers trying to locate this guy. Whenever a person with a gun is near a school here in Tulsa, I have noticed they lock down the school. Classes are still going on, but no one can get in the school. Maybe they VA Tech staff were in the middle of locking down certain areas and maybe they did have additional officers on the campus looking for this guy. Only time will tell what was going on during the 2 hours between the shootings. I personally am very interested to know what was going on during this time. But just like 9/11, we can never fully prevent crimes like this or plan for these things. We can only learn from these things and try to develop ways to stop it from happening again.
Jenks has a security system in place where with the click of a button the doors all magnetically lock. Union is working on installing the same type of system. This will not prevent a shooting, but it may help to save lives.
No, I don't think we should turn our schools into an airport type security. But when a murder or shooting has just taken place on any campus or near a campus, the staff should be notified and teachers should be able to go over to the doors and use the dead bolt on the door.
I will end my post on this note. Just like 9/11 and other horrific incidents that have happened in this country, normal everyday people that are caught in these situations are the ones that have helped to curb additional lives lost. Flight 93 saved countless lives. Those people at VA Tech that held the door while the gunman was shooting at the door preventing him from going back into the classroom saved many more lives from being lost. Last year (I think) a man was on the TU campus with a gun and students and faculty tackled him to the ground before anyone was shot. What would you do in that situation? Hopefully none of us will every be in that situation, but we should also be prepared ourselves. Not paranoid. Prepared.
DM: area schools have a campus of maybe 50 acres and up 2,000 students all under the care of a guardian. VT has 30,000 students all over the age of majority and spread over 4 square miles. It is more like a city than a school.
A lock down at a Jenks school is not comparable to a lock down at a major university. The University is larger than twice the entire population of that city. I am of the opinion that the situation was handled appropriately. They had no indication that further eminent danger persisted on campus and acted accordingly.
quote:
Originally posted by cannon_fodder
DM: area schools have a campus of maybe 50 acres and up 2,000 students all under the care of a guardian. VT has 30,000 students all over the age of majority and spread over 4 square miles. It is more like a city than a school.
A lock down at a Jenks school is not comparable to a lock down at a major university. The University is larger than twice the entire population of that city. I am of the opinion that the situation was handled appropriately. They had no indication that further eminent danger persisted on campus and acted accordingly.
While I understand that it is a large school, I think that is even more of a case in this post-9/11 and Columbine world that they have a lockdown procedure in place. Maybe they don't. 2 hours is a long time and I am waiting to hear what was done in that 2 hours. Like I said before, this is a situation that we may not have been able to plan for. But we can certainly learn from this and make schools safer for the next time. Those 2 hours will be critical to finding out what could have been done.
quote:
Originally posted by deinstein
We are fine. I'm a college student here in Tulsa, and please don't make my school an airport.
Awesome response!!!!!
Lock-downs, gun-control, feel-good videos to help us identify loners and treat them with respect so they don't slaughter 30+ people is no deterrent. Even if college campuses had lock-down policies, then the next big slaughter will happen in a movie theater, Wal-Mart or shopping mall. People bent on taking out their rage will find a way and a place to carry it out.
As long as the media glorifies shootings like this with their media-van circus and non-stop coverage, it appeals to loner nut-jobs to make a pathetic final statement.
Someone made a good point on the radio today. Even if the rest of the school was locked down, he still would have been able to get into his OWN dorm and kill people...the classrooms were just unfortunate targets.
Great point IP.
Not to mention, as the University President said, they had to decide where to lock down all the commuters. It probably would have been the basketball arena. Which anyone that said they were a commuter could get into and have 10,000 readily available targets. Then again, on an unarmed campus - where can a man with a gun go? Anywhere he pleases.
I'm already finding the media trying to figure out "who is to blame." Is it the school for failing to lock down? The gun lobby? George Bush? Or society as a whole? I have yet to hear a media outlet say this was a social reject that felt slighted by the world because of his own mental instability and in calculated and carefully planned attack decided to take his revenge because he was one sick and wicked man.
Some idiot South Korean VT student is to blame first and foremost. Everything else is just speculation, possibilities, and BS. At least he shot himself to save Virginia a a few thousand volts of electricity.
As expected, almost verbatim to what we are used to hearing:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070417/ap_on_re_us/virginia_tech_shooting
Based on what we've heard so far, the shooter went over the deep end because of rejection from a girl.
Sheesh.
If he'd acted like most guys, he would have shrugged it off, turned the page and tried to woo some other female.
Think I'll go home and clean my SKS.
quote:
Originally posted by rwarn17588
Based on what we've heard so far, the shooter went over the deep end because of rejection from a girl.
Sheesh.
If he'd acted like most guys, he would have shrugged it off, turned the page and tried to woo some other female.
Geez, have you read the latest (//%22http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/V/VIRGINIA_TECH_SHOOTING?SITE=NYUTI&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT%22)? This kid had red flags all over him. He fit the "trenchoat mafia" profile to a tee. They believe he was on meds for depression, had recently set a fire in the dorm, was stalking women, refused to participate in class discussion, wrote "blood-soaked" plays.
If he was seeing a shrink, he should have been flagged on that March purchase. To be determined.
quote:
Originally posted by guido911
Has anyone blamed Vision 2025, Lottery, or Indian compacts for this tragedy yet?
Of course not. It's all George Bush's fault, remember?
We are only a small section of land among many times the surface of water. We are a violent nation, born in violence, teaching violence, glorify in violence, stretching out to an accusing world our violence.
We cannot secure our borders from importers of human flesh, drugs or guns. We scream to high heaven when an alien by birthrights conducts themselves in the ways we have taught them.
We are both the perpetrator and the victim of our own teachings. We open our borders to those who leave their homelands because of political disagreements but they do not leave the disagreement at its origin. The small number of violent incidents are growing. Unruly groups take over our parks having every tendency to turn violent. Our streets are unsafe by night.
Deep are the roots of the killings at VT as many tears are shed but the colleges have become as cities and we are going to have to address that problem.
Morality has become a fact that the news papers are reporting behind closed doors. The co-ed concept is not deemed to be addressable but the college children are publishing magazines and DVD that will lead to more shootings.
You have not seen the last of the rebellion as there is much more to come.
quote:
Originally posted by shadows
We are only a small section of land among many times the surface of water. We are a violent nation, born in violence, teaching violence, glorify in violence, stretching out to an accusing world our violence.
Eat me. Try living in Columbia for a while if you want to see violence.
quote:
Originally posted by shadows
We are only a small section of land among many times the surface of water. We are a violent nation, born in violence, teaching violence, glorify in violence, stretching out to an accusing world our violence.
We cannot secure our borders from importers of human flesh, drugs or guns. We scream to high heaven when an alien by birthrights conducts themselves in the ways we have taught them.
We are both the perpetrator and the victim of our own teachings. We open our borders to those who leave their homelands because of political disagreements but they do not leave the disagreement at its origin. The small number of violent incidents are growing. Unruly groups take over our parks having every tendency to turn violent. Our streets are unsafe by night.
Deep are the roots of the killings at VT as many tears are shed but the colleges have become as cities and we are going to have to address that problem.
Morality has become a fact that the news papers are reporting behind closed doors. The co-ed concept is not deemed to be addressable but the college children are publishing magazines and DVD that will lead to more shootings.
You have not seen the last of the rebellion as there is much more to come.
Wow, talk about the glass being half empty!
But hey, on a brighter note, I heard EVEN KANSAS has a carry-conceal law now! Good for them. At least that's one glimmer of hope.
As responsible citizens, we have the right to defend ourselves.
I've got my permit and shoot regularly at Tulsa Firearms.
quote:
Originally posted by Chicken Little
quote:
Originally posted by rwarn17588
Based on what we've heard so far, the shooter went over the deep end because of rejection from a girl.
Sheesh.
If he'd acted like most guys, he would have shrugged it off, turned the page and tried to woo some other female.
Geez, have you read the latest (//%22http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/V/VIRGINIA_TECH_SHOOTING?SITE=NYUTI&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT%22)? This kid had red flags all over him. He fit the "trenchoat mafia" profile to a tee. They believe he was on meds for depression, had recently set a fire in the dorm, was stalking women, refused to participate in class discussion, wrote "blood-soaked" plays.
If he was seeing a shrink, he should have been flagged on that March purchase. To be determined.
Yep, many red flags. Unfortunately, in this case anyhow, he had civil rights which prevented anyone from taking any action until he pointed a weapon at the first victim.
All he had to do was lie about taking anti-depressants or being treated for depression on his application to buy the firearm. He still could have bought one on the black market or from a private collector and circumvented the whole back-ground check.
I'm w/ Hawkins I appreciate the right to protect myself and my family.
quote:
Originally posted by shadows
We are only a small section of land among many times the surface of water. We are a violent nation, born in violence, teaching violence, glorify in violence, stretching out to an accusing world our violence.
We cannot secure our borders from importers of human flesh, drugs or guns. We scream to high heaven when an alien by birthrights conducts themselves in the ways we have taught them.
We are both the perpetrator and the victim of our own teachings. We open our borders to those who leave their homelands because of political disagreements but they do not leave the disagreement at its origin. The small number of violent incidents are growing. Unruly groups take over our parks having every tendency to turn violent. Our streets are unsafe by night.
Deep are the roots of the killings at VT as many tears are shed but the colleges have become as cities and we are going to have to address that problem.
Morality has become a fact that the news papers are reporting behind closed doors. The co-ed concept is not deemed to be addressable but the college children are publishing magazines and DVD that will lead to more shootings.
You have not seen the last of the rebellion as there is much more to come.
Uh.... You sound kinda scarey to me, where is this rebellion going to come from? Are you associated with it?
quote:
Originally posted by Wilbur
quote:
Originally posted by guido911
Has anyone blamed Vision 2025, Lottery, or Indian compacts for this tragedy yet?
Of course not. It's all George Bush's fault, remember?
Yep WIlbur. Here is Olberdouche proving your point...
http://hotair.com/archives/2007/04/17/video-olbermann-blames-bush-for-virginia-tech-massacre/
So wait, this guy went nuts and shot people because VT is a coed campus?
So is TU, OU, OSU, Roger's State, NSU as well as all the regional schools of KU, KSU, Texas, T Tech, T A&M, Arkansas, hell, the list includes 120+ of the 128 D-I schools. Even VMI is coed now.
I'm afraid you are lacking in correlation there. You have U Texas and VT as coed schools with serious shootings in the history of coeducation in America (lets say 60 years). Then you have a few thousand schools without. In all of Europe and Japan, as well as Canada, Australia, NZ, and most Latin American countries the vast majority of schools are coed. As far as I know - they dont suffer from a marked increase in violence either.
Is there something you know that you arent telling us? I'm so confused.
Here I thought science in higher education was to blame:
quote:
By: Steve on Tuesday, April 17th, 2007 at 5:20 PM - PDT
In 1999, as the nation was still coming to grips with the tragedy at Columbine High School, then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) took to the floor to identify what he saw as the real culprit: science classes. "Our school systems teach the children that they are nothing but glorified apes who are evolutionized [sic] out of some primordial soup," DeLay said. Young people learn modern biology, DeLay said, which in turn makes them feel insignificant, which in turn leads to violence.
This was, of course, one of the more loathsome comments made by one of Congress's more despicable people, but after yesterday's shootings at Virginia Tech, it was only a matter of time before someone who shares DeLay's worldview stepped up to assess yesterday's tragedy the same way.
Enter Ken Ham, a leading creationist activist, who leads an outfit called Answers in Genesis.
"We live in an era when public high schools and colleges have all but banned God from science classes. In these classrooms, students are taught that the whole universe, including plants and animals — and humans — arose by natural processes. Naturalism (in essence, atheism) has become the religion of the day and has become the foundation of the education system (and Western culture as a whole). The more such a philosophy permeates the culture, the more we would expect to see a sense of purposelessness and hopelessness that pervades people's thinking. In fact, the more a culture allows the killing of the unborn, the more we will see people treating life in general as 'cheap.'"
Ham, it's worth noting, wrote this yesterday. He couldn't even wait 24 hours before connecting the massacre and biology classes.
Of course, it is more likely that the WSJ gets it correct and the fault lies with a demented individual who was able to exploit the freedoms our society granted him to accomplish a horrific act:
quote:
The mass murder at Virginia Tech is the kind of traumatic event that unleashes a torrent of pop sociology and national psychoanalysis, so allow us to weigh in with a more fundamental explanation: There are evil and psychotic people in this world willing to do great harm to others if they aren't stopped. The dilemma in a free society is how to stop them.
http://opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110009956
Well, that or because they teach biology in a coed environment.
I like WSJ's point:
"The mass murder at Virginia Tech is the kind of traumatic event that unleashes a torrent of pop sociology and national psychoanalysis, so allow us to weigh in with a more fundamental explanation: There are evil and psychotic people in this world willing to do great harm to others if they aren't stopped. The dilemma in a free society is how to stop them."
Sure isn't any shortages of people wanting to be the next Dr. Phil on the airwaves the last few days. Larry King is even using the "real" Dr. Phil as his pop-psychoanalist.
Sure is good business for the mass media. They just love sh!t like this.[B)]
ABC News (//%22http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=3052278&page=1%22)
quote:
a district court in Montgomery County, Va., ruled that Cho presented "an imminent danger to self or others."
/That guy should not have been able to buy a gun in March.
Seems like a breakdown in the system. I believe that Virginia is a state that has extremely low standards for gun purchasers...
quote:
Originally posted by Chicken Little
ABC News (//%22http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=3052278&page=1%22)
quote:
a district court in Montgomery County, Va., ruled that Cho presented "an imminent danger to self or others."
/That guy should not have been able to buy a gun in March.
A little more of the headlines coming out now (impossible to avoid, try as I might) are suggesting he shouldn't have even been outside the confines of a mental hospital. I know sensational headlines sell. I'm not reading any more than the headlines because it's a public post-mortem which really won't solve anything and certainly won't reverse this crime.
I won't argue with the point he shouldn't have been able to buy a gun. However, there's no guarantee that a person's mental status will make it into the NICS. Keeping track of a few loose screws amongst 300 million people is a tough task.
Here's a citation of Virginia's law:
http://www.lcav.org/states/virginia.asp#bradylaw
"Mental defectives" (their word not mine) are not allowed to purchase firearms per mandate of the federal "Brady Bill" that all states must adhere to.
All the dealer has to do there is run the purchaser through NICS. Comes back clean, he gets his gun.
RL:
In a recent discussion with a psychologist concerning the functions preformed by the body that is host to the intelligent life it must depend on each day. She was a female and her education followed the present meanings of our past moral society. Asking if she considered herself as a professional and could relate to the body having the two brains that control separate and connected functions. She replied she could. Being the possibility that emotions share a place in both with thousands of nerves intertwined she was unable to answer and replied that was beyond her learning although hundreds of book are available.
If I were to cite parts establishing the concept of why are we here along with the desires of our host then I would be banned from this form. The underlying parts are being slowly reported on the VT killings.
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Your post quoted "Uh.... You sound kinda scarey to me, where is this rebellion going to come from? Are you associated with it?"
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No, only an observer but may see the clouds of the moral storm gathering like it did above the park recently.
quote:
Originally posted by Conan71
As long as the media glorifies shootings like this with their media-van circus and non-stop coverage, it appeals to loner nut-jobs to make a pathetic final statement.
Wow what a shocker...didn't see this coming, turns out this guy idolized Harris and Klebold, the perpetrators of the Columbine massacre, said they were martyrs. Wonder how he came to know so much about those guys...[:(!]
quote:
Originally posted by Conan71
quote:
Originally posted by Conan71
As long as the media glorifies shootings like this with their media-van circus and non-stop coverage, it appeals to loner nut-jobs to make a pathetic final statement.
Wow what a shocker...didn't see this coming, turns out this guy idolized Harris and Klebold, the perpetrators of the Columbine massacre, said they were martyrs. Wonder how he came to know so much about those guys...[:(!]
Seems the Media used the connection as a fillin to create a knowable conspiracy to keep interest.
quote:
Originally posted by shadows
quote:
Originally posted by Conan71
quote:
Originally posted by Conan71
As long as the media glorifies shootings like this with their media-van circus and non-stop coverage, it appeals to loner nut-jobs to make a pathetic final statement.
Wow what a shocker...didn't see this coming, turns out this guy idolized Harris and Klebold, the perpetrators of the Columbine massacre, said they were martyrs. Wonder how he came to know so much about those guys...[:(!]
Seems the Media used the connection as a fillin to create a knowable conspiracy to keep interest.
No ****. As well, they just gave the next nut-job more fodder for his rampage and to set the U.S. record in single day shooting sprees at 40. Is Guiness keeping records? Going out on a limb here, but if the media hadn't given so much attention to Columbine, maybe we still wouldn't know who Cho was.