I don’t know if there are any other VT students/alums in FF, but I graduated in the class of 2004 from VT, so yesterday’s disaster hits pretty close to home.
Just wanted to express my shock, sorrow, and sympathy for the current students/faculty, as well as the victims and their families/friends.
Wow Shanti, I didn’t know you use to attend there. It was a huge shock for me, cant imagine the shock you feel.
It’s definatly shocking what some people will do… The families, friends, students and everyone who has been affected by this tragic incident is in my thoughts and prayers.
I can only imagine how shocked and hurt I’d be if something like this had happened at one of my old schools. I’m keeping all those involved in my thoughts.
Yeah it’s too close to home for me and I’m all the way up at WVU. But still so weird since we hear about VT all the time since we’re pretty big rivals. I can’t believe that boy was so depressed that he felt he needed to do that. Just made me sick when I heard about it. My heart goes out to everyone at VT and those who were affected.
I can’t believe that after all the school shootings that there has been that we have not come up with anything preventitive. This morning I heard that students and professors were disturbed by him and that he has had stalker incidents and has had cops called on him before and nothing further could be done. Apparently teachers aren’t allowed to call home because that would go against student privacy laws. It is ridiculous that these school shootings keep occuring aren’t we supposed to learn from the past so we do not repeat history? I guess it is too hard to distinguish between just disturbed and actually psychotic :.
It is sad and my heart goes out to all those who have lost loved ones and friends.
^^ Yeah I read that too… Apparently he wrote very disturbing stories about killing people, etc. Going into great detail… Sick. He didn’t commit a crime though so really nobody could have done anything. And he was apparently admitted to mental health before for being suicidal. I think if they thought he was a psycho they would have let him out. So your write, hard to tell between disturbed and psychos…
We talked about this at my work (I’m a graduate student, so I work at UNC’s campus) and we’ve pretty much all agreed that there really isn’t anything you can do to prevent tragedies like this from happening. There’s no way to closely monitor 10,000+ students and even if it was, would you really want your teachers forcing you to daily psych evaluations or something? Or to have to walk through metal detectors every time you walked into any building on a campus? (Though then you’d just have outdoor shootings).
When you consider the violence around the world, I think it’s impressive that the deadliest shooting in US history is only 30+ people. It’s awful and by no means do I think that we should be like “wow, only 30 students, we’re lucky” but at the same time, I do think we’re lucky that 30 is a tragic number in the US. How many people die every day in countries in Africa or the Middle East?
I second what Andrea said. We talked about it in my classes too, and prevention is basically impossible, on any campus. What it comes down to is like what Andrea said- do we really want to have to walk through metal detectors or take phych evaluations? I come from a small campus where people are so trusting, and we are basically a little community. With trust being so paramount, it’s hard for me to fathom anything like this. A college’s top priority is to provide a safe environment for the students, but sometimes, there’s almost nothing you can do. It really is a scary concept, and it strikes me as a college student as being very close to home. My heart and prayers go out to all the students, faculty, staff, families, and all those affected by this tragedy.
The only thing I can think of that they could have done differently is allow the teacher to mandate that the shooter go to psychiatric counseling (supposedly his creative writing projects were focused on killings and other disturbing topics). But even then, it’s not like sociopaths can’t appear normal, so even counseling wouldn’t have necessarily flagged the guy as a future serial killer or something.
I agree with your last statement. It is terrifying what happened, and even more so that those who witnessed it reported that he was calm when he did it. From what I’ve heard, three of his professors actually expressed concerns. In the end though, the professors basically have no power over the outcome of the situation. Evidently the institution has to make the decisions, and since he was an adult, he has to agree to it unless he commits a crime or does something that is dangerous to himself or others… Apparently, having nothing incriminating but some writings, however disturbing, aren’t enough to commit someone. It’s sad that the system, which is set up to protect us, can’t catch everyone.
It becomes a grey area, though…“free speech” allows you to write about killing people, provided you don’t do it. So I doubt any institution has the right to force someone to see a counselor just for writing about killing people. Until you pull the trigger (or steal/illegally purchase a gun), you haven’t committed a crime.
I just don’t understand the whole gun thing in America. 
Why is it so hard to control guns in such a developed country? You never really hear of major issues like this coming out of say England, Australia, Canada, France… It’s so sad that this has happened again. 
Oh I beg to differ Jason… we have had our share of gun related atrocities here in Canada as well. We have had our own campus shootings. It’s not a matter of controlling the guns… its a matter of controlling who can get them. While we here in Canada don’t have the American “Right to bear Arms” it isn’t that hard to get them if you want them!!!
Ah ok… It’s just that the BIG HUGE gun issues always come out of the USA.
That’s because, like Smylie said, its in the U.S. Constitution that every American has the right to bear arms(goes back to the founding fathers being afraid that gun control would make citizens unable to fight back-like with the Brits). Anyway, although in one way I wish we could take every gun out of every person’s hand to make things like this more difficult at least, I also identify with the hunters(although not a hunter myself). Plus, as a recreatioal hiker around Alaska’s wilderness(plus I’m majoring in geology which may often require me to be out in the wilderness) I’ve just recently discovered the significance to being able to carry a “bear gun” for safety(because of this its legal in Alaska to carry a concealed weapon without a permit). Basically, I think there should be much stricter policies about who is able to purchase guns, waiting periods until you can receive your gun and so on. With the waiting period thing, its worth noting that the VT shooter bought his guns weeks before the actual shootings so waiting may not have affected this particular incident much.
I do feel horribly for those students and their familes. It seemed like such a random act and I can’t imagine what it must be like on campus right now.
I don’t really know anyone invloved but my heart goes out to the students and epecially the families of the students killed in the massacre. It is a tragedy, truly.
As for what Andrea said, I totally agree. In Darfur, over 10,000 are being brutally murdered a month, that’s over 300 people a day. Also, in Iraq many more people are dying. However, I’m not saying this is small. 32 people is a heck of a lot and I can’t imagine what could have pushed Cho so far over the edge to kill so many innocent people.
I was thinking today and was just wondering, have there been any reports about this man’s parents? I really feel for them… I can’t fathom (sp?) what they must be going through…
They’re not talking to the press. They own a dry cleaning service somewhere–I forget. Poor folks.
For those of you on college campuses, have there been any signs of a wave of anti-Asian/anti-Korean sentiment? I know on the daily jolt (which is not exactly representative of the student body at large, and is kinda a way for people to vent and is generally inappropriate), there were a couple anti-Asian posts afterwards, and a couple folks in my Korean history class were called by their parents and told to be careful. Keep in mind that I got a very liberal school in New England…
Jase, as for gun control, my understanding is the same sorts of things happen in other countries, just with different weapons. From what I understand (which is based on someone else at work’s statement) countries with stronger gun control laws just see a higher incidence of things like stabbing people to death. Sure, it’s probably harder to go on a mass stabbing rampage all at once (and victims have a better chance of fighting back) but if you want to kill people in any country you’re going to be able to do it.
Gun-control laws were trying to be put in place here in Canada and having a national gun registry which ended up falling through because originally budgeted at 300 million dollars to do it ended up costing us… 1 BILLION DOLLARS. Good old Canadian government for you…
It does happen everywhere though because when this showed up I thought back to the Taber, Alberta shooting (not too sure besides the Canadians who knows of it) now too long after Columbine which is less than 1/2 an hr. away from where I am now. was a pretty sad day to know that it could happen here too, not to mention the Dawson, Montreal shootings from September fresh in the mind as well.
It just seems to be an ever-growing trend. However, they’ve been reporting that VT didn’t have many security staff and doesn’t have cameras on site if thats what I’m hearing right? Here at our University they have around 50-60 cameras throughout the University, and two different staffing points for security (likely because of the Taber incident) but they’re pretty strict about a lot of things.
Its sad to see though this is becoming an almost monthly occurance where we hear about some incident that has happened, and I feel for everyone that has been affected by it