The shootings

[herveus]

I hold in the light the students and faculty of Virginia Tech. I don't know what else to say about the incident.

On the other hand, I've heard disturbing but unsurprising remarks by the terminally clueless. While tuning my portable radio, I stumbled across someone opining darkly that There Will Be A Reckoning over the response from VT to the initial shootings -- as in, why weren't they prescient enough to realize that those were the opening shots in a campaign of terror? Segue smoothly from that into an immigration rant. Wow. Real helpful. I'm glad I didn't catch the moron's name. 700 on the AM dial, somewhere between 8:30 and 9 last night.

I heard a student wonder aloud why they didn't immediately lock the campus down based on the first two shootings -- shootings that have not yet been definitely connected with the rampage in Norris. I heard the president of Tech and the campus police chief speak on their thought processes. I don't see where they were derelict in considering those shootings to be a domestic quarrel of some sort, and they believed that the perpetrator had left the campus and was probably leaving the state.

It is way too early to start the political posturing over this. Have a shred of decency, people! I know that is difficult for some of you out there, but please try.

Comments

[nateprentice.livejournal.com]

I think that people forget how actually rare mass shootings like this are. When I was at the U. of Penn. we had a couple of shootings but they never locked down the campus. I think that the campus police probably acted appropriately based on what they knew at the time.

[snolan.livejournal.com]

Well said... It is both natural to assume that two shootings in a dorm might be domestic violence gone out of control, and natural to lash out inappropriately when shocked and stung with pain...

I suspect that everyone near the campus will be forgiven knee-jerk reactions at the time and that the University administration will be found to have done the best they could given the little information they had at the time.

Those who are farther removed from the scenario should probably just shut up and pray, since their facts are being filtered (that includes me, but it also includes our clueless national leadership).

[thatpotteryguy.livejournal.com]

I am still faintly nauseated by those who insist that if the University were not an area where weapons are banned, that the students might have ahd a chance to defend themselves...

Oh, definitely, that's a good idea. Allow conceale carry on the campus. Then, instead of a lone gunman, you've got a free-fire zone, with the likelyhood of even more inoocent bystanders getting hurt.

The dude methodically shot 60 people. That suggests to me that he wasn't going to be swayed by the possibility that one or more of his potential victims was armed. 31 dead - that takes an absolute lack of nerves.

And it was made even worse by The Shrub getting on national television and feeling the families pain...there should be a law banning that sort of spectacle.

Incidentally, whether the presindent of the university and the chief of police were right or wrong in thier decision not to lock the campus down, I suspect that they will both lose their jobs over this.

[maggiebowgirl.livejournal.com]

I know when I was at GWU, just a year ago, it was still difficult to get word out to people about class cancellations, school closings, etc. And that was when there wasn't an immediate threat.

Even in this era of technological wonders, its not possible to tell /everyone/ everything, instantly, all at once. You're always going to miss people. Not everyone has a cell phone, not everyone has their cell phone on. Not everyone listens to the radio, especially with iPods now, not everyone checks their email every 5 minutes and especially not on their way to class or in class.

Even in the dorm, with RA's going up and down the halls, some people /still/ didn't know - not paying attention, asleep, hungover, who knows.

I've never been to the VA Tech campus, but if its anything like the Univ. of Kansas campus, another large state school, its nigh unto impossible to block every access point to the campus. Sure you can try to block the roads, but there is always /someone/ who manages to drive right by. And all the pedestrian access can't be shut off. The vast majority of times when I was KU and drove, I parked off campus and walked. I never even had my car near where a road might be blocked off.

Even if they had sent out the warning email 5 minutes after the first shooting, most people probably wouldn't have gotten it till later in the morning anyway. It wasn't until around the lunch hour that anyone really began to understand the severity of what was going on.

[sskipstress.livejournal.com]

For some people to be able to cope with a horror, they need to understand that horror. They need to break down all of its parts until it's something they can handle. They need to know what went wrong, they need to identify the "should haves." And right now, these are the people the media are targeting with their constant and deeper coverage.

This may seem disrespectful, but it's really just another way to cope.

It was the same after 9/11 and I had to stop watching TV and listening to the radio because it didn't take long until I had had enough. I'm hoping the coverage simmers down by next week because I'm going to be traveling through some areas where it really helps to be able to hear the traffic reports as I go, but I don't a constant barrage of the details of this shooting.

[maggiebowgirl.livejournal.com]

You're very right, people do react differently and its easier for us to be more rational about it as we are more removed. I guess I just wish there were more 'rational' voices out there being calm. I was rather impressed with the Uni president and police chief for how calm they were and how careful with their statements and such.

[luscious-purple.livejournal.com]

I'm just saddened over the whole thing.

I went to college on a VERY urban campus in Boston. You had to show an ID card to get into the library and the dorms, but the classroom buildings were open to anybody who walked in the doors.

In the course of a day, a college student might go in and out of half a dozen buildings. I can't imagine going through airport-style (or Old Post Office Building-style) checkpoints at every single one of those entrances. Bleah.

[weatherman2111.livejournal.com]

Talk radio has always bene a cesspool of ignorance and idiocy. I'm not suprised by anything on there these days.

[northernwalker]

It's all so terribly sad.

Re getting out information: I remember what happened when I was visiting The Catholic University of America one evening. It was around 10:45pm in April. J. and I were sitting out in front of her dorm talking and smoking (well, she was smoking, I wasn't) when a campus cop pulled up and told us we needed to get inside immediately because when they had an armed robbery spree crossing the campus and going into surrounding areas. Since I lived three blocks from campus, I was somewhat concerned about getting home. Luckily, the gentleman was more than willing to drive me back. We were discussing the situation, and he told me that this had been happening over a three hour period. During which time, J. and I had returned to our metro stop, said goodbye to another friend and walked up to her dorm. We'd gotten there about half an hour before. We neither saw nor heard anything until the cop drove by. While she had a cell, we hadn't gotten a message (and how many universities have a phone tree with cell numbers anyway?) Email would not have helped, and even on a small campus like CUA the campus police can't be everywhere.


Segue smoothly from that into an immigration rant.
Considering the gunman had lived in the US legally for 14 years, I'm not impressed by their logic.

[herveus.livejournal.com]

...and given that all that had been said about the gunman was that he was "asian" at the point where the mo-ron ranted about borders, it wasn't even logic. It was simply changing the subject to rant about something.

[northernwalker]

What border was supposed to stop him? He arrived 14 years ago. Ninny.