Virginia Tech Shooting Followup
Nick Gillespie | April 17, 2007, 7:18am
As the chronology of yesterday's unbelievable horror at Virginia Tech becomes clearer, the media is zeroing in the response of administrators to the first shooting incident of the day's spree. From the SF Chron's account:
A single question stands out from the massacre at Virginia Tech: Would more students be alive if the university in Blacksburg, Va., had not allowed them to go to class after a shooting had occurred in a campus dorm?
The nation's deadliest campus shooting rampage began at 7:15 a.m. in West Ambler Johnston, a coed dormitory, where police found two people fatally shot. But the first e-mail message to students from the Virginia Tech administration did not go out until more than two hours later, at 9:26 a.m., stating that a shooting had occurred but with no mention of staying indoors or staying off-campus or canceling classes.
Sometime after 9:30 a.m., a second round of shooting began in Norris Hall, an engineering building on the other end of the sprawling 2,600-acre campus. Police said the gunman killed 30 people at Norris and wounded 15 before killing himself.
"I think the university has blood on their hands because of their lack of action after the first incident," said Billy Bason, 18, who lives in the dorm....
The university president and campus police chief said they decided not to cancel classes after the first shooting because the initial indication at the dorm, based on interviews with witnesses, was that the attack might have been a domestic dispute and that the shooter probably had fled the campus.
More here.
Diana Shington | April 17, 2007, 9:19am | #
This is from the NOKR website:
NOKR Urges Registration on Registry in Wake of National Tragedy
NOKR Communications Resource is Vital in Assisting the Injured, Connecting Loved Ones
Washington D.C., April 17, 2006 – The Next of Kin Registry (NOKR), a national system designed to assist local and state agencies to access victims’ emergency contacts in devastating tragedies, is urgently reminding the general public to register themselves and their loved ones on the free site. NOKR is working diligently with the Virginia Tech Police Department to provide emergency personnel with access to registrants’ emergency contact information, during the aftermath of this tragic massacre.
Giving officials and medical personnel a resource with which to contact family, friends and relatives in the aftermath of a emergency such as the massacre is vital to assisting the injured and assisting those in search of their loved ones’ whereabouts.
By giving emergency personnel fast and efficient access to an individual’s emergency contacts, rescue personnel can rapidly obtain medical histories critical to saving lives. For families whose loved ones tragically died, not knowing compounds the catastrophe.
“Our nation is devastated, our families are devastated. We send our prayers out to the families struck by this horrible and violent act and hope that our resources can assist the Virginia Tech Police Department in their communication efforts, ” says Mark Cerney, NOKR President and Founder. “We urge Americans nationwide to register themselves and their loved ones.”
The Next of Kin Registry, the only registry of its kind worldwide and has served as a critical resource during hurricane, tornado and tsunami recovery efforts. NOKR continues its mission to better safeguard Americans via its secure database. With more than seven million registrants, NOKR secures its information via secure socket layer (SSL) to the NOKR registry at a separate secure location within the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC). This secured location is user name and password protected, made accessible only to approved law enforcement and emergency personnel.
About NOKR
The National Next Of Kin Registry (NOKR) is a non-profit 501(c)(3) dedicated to bridging rapid emergency contact information. NOKR was established in January 2004, for daily emergency situations. NOKR is now listed on more than 88% of all State websites as a resource for the public and emergency agencies, including tips for flu pandemic preparedness. For more information please contact Harrison Heublein, Chief Operations Officer, at 1-800-915-5413.
http://nokr.org
Other Matt | April 17, 2007, 9:32am | #
ok, how many rounds do a 9mm and 22 caliber hold?
Depends. Typically a 9mm fullsize can hold in a flush magazine 15 rounds. However, I can put a 33 round mag into my glocks. Admittedly I can't shoot worth crap with that much weight, but I can do it. The stock mags for my CZ SP01 are 18 round.
For the 22, it depends again. I'm not familiar with Ruger off the top of my head, but my Walther P22 holds 10 rounds. I'm assuming he used one of these types, and not a mouse pocket gun.
How many time would he have to reload to kill 31 people?
Depends on how many rounds it takes to kill the people. He killed 33 (incl himself) and I think somewhere around 30(?) are injured. This means at least, say, 65 rounds. Given that he put some into a door, and probably a 22 won't drop someone with one shot, say 100 to 150 rounds. This is 10 mags of a full size 9mm. I'm a pretty active shooter, I could probably scrounge up 8-10 magazines for one of my pistols if I tried hard enough (digging through my range bags, etc). With two pistols, its not near as hard, as my typical carry rig has one mag in the firearm, two at the hip, so I'm already at 45 for the 9mm just for starters.
You didn't ask this, but yes, you can reload in under 2 sec especially if you're not concerned with mag retention. The 22 might be more difficult, as these typically aren't put together for rapid reloads. Sig P-230/232's and similar "Eurpoean Mag" type pistols are a bit slower also, due to the nature of how they function.
The bottom line is that yes, one can shoot a lot of rounds quickly, though not as quickly as people make it sound if you haven't had training (at least not accurately). One can also kill a lot by driving down a crowded sidewalk. One can kill a number by an IED.
CNN is blatently lying, btw. This is the THIRD worst massacre, not the biggest. The first was the arson in NY a few years ago, the second was the Bath School disaster, the third used to be the one in TX, but was usurped by this. I digress.
A couple notes for the control freaks: IF the guy was a Chinese national, as is rumored, him owning a gun was illegal. The Brady Bunch won't tell you that, btw, that if this is true he ignored laws already in place. Further, the "lax guns laws" of Virginia which are being pasted all over are not so lax, and the permit laws require one to be at least 21, and the long gun procedure is exactly the same as MD (Merry Land), which is supposedly "tougher". It's a shame that people try to use a tradegy for political agendas, and a further tragedy that the same assholes who were responsible for making sure that there were no law abiding people inside who could make an attempt to return fire are the ones who now want to "do" something.
It's a sad thing, especially for the parents who lost children. As a father of three, I don't really want to contemplate that reality. From a societal standpoint, the real tragedy is that people are going to hound the school, when what they should be doing is teaching their kids that there is no way the govt can protect them. This shooter killed 32 innocent people. While we don't know much about him, other than he is believed to be a student, let's assume that he'd had minimal training if any.
I'm a reasonably good shot, handgun instructor, and have a background similar to what I read Mediageek posting last night. I can tell you that if I were faced with 15 people charging me from, say, 40 ft away, and I had two handguns, I don't believe I would win that. Sure, I'd take a few with me, but I don't believe I'd win that. Even with a shotgun and a handgun, I don't believe I'd win, and I'd have to be on the defensive to even have a chance. My instructor, I've seen him drop 8 metal plates in under 3 seconds from a holster, he might be able to do it, but that's a world class shooter with many years of experience. My point is that if even half the kids had reacted in an agressively defensive manner, this probably would not have been such a tragedy. Unfortunately, we are taught to let others do it, don't take care of yourself, etc.
Hijacking got a lot more dangerous as an occupation post Sept 11, because people realized that being sheep didn't work. I would hope that this would trigger a similar reaction.
Overseas reactions talk about our "gun culture", neglecting their own knife culture. It's about violence, not about tools. We should be focusing on what caused this young man's mind to misfire so badly that he considered this an acceptable solution to whatever problem he faced.
Other Matt | April 17, 2007, 11:08am | #
Wah wah wah.
You are never "forced" to exploit people's deaths. You choose to.
Joe-what he's saying is that we get the inevitable hand wringing about stiffer gun laws. The latest I read said this guy has a reciept in his backpack for a March purpose. So, ignoring he committed about 32 capital offenses for the moment, he:
1) Purchased a firearm legally in accordance with current laws. If via a licensed dealer, which I would say is probable given the recipt, then he has passed a background check. VA does require them, in spite of "lax" laws. Although there is no waiting period in VA, if it was March it was at least two weeks ago, longer than most waiting periods.
2) Brought it on campus, a violation of other rules.
3) Filed off serial numbers, further against the law.
4) Carried it, which may or may not be against the law if he had a permit. If not, and it was presumably concealed, this was a violation.
So, given that he completely ignored what we have already, in addition to the murders, it would make little sense to believe that another gun prohibition law would change things.
Yet, we hear it. We hear it in spades, with distortions of the truth like CNN broadcasting that Virginia allows out of state purchasers to buy long guns same day. They don't mention that MD, WV, PA, and I believe NC all do the same. It's a function of being adjacent states and the same background checks. This is why we get upset.
X: THC | April 22, 2007, 3:38pm | #
Question Marks...
"This didn't have to happen", Cho Seung-Hui said, after brutally murdering thirty-two people at Virginia Tech University.
And this terrible tragedy of sons, daughters, mothers and fathers didn't have to happen, if we'd only listened.
But we never listen.
We never listen to those that are different from us- the outcasts, the lonely, the homeless, the ones that are unspoken for. We don't try to understand. We shun them and put them out of our minds because of our fear that we will become like them.
And these people become more and more lonely and alienated in their isolation.
Words like "creep", "deranged misfit" and "psycho" devalue this killer's humanity so we don't have to face how similar he is to us. Cries of "how could he have been stopped" are uttered by media quick to sensationalize and gain market share, when the words "how could he have been listened to" are never considered.
Because we don't want to listen.
We don't want to hear about loneliness and alienation when we're all so busy with our lives, making money and making friends. And the unpopular, the ones that don't fit in, the lonely ones are ignored or made fun of because we don't care to understand anything about them.
As a boy, Cho Seung-Hui "was picked on, pushed around and laughed at over his shyness" (Associated Press). When he started college, according to the Guardian, "his mother took his dormitory mates to one side to explain about her son's unusual character and implored them to help."
And he clearly needed help, devaluing himself so much that he called himself "Question Mark".
There are more "Question Marks" out there. There are millions of them. And if we don't listen to them, they will follow the same path again and again, because people are not connecting. We are becoming more and more disconnected from each other, creating more and more "Question Marks" every day.
Most "Question Marks" don't become murderers. Some just kill themselves. Most harm no one and live just as we do, needing antidepressants to appear what we call "normal". They may be someone you know, someone you love.
This "Question Mark" was once a little boy, who cried, and smiled and loved, He wanted to fit in just like you and I. But that desire to fit in transformed itself into anger towards a society that shunned and ignored him.
How many more times will we shun and ignore the one that doesn't fit in, the one in the corner, the one that's different? When all we have to do is listen, before it's too late.
But we won't.
Thirty-two human beings who did not know Cho Seung-Hui were murdered.
They were sons, daughters, fathers and mothers, with dreams of futures that will never come and children that will never be born. The thirty-two leave behind people that love them. People that are now scarred for life by this horrible day of death.
To most of us that have not been directly involved, this tragedy will become a memory and fade like all the others that came before.
And the "Question Marks" will appear with more frequency, again and again, because we don't listen.
We never do.
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http://www.x-thc.com
