when i first saw this on the news, i was indeed shocked. wow, i just feel sorry about those victims and the families directly or indirectly affected by it. we just can pray that this stuff will not happen again

There have been so many of these campus shootings over the last few years that the OBVIOUS thing to do would hae been to send everyone home for the day, and maybe even until the gunman was caught. The authorities and the campus admin. are responsible for this, imo. A bit of common sense would have prevented the second shootings.

 

And now they're blaming the EVIL ROCK MUSIC. Pathetic.:veryangry:

Man rock music has nothing to do with this.

^Neither do the video games. But they have to blame something...other than themselves.

 

NBC's Dateline is doing a show on it right now. (10pm EST)

some people are just screwed in the head, it might not be caused by anything other than his or her head

It's so frightening and disturbing. I'm keeping everyone who works at/lives near/attends VA Tech in my thoughts.

 

What I don't get is why they didn't cancel classes. The UW here had a guy go into an office building on campus a few weeks ago and he shot his girlfriend and himself and classes were canceled.

 

It's very surreal, this whole thing.

now I've heard, read, and seen it all.. lol so he's a terrorist rock listening looney who went on a rampage.... and he's Asian! Jinkies.... what does this have to do with the fact that a very disturbed young man, obviously driven mad by love or lack there of.... killed innocent people and his ex-girl..... I mean, seriously... music and a terrorist group? Nah..... he was just *bleeped* in the head... sad story though.

 

 

I agree.. classes should have been cancelled after the first shooting.

Can you believe how crazy the world is these days? People are fucking physco. Your girlfriend breaks up with you, or your having an argument with her, so you shoot her?

 

I'm really glad this asshole, who did this, is dead. If your going to go killing innocent people, or any people at all, like this, then you deserve to fucking shoot yourself in the head then. That's all there is to it.

do they really give the guilty to music......?They have to review the law who allows everyone to own easily a gun before to speak ......that's the point i think.......

This is absolutely horrible. My heart goes out to all those over there. :o:(

some people are just screwed in the head, it might not be caused by anything other than his or her head

 

i'd believe you if this was the first accident. but it's not. the guy was screwed for sure, but that's not the only reason

 

the lax laws, the aggresive video games, the parents who don't pay enough attention to their children etc. everything has it's part in this massacre

 

something must change, otherwise it can happen again. anywhere, anytime...

^ I agree with you to a certain extent... but this can't be solely blamed on his parents... they guy is practically an adult..... I mean granted, his parents probably are to blame for the lack of attention and love in his adolescence... but its not violent video games fault....... its lies with the parents...

do they really give the guilty to music......?They have to review the law who allows everyone to own easily a gun before to speak ......that's the point i think.......

 

So what? Some times, guns, can be used for protection. Or hunting. Or something else, who knows. No-one usually predicts that some asshole physco-path is going to go on a killing rampage with it.

terrible news. i hope that the families and students, professors are all ok.

i read on web that it was over a breakup (!?)

The reason they didn't send anyone home after the first shooting was because the guy was still on the loose. I mean, at 7:30am and 8 am, rougly 9000 people were travelling and arriving to VT. The first incident looked like a domestic incident, look at all of the information about it and everything points to a domestic incident. The only thing that could lead you otherwise is that he had so much ammo, and two guns. But I mean, things like that happen a lot. People killing eachother in arguements.

 

Also, in the immediate hour afterwards, everything pointed towards the shooter leaving the site. I mean, you shoot someone, you aren't gonna stick around. There was no sight of him anywhere, and there was a lot of people around, someone would have seen him - police were everywhere. From that, if he's not on campus, he's around the campus. I think they did the right thing having everyone locked inside. The campus seemed the safest place for them. If I was the guy making decisions, I think that's what I would have said too. Sending 9000+ people out of the campus at one time seems more hectic then having them all wait it out.

 

2 hours after the incident, the board and people were having a conference about the whole, they got word out to the people. The email basically said that there was an incident and the gunman was still at large. No-one expected this second shooting.

 

It's a horrible, horrible thing thats happened, and its really got to me so much more than I thought it would. I was 12 on Sept. 11 and 16 when the bombs went off in London, so these didn't really have as much of an effect on me, even though I was in London a week after the bombings, and at the time of the second bombings 2 weeks later. This is the first major incident that I've seen when I've been mature enough to comprehend it fully. I spent both of my lessons today on the internet reading articles, just like I did last night, I must have read about 300 articles on this. And seen about 4 videos. This is a horrible horrible event and a dark cloud over America.

 

I don't like how it has been politicized already and video games and music are being blamed. It happened yesterday morning, not even 48 hours ago. Instead of blaming people and saying oh this should have happened then, and this shouldn't have happened then, what is infinately more important is to greive for the people who lost loved ones and the people who had to witness such a horrific moment. And everyone associated with what has happened, the police, the school staff, students. I watched the press conference last night and that security/police guy looked so scared and fragile. He'd just been through undoubtedly the worst day of his life and was still facing so much pressure. The family of the Israli professor who threw himself against a door and paid with his life for the oppertunity for his students to throw themselves out of windows to survive. The young woman, with her life infront of her, who will never forget the moment where she lay pretending to be dead amongst 20-something dead people who she'd spend most of the year with.

 

That's far more important right now than blaming security issues, or firearms laws, and so so so much more important than blaming the tired excuse of video games.

^ your right, Jack... but I think living here in the US has desensitized me to these things.....

 

 

I feel bad for the families... and the dead... but it happened. What can we do.... :(

Virginia massacre gunman is named

 

 

Police have named a student who shot dead at least 30 people at a US university as Cho Seung-hui, a 23-year-old from South Korea.

Cho was studying English and had been living on the university campus. He killed himself after the rampage.

 

He is also thought to have killed two people earlier in the day. It was the worst gun massacre in US history. US President George Bush told a university memorial service it was "a day of sadness for our entire nation".

 

Mr Bush, attending with his wife Laura, called for people to offer help to bereaved relatives, and said: "In this time of anguish, I hope you know that people all over this country are thinking about you and asking God to provide comfort for all who have been affected."

 

University president Charles Steger said the "entire nation and people from many other nations are coming together to grieve" over the tragedy, and he hoped it would help begin the healing process.

 

There was a sombre atmosphere as students thronged the university's Cassell Coliseum sports centre for the memorial which was screened on the campus TV. The shootings on Monday occurred in two separate locations, two hours apart.

 

The first took place at 0715 (1215 GMT), at West Ambler Johnston Hall dormitory, where a man and a woman were shot dead. Then, at about 0915 (1415 GMT), 30 people were killed in the second shooting at Norris Hall, about half a mile (800 metres) from the first, on the same campus.

 

Police confirmed that two handguns - 9mm and .22 calibre weapons - were recovered at the scene of the second shooting, and that one of them was also used in the first incident. "It's certainly reasonable for us to assume that Cho was the shooter in both places," police said.

 

However, they are investigating whether he had an accomplice.

 

'Loner'

 

Police said Cho Seung-hui was a South Korean living legally in the US. It is reported that he had lived in the US from a young age.

 

Nevertheless, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun "was shocked beyond description", and sent "deep condolences" to the victims, their families and the American people, his office said in a statement. Police did not suggest a motive for the attack.

 

Larry Hincker, associate vice president for university relations at Virginia Tech, said: "He was a loner, and we're having difficulty finding information about him."

 

US media reported that a "disturbing" note had been found in Cho Seung-hui's dormitory, and that he had been referred for counselling after producing "troubled" work in his creative writing class.

 

At a press conference on Tuesday the superintendent of Virginia state police, Colonel Steve Flaherty, described the scene of the massacre. "Personal effects were strewn about the entire second floor of Norris Hall so it made it much more difficult for us to identify students and faculty members that were victims," he said. "Victims were found in at least four classrooms as well as a stairwell. We know that there were a number of heroic events that took place within minutes of this tragedy unfolding. The gunman was discovered among several of the victims in one of the classrooms. He had taken his own life."

 

At least fourteen people remained in hospital on Tuesday. A hospital spokesman said most were stable.

 

The university said all classes would be suspended for the rest of the week, while Norris Hall would remain closed for the rest of the semester. Some students have complained that they were put at risk by the university, saying they had received no warning until an e-mail more than two hours after the first incident.

 

Student Billy Bason, 18, said: "I think the university has blood on their hands because of their lack of action after the first incident."

 

But the university president has defended his staff, saying they "had no reason to suspect any other incident was going to occur". Virginia Tech and police said they would not name the victims of the attacks until all had been identified, and their families informed.

 

However, some of the names of the victims emerged when their families or colleagues volunteered the information.

 

At least two of the dead were university professors. One was GV Loganathan, 51, an Indian-born lecturer in civil and environmental engineering, and another was Liviu Librescu, a Romanian-born Israeli expert on aeronautical engineering.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6563565.stm

DJ gave on-air alerts to students

 

 

University DJ Tom Porter was on air at the time a gunman opened fire at Virginia Tech in the US killing 32 people and injuring many others.

Originally from Walsall in the Black Country, he told BBC News how he helped pass on information to students as the horror of the incident unfolded.

 

I was doing my weekly radio show on WUVT which serves the community and the campus and when I turned up everything seemed to be normal.

 

The first shootings had occurred but it wasn't widely known at that point that they had, I actually got the first word from my wife.

 

It was not circulated widely until over two hours after the first shooting by which time there had already been a second shooting so I just did as best as I could to pass along alerts and advice from police and the authorities to whoever was listening to try and keep them out of danger.

 

Words like numbness and shock are used a lot of the time and it is difficult to convey how people feel.

 

One or two deaths are obviously a tragedy but it suddenly became apparent that it was 10 times that many - in the end it was over 30.

 

A lot of students who were working for the radio station were pretty distressed and everyone was wondering who is on that list.

 

The original lock-down was lifted and they (the authorities) thought the threat had gone.

 

A lot of classes start at 8am by which time it is too late the tell the students to turn round and go back so perhaps they felt they had no choice to get the students in to school.

 

At least they can advise them to stay in the classrooms which, of course, turned out to be fatal advice for some students.

 

Today I will go along to the campus station to see if there is anyway I can help out.

 

The sense of urgency and panic is over and people are going to be grief-stricken now as the names come out.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/6562563.stm

One of the dead is a teacher originally from Canada...St. John's I think.

there was a note or something, anyone no what it means

I guess there were reports that his parents comitted suicide. But they've been completely disproved. THey're still alive.

 

I haven't heard about a note yet though.

all i heard about the note was that there was a note and that it was disturbing... on the topic of his parents i heard they were complete opposites of their son I heard they are very nice people

MAKE GUNS ILLEGAL FOR F**KS SAKE.

 

"HOW DID THE CLOWNS EVER TAKE CONTROL" - Jesus this is a f**ked up world.

it is

One of the dead is a teacher originally from Canada...St. John's I think.

 

Truro, Nova Scotia. :sad: