At least 33 dead in rampage at Virginia Tech

[Hellkite]

NBC, MSNBC and news services
Updated: 26 minutes ago

BLACKSBURG, Va. - A gunman killed 32 people in two shooting incidents Monday at a Virginia university in the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. The gunman also was killed, and at least 15 other people were injured.

The shootings, which rang out just four days before the eighth anniversary of the Columbine High School bloodbath near Littleton, Colo., spread panic and confusion at the college, where students and employees angrily asked why the first e-mail warning did not go out to them until the gunman had struck again.

Nearly 50 victims
Federal law enforcement officials said the gunman killed himself after he shot dozens of people at two locations at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, in southwest Virginia. Thirty-two people plus the shooter were confirmed dead.

In addition to the 33 dead, hospitals reported that 15 people were injured. Five were in stable condition; the conditions of the others were not immediately reported.

It was not immediately clear that all of the injured people had been shot. Some may have been injured when they leaped to safety from the fourth floor of a classroom building.

Investigators told NBC News that they had so far been unable to positively identify the gunman, whose face was disfigured when he was killed. He carried no ID or cell phone, and an initial check on his fingerprints came up empty.


Witnesses described him as a man in his 20s, wearing a maroon cap and a black leather jacket. A spokesman for the FBI in Washington said there was no immediate evidence to suggest that the incident was a terrorist attack, “but all avenues will be explored.â€

“Today the university was struck with a tragedy that we consider of monumental proportions,†said Charles Steger, the university’s president. “The university is shocked and indeed horrified.â€

President Bush said in a brief televised statement: “Schools should be places of sanctuary and safety and learning. When that sanctuary is violated, the impact is felt in every American classroom and every American community. Today, our nation grieves with those who have lost loved ones at Virginia Tech.â€

Warnings came too late
Steger and law enforcement authorities gave this account of the day’s events in public statements and comments to NBC News:

The rampage began about 7:15 a.m. ET at West Ambler Johnston, a coeducational residence hall that houses 895 people. The gunman, armed with a 9-mm pistol and a .22-caliber handgun, killed two people there before making his way to Norris Hall, an engineering classroom building on the opposite end of the 2,600-acre campus.

About 9:15, the gunman chained the doors of the classroom building so his potential victims could not escape and police could not enter. There, he shot as many as 46 more people.

Not until 9:26 did the first warning to students and employees go out by e-mail, according to the time stamps on copies obtained by NBC News. By then, the classroom shooting was well under way.

The first e-mail had few details. It said: “A shooting incident occurred at West Amber Johnston earlier this morning. Police are on the scene and are investigating.†The message warned students to be cautious and contact police about anything suspicious.

Maurice Hiller, a student, told The Associated Press that he went to a 9 a.m. class just two buildings away from the engineering building and that no warnings were coming over the outdoor public address system on campus at the time.

Steger said at a briefing for reporters that administrators and police initially believed the first shooting was an isolated domestic incident and did not see a need to close the university. Steger said they believed the gunman had fled the campus.

“We can only make decisions based on the information you had on the time. You don’t have hours to reflect on it,†he said.

Inside the engineering building, an “unreal†and bloody scene was unfolding.

“None of us thought it could have been gunshots,†a student who identified himself as Trey Perkins told MSNBC’s Chris Jansing in a telephone interview. “... I’m not sure how long it lasted. It seemed like a really long time.â€

Perkins said the gunman never said a word. “He didn’t say, ‘Get down.’ He didn’t say anything.†He just started shooting.â€

The gunman left that classroom and then tried to return, but students kept him out by bracing the door closed with their feet. “He started to try to come in again and started shooting through the door,†Perkins said, but hit no one.

“I got on the ground and I was just thinking, like, there’s no way I’m going to survive this,†Perkins said. “All I could keep thinking of was my mom.â€

Until Monday, the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history was in Killeen, Texas, in 1991, when George Hennard plowed his pickup truck into a Luby's Cafeteria and shot 23 people to death, then himself.

The deadliest previous campus shooting in U.S. history took place in 1966 at the University of Texas, where Charles Whitman climbed to the 28th-floor observation deck of a clock tower and opened fire. He killed 16 people before he was gunned down by police.

Not again

 

[Paul]

Heard about that on the news , wtf goes thro these guys heads ?! ( Apart from the final bullet )

Ppl like this dont deserve to live in my opinion , they go around schools and start shooting like a coward ( its a school ! , no 1 would be in a position to return fire ! ) . Cant believe ppl like these are still around , they should deal with there problems the old fasioned way ( shrink ) rather than this

 

[Harrie]

What a way to start off the week eh... All we can do now is pray for the best.

 

[CrazyFrog1903]

This is truely a very sad story.

 

[Syf]

This is disturbing news to read of returning home from work. Why couldn't these type of people just shot themselves instead of killing people at a school that had nothing to do with their problems. I am sickened by this news. I offer my condolences to the families of those that were murdered today. There is nothing I can say or do to make the hurt go away, and that saddens me deeply.

With this wave of school killings getting worse, I'm starting to think I should consider home school for my kids, and later, online college courses.

 

[Cylon]

This is one of the reasons why you should ban guns in america

 

[Syf]

Actually, I hate to disagree. Studies show that it is the banning of guns that have raised the incidents of gun related murders in the United States. Further Banning would only put more people in harms way. Because of these bans already in place, Security guards can not have guns on a campus such as this. Just because there is laws saying you can't have guns, does not stop someone who does not obey the law from getting their hands on a gun. That's what people call the "Black Market". It happens all the time, just like drugs. They are completely illegal, but yet people still get them, if they want them. Bans and laws only effect those that obey the bans and laws.

In a situation like this, if there had been people in the classrooms that could shoot back, the gunman would have been stopped before it got as bad.

Update

BLACKSBURG, Va. - A Virginia Tech senior from South Korea killed at least 30 people locked inside a classroom building in the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history, the university and police said Tuesday.

Ballistics tests also found that one of the guns used in that attack was also used in a shooting two hours earlier at a Virginia Tech dorm that left two people dead, Virginia State Police said.

Police identified the classroom shooter as Cho Seung-Hui, 23, a senior from South Korea who was in the English department and lived in another dorm on campus. They said Cho committed suicide after the attacks, and there was no indication Tuesday of a possible motive.

"He was a loner, and we're having difficulty finding information about him," school spokesman Larry Hincker said.

Two law enforcement officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because the information had not been announced, said Cho's fingerprints were found on the guns used in both shootings. The serial numbers on the two weapons had been filed off, the officials said.

One law enforcement official said Cho's backpack contained a receipt for a March purchase of a Glock 9 mm pistol.

Col. Steve Flaherty, superintendent of the Virginia State Police, said it was reasonable to assume that Cho was the shooter in both attacks but that link was yet definitive.

"There's no evidence of any accomplice at either event, but we're exploring the possibility," he said.

Cho was a permanent legal resident of the United States, according to a Homeland Security Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the information had not been announced.

A memorial service was planned for the victims Tuesday afternoon at the university, and President Bush planned to attend, the White House said. Gov. Tim Kaine was flying back to Virginia from Tokyo for the 2 p.m. convocation.

The first deadly attack, at a dormitory around 7:15 a.m., left two people dead. But some students said they didn't get their first warning about a danger on campus until two hours later, in an e-mail at 9:26 a.m. By then the second attack had begun.

Two students told NBC's "Today" show they were unaware of the dorm shooting when they walked into Norris Hall for a German class where the gunman later opened fire.

The victims in Norris Hall were found in four different classrooms and a stairwell, Flaherty said. Cho was found dead in one of those classrooms, he said.

Derek O'Dell, his arm in a cast after being shot, described a shooter who fired away in "eerily silence" with "no specific target — just taking out anybody he could."

After the gunman left the room, students could hear him shooting other people down the hall. O'Dell said he and other students barricaded the door so the shooter couldn't get back in — though he later tried.

"After he couldn't get the door open he tried shooting it open ... but the gunshots were blunted by the door," O'Dell said.

A federal law enforcement official said Tuesday he had been told by other federal law enforcement officials that the two guns recovered in the shooting had had their serial numbers scraped off. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the information had not been announced.

The slayings left people of this once-peaceful mountain town and the university at its heart praying for the victims and struggling to find order in a tragedy of such unspeakable horror it defies reason.

"For Ryan and Emily and for those whose names we do not know," one woman pleaded in a church service Monday night.

Another mourner added: "For parents near and far who wonder at a time like this, 'Is my child safe?'"

That question promises to haunt Blacksburg long after Monday's attacks. Investigators offered no motive, and the gunman's name was not immediately released.

The shooting began about 7:15 a.m. on the fourth floor of West Ambler Johnston, a high-rise coed dormitory where two people died.

Police were still investigating around 9:15 a.m., when a gunman wielding two handguns and carrying multiple clips of ammunition stormed Norris Hall, a classroom building a half-mile away on the other side of the 2,600-acre campus.

At least 20 people were taken to hospitals after the second attack, some seriously injured. Many found themselves trapped after someone, apparently the shooter, chained and locked Norris Hall doors from the inside.

Students jumped from windows, and students and faculty carried away some of the wounded without waiting for ambulances to arrive.

SWAT team members with helmets, flak jackets and assault rifles swarmed over the campus. A student used his cell-phone camera to record the sound of bullets echoing through a stone building.

Inside Norris, the attack began with a thunderous sound from Room 206 — "what sounded like an enormous hammer," said Alec Calhoun, a 20-year-old junior who was in a solid mechanics lecture in a classroom next door.

Screams followed an instant later, and the banging continued. When students realized the sounds were gunshots, Calhoun said, he started flipping over desks to make hiding places. Others dashed to the windows of the second-floor classroom, kicking out the screens and jumping from the ledge of Room 204, he said.

"I must've been the eighth or ninth person who jumped, and I think I was the last," said Calhoun, of Waynesboro, Va. He landed in a bush and ran.

Calhoun said that the two students behind him were shot, but that he believed they survived. Just before he climbed out the window, Calhoun said, he turned to look at his professor, who had stayed behind, apparently to prevent the gunman from opening the door.

The instructor was killed, Calhoun said.

Erin Sheehan, who was in the German class near Calhoun's room, told the student newspaper, the Collegiate Times, that she was one of only four of about two dozen people in the class to walk out of the room. The rest were dead or wounded, she said.

She said the gunman "was just a normal-looking kid, Asian, but he had on a Boy Scout-type outfit. He wore a tan button-up vest, and this black vest, maybe it was for ammo or something."

The gunman first shot the professor in the head and then fired on the class, another student, Trey Perkins, told The Washington Post. The gunman was about 19 years old and had a "very serious but very calm look on his face," he said.

"Everyone hit the floor at that moment," said Perkins, 20, of Yorktown, Va., a sophomore studying mechanical engineering. "And the shots seemed like it lasted forever."

At an evening news conference, Police Chief Wendell Flinchum refused to dismiss the possibility that a co-conspirator or second shooter was involved. He said police had interviewed a male who was a "person of interest" in the dorm shooting and who knew one of the victims, but he declined to give details.

"I'm not saying there's a gunman on the loose," Flinchum said. Ballistics tests will help explain what happened, he said.

Some students bitterly complained that the first e-mail warning arrived more than two hours after the first shots.

"I think the university has blood on their hands because of their lack of action after the first incident," said Billy Bason, 18, who lives on the seventh floor of the dorm.

University President Charles Steger emphasized that the university closed off the dorm after the first attack and decided to rely on e-mail and other electronic means to spread the word, but said that with 11,000 people driving onto campus first thing in the morning, it was difficult to get the word out.

He said that before the e-mail was sent, the university began telephoning resident advisers in the dorms and sent people to knock on doors. Students were warned to stay inside and away from the windows.

"We can only make decisions based on the information you had at the time. You don't have hours to reflect on it," Steger said.

The 9:26 e-mail had few details: "A shooting incident occurred at West Amber Johnston earlier this morning. Police are on the scene and are investigating."

Until Monday, the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history was in Killeen, Texas, in 1991, when George Hennard plowed his pickup truck into a Luby's Cafeteria and shot 23 people to death, then himself.

Nine students remained hospitalized Tuesday at Montgomery Regional Hospital, all of them stable, CEO Scott Hill said. Two others had been transferred to other hospitals with a Level I trauma center.

Their families "are by the bedside, which is a good thing," Hill said.

Lewis-Gale Medical Center in Salem had three remaining patients, all in stable condition, with one expected to be discharged later Tuesday, Hill said.

The massacre Monday took place almost eight years to the day after the Columbine High bloodbath near Littleton, Colo. On April 20, 1999, two teenagers killed 12 fellow students and a teacher before taking their own lives.

Previously, the deadliest campus shooting in U.S. history was a rampage that took place in 1966 at the University of Texas at Austin, where Charles Whitman climbed the clock tower and opened fire with a rifle from the 28th-floor observation deck. He killed 16 people before he was shot to death by police.

Founded in 1872, Virginia Tech is nestled in southwestern Virginia, about 160 miles west of Richmond. With more than 25,000 full-time students, it has the state's largest full-time student population. The school is best known for its engineering school and its powerhouse Hokies football team.

Police said there had been bomb threats on campus over the past two weeks but that they had not determined whether they were linked to the shootings.

It was second time in less than a year that the campus was closed because of gunfire.

Last August, the opening day of classes was canceled when an escaped jail inmate allegedly killed a hospital guard off campus and fled to the Tech area. A sheriff's deputy was killed just off campus. The accused gunman, William Morva, faces capital murder charges.

Among the dead were professors Liviu Librescu and Kevin Granata, said Ishwar K. Puri, the head of the engineering science and mechanics department.

Librescu, an Israeli, was born in Romania and was known internationally for his research in aeronautical engineering, Puri wrote in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

Granata and his students researched muscle and reflex response and robotics. Puri called him one of the top five biomechanics researchers in the country working on movement dynamics in cerebral palsy.

Also killed was Ryan Clark, a student from Martinez, Ga., who had several majors and carried a 4.0 grade-point average, said Vernon Collins, coroner in Columbia County, Ga.

His friend Gregory Walton, a 25-year-old who graduated last year, said he feared the nightmare had just begun.

"I knew when the number was so large that I would know at least one person on that list," said Walton, a banquet manager. "I don't want to look at that list. I don't want to.

"It's just, it's going to be horrible, and it's going to get worse before it gets better."

 

[EAS_Intrepid]

In a situation like this, if there had been people in the classrooms that could shoot back, the gunman would have been stopped before it got as bad.

While I am also against a major guns ban (I support banning full-automatic weapons for civilians, however) I have to disagree with that.

From the first view, that does sound logic, but on the second view one sees the problems.

I mean, let's just say there were five students with normal sidearms plus the gunman. Sure, one of the students (A) could shoot the gunman, but he could also be shot by another student (B), because B does not know that A is the actual gunman.
Surely those people are in a stress situation and can not evaluate correctly who is the gunman and who is "just" an armed witness.
You see a weapon, you shoot, it could be gunman.

Then there is the police. Surely you have that weapon and you have it in your hands or on eyesight to be ready to take aim in a few seconds (to protect yourself or so)
When a police crackdown force like the SWAT storms a building, everyone with a weapon is a potential enemy and thus a potential target for the police officers. The SWAT may say different, but police reaction forces shoot first and ask question later...


However, what happened there is a tragedy. The pain, the shock cannot be put in words, cannot be expressed by sentences. May the dead rest in peace, the wounded recover...
I hope, the students that survived, find rest and spiritual recovery either in church or with other means.

 

[Syf]

I'm actually referring to Guards with weapons on campus. Because of banning of guns, it has caused security services to not be allowed to have sidearms. It's one thing when they ban weapons for everyday people. But to not allow guards (which are not law enforcement people per say) to carry a sidearm to defend the schools they are to protect. In such incidents as this, is cause to the rise of these kind of incidents. It's really what they call "cause and effect". It makes me sick that a guard at a school is just as helpless as the people and property they are there to protect. That's what I am pointing to more so, than issues with bans in general. It may seem to some, that this issue is not related to gun laws, but it is. But as it stands, Unless they are proper law enforcement officers, no one is allowed on a school campus with a weapons.

Now if the laws were changed to require that guards have proper sidearms, that would deter incidents like this. Or more so, in the very least, it would help reduce the number of deaths if some psychopath does go shoot up a school.

Perhaps I am wrong, as this is my opinion. I am just very upset over this. There was a shooting at a school in the town that Crazyfrog lives in back a few years ago. This is really clsoe to home, so to speak. And with being a parent of 4 children, it really frustrates me that the schools, which are charged with protecting the kids on campus, don't protect very well. And yes, I know exactly what I'm saying. Up until he became a police officer, I have a close friend that was a school campus security guard at a local junior college. I used to ride around with him sometimes during his watch. We have engaged in chats of this exact issue. A security guard on a school campus is as useless as a school kid, since they can not legally carry a gun, because of all the bans on guns.

 

[Cylon]

well the uk has stricter gun control laws and we get less guncrime conpared to countries like the US

 

[Hellkite]

well the uk has stricter gun control laws and we get less guncrime conpared to countries like the US

Not per capita

 

[Harrie]

I'd like to comment on the 2nd Amendment but this isn't the place.

I didn't notice that the flags in town were at half-staff until nearly 3 this afternoon...

Then this evening I went to the local college (actually it's where i'll be attending) to see a presentation on domestic violence, the atmosphere was very much subdued and today the doors to two of my four classes stayed closed and locked all hour...

 

[Cylon]

Not per capita

only 6.6% of the uks homicides are commited with fire arms
wheras in the USA 70% do (75% of which are legaly obtained)

 

[Hellkite]

only 6.6% of the uks homicides are commited with fire arms
wheras in the USA 70% do (75% of which are legaly obtained)

True but the point is that the homicides rate are similar per capita - regardless to the weapon used!
See, it is not the weapon that does the killing it - is the Idiot that welds it. he Weapon is just a tool nothing more.

 

[Syf]

Indeed. homicide is homicide , regardless of the weapon of choice of the murdering psychos

I think the real question here is: How do we prevent such atrocities? This is a general question, for people both near and far!

 

[Cylon]

well too stop the atrocities we need to understand why the people do them

 

[Hellkite]

to understand why the people do them is not really possibles each person is different and have different triggers that cause this madness

 

[EAS_Intrepid]

well too stop the atrocities we need to understand why the people do them

Agreed! To 100%.

As well as one uses profilers to track down murderers, one must have specialists that really try to understand why such things as school shootouts happen and what goes on in the gunmans head.

However, I must point out that there is no absolute profile, no definite warning signs. Just because someone is a weapon freak or does not get along with his class or shoolmates, he is not meant to fire a bullet in his/her teacher's head.
Because then I would fit into that scheme, for example.

 

[Hellkite]

...I would fit into that scheme, for example.

weapon freak most of the people I know fall in that Group


but back to topic there is never real definitive way to profile this problem and even if there was ther woulds be the few that would slip threw the cracks

 

[EAS_Intrepid]

weapon freak most of the people I know fall in that Group

That might depend on the working environment.

Seriously, how many of them are still students?

but back to topic there is never real definitive way to profile this problem and even if there was ther woulds be the few that would slip threw the cracks

In Germany, about 40-50 murder cases involving a gun happen per year.
We have about 2.4 Million people that have legal access to firearms (I belong to that group). We have about 0.25 Million Police officers that carry arms or have access to police arms.

From 2000 to 2007, half of the murder cases with guns involved Police Officers as perpetrators! 0.25 Million people do half the gun crimes of whole Germany (Population: 86 Million people) AND they are official representatives of the executive arm of the German government.

I put this example for one purpose, to demonstrate the usefulness of laws. It is illegal for a police officer to shoot someone unless he has no other choice to prevent on death or the death of others or other harm... nevertheless about 24 gun crimes (murder cases) each year are committed.
In these cases the law only provides a basis to prosecute the perpetrator, but not to prevent the crime. Prevention is only done by the detterency of the penalty.

Someone who has the will to shoot around in a school and knows he's going to die there, either through the carefully placed shots of a law enforcement officer or through his means, gives nothing about penalty or a gun law.

Most gun crimes are done by illegal weapon owners, anyway (aside the police ones in Germany...).

I can fully understand Cylon's point, but unfortunately a stricter gun law may not really put an end to this. We had more than three school shootings in germany, too, despite one of the hardest gun laws in Europe.

 

[Hellkite]

That might depend on the working environment.

Seriously, how many of them are still students?

lot of them are students that actively serve and still attend Classes all be it on on base campuses

 

[Syf]

I agree. We can not prevent a psycho. But we could deter them, and stop them early on their rampage, with the right people in the right place. That's why I think all schools should have armed guards, regardless. But also, those guardfs would need to be trained by/or be law enforcement. They should be trained with anti-terrorist and anti-hostage, and perhaps have backgrounds in military/ covert-ops/ special forces. That's my idea. We should encourage military personnel that are at the end of their tours/enlistments to seek employment in this field (if they have the given training, or can be trained). Even the ones that get medically discharged (because of combat injuries, etc) would be highly useful in this field. We need to force our govenment(s) to see that laws are made to enhance and encourage this. As I think this applies not to just the USA, but to all countries with mass homosides on the rise.

 

[Cylon]

but if schools are given such well armed gaurds wouldnt psycos just go to other places with large crowds but less gaurds

 

[Syf]

It is possible. But I think protecting kids is one of the most important things that law enforcement does. People often forget, but without kids, this races goes the way of the dinosaurs. So it is vital to protect any and all "children". Sometimes, something changes a person, and they no longer hold on to any morals, like this shooter. In these kind of events, the kids are most vulnerable. Should no one protect the vulnerable? That is after all, what has happened here. No one thought to protect them. No one imagined it would happen. Every time it happens, where are those that should be protecting them? Were they attending to something else? why did it take a return trip from the killer to cause these protector to figure out something was terrably wrong?

People want to forget. People want to pretend it can happen here (where they live), where ever here is. The truth is, it can and it will, someday.

I have a simple question: Why not protect the schools?

 

[Masterjon911]

well the uk has stricter gun control laws and we get less guncrime conpared to countries like the US

sorry to say but i dont really think UK has anything to say on the V tech shooting. Plus the american government cannot ban guns nation wide just like every american has the right to say what they want.


Amendment 2 - Right to Bear Arms
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

It's in the constitution buddy! (not trying to sound rude or anything)

 

[Paul]

Hate to but in but can we get back on topic ? , this isnt about US gun laws , its about some maniac going completly nuts and killing 32 ppl before making himself number 33

 

[Syf]

Exactly Mj911. It is in the constitution of our great nation that we do have the right to bare arms. However, because of laws designed to undermine the people's rights, schools can not employ armed security. Unless you want to count low grade pepper spray as a weapon against an assailant...

I think it's about time that the people of the US and other countries start demanding some changes in the laws to place guards trained and equiped to deal with threats like this. If not, it's only a matter of time before radical groups get the idea to use these type of things against people of all free nations.

If I'm not mistaken, this has happened already once in... Russia I think. But again, I could be mistaken.

Admin note: I am keeping a close eye on this thread. If it gets too far off topic, I will step in and stop it. So far, things are fine. - Syf

 

[Cylon]

well that constitution was made at a time whem it was more likly america would be invaded and the people would have to defend it.

Anyway back on topic
people who do things like this are oftern completly crazy so theres no telling wheter theyed go on a shooting rampage or just strap a bomb to themselves and blow themselves up-somthing that amed security gaurds couldnt stop unless they were going to serch alll the students everyday

 

[Harrie]

well that constitution was made at a time whem it was more likly america would be invaded and the people would have to defend it.

And it's a darn good thing, even today any country that has plans to invade the US will think twice when you consider that in the rural areas of the country many house holds, 7/10 maybe 8 I'd wager, have enough guns and ammo in them to arm nearly a dozen people. Don't go brush something off because it's old, like Pa says, "if I ain't broke, don't fix me."

Hate to but in but can we get back on topic ? , this isnt about US gun laws , its about some maniac going completly nuts and killing 32 ppl before making himself number 33

I think this is about gun laws actaully, how long do you think it's going to take before the people that want to blame gun makers for enabling this messed up young man to do what he did, there are many people that practically worship the idea that "guns not people kill..." That the culture breeds killers, not genes. Well I'm sorry, Cho Seung-Hui slipped through cracks that should not have existed in the first place.

Personally I think this event was a freak abberation. It shouldn't have happened, but someone cut a corner and missed the fact this this young man involuntarily spent time in a mental instiution. Besides that he had no criminal record and was a legal citizen of the United States, with every right provided by the Constiution that has guided our country for 200 years. Everytime something liek this there is discussion on repealing the second amendment and everytime they do, Washington gets reminded that its "We the people of the United States of a America" not the "We the old fat sychophants."

Either way... Below is a list of those killed [some not all I do think] (taken off the Virginia Tech site), take some time to read through them... and remember how luck you are that it wasn't you.

Ross Abdallah Alameddine
Christopher James Bishop
Brian Roy Bluhm
Ryan Christopher Clark
Austin Michelle Cloyd
Jocelyne Couture-Nowak
Kevin P. Granata
Matthew Gregory Gwaltney
Caitlin Millar Hammaren
Jeremy Michael Herbstritt
Emily Jane Hilscher
Jarrett Lee Lane
Matthew Joseph La Porte
Henry J. Lee
Liviu Librescu
Partahi Mamora Halomoan Lumbantoruan
Lauren Ashley McCain
Daniel Patrick O'Neil
J. Ortiz-Ortiz
Minal Hiralal Panchal
Daniel Alejandro Perez
Erin Nicole Peterson
Michael Steven Pohle, Jr.
Julia Kathleen Pryde
Mary Karen Read
Reema Joseph Samaha
Waleed Mohamed Shaalan
Leslie Geraldine Sherman
Maxine Shelly Turner
Nicole White

 

[Majestic]

Unfortunately this world is made up of all types.

Australia is very strict on gun laws after the Tasmania shooting of the late 90's.

You need to go though a lot to get a gun and a licence, though there are still thousands of unregistered guns out there in Aus.