31 Dead at Virginia Tech

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Holy shit this is awful

21 die in campus rampage

21 others injured after shooting breaks out in dorm, classroom at Virgina Tech

Apr 16, 2007 12:37 PM

Associated Press

A gunman opened fire in a dorm and classroom at Virginia Tech today, killing 21 people and wounding another 21 before he was killed, police said.

“Today the university was struck with a tragedy that we consider of monumental proportions,†said university president Charles Steger.

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.

Students have been told to stay inside and away from windows. And police are sweeping the campus and working to establish whether the gunman acted alone.

On its web site, Virginia Tech said the shootings at opposite ends of the campus hurt “multiple victims.â€

All entrances to the campus are closed and classes cancelled.

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 cancelled 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.

Edited April 16, 2007 by Guest
damn stats

[NewRider]

Just watching this on the news right now. Very sad news.

[Hal Johnson]

Is it just me, or does this shit seem to happen every three months or so? Its getting ridiculous.

[Hal Johnson]

I feel very badly for these people, so much so that words wont really do me any justice, BUT, does this sort of shit happen anywhere else in the world? Consistantly? How many freakin times does this nonsense have to happen before a country wakes up? Its literally gotten to the point where people are like, "oh ya, 'nother school shootin'. Those poor folks. Terrible, just terrible. Ahh well, 15-two and a pair is four..."

[AD]

How many freakin times does this nonsense have to happen before a country wakes up?

has nothing to do with 'country' - people are people and unfortunately this happens everywhere on larger and smaller scales.

[Hal Johnson]

You may be right...Im just thinking of industrialized nations...Im sure school shootings in the States rank up near the top.

Also, with regards to their gun control laws, which Im definately no expert on, but c'mon...its an American problem. Isnt it?

[Cully]

very sad.

[The Chameleon]

Is it just me, or does this shit seem to happen every three months or so? Its getting ridiculous.

I agree.

And this is the sad price you pay for having the right to bear arms in your constitution...

The easy access to guns in the US has to stop or this type of tragedy will keep happening.

[ollie]

The easy access to guns in the US has to stop or this type of tragedy will keep happening.

Didn't something similar just happen in Canada? Gun restrictions are nice but it's pretty tough to stop one individual hell bent on terror.

I agree with AD.

[paisley]

How many freakin times does this nonsense have to happen before a country wakes up?

has nothing to do with 'country' - people are people and unfortunately this happens everywhere on larger and smaller scales.

seems like it happens pretty frequently now whereas I can't remember any school rampages from a 80 years or more ago... personally I think its a modern social condition

very sad whatever the cause

[ollie]

FWIW, a list of notable school shootings courtesy of Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_shootings#Notable_school_massacres

[Kanada Kev]

Tragic events. Watching the developments unfold on Newsworld right now. Campus radio student being interviewed by CBC right now. So sad and difficult.

Terrible, just terrible. Ahh well, 15-two and a pair is four..."

Cribbage? Great game that is lost on this generation ... i've gotten a 28 once, the 29 is soooo elusive.

[Hal Johnson]

personally I think its a modern social condition

Thats kinda what I was getting at too.

Kev - I got one once. My grandma can confirm.

Edited April 16, 2007 by Guest

[Esau.]

Terrible news. Watching some of it now on CNN.

... personally I think its a modern social condition

very sad whatever the cause

That makes sense to me Paisley.

One thing that furthers that for me, is that CNN (on TV) finds it relevant to update us all during this tragedy on just how many views the student video on their website has gotten.

[Hartamophone]

its an American problem. Isnt it?

I'm sure the victims of the shooting at Dawson College in Montreal this past September and the women who were killed several years ago at the Ecole Polytechnique would disagree with you.

Edited April 16, 2007 by Guest

[Kanada Kev]

It's happened here many times too. I really don't think that the gun laws being changed will make this sort of event stop. There are simply too many firearms out there, and anyone who really wants one can get one.

I remember only recently hearing about one Canadian school shooting that i couldn't believe was seemingly forgotten by many. 1975 in Brampton, ON!! Scott Thomson (Kids in the Hall) was a student there that day.

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/story.html?id=56cd4afe-edd6-4253-ae52-698ef78e7712

Past Canadian school shootings

CanWest News Service

Published: Wednesday, September 13, 2006

• Nov. 9, 2005: Shandie Kerpal, 18, was shot in the shoulder after a masked gunman came up to his car in Chinguacousy Secondary School parking lot in Brampton, Ont. Kerpal survived the attack.

• Dec. 10, 2004: English as a Second Language teacher Aysegul Candir, 47, was shot and killed by her husband, Erhun Candir, in the Bramalea Secondary School parking lot in Brampton, Ont. Erhun Candir is charged with first-degree murder.

• Nov. 25, 2003: One student was injured in the upper body when shots were fired at Scarborough Centre for Alternative Studies High School in Toronto. The student survived.

• Feb. 10, 2000: Three teenagers were shot and wounded in the parking lot of a Toronto high school. All three survived.

• April 28, 1999: An Alberta teen sawed the barrel off his stepfather's .22-calibre rifle and opened fire at W.R. Myers High School in the small town of Taber, Alta., southeast of Calgary. He was sentenced in 2000 to three years of secure custody and seven years of probation for the murder of 17-year-old Jason Lang and the attempted murder of another student.

• Feb. 8, 1999: A man fires a shot at Woodland Elementary School in Verdun, Que., after a woman in an adjacent adult education centre said she had been threatened by another student. No one was injured.

• June 23, 1998: Police shoot a suicidal 20-year-old man after he shoots dead a police dog in a northside Edmonton schoolyard which had been filled with elementary school children outside for a field day minutes earlier. The gunman survived.

• October 1997: Iacob Marcu, a 35-year-old disgruntled Romanian, fatally shoots Natalie Rouleau, 31, a teacher at a Montreal language school for immigrants who had taught him introductory French three years earlier.

• October 1994: Two guidance counsellors at Brockton High School in Toronto are shot by a student unhappy with his grades. Both survived.

• Aug. 24, 1992: Engineering professor Valery Fabrikant shoots four colleagues in Concordia University's faculty of engineering after learning he would not be granted tenure. Fabrikant is overpowered and later sentenced to life in prison with no parole for 25 years.

• February 1990: A jilted teenager shoots his estranged girlfriend at General Brock High School in Burlington, Ont. The girl survived.

• Dec. 6, 1989 Anti-feminist Marc Lepine shoots and kills 14 women, as well as wounding 13 others, in the halls of Montreal's Ecole Polytechnique engineering school before killing himself.

• October 1978: A 17-year-old student shoots a 16-year-old to death at Sturgeon Creek Regional Secondary School in Winnipeg, allegedly for ridiculing the rock group Kiss. He is found not guilty of first-degree murder by reason of insanity.

• 1975: 18-year-old Robert Poulin, donning military fatigues and carrying his sawed-off shotgun, killed one and injured five others at Saint Pius X High School in Ottawa before turning the gun on himself. Before leaving for the school, Poulin had stabbed and raped a 17-year-old friend, Kim Rabot, and set fire to her body in his bed.

• 1975: Michael Slobodian 16, killed a teacher and student and wounded 13 others at Centennial Secondary School in Brampton, Ont., before killing himself.

[Hal Johnson]

I didnt mean exclusively American, but I can see how you might have gotten that, I just meant its a problem to their entire country. They need to do something about it. Not just say, "oh,well, theres school shootings everywhere, its hard to stop someone hell bent on killing people."

[ollie]

What should they do Hal?

I'm not suggesting that nothing be done, just that pointing to gun control and saying, "See, there's your problem" is missing the point.

[Kanada Kev]

I wish that there was tighter gun control everywhere. I think that Canada is a safer country because of it. Does that mean there will never be shootings? No. The question is (especially in the US) how do you get the firearms back from those who possess them. Just think if they offered cash for trading in your hand guns ... they spend Billions/Trillions on invading countries, why not earmarking a couple of billion to buy back those guns and destroy them?

Fuck it, we know that wars are fuelled all over the world in order for the manufacturers of weapons and armament make their billions of dollars.

[Davey Boy 2.0]

or instead or destroying them, they could sell those guns to the iraqi 'police force', after haliburton steps in as the middle man and makes a nice tidy profit...

[shainhouse]

this is so sad that we're accepting these events as a part of society nowadays. RIP to all those students.

[Kanada Kev]

AD ... sadly, you can change the subject line to:

29 Dead at Virginia Tech

[Kanada Kev]

Now 31

[The Chameleon]

The easy access to guns in the US has to stop or this type of tragedy will keep happening.

Didn't something similar just happen in Canada? Gun restrictions are nice but it's pretty tough to stop one individual hell bent on terror.

I agree with AD.

True. Canada does have it's own homegrown gun tragedies and school rampages but with dramatically less frequency the US. Seems in Canada we get one incident every 5 yrs or so and in the US it's every few months. I think it is directly correlated to gun access.

Edited April 16, 2007 by Guest

[AD]

Now 31

where are you getting this from? i can't find anything that has these higher numbers. highest i've seen is 22.