Holy shit. I'm just now seeing the magnitude of this disaster. I'm absolutely speechless.
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Virginia Tech
16 Apr 2007 02:59 pm
Comments (103)
The dead shooter is looking at the #3 spot in the all-time spree killer record book.
He took the #3 spot from a 1938 Japanese spree killer who did part of his crime with a samurai sword.
The #1 spot is well out of reach, but if there is bad news among the wounded, he's got an outside shot at taking the #2 spot. But given the ways reporting of these numbers tends to proceed, I'd say he doesn't hit 35 fatalities.
He does get the sub-record of the #1 spot for the Americas.
Great sadness today. What changes should we expect to help prevent future killings?
None. The NRA has the money and power to keep the status quo. We only live here.
Do we have any idea this had anything to do with gun control policy, Maggie? Way to quickly use tragedy for your political ends.
Cut-and-pasted, without additional comment, from Dizzy at DailyKOS. NPR has also been repeating this account, but I can't find an original source for it:
"A White House spokesman said President Bush was horrified by the rampage and offered his prayers to the victims and the people of Virginia.
"The president believes that there is a right for people to bear arms, but that all laws must be followed," spokeswoman Dana Perino said."
The headline was "Bush Reassures NRA in Wake of Tragedy," which I feel says it better far than I ever could.
Certain segments of the blogosphere will be quite disappointed if the shooter turns out not to be Muslim.
"Certain segments of the blogosphere will be quite disappointed if the shooter turns out not to be Muslim."
As someone always concerned with the political zeitgeist and the broader political mood, figuring out the shooter's nationality and ethnicity is always the first thing I want to find out.
In this case, it seems to be an Asian-American man. So I'd say the chances of Islamitude are low.
30 dead?
That's a good day in Baghdad.
Pretty shocking that spree killers have had so little efficacy when compared to suicide bombers. The most successful killing spree in known history only claimed 57 victims? It seems like a dozen Iraqi suicide bombers have bested that tally in just the last year.
In this case, it seems to be an Asian-American man. So I'd say the chances of Islamitude are low.
That's funny, and here I thought the vast majority of Muslims lived in Asia.
I don't know if it's too soon to talk politics about this... I don't have any particular perspective on that. It will become political eventually, although if I'm wrong to write about this now that's no excuse.
So at the risk of being insensitive-- I do want to point out that, whenever Matt makes a post in support of gun rights, the comments are flooded with people saying "right on." And the substance is always this: I will be a responsible gun owner; I'll have a gun lock; I won't let my kids near my gun; I won't get drunk and shoot my wife; etc. But, again-- it's not just about your ownership. It's about the fact that your support for gun ownership helps to create a system where obtaining a gun is ludicrously easy, which insures that people who will not be responsible gun owners will own guns. Add that to the truly overwhelming odds that your gun will never be used to defend you or someone you love, and I think you have a reasonably strong argument for banning guns.
There's no way to know right now whether or not this man's gun was legally purchased. But I find the "if you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns" argument dishonest. The ease of legally purchasing a gun greatly increases the ease of illegally purchasing a gun. It's much hard to illegally buy a gun in countries with strict gun laws.
"Pretty shocking that spree killers have had so little efficacy when compared to suicide bombers. The most successful killing spree in known history only claimed 57 victims?"
Racking up big numbers in a spree killing seems far more difficult than a single impact event. Woo Bum Kon seems to have managed to get the record thought a slowness and methodicalness that is normally alien to the genre.
Of course, he was a cop, which gave his spree certain unfair advantages. He might even need an asterisk in the record book next to his number.
Petey:
"In this case, it seems to be an Asian-American man. So I'd say the chances of Islamitude are low."
You are aware that there is racial diversity among Muslims, no? Consider that we've had a black terrorist sniper (John Allen Mohammed) and a white British attempted plane bomber (Richard Reid), both Muslim converts. Without knowing who did this or why, it would be foolish to rule out Sudden Jihad Syndrome. Consider also that there are Al Queda-linked Muslim terrorist groups active in Indonesia, the Philippines, and other parts of Southeast Asia.
Whoever the perp was, the Virginia Tech massacre is horrible and disgusting. Too bad there wasn't someone in the area with a firearm who could have shot the perp before he killed more innocent people.
Please, the university is a self defense free zone. I'd say it's a perfect example of "if you outlaw guns".
"It's much hard to illegally buy a gun in countries with strict gun laws."
Marginally harder, at best.
For comparison, a death toll of 35 would be a very slow day in Baghdad. What happened at VT is horrifying. Now imagine five of those happening every day, for four years.
Someone is going to have some serious questions to answer over the two-hour gap between the dorm shooting and the Norris Hall shootings. Why weren't there cops crawling the campus looking for a shooter within 30 minutes of the first shooting?
"Too bad there wasn't someone in the area with a firearm who could have shot the perp before he killed more innocent people."
Too bad Obi-Wan Rambo wasn't there to teleport in and vaporize the perp, then reverse the flow of time to save the victims.
"You are aware that there is racial diversity among Muslims, no?"
I said the chances of Islamitude were low, not impossible.
The shooter was going after his girlfriend, so it's likely personal, not political.
The descriptions of "Asian" to my ears read "East Asian", rather than "South Asian".
Put it all together, and I don't think the chances are good that the anti-Islam jingos get a cause celebe out of this one.
"Too bad there wasn't someone in the area with a firearm who could have shot the perp before he killed more innocent people."
Too bad the shooter didn't have loving parents who could have aborted him.
So basically the second thing out of Perino's mouth was a reassurance to the NRA? That's fucked up. (and I'm not especially anti-gun).
I don't think you'll ever stop shootings with gun control. They happen in all countries, some with much more restrictive gun control laws than america.
However, I also think it silly to imagine that everyone carrying a gun is a solution. How many people do you think would want to carry handguns with them to their university classes? What does that tell you about your society if many did want to?
Generally, I don't see there being that many implications for public policy coming from these sensational exceptions. In the coming days there will be talk of gun control, of society, etc. In reality, this was an exception to the rules, which is why it is such an important event.
Alex R hits on what I think might be the most important lesson we can draw from this: where was the Swat team? In America nowadays they sent swat teams on routine drug arrests, but they were surprisingly late today. I hope there was a good reason.
? Consider that we've had a black terrorist sniper (John Allen Mohammed) and a white British attempted plane bomber (Richard Reid), both Muslim converts.
For the record, Reid was racially mixed.
"I don't think you'll ever stop shootings with gun control. They happen in all countries, some with much more restrictive gun control laws than america."
They happen much, much, much less frequently in countries with more restrictive gun laws.
The shooter was going after his girlfriend, so it's likely personal, not political.
The descriptions of "Asian" to my ears read "East Asian", rather than "South Asian".
Put it all together, and I don't think the chances are good that the anti-Islam jingos get a cause celebe out of this one.
Put what all together? Your random-guess hunches and unfounded, leapt-to conclusions? What makes you think you know anything more than anyone else at this point?
But hey, Petey's hunches say the chances aren't good! Take it to the bank!
Sorry, but I can't stand it when people just start spewing random blather in the face of this kind of thing. If your fingers just gotta type something, go write some poetry or something.
"Alex R hits on what I think might be the most important lesson we can draw from this: where was the SWAT team? In America nowadays they sent SWAT teams on routine drug arrests, but they were surprisingly late today. I hope there was a good reason."
The reason is: Because it's financially impossible to maintain enough SWAT teams that one can be guaranteed to respond promptly in a statistically-extremely-unlikely situation like this.
I've lived in Blacksburg, and I don't find the 2-hour gap surprising in the least - once the guy made it out of the dorm, as long as he wasn't visibly armed, it would have been needle-in-a-very large haystack to find him. It's a very large open campus and the dorm - if I'm remembering right about which dorm that was - is very close to the town edge of campus. It's a small, quiet town and my impression of the police there was that they were mostly concerned with not letting the partying get too far out of hand. I wouldn't expect them to be deft hands at man hunts, and it's a nasty area to try to conduct one.
Freddie,
I'm not a pro-gun absolutist by any stretch of the imagination. I think they should be extremely difficult to procure, but banning them is a more extreme step than other industrialized democracies have taken. I wouldn't really mind if we had gun laws like England's. And one could easily make the same argument for drug/alcohol prohibition, which is one of the most spectacularly failed domestic policies of the last century.
Put what all together? Your random-guess hunches and unfounded, leapt-to conclusions? What makes you think you know anything more than anyone else at this point?
But hey, Petey's hunches say the chances aren't good! Take it to the bank!
Whatever your problems with Petey's analysis of the situation, I think his larger point stands: this is a situation very unlikely to result in Islamophobia. This isn't Al Qaeda, its a mass murder. That in and of itself isn't a particularly deep point, but Petey was replying to another commenter. Who himself was joking.
Isn't the Intertron confusing?
"Too bad the shooter didn't have loving parents who could have aborted him."
"Parents"? Since when do both potential parents have a choice in whether or not the woman has an abortion? Is this a new liberal "choice" position? Or part of a new anti-crime strategy based on a debunked Freakonomics theory?
"The descriptions of "Asian" to my ears read "East Asian", rather than "South Asian"."
I wrote "Southeast Asia", not "South Asia". The residents of Southeast Asia (Thais, Filipinos) fit your description of "Asian" (i.e., Mongoloid); "South Asian" is commonly used to refer to those from Pakistan and India.
banning them is a more extreme step than other industrialized democracies have taken. I wouldn't really mind if we had gun laws like England's. And one could easily make the same argument for drug/alcohol prohibition, which is one of the most spectacularly failed domestic policies of the last century.
Good points. I am myself conflicted about gun control on libertarian grounds. What I take issue with is MYs seemingly flippant attitude towards gun-control advocates, and the notion (routinely repeated around here) that a better-armed society is a safer society. That's an argument that, even well-articulated, seems deeply flawed to me. And typically, the argument takes the form of the moronic "if only the kids were packing and took him out" variety.
If only Jonah was here. Then the argument would be made with the utmost seriousness and care.
"Sorry, but I can't stand it when people just start spewing random blather in the face of this kind of thing. If your fingers just gotta type something, go write some poetry or something."
Is Haiku good enough for you?
Inductive logicLets Petey peer futureward
While stark remains blind
Petey--He's a troll. Let it go.
"Petey's hunches say the chances aren't good! Take it to the bank!"
Petey's hunches regularly make him good coin over at Intrade...
To those who advocate the "if everyone had a gun" line.
There is a country where most adult-age people have and are familiar with the use of guns. Most households have at least one gun for protecting the family.
That country is Iraq. Guns all around lead to a heck of alot of safety, don't they?
CNN "expert" SWAT team trainer is saying that 99% of SWAT teams in the country are part time and rarely train.
I guess all the reporting is saying that there were SWAT team members there - but I wouldn't be surprised if they were regular small town cops most of the time who then become the SWAT team on the rare occassion when something like this happens.
Haiku is more than good enough for me, but your claim to be using "inductive logic" is weak. Though, please note, I am not claiming to know that your hunches will turn out to be wrong.
It's "snark," not "stark."
Congrats on the coin. Anyone laying odds on the religious affiliation of the shooter yet?
"Parents"? Since when do both potential parents have a choice in whether or not the woman has an abortion? Is this a new liberal "choice" position? Or part of a new anti-crime strategy based on a debunked Freakonomics theory?
Fuck you Fred, and your utter lack of any sense of irony.
If we're into crass political analysis (and, yes, sometimes I appall myself) -- here is the bottom line for the moment:
So much for nailing Gonzales tomorrow.
I think its kinda sad that the reaction to use this tragedy for any kind of political agenda is taken so quickly. This is an awful tragedy, and I'm sure there will be lots of overreaction in the next week of how we need more gun control, how the students needed guns to protect themselves, how this is nothing compared to kids dying in Iraq, how this is the fault of our lax immigration policy, how this is due to the lack of universal health care and mental health care in this country, etc, etc. etc, not to mention the blaming of everyone - school administrators, violent video games, the NRA, South Park, liberalism, conservativism, whatever. We don't even have all the facts in, and already its begun.
For one minute, let's just calm down, take a quiet moment of reflection, and think about how lucky we all are to be alive.
1) Virginia Tech is about 20 miles from the city of Roanoke. The Roanoke Times had an article back in January 2006 re a law to allow Virginia students to possess firearms. The proposal was killed in committee in the state legislature in Richmond.
2) A quote from a Tech official opposed to firearms possession is
interesting:
"A bill that would have given college students and employees the right to carry handguns on campus died with nary a shot being fired in the General Assembly...
...Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker was happy to hear the bill was defeated. "I'm sure the university community is appreciative of the General Assembly's actions because this will help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on our campus."
Ref: http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/wb/xp-50658
3) It seems to me that if Virginia Tech disarmed its students , then it had a duty to protect those students. It seems to me that there should have been at least one armed policeman/guard posted in every Tech dorm/classroom building within 20 minutes of the 911 call for the earlier shooting at 7 am.
"Too bad Obi-Wan Rambo wasn't there to teleport in and vaporize the perp, then reverse the flow of time to save the victims."
Problem is, a lot of mass shootings DO get terminated by somebody in the area having a gun, and shooting the perp. (Usually followed by a media account relating how the perp. was "tackled"; Go figure...) Meanwhile, Obi-Wan hasn't been much in evidence.
a lot of mass shootings DO get terminated by somebody in the area having a gun, and shooting the perp
cite?
Jesus, Peter, I think I need a bath after clicking that link.
Freddie, we can certainly agree on the stupidity of the "if everyone was armed this wouldn't have happened" argument. That's the stupidest goddamned thing I've ever heard, and I knew someone like Instacracker would make that argument, though I am a bit surprised by how quickly drivel came out of his mouth (or keyboard).
I don't think you'll ever stop shootings with gun control. They happen in all countries, some with much more restrictive gun control laws than america."
They happen much, much, much less frequently in countries with more restrictive gun laws.
-------
Just a quick word to this. I'm a couple of years away from this research, having last looked into it in law school, but the facts are interesting. There are, relatively speaking, remarkably consistent rates of violent crimes among the "developed" world (north america, western europe, australia, japan). However, the US stands out in two respects: it's way off the charts in terms of incarceration rates, and way off the charts in terms of the amount of death that violent crime gives rise to. The consensus explanation for the latter phenomenon is handguns.
Brett, you can add me to cleek in requesting a cite for that. Particularly interested in hearing what you consider "a lot."
Problem is, a lot of mass shootings DO get terminated by somebody in the area having a gun, and shooting the perp.
I don't buy this for a second. Evidence please.
Pearl City, for instance. Although I should say that most mass shooters give up when they find a gun pointed at them, and don't have to actually be shot.
Lott had two studies, the "More guns, less crime" study, which did proove to be less than statistically significant, and another study on mass shootings, which you'll find wasn't discredited, probably because the statistical significance there was remarkably high.
Brett is engaging in the time-honored conservative tradition of argument by anecdote.
The conservative movement, as you might have noticed, has lots of well-funded institutions. One of the things an institution is good at is compiling and disseminating anecdotal evidence. For example, every time someone successfully defends themselves with a gun, it's part of the NRA's mission to identify that incident and make sure their membership learns about it. You never, of course, hear about any counterexamples.
The result is, after hearing story after story about how gun ownership makes you safer, you forget that you're, essentially, hearing nothing but cherry-picked anecdotes. You go around boldly making assertions about how such-and-such happens "all the time" because in your world, where a conservative institution makes sure you hear about each and every time that thing happens, it really DOES happen all the time.
This is the same basic strategy Michelle Malkin uses when she writes about Muslims behaving badly, for what it's worth. There are countless examples out there. Your job, as a member in good standing of the conservative movement, is simply to disseminate every anecdote that backs up your worldview in some way, large or small. At the end of the day, you end up with a lot of people who can't understand how anyone would feel different.
"Freddie, we can certainly agree on the stupidity of the "if everyone was armed this wouldn't have happened" argument. "
I think we can also agree that aborting all fetuses in the state of Virginia between 1976 and 1988 would also have prevented this horrible accident.
"cite?"
"Brett, you can add me to cleek in requesting a cite for that..."
Count me in too! BTW, citations from IMDB don't count.
"To those who advocate the "if everyone had a gun" line..."
Only straw men advocate that "everyone" should be able to carry a gun. Realistically, the percentage of students who would be interested in and qualified to carry a weapon under a reasonable gun law might be in the single digits. If so, that would mean that out of the dozens of victims and bystanders, there would probably have been at least one or two armed students in a position to stop this mass murderer.
I just spent a few minutes googling variations on "pearl city," "shooter," "gun," "criminal" and "citizen," and couldn't find whatever anecdote the conservatives were alluding to, for what that's worth.
"Pearl City, for instance. Although I should say that most mass shooters give up when they find a gun pointed at them, and don't have to actually be shot.
Lott had two studies, the "More guns, less crime" study, which did prove to be less than statistically significant, and another study on mass shootings, which you'll find wasn't discredited, probably because the statistical significance there was remarkably high."
I Googled "Pearl City" and I got nothing meaningful. I Googled "Lott +guns +crime" and I got nothing meaningful. Please offer links, and also a link backing up your assertion that "most mass shooters give up when they find a gun pointed at them." How large was the sample on that study?
I think John Lott has been shown to be far too much of a fabricator for anyone to say "oh, but his OTHER study has never been demolished..."
"Freddie, we can certainly agree on the stupidity of the "if everyone was armed this wouldn't have happened" argument. That's the stupidest goddamned thing I've ever heard, and I knew someone like Instacracker would make that argument, though I am a bit surprised by how quickly drivel came out of his mouth (or keyboard)."
I really, really don't understand what's stupid about this argument. I don't know a lot of about Virginia Tech, but if a lot of the students are from the greater inland Virginia and Appalachian region, then they're pretty familiar with guns. If you take a group of a couple thousand Virginians, odds are probably pretty good that a few of them are packing. All it takes is one such armed bystander to shoot this guy and stop him at 5, or 10, or 15 victims, instead of 31. Why is this so hard to imagine?
Certainly, if you've successfully disarmed the law-abiding bystanders, the chances of this happening are zero. If at least somebody there has a gun, the chances are non-zero.
And you can't object to "argument by anecdote" on this. There aren't enough massive workplace/school shootings to constitute a good sample, so it's all anecdote.
As today's death toll creeps up toward 35, Mark Bryant's #2 spot is slowly coming into jeopardy.
For those with a taste for the gothic, Bryant's spree kill is told in harrowing details through the Wikipedia link.
It's the third act (or daringly, the first act) of a very intense movie.
There is one thing we can all agree on. The Virginia Tech shooting proves that [insert political agenda here] would have prevented this senseless tragedy.
Steve (5:03) has an extraordinarily good brief analysis of the way in which the wingnuttery has managed to shape and distort political discourse in recent years. Reality-based people absolutely have to come up with a strategy for responding to and coping with the nonsense the right spouts incessantly.
I think it's obscene that some people, in this very thread, are already trying to spin this tragedy into soundbites for their particular political agendas. Have the decency to wait a few hours, will you?
Definitive news accounts will come out soon. In the meantime, maybe we should do as other people above me have suggested and reflect and pray a little bit?
There is one thing we can all agree on. The Virginia Tech shooting proves that [insert political agenda here] would have prevented this senseless tragedy.
Right. Because using the tragedy to drop a little sanctimony is less offensive than using it to discuss politics.
"There is one thing we can all agree on. The Virginia Tech shooting proves that [insert political agenda here] would have prevented this senseless tragedy."
Yup. This afternoon Michelle Malkin called for all Asian men in America - citizen or not - to be forcibly interred in camps in the Pacific northwest to prevent a repetition of this tragedy.
You can read about it here.
I would like to put in a vote for using the term berserker for the perps in this kind of event. If I am not mistaken, John Brunner used that in his novel Stand on Zanzibar.
"Spree killer" could be then be used for more extended events, like Starkweather.
My main reaction has been surprise that berserking doesn't happen much more often.
"All it takes is one such armed bystander to shoot this guy and stop him at 5, or 10, or 15 victims, instead of 31. Why is this so hard to imagine?"
Because it's a fantasy. Not only would your armed bystander need a gun, he'd also need some serious police/military training, some kind of global awareness of the situation, and a massive amount of luck to not be killed himself.
But in any case, it's probably safe to assume some students on the campus DID possess firearms in violation of the campus policy. Are you going to call them all cowards for not taking the Bruce Willis route this morning?
Re the questions above about whether armed civilians can stop spree killings, the only case I know of occurred at the Appalachian School of Law in Grundy Virginia , back in 2002.
In that case, several professors and students were killed. Two students subdued the killer --using guns they pulled from their vehicles. However, two points: (a) the killer had run out of ammo (although I think he had bullets to reload) and (b) the two students were former policemen.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachian_School_of_Law_shooting
"Spree killer" could be then be used for more extended events, like Starkweather."
But ain't folks like Starkweather and Cheney just straight-up serial killers?
Why do they need their own new word?
"Right. Because using the tragedy to drop a little sanctimony is less offensive than using it to discuss politics."
I can't speak for everyone here, Freddie, but I was actually trying to drop a little sarcasm on the party. Is sarcasm now part of the realm of the sacred? Praise be.
"Whoops, it looks as if the "was the shooter Muslim" speculation already has begun."
Oddly enough, the guy who did the cell phone tape you saw on CNN is from the west bank and grew up in Saudi Arabia. Actually, part of the prominent Barghouti family according to Wolf Blitzer.
The key question: is Instapundit still aroused this many hours after contemplating various alternate-bloodbath scenarios?
Now do you surrender monkeys understand why Congress must not tie the Commander-in-Chief's hands? Didn't think so.
A check at wikipedia.org reveals several counter-intuitive facts.
1) The worst spree killings have occurred overseas, not in the USA: (a)Woo Bum-Kon, 1982, South Korea: 57 deaths. (b) Martin Bryant , 1996, Tasmania: 35 deaths (c) Mutsuo Toi , 1938, Japan: 30 deaths
2) Several prominent spree killings have been carried out with police firearms. (a) Policeman Woo Bum-Kon --cited above --used a police rifle and hand grenades. (b) In the Red Lake High School massacre in 2005, Jeffrey Weise used firearms stolen from his policeman grandfather.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spree_killing and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Lake_High_School_massacre
3) The third worst killing -- Mutsuo Toi in 1938 -- was carried out with Japanese swords and an old Japanese rifle -- which at that time would have to have been a slow fire, limited capacity bolt action rifle similar to today's hunting rifles. (Toi had cut the power line to a village to kill the lights).
What's interesting is that the silence of the swords probably allowed Toi to make so many kills --because no one heard gunfire and raised the alarm.
Most shooting sprees do indeed seem to end when someone with a gun kills the shooter. That someone is generally (as in this case, as at Columbine, as at Dunblane) the shooter himself.
Jesus, Peter, I think I need a bath after clicking that link.
Me too.
In Clorox.
"But ain't folks like Starkweather and Cheney just straight-up serial killers?"
I thought "serial killer" was used for the sexually pathological, like Gacy or Green River, or greatly extended and random like Zodiac.
Seems to me there are important differences between Whitman in the Tower, Starkweather, and Gacy. Differences that could determine policy.
Bush and Cheney are praying the gunman was a married gay Iranian illegal immigrant abortionist that voted illegally in the last two general elections for Gore and Kerry.
You notice that the liberal media is failing to comment that the shooter was probably Asian - according to two survivors.
This is but a mere symptom of the third-world invasion, and it's going to get worse!
Stop the third-world invasion!!!
I pray the the Lord that we will find a strong leader to deliver us from this invasion!
This is simply horrible. The worst part is that if the killer does turn out to be Chinese (which Wikipedia is reporting), there will probably be more deaths from hate crimes in retaliation.
My understanding is that serial killers don't have to be sexually motivated, but do need to space their murders apart over a few days, such as the Zodiac Killer. Mass murderers kill a bunch of people all at once, such as at Columbine.
And can't we all just wait until we hear whether or not the gun was purchased legally before we start talking politics?
And can't we all just wait until we hear whether or not the gun was purchased legally before we start talking politics?
If the gunman had entered the United States on a student visa, as some news reports say, then I would imagine that he must have obtained the weapons illegally. As lax as gun laws may be in some states it's hard to imagine that a foreign citizen on a student visa would be allowed to buy firearms.
A Symptom of our "Chain Letter Society"?
Read an analysis of the influences in our "Chain Letter Society" that may be precipitating events like the tragedy at Virginia Tech and how our focus on winning and being number one may be fostering a generation of children with fully inadequate coping skills who have a misguided sense of self-worth...here:
My understanding is that serial killers don't have to be sexually motivated, but do need to space their murders apart over a few days, such as the Zodiac Killer. Mass murderers kill a bunch of people all at once, such as at Columbine.Right, "serial" means "recurring at regular intervals." Like serial publications. Or serial monogamy. "Mass monogamy" would be, shall we say, a bit of an oxymoron.
You know, I'm generally a fan of gun control--it is harder for bad guys to get guns when it's harder for everybody to get guns.
That said, I really think this should be less about gun control, and more about the fact that we as a society need to re-think how we respond to crisis situations. There's this belief that professionals are best equipped to handle things, and regular people are part of the problem to be dealt with, and I simply think that's inaccurate.
Look at 9/11. The only effective response we really saw was from passengers on one of the doomed flights, once they figured out what was going on. Once they got the facts, they came up with a plan and they executed it. And it's important to note that they never talked with anybody in charge--they just got the basic lay of the situation from the media, namely that planes were being used as missiles, and they responded. Frankly, the free press and common citizens saved the White House and/or the Capitol that day.
(To be clear, this is not to cast aspersion on the heroism of the first responders--they ran into a burning building, and many civilians lived because they put themselves in jeopardy to get others to safety.)
My point is that regular people aren't sheep. They are an asset, and we should be investing more energy into figuring out how to use regular people in a crisis, rather than fearing they will panic. If people are given information in a non-hysterical way, people more often than not make make the right kind of choices.
Which brings me to this:
Steger said administrators and police initially believed the first shooting was an isolated incident and did not see a need to close the university. He 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.
Frankly, they did take 2 hours to reflect on it; the first murders were at 7:15, and the email to students didn't go out until 9:30.
They didn't appear to give students useful information; instead, they gave them instructions.
Frankly, we as a society should be spending a lot less money on metal detectors, and a lot more resources and energy in figuring out what the desirable response of civilians is in this situation, and how we can communicate with people in order to get it.
Does anyone know what type of security system there is at Virginia Tech to get into the dorms? Did he have to have someone sign him in or something? Are there guards posted there? Because if there are security measures and he still got around them and killed people in the dorm, that's just sad on the university's part.
anonymous at 11:08 has it absolutely, 100% right. That's the wisest thing I've read by an anonymous blog commenter, like, ever.
My point is that regular people aren't sheep. They are an asset, and we should be investing more energy into figuring out how to use regular people in a crisis, rather than fearing they will panic. If people are given information in a non-hysterical way, people more often than not make make the right kind of choices.
Mixed feelings on this. On the one hand, I do think that contemporary Americans are strikingly poor at rapid self-organization into groups to accomplish goals. I compare this to experience with Dutch and (the world champs, in my opinion) Vietnamese. There's a kind of public shyness and an enforced code of irony in the US that precludes quick social organization. I was particularly struck by this watching the initial episodes of "Lost", which has aired here in Vietnam recently: all these people, plane crash survivors, are just SITTING AROUND, doing their own things. They don't introduce themselves to each other, they don't have a group meeting to talk about a plan -- there's just a kind of chaos and anarchy punctuated by a few self-starters. Fiction, of course, but I thought it genuinely reflected something.
On the other hand, I'm not at all persuaded that people generally make "the right decisions" when provided with information. I don't think that's the right way to look at it, as a matter of individuals making good or bad decisions. I think what was key on Flight 93 was the rapid formation of a group response, and that people should perhaps be encouraged, when a crisis like this develops, to talk to each other and come up with a plan, rather than just follow orders and keep their heads down.
Then again, maybe that's just a good way to get a lot of people killed. It certainly wouldn't have worked in Beslan - though doing nothing didn't work there, either.
Anonymous 11:08's points are similar to those Elaine Scarry made re. the events of 9/11, in a piece called "Citizenship in Emergency--
--I think it's hard to argue with the fact that there are, let's say, forces at work that want Americans to be docile and easily distracted by consumer goods: citizenship as crowd control--and this training we all receive doesn't serve us well...
The heroes of United 93 made a great decision; but there were 3 other planes that day to serve as counterexamples. Sure, if there was a way to magically get them the relevant information, perhaps things would have happened differently, but the same could be said of lots of people on the ground.
A fellow I know was alone in his office in the WTC when the first plane struck; he had no idea what was going on, but his instincts told him to get out, so he scampered down 80+ flights of stairs and lived to tell the tale. A friend of a friend in the same building refused to get off a conference call; he was the sole employee of his company to perish that day. We're human and we make human judgments.
I have no problem with the notion that when you have no idea what to do, you should err on the side of giving more information rather than less. In practice, though, the idea of seeking wisdom in crowds seems like it would lead to so many false alarms that the crowds would be certain to ignore the real ones. And I think a lot of people are being way too eager to second-guess the decisionmakers from Virginia Tech when we're not even 24 hours removed from the tragedy and the facts are far from in. Surely we can wait just a bit before we all draw our conclusions.
I didn't want to slog through and see if anybody said this, but we sure could have used this guy in Iraq.
Now to preempt, let me just say that magnitudinally, this is an aberrant tragedy; Iraq is an ongoing travesty WE have the power to stop. Dump them bums, let's get a government that offers universal, comprehensive health care and doesn't turn wackos out of mental institutions. Of course this is political; more psychos and terrorists are created each day as a direct result of our government's policies.
As for the families, etc., truly a shame. Violence is an ugly bitch. All violence. Everywhere. In the World Trade Center as in Fallujah. From a spree shooter or a Tsunami or Katrina.
Let's just pray this fucker wasn't an undocumented immigrant. Shit, Lou Dobbs would spray oil out his ass.
No, the word is out: this mutherfucker is Asian!!!!!
Stop the third-world invasion!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We are under attack!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
With the revelation of the identity of the shooter, we now know that the #1 and #3 spree killers of all time were both raised in Korea.
Obviously, something about learning the Hangul alphabet predisposes folks to spree killing.
South Korea, motherfucker— don't pin this whacko on us!
Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old senior, 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.
DC— it's like a vortex of evil. Get out while you can, Matt! Save yourself! Move to Alexandria!
The gunman suspected of carrying out the Virginia Tech massacre that left 33 people dead was identified Tuesday as a English major whose creative writing was so disturbing that he was referred to the school's counseling service.
As an English/ Creative Writing major, I must say WTF!?!?!? Keep in mind, that cool guy "Stack" was also an English major, so take the good with the bad. Wonder why he went to the engineering building...
"South Korea, motherfucker— don't pin this whacko on us!"
You teach Hangul too, Kim. It's the alphabet of spree killing.
This was all almost worth it if it gets OUR interior minister to resign out of shame...
Woo Bum-Kon spree killing of 58 in April, 1982
Resignation of the Interior Minister
The Interior Minister of South Korea, Suh Chung Hwa, believed that he had failed at his job of protecting the peace because of the incident, and in shame resigned his post. As a result, Roh Tae-woo was appointed as the new Interior Minister.
Re "English major whose creative writing was so disturbing that he was referred to the school's counseling service."
Ref: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070417/ap_on_re_us/virginia_tech_shooting
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Wonder what they would have done with Hunter S Thompson.
HEY! Wait a minute!
Maybe Hunter would have went amok as well if confined at an engineering school like Va Tech.
I start to see the shooter's problem.
Think about it.
The guy's a senior approaching graduation and needing to get a job.
The job recruiters visiting Va Tech would laugh at the guy because he's not a petroleum engineer or computer whiz.
The job recruiters for creative English writers --e.g, at publishing companies in New York City -- would laugh at the guy because he went to Virginia Tech ins
The Baltimore Sun puts the number of dead at 30.
Posted by MDtoMN | April 16, 2007 3:04 PM