Hot Air is tracking the story closely.
Meanwhile, the sociologists at the Democratic Underground are in thesis-framing mode, already placing the blame where it belongs—with the NRA. Because clearly, had we simply banned guns, nobody would have been hurt. And in fact, as one commenter at Hot Air pointed out, because guns are already illegal at Virginia Tech, this shooting must never really have taken place. See? Reality-based.
Next up: ban war, bring about peace! Because life is just like a shiny gold bottle with a progressive genie inside. Just keep rubbing!
At any rate, let’s not emulate these idiots and jump to our own reckless conclusions. My thoughts and prayers to the families and friends of the victims.
****
update: Rick emailed this link to Brutally Honest, which features an IM with a VT student.
One person who had taken the NRA’s shooting course and obtained a conceal carry permit in VA could have ended it before the death toll hit 20.
My brother is a student at Tech and he said the place is on complete lockdown. No ID means cuffs.
Jealous boyfriend apparently.
Jeff,
We can’t ban war until the motion is brought forth by our new Minster of Peace & non-Violence, silly, we’ll just remove the funding for those response for war, the US Military & especially white, Christian males & Republicans.
Just remember, the first 24 hours of media coverage of this event are likely to be significantly, if not totally, incorrect.
Because what this situation calls for is more irrational violence.
Twenty? That takes time. Hours, apparently. And one of the 20(+) is the guy who did it, reportedly. (And he did it because he didn’t have a school ID, I guess is the theory.)
I’ve missed the TV coverage, so–did the police just not bother to show up until it was all safely over, or did they sit there for hours watching people die through their scopes? Because of the bravery.
(Yeah, my NRA sticker doesn’t mean the same thing yours does.)
Jan 31:
Yeah…. Thanks for that, Larry.
Hokie Pundit closed up shop earlier this year. Who else can we turn to for some on-the-spot bloggage?
God bless the victims, and their families. Good Christ, just imagine the parents…
The first place the loons at DU go is one of their tired political talking points supporting the Democrat Party?
I am OUTRAGED!!1!
Holy shit. Fox is reporting 32 dead. God have mercy.
Not bloggage, exactly, but there’s the college paper updating here. Aside from that, Allah is doing yeoman’s work, as Jeff noted.
Unbelieveable.
It’s beyond comprehension to me.
“Good night, America, how are you?
I said don’t you know me, I’m your native son.”
For God’s sakes! What have we created here? It doesn’t seem to resemble anything I grew up with. But then again, I’m old and none of the little shits at DU and Kos could give a shit about the values I was taught.
Because THEIR COCKS COME FIRST!
Hey, proggs. Welcome to your own damn party.
This has to be a contender for the ultimate straw man post.
Begone, troll.
Alphie: Why? Are the commentators at DU not real?
Notice that Jeff doesn’t blame the Democratic Party – that would be a strawman.
He does mock gun bans – and for good reason and with perfectly good, if sarcastic and mocking, logic – thus also not a strawman.
Do you beleive that a “strawman” is simply any argument you can’t counter? Or what? ‘Cause it sure as heck doesn’t seem to apply here.
The campus gun ban didn’t work out well. Nor did the philosophy of relying on the authorities to handle things, judging by the news reports that say an hour elapsed between the shootings at the dorm and at those at the classroom.
Horrible. What kind of pathetic loser takes his grievances out on innocent people?
Sig,
If you search the whole world, you can always find someone to supply just the right comment to prove your non-point.
Myself, I would have pointed out this shooting is just a typical hour’s civilian toll over in Iraq.
There’s a roundup of VA blogs here.
And for the love of God, Jeff, would you please remove this amoral idiot from our midst?
Can we please not start freighting this horror with socio-political baggage just quite yet? It’s not as if this hasn’t happened before, in allegedly simpler, more innocent times.
If there was ever a good time and thread to put “ignore Alphie” into practice this is it.
Can we please ban the ‘tard from this thread? It’s already trying to hijack it.
alphie
Normally I tolerate your reality challenged little brain, but today I say
“Go fuck yourself”.
You’re too stupid to be commenting on things you are unable to get your brain around. If you don’t think all of the recent school shootings are something new, you are even stupider than you have presented yourself to be.
Yeah, moron. God and values (or the lack thereof) have nothing to do with the insanity rampaging through this country. Just because I believe in God doesn’t mean there is one, But hey. Just because you don’t doesn’t mean there isn’t one.
As I said, enjoy your party.
Mucho apreciado, Pablo. I owe you one. I tried turning up someone with feedmap.com, but all of its blogs were inactive.
And again, proteins & trolls, let’s lay aside our differences and join in prayer/concern/whateverfloatsyourspirits for the victims. This story will morph who knows how many times over the next several hours–these things always do. Being a parent means having your heart wandering around outside your body, whether the little pumpkin is wearing a diapers or pinstripes. Two dozen parents just had their worlds savagely shattered today. At least be respectful of them & their agony.
This horrible event will be an interesting test case for the legality and viability of CCW vs rampant hoplophobia. But that is for later. Now my sympathies are with the dead and wounded of VT.
I guess that guy’s girlfriend is going to be in a very very strange place. A Jodie Fostery kind of place. I wonder if she even realizes it yet.
Let’s pull out.
Sorry, I had it already loaded almost right out of the blocks. I just can’t imagine what triggered it.
Meanwhile, I am trying to imagine what my response would be were one of my kids to be, say, a VT victim.
alphie’s been getting a bit personal lately.
I think he needs a time out.
By the way. I got your straw man hanging.
Thank you, Jeff.
Once again, the folks who like to “serve the greater good” ought to feel just grand. Maybe now they’ll take up the CHL bill again, and it will make it out of comittee, at least.
After the Killeen restaraunt shootings in Texas, the CHL was finally taken seriously, not only as a self defense maesure, but as a deterrent.
Peace upon the families.
Thanks for the break from alph, just in case anybody wondered ….
Thanks, Jeff.
Nope, no spin there. And large numbers of unarmed victims became available for psycho killers’ murderous pleasure when the Virginia legislature failed to guarantee citizens’ right to provide for their own defense on Virginia campuses.
I tried to post it over there, but it doesn’t seem to be passing moderation, that the size of the magazine has nothing to do with rate of fire. You need full-auto to “spray” a room, and those have been illegal for a very long time.
Thanks for the break from alph, just in case anybody wondered ….
I’ve developed a pretty good scrolling finger when it comes that one. It is nice not to have to. Thanks, Jeff.
Inre: DU’s posters – I’ve said it before and I’ll probably say it plenty more times: “What hell must it be to wake up and see the world through those eyes?”
Good work over at Hot Air, and thanks for linking over there. I’ve been remiss in my bookmarking…
B Moe, somehow I doubt facts will play much role in the interpretation of events today. It’s how you feel about it that matters.
I left a comment at ABC’s Blotter, but it has yet to appear, and may not as it takes issue with their inaccurate assertion about hi-cap magazines for firearms. In reality, Congress banned the manufacture and importation of magazines containing over 10 rounds in 1994. Existing magazines were grandfathered in and, trust me as a gun-happy madman, there are millions and millions of them out there, particularly for the 9mm. The lapse of the ban has had very little effect on the availability of high-cap magazines.
My comment at ABC was to the effect that if they reported a drowning, they’d accompany it with a call for jailing swimming instructors and a total ban on rain.
We’ll see if it makes it through
censorshipmoderation.Regards,
Ric
It’ll be awe-inspiring if the media can go Katrina on Virginia Tech AND hang Gonzales and Wolfowitz in the same week.
The good news is that at least Barak Obama hasn’t blamed us all for this evil individual’s act – yet.
If he’d just ran everyone over instead of shooting them, it would’ve been totally different. Because how they were killed is oh so much more important than the fact they they were killed.
/snark
Like Jeremy said, one person could’ve stopped this. Imagine if everyone who could qualify had been able to carry. That guy would’ve killed maybe a few at most before being sent straight to heck.
I would argue that the percentage of citizens owning at least one gun has decreased over the decades. Why, then, are these mass shootings occurring when decades ago they did not?
That’s definitely something to ponder.
Ah, the press. Five minutes after the news hit the wire, they were all experts on campus security.
Is the boyfriend thing for sure?
Right now, they (the cops) aren’t admitting to knowing anything about him. He carried no ID, and they won’t give any discription.
The main thing I take from this is that more people should carry concealed weapons. Period. I mean this guy killed 30 people and apparently with nothing special, arms wise. By contrast, Whitman killed half that and he was barricaded in a tower for an hour and a half (or something).
When I was going to a small college in appalachia, back in the late 70s, I would venture nearly half of the male dorm rooms contained guns. We would routinely go hunting, skeet or trap shooting, or just plinking after class and on weekends. Apparently it is a miracle any of us lived to tell about it.
I wonder if the perp is going to turn out to be one of those raceless types.
Dumbest question, ever: “What are your assurances to student that this won’t happen again, ever?”
Fer crissake, you’re legally an adult! Buck up and take some responsibility for yourself!
– Watching the press conference, in process as we speak, its apparent the entire gang of officials, police, ATF, school, ect, are unable, or unwilling to answer any meaningful questions, and at the same time, the shit is going to hit the fan, because they admitted that after the first shooting they decided not to lock down the entire campus, and only secured the building where the first two incidents occured. They did this as they said, “…we acted on the best information that had the perp leaving the campus right after the first event. (The first Email, issued some 2 hours after the initial shootings, simply mentioned an “unfortunate incident”, and not to be alarmed, even as the many additional victims were being lined up and shot.)
– They finally suspended all classes an hour ago. School officials assured everyone that the resources of all of the myriad agencies are on scene, and have the situation under control, now that the victims are all safely dead. Cluster-fuck incorporated.
– That they really fucked the duck, was indicated early on when the various luminaries on site kept insisting that the two shooting’s were not connected. Now, of course, they’ve decided to “re-visit” that opinion.
Another 90 or so of these and they’ll add up to one terrorist attack which we should be willing to accept once in a while because it doesn’t pose an existential threat to us as a nation.
One of the kids who had been shot said the shooter was a 20-something Asian guy.
Since he showed up with weapons and a bullit proof vest, it was pre-meditated.
Heh. One of my high school classmates was cowering behind a stone wall in full view of the Tower. I didn’t get to do that trip.
One of the reasons Whitman’s bag was so small was that the cops got students and profs to go get their deer rifles out of their trucks and plink the tower to keep the nago’s head down. Worked, too.
Regards,
Ric
Wasn’t there a campus shooting a few years ago that was cut short by someone with a concealed carry permit?
Well, sure, I read something along those lines as well, Pablo. I’m just wondering how the LameStreamMedia will report it.
B Moe, no snark is meant here, and maybe it’s our litigation-loving society, but allowing a bunch of drunk kids to have guns on campus? Seems a recipe for tragedy. I went to a small rural campus in the 90’s and the college was sued once when a visitor to school got drunk and intentionally ran over a student and later when a group of drunk kids went camping off-campus and drunk and one of them fell off a freakin’ cliff. Banning alcohol and guns, I think, is a way to protect the school from litigation. It’s not there isn’t drinking or firearms on campus. And just like they busted us for beer; they would have busted us even worse for a gun.
Does it matter, Kelly? If he’s Asian, does that mean something?
Another horrible mass murder. Crap.
As long as they don’t report any cannibalism and rape on the Virginia Tech campus they’ll be doing markedly better than their Katrina reporting.
Asian in Britain is used as code-word for Pakistani, and there’s legit reasons to suspect especially to avoid mentiong someone’s religious affiliation. Though I understand that in the States this is not the case and Asian means “with Mongoloid features”.
Does it NOT mean something? It’s not the reporter’s job to decide whether something is meaningful or relevant, therefore all available information should try to be included in a report.
Keep in mind that the herd mentality assholes spouting off at DU don’t matter at all in the larger scheme of things. Before long the newies will find grieving parents looking to make some sense out of their loss to support the meme being created by the reporters asking the inane gun control questions today. People who think for themselves may take a very different spin from this.
This isn’t Columbine or some other HS, an Amish schoolhouse, or an elementary school somewhere. As was pointed out above, these are college students – adults. I would guarantee that some of the victims come from households that are safely and sanely armed and there are some parents whose anger won’t be against the fact that the killer had a gun, but that they left it to the school to guarantee their kids safety when they disarmed him or her. A hell of a lot of households around the nation are very likely considering this from that point of view. that this is what happens when a governing body disarms reasonable adults and they become the prey of the unreasonable. You may not ever see that undercurrent in the MSM, but we may see the results in a much reduced victim count next time around.
Yeah, it means another damn stinky forgiener!!!
There; do you feel sufficiently superior now?
Malkin linked to this story about a shooting at Appalachian Law School in 2002(?).
That’s beautifully trenchant. Just saying. I can definitely imagine pulling that one out in coming days.
Things aren’t always what they seem. Nobody was shot there the five years I sporadically attended, but we did lose about a dozen to automobile accidents. I am sure they have outlawed guns by now, but more kids drive cars than ever. What kind of recipe does that sound like to you?
Not really, lee, I knew I was superior to you
Maybe, but rendering an entire campus defenseless against a lone gunman certainly seems to be a tried and proven recipe for profound tragedy.
I prefer that people at least have a fighting chance.
That was just mean timmy!
Read an analysis of the influences in our “Chain Letter Society” that may be precipitating events like the tragedy at Virginia Tech and how our focus on winning and being number one may be fostering a generation of children with fully inadequate coping skills who have a misguided sense of self-worth…here:
http://www.thoughttheater.com
It’s a legitimate question and there’s no good answer that can’t be criticized in whole or in part. My answer with that in mind is that my kids went through firearm safety and pistol safety courses and also marksmenship courses before they handled guns outside my supervision. I sat through the courses with my older kid too. Anyone who has attended or knows anything about well run firearm safety courses knows that tremendous emphasis is put on the potential tragedies of mixing booze and firearms. It’s drilled in. Doesn’t mean it takes all the time, but it did with my kids and the kids of people I know. I know quite a few families who hunt and carry – men. women, older kids – and there’s drinkers in the bunch of all ages. There’s never been a problem.
The problem is far more likely to occur when someone without firearms training gets drunk, and goes and gets a firearm they have access to. I submit that in that case it’s a situation where they’d likely have multiple clips, chain the doors, etc etc, and kill 32.
Another interesting tidbit, we were allowed to drink at 18, and there was a liquor bar in the student union. We were also expected to behave like adults, and there were serious repercussions if you didn’t.
correction;
I’m sorry, Lee, it was just of the cuff and I didn’t mean to be mean.
It wasn’t just the MSM. I remember one of the KOS kids posted that the Bush administration had deliberately blown up the levees in order to kill blacks.
People who get their info from the MSM are still ahead of the mouth breathers who rely on Kos, HuffPo and DU.
Actually Aldo, if I remember right, that was from Louis Farrakan, who was widely quoted by the MSM.
The initial drift makes the administration of VT look pretty bad. After the first shooting occurred/was discovered they should have had cops crawling all over that campus. I can say as a certainty that if one of my children had been harmed in an incident like this I would want all the VT administrators. This was totally unsat.
Does it matter, Kelly? If he’s Asian, does that mean something?
Erm … that I (possibly) don’t have to drive to Dearborn and start picking off people?
Or, that it wasn’t a murderous rampage by a member of the white, priviledged patriarchy?
I mean, they certainly reported the “race” and social ranking of the Duke boys.
Spike Lee also. You know, the guy who made the movie that Imus cribbed the “nappy headed ho” line from.
BECAUSE OF THE RACISM!!!
– Ok. The standing policy out here in Cal is to lock down any campuses, high school or otherwise, in the event of any life threatening situation in close proximity. If that’s not the policy in Virginia, theres going to be a msasive series of torts over this total fuckup at VT. Hell we’ve had any number of lockdowns and closures with simple car chases in the neighborhoods, let alone an outright murder scene. VT Officials might as well get out the check books on this one. No amount of damage control is going to help, and in fact their pethetic efforts at CYA is just throwing fuel on the rising bonfire. 30 or so students are dead because they “decided” not to act until the second round.
– Incidently, if there are any other area’s around the country that do not have a prudent policy for these sorts of situations, you can bet your patootey they will now.
Only if you credit reporters and their second-guessing.
At this moment, we don’t know enough about what happened to know if anyone screwed up. If someone did, it’ll come out later.
Let’s not lynch the administrators yet. They’re probably torturing themselves enough.
Five bucks says Korean.
(RACIST!)
SB: schools
I shit you not
At first read I let this go by, a reasonable tactic given timmy’s characteristic inanities.
But then this lodged in place and I can’t get past it:
This, of course, from what’s perhaps the most linked piece in the aftermath of this horror.
Let’s back up.
An armed society is a polite society. Check.
Had only so many as a few in the vicinity been carrying this madman would have been stopped thirty bodies earlier. Check.
Second Amendment. Check.
The sheer idiocy of the disarmed equals “safe” canard. Double check.
Leftists casually bandying about all sorts of government-should/should not-allow-this-or-that. In defiance of the Constitution. Check.
So far, so good, at least in the common parlance of the political day.
But a bill to allow private carry?
Anybody care to explain that to me? Even within the context of an independent institution (is VT private or public?) having the right to set policy, WTF is a legislature doing debating restoring a primary right?
Should this not alert us as to what’s going on … when we need to legislate prior rights?
tw: hospital42
Dude, in all likelihood, they have “free speech zones” and a hate-speech code. When people have a problem with free speech, odds are they’re gonna have a problem with self-defense.
Rob: I’m perfectly willing to concede that emotions will run high in the immediate aftermath of an incident of this kind and that the facts will take awhile to shake out.
However, if it is true that:
1. Two people were murdered in a campus dorm,
2. The people at VT did not inform, evacuate, lock down, or put gun-bearing cops at every building,
3. Until over two hours later by which time our Korean gentleman (that’s my guess) had created his second crime scene,
then no amount of “feeling bad” from VT admin will make up for their personal and administrative responsbility for the subsequent deaths, and I agree, it will end up with a massive settlement that the Virginia taxpayers will end up paying for.
I’m sorry, I just cannot yet imagine the scenario in which the VT people can be let off the hook on this one. But …. maybe there is one.
Drudge has identified the perp as a mainland Chinese with a student visa. So, not Korean, my bad.
Recap:
#1 Murdered his girlfriend and a student advisor,
#2 Was a foreigner, and an Asian, and a Chinese,
#3 Was able to obtain firearms and ammo in the USA,
#4 Probably a secularist or a Confucian, but not a Moslem, in all high likelihood (Chinese Muslims like Connie Chung come from the far west of China)
Same here, though it was just wine and beer at the student union.
I’m seeing the issue of firearms being allowed to a college student body being too dangerous being mentioned today on other blogs and the drinking issue is the prime concern. So it’s worth a bit more examination.
I don’t think the concerns that irresponsible student drinking contribution to driving fataliies and the possibility/probability that certified firearm possession would give rise to a similar level of fatal shootings while drunk necessarily follows.
Drunk driving usually is not undertaken with the intent to harm or kill yourslef and/or others. It’s highly irresponsible and statistically risky behavior, but it’s negligent behavior, not intention beforehand. In the case of firearms, drunk or not, taking a gun to settle a beef shows the intent or willingness to at least contemplate causing harm, not just negligent behavior. Granted being drunk impairs the judgment in both cases, but the attendant risk levels for drunk driving and drunk firearm use are not the same, and at least some ability to make the distinction – even while drunk – would be expected of someone at the college level. (firearm tragedies related to drinking aren’t always intentional, but even less likely to harm more than a single individual when drunks mess with guns without intending harm).
It would probably not be prudent to allow students to just walk around with guns. However, there damn sure should have been someone around with a gun by the time of the second shooting.
In a bold move to demonstrate support for Virginia Tech, Congress postpones the Gonzales hearings.
I guess I just can’t see the downside of a few responsible students or professors with firearm safety courses required to carry or hold on campus given the scope of todays tragedy.
Just one salty engineering prof with a gun in his desk and their might have been a different outcome, still tragic, but much reduced in scope.
This is why so many, many of us want gun bearing students or professors at every building. Why turn all personal security over to cops? Why?
The guy running the equipment room when I was in college was a retired Marine. The first thing he said to any of us was, “When you come up to the window, have a complete list. None of this piece-by-piece shit, OK?”
IMHO, places in CCW states that slap the “no guns allowed” signs up should be held responsible for leaving the public defenseless. Excepting, of course, those places that are disarmed by the legislature—bars, for example.
I’m okay with that idea. As long as the people are appropriately vetted.
Liberal college professors trained, armed and dangerous. I like it.
If you want a safe, gun filled school, I’m sure you can go to school in Kabul. They might even let women in.
alphie?
The idea would be something like allowing every professor to carry a concealed weapon. Offer training and maybe even a stipend to encourage practice. Then make the policy, but not the professors, public.
Even if only a handful of profs take up the offer, you have changed the balance of power. You just don’t know who is and isn’t armed.
Your point being? I rather expect that schools in Kabul where the students and teachers are armed are a lot safer right now than those that aren’t? And for the same reasons if not degree I propose that the right to bear arms is not curtailed on a US college campus.
Ever hear of Israel, emma?
Are you sure? They didn’t used to. When did that change?
Me, too.
Especially since the instances of burst blood vessels in hearts and heads would leave a bit of room at the top.
Regards,
Ric
“Ever hear of Israel, emma?”
I’ve heard they have very tight gun control. Is that true?
I think it’s along the lines of every Israeli must have an uzi in thier closet.
Yes and no. A surprising percentage of the adult citizens in Israel, have weapons in their houses and places of business – including schools – but unless one is in an official capacity, you can’t carry openly on the street. Think about it a moment, and for Israel, that’s the lesser of two evils. You risk a very hairy situation if someone detects that you’re carrying concealed until you justify it, but a hell of a lot of Israelis do.
Also that official capacity is very heavy armed official presence and it’s everywhere you go there. Which is why terrorist bombings are the great fear, not terrorist shootings.
“I think it’s along the lines of every Israeli must have an uzi in thier closet.”
Even the arab ones?