Monday, April 16, 2007

Another school shooting, 20 reported dead at Virginia Tech...

Another senseless bout of killing at a school, this time according to CNN:
(CNN) -- The Virginia Tech police chief said at least 20 people were killed in twin shootings on the Blacksburg campus Monday morning.

"Some victims were shot in a classroom," Chief Wendell Flinchum said, adding that the gunman was dead.

"Today the university was struck with a tragedy that we consider of monumental proportions," said university President Charles Steger. "The university is shocked and indeed horrified."

The attacks mark the worst school shooting incident since 1999 when Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris killed 12 students and a teacher before killing themselves at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado.

I know this will again bring up the subject of access to guns, but the deeper question remaining will always be what drives a person or persons to kill their fellow human beings, especially in such a manner...

UPDATE: Local station, WRIC is reporting 22 are dead. ABC News is reporting it could be as high as 29 to 32 dead.

6 comments:

Traci said...

OK....as of 3 p.m. CNN was reporting 31 dead on campus.

All I can say is : WHAT THE....???

Is no where safe anymore?

How did this happen? Why?

Unknown said...

I saw CNN updated the numbers - AP did first and to their credit CNN waited to confirm.

While I'm sure more details will come out I will never understand why anything that happens to someone in their life would make them feel it's a reason to kill that many people. It doesn't make sense...

Scott G said...

Who knows what people think. The guy who killed the people at Iowa when I was there was upset he lost some scholarship and didn't want to be sent back to China.

I saw something about an off campus incident, but didn't see anything else about it.

Care of Sweety Technician said...

Like good old Charlton Heston says, guns don't kill people, people kill people...

If people didn't have access to guns, then people wouldn't be able to kill people (at least not in this scale)...

King George ain't coming anymore, Canada is not the invading type, Mexico is no military threat, and nobody stopped a terrorist here in the U.S. with guns... The second ammendment is outdated. Plus, hunting is more challenging with bows...and fairer to the animals

ok, off the soap box for now...

Unknown said...

I understand your point Cat Daddy but I also know how easy it seems to be for the wrong person to get a gun. Recently we had a 15 year old kill a police officer and so far no one has stated how he got the gun, beyond it was not obtained legally. I do believe there should be more of an effort to get illegal guns off the street, especially those that are stolen.

As this story progresses I'm sure we'll find out more details, including perhaps where this particular shooter got his gun.

Hooda Thunkit (Dave Zawodny) said...

Lisa,

"I understand your point Cat Daddy but I also know how easy it seems to be for the wrong person to get a gun."

How does anyone know who "the wrong person" is, until they cross that line.

In this case, the perp had no record of anything that would have disqualified him from legally buying a gun.

As for efforts to get illegal guns off of the street, now you're onto something.