VTech

Cloud · Post by **Cloud** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 3:17 pm

Umm. Do you think everyone will agree?

Not Sir Phobos · Post by **Not Sir Phobos** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 3:40 pm

transmet wrote:
Not Sir Phobos wrote:Believe me, involving more government and beurocratic processes rarely helps anything.

Instead be angry at the shooter who broke the law and found a way to kill people.
Yeah, you're right. I'm obviously just frustrated and very upset.
Going back and re-reading what I was trying to say... I'd fight it tooth-and-nail as well.
Whatever... just disregard. Chalk it up to a momentary lapse of judgment.

We all get passionate about things. I've stuck my foot in my mouth so much here I can tell just by the flavor what pair of shoes I'm wearing on any given day.

Cloud · Post by **Cloud** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 3:40 pm

Are you saying you don't care about it?

syan · Post by **syan** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 7:09 pm

Megala00 - I knew you had mentioned before you were in the Cburg/Bburg area, but didn't realize you were actually at Tech. I'm glad you and your friends are safe!

Glad your friends are okay too, kitttens!

For anyone interested, the university has set up a memorial fund, which you can donate to here.

Also, for those in the DC metro area, there will be a vigil held tomorrow night. More info can be found here.

MeganD. · Post by **MeganD.** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 7:17 pm

Not Sir Phobos wrote:The serial numbers had been filed off the Glocks. They were illegally obtained.

By all accounts I've read, including the two below from ABC Online and Forbes.com, the shooter purchased the guns legally.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/20 ... 900113.htm

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/04/ ... 23471.html

kittens · Post by **kittens** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 7:18 pm

syan wrote: For anyone interested, the university has set up a memorial fund, which you can donate to here.

Also, for those in the DC metro area, there will be a vigil held tomorrow night. More info can be found here.

Cool

Thank you for the info

I will donate some.....

Cloud · Post by **Cloud** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 7:19 pm

We welcome your donation to the ALICE AI Foundation. Please visit our contributions page at <a>Alicebot. org</a>.

wELCOME cONSUMER · Post by **wELCOME cONSUMER** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 7:55 pm

Very sad and disturbing news, indeed. I feel so sorry for the people involved and affected by this tragedy.

Post by **JWR** » Wed Apr 18, 2007 8:18 pm

This is the best posting I have found on V Tech tragedy by Dean Barnett filling in for Hugh Hewett.

Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Tragedy at Virginia Tech
Posted by Dean Barnett | 8:25 AM

Friends, what an unspeakably awful day.

I was traveling up from Boston yesterday to pinch-hit for Hugh. I was taking the train from Boston so I could broadcast live from the Empire State Building. On the train, people began whispering about something happening at Virginia Tech. Working our cell phones, we found out something incredibly, unbelievably terrible had occurred. Getting the full report was like taking a kick to the gut. So many young people dying so senselessly…

Last night on Hugh’s show, I spent the whole three hours talking about Virginia Tech and taking phone calls on it. Some people viewed it through a prism that probably dominated their worldview long before yesterday’s tragedy. One caller said we had brought this upon ourselves because college kids were doing too much shacking up. One emailer said that we had turned our kids into a bunch of wusses, and that if we brought back things like Dodgeball, things would get better.

A lot of people questioned the response of the Virginia Tech police department. The first two murders occurred at 7:15 in the morning. The next thirty murders happened at 9:40. A lot of people wanted to know why, with a murderer on the loose, Virginia Tech didn’t put the campus into lockdown.

That position didn’t make much sense to me. Virginia Tech has a student population of almost 30,000. Adding in the staff members, faculty, etc., the Virginia Tech community numbers over 35,000 people. If there was an unsolved murder in a city of 35,000, would the city go into lockdown mode until the crime was solved? Would the city authorities even consider going into lockdown mode? Given the facts that the authorities yesterday understood the motive for the initial killings and there was absolutely no reason to believe a mass murderer was on the loose, shutting down the campus would have been a bizarre reaction to the initial tragedies.

Still, it would be satisfying if we could somehow make sense out of this senseless act. If we could find someone in authority who performed less than adequately, that would explain things. Even if the root cause was something more obscure like the fact that our kids don’t play bombardment anymore, at least we’d know where we went wrong and how we could begin to fix it.

What makes tragedies like this one so gut-wrenching, though, is precisely their inexplicable nature. They are truly, literally senseless.

And yet it’s in our nature to try to make sense of the things we don’t or even can’t understand. But I’ll tell you something: Searches for reasons and explanations here are going to bring us up empty. The painful fact is that terrible things happen. There are evil people who do evil things. There’s nothing more to it than that. There’s no policy prescription that can make things like this never happen again.

But still, we try. We try to read larger patterns into what was essentially a random act of madness. I heard Jack Cafferty on CNN yesterday saying that such things only happen in America and they only happen in our schools. Both of those things aren’t true. Now I understand what Cafferty’s trying to do – he’s trying to identify a problem so we can then attack it with logic and common sense. But situations like this? That doesn’t work.

Horrible things like this happen. If we can take anything from this, maybe we can use it as a reminder of how truly fragile life is. Ultimately, tomorrow is guaranteed to no one. The best we can do is cherish every day and most especially the people we love who bless our lives.

To the Virginia Tech community and especially those who lost ones dear to them – the thoughts and prayers of the nation are with you.

Cloud · Post by **Cloud** » Wed Apr 18, 2007 8:19 pm

Yes I am the one and only full report was like taking a kick to the gut. God, or Nature, perhaps?

klet · Post by **klet** » Wed Apr 18, 2007 8:41 pm

Blueheaven, Meganla00, syan and kittens, I'm glad that you and your loved ones are safe.

My university will also be holding a candlelight vigil on Thursday night.

blueheaven · Post by **blueheaven** » Wed Apr 18, 2007 9:22 pm

I just hope the families and friends of the victims can find strength in each other to carry on after this.

Not Sir Phobos · Post by **Not Sir Phobos** » Thu Apr 19, 2007 9:40 am

MeganD. wrote:
Not Sir Phobos wrote:The serial numbers had been filed off the Glocks. They were illegally obtained.
By all accounts I've read, including the two below from ABC Online and Forbes.com, the shooter purchased the guns legally.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/20 ... 900113.htm

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/04/ ... 23471.html

Yeah, that's what I found out yesterday. Very odd that he'd file off the serial numbers AFTER a legal purchase. It's a practice typically used when a gun is stolen and resold on the black market.

But then again he killed 32 people, I guess I shouldn't assume anything.

MMMmmmMMMmm, I'm wearing sketchers today

Cordelia · Post by **Cordelia** » Fri Apr 20, 2007 2:09 am

My heart goes out to all the families of the victims and even the shooter. The pain will be with them forever, it's something that they will have to bear forever. It makes me angry that such a tragedy if not prevented, could at least been scaled down. I blame the shooter, the ppl who did not do enough when they saw warning signs and most of all, I blame the right to bear arms.

I know this is a sensitive issue. But I come from a place where guns are outlawed for civilians and it pains me when there are ppl who actually argue against such a rule. What abt innocent ppl's right not to be shot by a psychopath, desperate robber or even careless hunter? The extent of damage is so much greater when individuals are allowed to buy guns because you can't control who uses it after that and how they use it. Until something is done about easy access to guns, what's stopping similar incidents from happening again?

blueheaven · Post by **blueheaven** » Fri Apr 20, 2007 8:35 am

I understand that this is the culture you come from, and our way of life must seem so alien to you. But the truth of the matter is, anyone who wants a gun, even in places where it is outlawed, will get a gun. And the places that restrict gun ownership tend to have comparable murder rates to that of countries with no such restrictions. Gun ownership is a right in this country because we reserve the right to protect ourselves against threats by others, and our own government. The 2nd amendment was designed to allow the populace a chance to defend ourselves from an over-reaching government if the act was needed. Think about the societies of the past where guns were outlawed for citizens. Cambodia. Nazi Germany. While it may seem alien to you, we are a country of nearly 300 million people, all from different backgrounds and cultures, living side by side. We are an anomaly in that way, as no other country in the world with our population boasts such diversity. As I've said before, this young man was going to kill. Had he not used a gun, he would have made a bomb. It's tragic, nonetheless.