At first the news said only one person dead, one wounded....BUT....unfortunately, this tragedy will go down as the bloodiest college campus shooting in history. What a dastardly feat of cowardice and cold-bloodeness....our hearts are heavy with sympathy to all those at Virginia Tech and their families. --------------------------------------- Gunman Kills 21 People at Virginia Tech Gunman Is Dead But It's Unclear If He Took His Own Life By SUE LINDSEY AP BLACKSBURG, Va. (April 16) - A gunman opened fire in a dorm and classroom at Virginia Tech on Monday, killing 21 people in the deadliest campus shooting in U.S. history. The gunman was killed but it was unclear if he was shot by police or took his own life. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Today the university was struck with a tragedy that we consider of monumental proportions," said Virginia Tech president Charles Steger. "The university is shocked and indeed horrified." The university reported shootings at opposite sides of the 2,600-acre campus, beginning at about 7:15 a.m. at West Ambler Johnston, a co-ed residence hall that houses 895 people, and continuing about two hours later at Norris Hall, an engineering building. The name of the gunman was not released. Up until Monday, the deadliest 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. In the Columbine High bloodbath near Littleton, Colo., in 1999, two teenagers killed 12 fellow students and a teacher before taking their own lives. On Monday, one student was killed in a dorm and the others were killed in the classroom, Virginia Tech Police Chief W.R. Flinchum. After the shootings, all entrances to the campus were closed and classes canceled through Tuesday. There's just a lot of commotion. It's hard to tell exactly what's going on," said Jason Anthony Smith, 19, who lives in the dorm where shooting took place. Aimee Kanode, a freshman from Martinsville, said the shooting happened on the 4th floor of West Ambler Johnston dormitory, one floor above her room. Kanode's resident assistant knocked on her door about 8 a.m. to notify students to stay put. "They had us under lockdown," Kanode said. "They temporarily lifted the lockdown, the gunman shot again." "We're all locked in our dorms surfing the Internet trying to figure out what's going on," Kanode said. Madison Van Duyne, a student who was interviewed by telephone on CNN, said, "We are all in lockdown. Most of the students are sitting on the floors away from the windows just trying to be as safe as possible." It was second time in less than a year that the campus was closed because of a shooting. In August 2006, the opening day of classes was canceled and the campus closed when an escaped jail inmate allegedly killed a hospital guard off campus and fled to the Tech area. A sheriff's deputy involved in the manhunt was killed on a trail just off campus. The accused gunman, William Morva, faces capital murder charges.
More recent reports say the death toll is 32 and will rise. It appears that the shooting occured two hours apart but speculation is that only one gunman was involved. I am speechless.
Reports now show 33 dead. 2 died in the first shooting. 2 hours later, 31 died in the second shooting including the shooter. This coming from the university press conference. Truely a sad state of affairs. It has just been stated for the first time that the gunman took his own life. That is the only thing he did right!
this douchebag <t>should have done the right thing from the start so we'd only have one grieving mother tonight.<br/> <br/> i just hope he didn't get it right and bled out slow</t>
There are also reports of real acts of heroism by a professor who stood in front of his students as a shield sacrificing his own life to protect others. He is also reported to be a Holocaust survivor. What a horror story
Gunman Identified as University Student Bush, First Lady Visit School for Memorial Service By ADAM GELLER AP BLACKSBURG, Va. (April 17) -- The gunman suspected of carrying out the Virginia Tech massacre that left 33 people dead was described Tuesday as a sullen loner whose creative writing in English class was so disturbing that he was referred to the school's counseling service. News reports also said that he may have been taking medication for depression, that he was becoming increasingly violent and erratic, and that he left a note in his dorm in which he railed against "rich kids," "debauchery" and "deceitful charlatans" on campus. Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old senior majoring in English, arrived in the United States as boy from South Korea in 1992 and was raised in suburban Washington, D.C., officials said. He was living on campus in a different dorm from the one where Monday's bloodbath began. Police and university officials offered no clues as to exactly what set him off on the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history. "He was a loner, and we're having difficulty finding information about him," school spokesman Larry Hincker said. On Tuesday afternoon, thousands of people gathered in the basketball arena, and when it filled up, thousands more filed into the football stadium, for a memorial service for the victims. President Bush and the first lady attended.
This guy (the shooter) was certified by the court to have mental illness and yet he was allowed by law to purchase handguns at a legal gunshop? What in the hell is wrong with this country?
"What in hell is wrong with this country?" Perhaps this is a good place to start http://chronicle.com/free/v53/i33/33b02401.htm
It is inexcusable that the "gaping hole" as referenced in this article has been allowed to exist. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18217741/site/newsweek/ Come on now...is it too much to ask even of the most ardent gun supporter to use his noggin a little and reason that just maybe it is a stupid idea to allow gun purchases by people with questionable mental states? Are we that hell bent on right-sided gun ownership rights that we become irrationally moronic in the process?
MCG Marajuana is illegal but I bet that you find it all over the VaT campus. Guns are not allowed there but that didn't stop Hui. Murder is illegal but that didn't stop Hui. Isn't it a little naive to think that if you made guns illegal it would have had any difference? Timothy VcVea killed 161 without a gun. Richard Speck and Charles Manson didn't use guns. Ranting that gun control would somehow have made a difference is pissing into the wind.
"Isn't it a little naive to think that if you made guns illegal it would have had any difference?" Gipper....it figures you would not read and understand my posts. I said illegal....for certified "mentally unstable" individuals. If that concept is so hard for a member of the legal profession to grasp then no wonder it happened and no wonder our system as it involves the purchase of weapons is so out of whack. "Critics say Cho was able to collect his firearms without a hitch because of a gaping hole in the enforcement of existing federal gun laws that routinely allows mentally unstable people to buy deadly firearms" Please don't tell me that any of you here on Skybox aren't mortified by this statement. If you are not then you must crazily believe the whole thing was a leftist plot by those nasty liberals to outlaw gun sales.
First of all let's got back before he bought the guns. The school let him back on campus. In fact under the law they probably had no choice. They also were prevented from disclosing his condition to his family and friends. He was a bomb about to go off in the campus community. He was going to build a bomb, steal a gun or come up with some other way to go out in a blaze of infamy. Your premise, that if he was told by the gun shop he couldn't buy a gun, he would have gone back to campus, graduated and lived a normal life doesn't sell with me. This kid should have been removed from the campus community. His family should have been notified of his need for help. He was prevented from both by some idiotic law passed in Va. That doesn't seem to bother you at all.
'Your premise, that if he was told by the gun shop he couldn't buy a gun, he would have gone back to campus, graduated and lived a normal life doesn't sell with me." Gipper, where do I say that is my "premise". My premise is that how in the name of law....sanity....and good government can we allow mentally unstable people who are certified by the court as such buy guns legally? What kind of a system do we have that has a "gap" like this? I sense resistance to your acceptance of this as an insane application of the gun laws. You truly have no problem with it?
First of all, there never was a determination by a judge that Hui was unstable. It was a magistrate, a minor judicial official who signed an order sending him for observation based upon among other things claims by two female students of harassment. Since that is probably the first time that has ever happened at an American College I can see where this individual, based on that alone would be prevented from owning a gun. (of course he'd still be elligible to vote in the Democratic primary.) But the fact is, after being referred to an institution for observation, he was released shortly thereafter. There's a reason why we let people post bail most of the time. The reason is, that after they are arraigned, often by a magistrate, the preliminary decision is not based on a standard sufficient to take away their rights. You've not once commented on the law allowing him to return to campus, and preventing the school from advising his family. Obviously, it's solely the gun issue that bothers you.
"Cho Seung-Hui was once involuntary detained for mental illness" That's quite enough to prevent this ass*ole from ever being permitted to buy a gun legally. To buy a gun legally you should be squeaky effin clean. Otherwise any incident that obviously he caused to bring such scrutiny on his mental state should provoke an extensive investigation and mental health check-up lasting for several years before he could legally buy a 9mm handgun with extra clips for Christ's sake! What's to defend about this guy!!