It's not often that current events afffect me much. Often I know that things in the world happen and there is nothing I can do other than to be compassionate.

The school shooting in Virginia makes me a little nervous.

Since I teach at an engineering college, I understand the enormous pressures that we all face at the end of the semester. While I can't do much to help colleagues at VT, I'm thinking there should be an open dialogue in class about how to cope with the pressures of college and relationships that begin and end during the semester.

We should all be looking out for each other in college and helping people who are struggling academically and emotionally. While teachers play a role, peer comradery is what most would help I think.

i agree. it seems to me that quite often these types of things are carried out by people who feel alienated and marginalised or are suffering from psychiatric disorders and depression. it is so easy for them to slip between the cracks and not get noticed or helped.

i just can't shake the overwhelming sadness these events engender in me. in some ways, it would be easier to feel really angry and point the finger at one "psycho", but it happens too often to treat it as an isolated event and not as something in our societies. and when it happens, it all to often strikes a chord with others feeling the same way.

all i can do is remind myself that community is something we have to work on these days so i should talk to my neighbours, not ignore people who just want to chat while i'm waiting for the train, and actually be interested in the real answer when I ask someone, "How are you?".

Stuff like this sickens me to the core.

I can't imagine what drives an individual to do such a heinous act.

I find it really hard to write a post that makes sense about an act so senseless!

:(

When I was in college it was hard to get perspective because I *did* have a supportive groups of friends, plus a slew of counselors (that's another strange story) to help me through. But since I was going to school far away from home, it was also difficult to get away from those people and be myself. The town was small, and had two colleges, so everyone was about the business of academics.

I quit that very good college because I did not fit in. And I went home to a bigger, less prestigious university with fewer close friends, and more *real* world that helped me escape the pressure of academics.

It may also be true in this case that family pressure to succeed was great. My folks were hands-off by the time I had done the American Teen Rebellion thing, which I guess is lucky for me.

One person decided to do that, then others relate to that person's motives and think that they should take up the same action to rid their problems.


I couldn't think to name a shooting in schools before the Media starting gaining influence. Nor one from outside America, where it has been admitted that gun laws have been relaxed...

School violence around the world

There are shootings from other countries - most are in the U.S., though...

There have many such stories, and not just in the U.S., as Ess pointed out.

This is NOT a case of gun laws, period. No purchase background checks can catch such a thing. No amount of training or licensing could stop a single person's mental sickness.

This is also not strictly an American phenomenon, nor is it the media's influence altogether. These are symptoms of much more deeply rooted problems that can affect us all.

Overwhelmingly most.

A background check may not have yielded anything...but what about at least a cooling off period?
History is littered with murderous crimes of passion and random acts of violence and insanity. What makes them so much more horrifying now is the availability of guns.

He took the time to calculate many things. So did Ted Kazcinski - the Unibomber - who never used a gun.

Mental people use bombs, knives, bathtubs, fire, poison, broken glass, rocks and cars to send their message of death to the world.

I am for some gun control - in the form of licenses and mandatory training - but so many people around the world suffer from mental illnesses, and that is a whole other set of preventions and solutions.

IOW: I would not call for gun control based on a case like this.

Sadly this shows what happens in a "No Gun Area". I can't help but wonder how many fewer lives might have been lost if let's say that professor was properly trained and had a hand gun available to protect his class room rather than have to wait for help that could never get there in time.

Guns are not the problem, guns in the hands of the wrong people are the problem.
If you made guns illegal then the only people that would have guns are criminals, where would that leave all the law abiding citizens? It would leave then all defenseless, defenseless like all the students at VT. If only one person armed with a legal firearm could of shot back, could of ended this rampage, how many lives might that of saved?

Guns shouldn't be allowed on campuses. Period. The thought of having students walking around with holsters is outlandish.

What really got me angry was the stupid way that both the White House and John McCain just stepped up and talked about their position on gun control, instead of the sadness of mental illness, instead of compassion for the families, instead of putting aside their f88king political stances for a day or two.

That's not the kind of leadership or example anyone should follow, and it doesn't set a very good tone for our nation.

Apparently the guy was declared mentally insane and a danger to himself and those around him by a Virginia courtroom, two full years before this happened.

Why does the state of Virginia allow mentally unstable and dangerous people to buy guns? Can someone explain this to me as if I was a four year old.?

I was pretty pissed off, irrationally so, at the suggestion of encouraging gun possession on campus. Besides the usual worry about drunk frat-boys (a standard concern), I think that having gun-touting undergrads strikes me as the wrong sort of environment for a university. Universities are, supposed to be, places of free discourse and open exchange of thoughts. I think that frank, and occasionally controversial discussion are the hallmark of a good university, and I can't help but imagine handguns hindering that. Let's not throw the baby out with the bath water.

On top of this, the idea of a Professor with a gun would be like insisting that Senators carry a sawed-off, or giving the Queen a shiv. Professors have been going to school for at least 10 years, and have been climbing the greasy pole of academia for probably another 5 to 8. It seems kind of crass to hand our society's intellectual elite a gun and tell him/her to defend the students. If people are so gung-ho on beefing up security, then do exactly that: beef up security. Professors trained to do research, mentor students, and teach undergraduates, not provide a robust defensive response. It seems like a huge admission of failure on the part of the university when you try to conscript academics into some rag-tag militia.

Besides, it would kind of slant the experience of courses like "Philosophy 532A: Ethical Theory and Practice" if your prof was brandishing a Sig Sauer.

I'm not going to waste any more time arguing for gun control. The national obssession with the 2nd amendment is something I'll never understand but it's part of the American psyche, so I accept that. It's like arguing about religion.

Mentally ill people often lie and hide.

We're just looking for reasons in an unreasonable situation.

I'm not sure that I'd worry about undergraduates having guns on campus. It's the grad students I'd worry about. The guns would totally change the nature of group discussions in Persuasion and Argumentation.

While I agree that the more troubling aspect of this case is that it is and will be politicized instead of being responded to oon a human level, there are lessons we can take from the event and apply to political discussions.

People will use this case to talk about the need for gun control, both total control and better restictions on who can pruchase a gun, but the reality is that all college campuses that I know have written policies forbidding guns on campus. No person other than campus safety may have a firearm on campus proporety or during campus events. The problem with such a policy is that it is rarely enforced. I'm not sure if it could be enforced.

But these are lessons that distract us from the human element of what had happened. The events could happen at any school or business. I think we could say, "Beware of English majors," but the larger point is that we should comfort those people who have been touched by the tragedy.

i don't think it is the gun laws at fault, i do think there is a problem with the gun culture. (which would be about the first and only thing i have ever agreed with PM Howard on.) The firearms controls and the govt. buy back scheme introduced here after the port arthur massacre have been effective and the difficulty in obtaining self-loading weapons etc saved lives in the monash university shooting where the student had broght five guns with him, wanting to kill many, but was able to be disarmed while reaching for another weapon and so only killed two. i can't see how this would help in the US, with so many firearms already circulating illegally even with lax laws.

I think you're right. In fact I read an article today, can't remember where though, that also compares gun rights in the US as if it were a religious belief. I'm not sure I would go that far myself but someone in the media has. Might have been the IHT.

Journalism Grad students are definitely a shady bunch. :ph43r:

I agree JG.

There was a CU-Boulder student who was arrested for making jokes (in bad taste, but perfectly legal) in his classroom yesterday.

Arrested for joking.

That is the fear factor, and the real harm of these kinds of incidents. I have every sympathy for the families, but no sympathy for overreactors and posers.

From the Rocky Mountain Collegian

CU satirist arrested
Student's remarks frighten others in light of Virginia Tech massacre
Vimal Patel and Jim Holt
Issue date: 4/19/07 Section: News


A Colorado-Boulder student arrested for making allegedly threatening comments during a classroom discussion is a "really nice guy" with a "tongue-in-cheek, twisted sense of humor," a friend said Wednesday.

Max Karson, a psychology major, was arrested after witnesses told investigators they felt threatened to be in class with him after a class discussion about the Virginia Tech shootings, a CU police official said.

"He raised his hand and said he could easily understand how people can get mad enough to kill 32 people," said Cmdr. Brad Wiesley of the CU Police Department.

"He said things like the walls and the lights were making him angry enough that he could kill people. Many of the students in that class felt personally threatened and were afraid to go back to class."

But friends described Karson, an editor of a small publication that sparks debate on controversial issues such as race and ethnicity, as a friendly guy with a wicked sense of humor.

"I thought, 'oh, geez, there's Max again,'" said Laura Kellogg, a CU student and friend of Karson's, about hearing of her friend's arrest. "He's all about satire."

After Karson made his comments, other students questioned him. One asked if he would come to class with a gun on Thursday and kill people, to which he responded, "Maybe not this Thursday," Wiesley said.

A message left on Karson's father's answering machine was not returned by Wednesday night.

He was arrested on Tuesday after a meeting with the vice chancellor of student affairs and police officials.

Karson appeared in court at 2 p.m. on Wednesday and is free on bail. He's accused of interfering with faculty, staff or students at an educational institution, a misdemeanor with a maximum penalty of 18 months in jail and a $5,000 fine.

"Max is probably the most intelligent and kind person I know and he has everyone's best interests at heart," said Stephanie Coyle, a CU student and friend of Karson's. "He addresses issues that people are afraid to talk about."

Karson is the editor of The Yeti, a small newsletter that he hand distributes personally on the CU campus. In it, he writes - often times clearly satirically - about everything from relationships to politics.

Students at CSU interviewed Wednesday evening were divided about the arrest.

"It's a good thing he was arrested," said Danny Littler, a sophomore speech communication major. "There's always talk about the warning signs and why action wasn't taken."

But Audrey Rudolph, a senior international studies major, said he thinks police overreacted.

"If he said it at any other time, he wouldn't have been arrested," he said. "People are just on 'high alert' right now."

Wiesley from the CU Police Department said First Amendment protection doesn't necessarily apply in this case.

"You can't say anything you want wherever you want to," he said. "You can't go in a theater and yell fire and cause a stampede that would hurt people. … There is a line that you can't go beyond."





BTW - Boulder is known as The People's Republic of Boulder because of its policing and general attitude.

Sorry, JD - I think that is akin to yelling "Hijack" in an airport or "Fire" in a theatre. Maybe his close friends knew he was joking, but others didn't.
I don't think that is at all funny. :no:

Cho's great-aunt was on TV last night telling us that he was quiet and strange back in S. Korea. There were so many warnings, but like 9/11, they weren't all put together.

Just to clairfy - I think there were better ways to handle the situation than to call the police, for heaven's sake. It could have been cleared up fairly quickly with an apology.

Meanwhile, there was a *real* threat that took police action at CSU, my uni. A young man on the roof threatening suicide and something about starting a fire. Police action appropriate in that case.

I think calling the police was appropriate in both cases.

Lets lay down our right to bare arms

Gun-free zones are recipe for disaster

There will always be people standing on both sides of the fence. I want to be on the side that allows me to carry a gun and defend myself if the need ever arises.
Hiding under a desk, scared and praying, doesn't cut it for me.

I'm wondering why nobody has answered the question I've raised earlier. About why a legally declared mentally disturbed and dangerous individual should be allowed to pack to heat.

And I want to be on the side where I'm not forced to defend myself with the ability to inflict lethal amounts of damage. One of my favorite quotes is: "When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail." I believe that people are more responsible when they aren't always in contact with a kill-switch.

Come on, we're trying to have a civilization here. Let's try to prove Hobbes wrong.

Now this deserves applause. Spectacular.

I'm sorry Parrrrtay. There is much I love about America, the country, the people and it's laws, but they still have serious gun issues.

EDIT:

Now this is truly astounding.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/21/us/21gun...gin&oref=slogin

He shouldn't have had a gun after all.

I did C6, even though I thought it might be a rhetorical question.

edit: your article makes the point that public records of court rulings in mental health cases ARE available in searchable databases, and that VA has a good record of those kinds of checks.

The interesting thing is that had the laws been observed this individual would have not been able to buy guns, as it is illegal to sell guns to mentally disturbed individuals. the issue was a lack of communication between the various departments.

Daemon

And in martial arts you learn to never carry a weapon that you don't want used against you.

As to the mentally disturbed question, I don't think that it's a matter of poor communication between departments. It's a lack of political will.

Any person who does this would have found a way to get a gun even if he was denied the right to get a legal one.

Even if that is true, it doesn't mean that we should make it easier for them to buy guns legally, any more so than the fact that certain burglars can get around home alarm systems shouldn't legalise burglary.



«In the United States, if you are seriously depressed, you can purchase anti-depressive drugs like Prozac, but only if you have a prescription from a doctor. Anti-depressants are enormously beneficial to millions of people but they are also potentially dangerous if used improperly. So, you have to see a doctor and get an assessment before you can go to a drug store and purchase one.

But in the United States, in places like Virginia, a seriously depressed or deranged person can walk into a store and buy a semi-automatic handgun and a box of ammunition.» - Robert Reich.

http://robertreich.blogspot.com/2007/04/gu...assacre-in.html

So True

If I could I would go back in time and delete the invention of the cannon from history, then none of this would ever have happened. :(

(The gun gets my vote as the worst invention of all time.)




Governments should be doing more to help their citizens rather than trying to meet budgets, they already tax everything we buy.

Mental illness of this type knows no legalities, no bounds, and honors no social norms.

If he hadn't gotten a gun, it would have been a bomb, or a knife, or fire or poison. The problem is the illness and the lack of balls to help a person who was going down a loooong frickin track to self-destruction.




I think all weapons are an extension of our hands, which are an extension of our thinking.