Sad day in Blacksburg

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The guy had a gun. The gun sent bullets into bodies.
I don't care how he got the gun, but because a gun was in his possession and he intentionally used it with malevolent intent, people who should still be alive are now dead.
 
David 🙂 yes I remember that. There's jsut no point in trying to argue a political or religious difference using a keyboard. Nothing good can come of it. Neither view will change as a result, so why invite bad feelings in.
 
OK, my bad. I apologize. I edited out part of my original post. Please don't let this sad tragedy degenerate into politcs. Let's just keep all victims and their families in our thoughts and prayers. What a terrible thing for all those to go through.
 
Eric, you'll get no argument from me on that. I'm suggesting that starting and continuing that argument is pointless and can only be divisive here at RFF. I'm not saying we have to all agree on everything, or shut up about it, just that we should be smart enough to know when a discussion will or will not be useful.
 
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oftheherd said:
OK, my bad. I apologize. I edited out part of my original post. Please don't let this sad tragedy degenerate into politcs. Let's just keep all victims and their families in our thoughts and prayers. What a terrible thing for all those to go through.
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I am truly impressed, guys. There is a time and a place for everything, and you guys seem to realize that. My hat is off to you.
 
I have seen that Al, and agree with you 100%.

I hope those posts are over and more appropriate discussion and respect will follow.
 
Regardless of the weapon or our feelings about guns, I think we might agree that we all are capable of harboring and violent thoughts and feelings as well as unwittingly fostering those thoughts and feelings in others with whom we come into contact at school or work. Perhaps if nothing else, this horrific tragedy offers an opportunity to reflect on our own actions or inaction in dealing with people in our own daily lives.
David
 
I had a busy day and don't know too much about the details on this, but my deepest condolences go out to everyone in Blacksburg on this sad day.
 
It seems homeland terrorism is still as rampant as it used to be before 9/11. Nothing changed. I'm sick of it and really can't be bothered even to watch the reporting. It's pure frustration, mine. No-one wants to give up their privileges but don't mind taking away other people's privileges. IMO guns don't have a place among regular civilians but should be exclusive to law enforcement and the military. Many people disagree. So be it. But then people will have to accept that incidents like these happen.

End of rant.
 
Where the hell were the Kampus Kops and the local PD? Did the shooter pick a "law enforcement day off"? I think I heard this tragedy occurred over a TWO HOUR period- an unbelievable response time.
 
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Phone local police using cam phone, take a mug shot, run the cassette recorder/dict machine you should carry. Phone lawyer 2nd. Go with a buddy, as witness.
The film is your property, telling them you have the equivalent of a black belt in a banned martial art, makes Karate like sunday school tea party, should reassure them no end.
Simpler using prepaid mailers and posting as you get to 36. storing in sock until you get to PO box.
 
... kids are being killed in London too - one at a time - sometimes it seems that we see so much worldwide that it is numbing - until i drive past the flowers at the site of another pointless knifing a couple of miles from my home ...
There is nothing that can be said to the families and friends ...
 
Terrible, terrible events...my heart goes out to the families and survivors who will never come to terms with the senslessness of it all. All those young people with so much to offer the world...
 
Another tragedy. another waste. It appears the perp has no empathy, no compassion, just anger and jealousy etc, re his girlfriend and her fidelity.

Hmm. Lack of empathy and paranoia.... often associated with TCH/dope smoking.
Was it a factor? Was it a factor in Columbine I wonder? It was a factor in Australia's lone-mad-gunmen-with-semi-auto-rifle massacre.

Well, 6am one morning a few years back there's knocking on my door. Police. "Have you seen your neighbour?" "What do know of his current relationship with his wife?"

He and she had separated. She took up with someone else. I had a long phone call trying to make him see some sense and move on but he was beyond rationality and thoughts of the future. He stabbed her, she recovered. I visited him in prison. I wasn't his only visitor; there was also a lovely young woman working the prison as a mission field. I heard they married. Next thing I heard, he's on the front pages again for stabbing her to death after a few months.

A perp's madness/rage easily over runs well intended laws. Even the best laws crumble when facing human rage.
The best you can hope for is that tough laws against owning AK-47s etc act as an effective speed bump for many perps. Its a hope. And there is simply no other path. We should make it as hard as possible for deranged perps to obtain assault weapons. If you don't do that... well here's a hypothetical sound-bite of the alternative argument: "Look, if only the members of that college had been armed and able to shoot back with their own AK-47s, well then obviously the death toll would have been much different, the situation may not have even arisen, and so many of the students who died unarmed and helpless would be alive today."

Beirut, anyone?

IMHO there is no rational alternative. Unpalatable as it is politically and culturally, assault weapons must be declared illegal. The weapons must be collected/confiscated/purchased by the government.
 
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