Another school shooting - when does it stop?

mattsmom27

Active Member
I dont' understand what is happening. These shootings are becoming so commonplace, it is like some sick twisted evil epidemic. Today's shootings at Virginia Tech now has a death toll of 20 students minimum and unknown injured.

I just don't understand. These situations are occuring so much nowadays, and I just can't understand.
 

Shari

IsItFridayYet?
Progress comes from piggy-backing onto what is already known and learned.

For the kind of kids who do this stuff, I imagine this comes about the same way. The news tells all how to get the ultimate in attention.

Sure don’t want to get rid of the whole freedom of speech and freedom of the press thing, but….
 

Lothlorien

Active Member
This was a college campus. I suspect this is more to this story than a kid who wasn't getting attention or getting bullied.
 

Kathy813

Well-Known Member
Staff member
The death toll is now 31. easy child's best friend is at VT on a softball scholarship. easy child has talked with her and she is fine physically but emotionally devastated.

Please keep the students, faculty, and families of the victims in your thoughts and prayers.

~Kathy
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
Loth...I agree with you.

I am shell shocked about this one. I am a born Virginian. For this to happen at Tech just floored me. This school is located in a beautiful area of the Blue Ridge Mountains and I just cant fathom this. It is such a good school too. Some of the brightest engineering minds go there. What a tragedy.
 

TerryJ2

Well-Known Member
I don't know what to say that hasn't already been said. It is a beautiful campus, and everyone knows someone there.
Unbelievable.
 

Marguerite

Active Member
I'm speaking here as a non-US person. You ARE going to hear other countries getting virtuous about how THEY don't have the shooting problems that the US does. But I'm telling you now - I do NOT think this shooting is part of some epidemic. Nor do I think it's a US problem.

I think this was simply a shooting. A random event which could have happened anywhere in the world. This is NOT "another Columbine" as I heard someone say.

It's a tragedy, no question. It's simply awful. The police were already there, they thought the first shooting was over and the danger was past. What else could they have done?

Sometimes a single person just goes off the deep end. There's often no way to know or prevent. It could have been anywhere.

Somewhere on my library shelves is a forensic report on a shooter some decades ago, who simply decided one day to kill people. With hindsight, the signs were there, but what he did was unthinkable. He had been having some problems, but when they autopsied him they found he (the shooter, who had eventually been shot by police, at great risk to themselves) had a small brain tumour, pressing on a part of his brain which is responsible for violent thoughts and actions. The author of this paper has suggested that other mass shooters should also be carefully autopsied.

Who knows? I daresay there will be thorough investigation, which is cold comfort now to both the dead and living.

But blame for anyone? Any country? Forget it. We've had our own mass shooting here, there was never an explanation for that either.

This was a peaceful, quiet and safe place. So was Port Arthur. Who can ever say why? Peaceful or violent - everywhere is vulnerable.

My heart goes out to everybody affected by this.

Marg
 

Hound dog

Nana's are Beautiful
It's a tragedy. I heard about this at school today. Shook everyone up. :frown:

I worry we're seeing this becoming common place because the media grabs these sorts of stories and drowns the news casts with them for weeks, sometimes months. in my opinion they take it far beyond news reporting into sensationalism geared to milk the highest ratings out of the event. This gives the shooter/shooters an unintended celebrity statis that can be appealing to a mentally unstable person who has homicidal ideation. Or can be viewed as an "acceptable" means of venting your rage against society. I mean to an unstable mind it's not so difficult to rationalize such behavior if you want to bad enough.

Has anyone realized that a new phrase for venting is called "Going Postal" ? And people laugh and joke about it. I've even overheard kids say their gonna go "Calumbine". These are rapidly becoming accepted sayings in ordinary conversation.

I don't think the media are the sole cause by far. But they exacerbate the situation by the way they choose to cover this sort of thing.
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
I dont blame the media. In fact, Im pretty sure there were families around the world who were glued to televisions and the internet frantically searching for sons and daughters.

Im still waiting to find out why this happened...if we ever do find out. What makes one young man decide to walk onto a campus and go on a killing spree? Why would he kill 2 people and then wait two hours before killing more? None of this makes a lick of sense to me.

Personally Im just mourning the loss of all those lives. Promising, educated young people who may have done wonderful things for this country and the world. The first man to be killed was from Georgia. He carried a double major, was a senior and held a 4.0 average. He wanted to go on into post graduate studies to be a psychologist. The good he could have done this world we will never know.

I cant imagine what the families and the student body as a whole are going through.
 

kris

New Member
<span style='font-size: 14pt'> <span style='font-family: Georgia'> <span style="color: #990000"> actually, lisa, *going postal* is a term i've head for decades.

i'm not even sure if the shooter was a student on the campus. college campuses seem to be the hardest to secure. officials thought the shooter had left the campus & didn't call for a lockdown because of that.....tho i think they should have gone on lockdown regardless.

i don't think we can blame media coverage. they are just doing their jobs....and since it does bring them ratings they are giving people what they want.

one thing that is different this time is the role IMing & facebook/myspace played in disseminating vital information to friends & family.

kris
</span> </span> </span>
 

Nancy

Well-Known Member
What a horrible tragedy. Once again I was riveted to the TV all day watching this horror unfold. Maybe it's because I have a daughter at college but my heart just cried for those students and parents. I couldn't help but put myself in their shoes. I'm sure most of those parents knew quickly that their child was hurt or dead when they couldn't get an answer on their cell phones.

Of course I'm only speculating from what they said but it sounds like he went looking for his ex girlfriend in her dorm and when he didn't find her he went looking for her in the building her class was in and laid low for the two hours until her class. Whatever happened this is such a horrible tragedy and my prayers go out to all involved.

Nancy
 

realangel

New Member
Just heard about this on the news and am shocked!! We have had several mass shootings over the years and it never gets any easier to hear!!

My thoughts and prayers go out to those involved and their families.
 

Nancy

Well-Known Member
Well it looks like now that he killed the girl first that he intended and why he then went to the other building to continue his killing isn't known. Supposedly he left a note that is disturbing. I'm wondering if he had a roommate and whether any information can be gotten from him.

This is just so horrible and I feel so bad for the entire community and parents.

Nancy
 

lordhelpme

New Member
anyone else wonder "could this be my difficult child in xx yrs?"

and how about april being the mth for these kind of shootings. is it similar to oru BiPolar (BP) kids who have a rise in mania in the spring?
 

dreamer

New Member
"is it similar to oru BiPolar (BP) kids who have a rise in mania in the spring? "

Sure is. It could be this person is bipolar, whether diagnosis'ed or not......and many people, not just bipolars can have seasonal affective disorder.
IIRC an inordinately high number of people involved in school shootings have been on psychiatric medications, as well. It remains to be seen whether this person is or not.
 

rejectedmom

New Member
The latest reports say that he was very troubled and had been refered to counceling by his teachers because of the very dark nature of his creative writting assignments. it is also reported that he was on medications for depression.

I am sorry but in my opinion, sick or not, no one has an excuse for shooting 48 people and killing 33 of them. All the deceased reportedly had at least three bullets in them. AOL has two of his plays on its site. I read one it is SICK! The other one..well I couldn't get past the second page. I pray for his parents, I cannot imgine their pain and horror. -RM
 

dreamer

New Member
Please notice, I said NOTHING about excusing anything

The only thing I was trying to say was people can be bipolar or other illnesses whether diagnosis'ed or not, and seasonal affective disorder can be in diagnosis'ed or non diagnosis'ed people.......and I made an observation that many of the previous shooters were on psychiatric medications. - I said not one word about excuse or blame or anything.
 

dreamer

New Member
Nope, I was not offended, just got nervous that people might think I was saying more than what I was trying to say. :)
 
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