A terrible, terrible tragedy.

[ima_nerd]

:rolleyes::rolleyes: Yeah, since being Asian is a fine precursor to suicide. :rolleyes: In other news, being an Arab predisposes you to strapping bombs around your waste and blowing up various places in Baghdad, while being European induces one to drink espresso. :whistling:

Occhi

Meh, my observations here at GaTech hold that Asian foreign exchange students bust more ass than anyone else. When they're not studying or in class, they're chain smoking outside of Engineering Building X about to go inside and study more. My CompSci classes are about 20% Asian so I do have a pretty large observation pool. I don't feel my statement was off. They are, as a whole, under more stress than anyone else on campus.

But those damn Arabs, always blowing up... so true:rolleyes:

Edit: Emphasis mine in quote.:D

[Occhidiangela]

But because I have the idea that you are not at all stupid I guess you mean something else.

cheers

I was referring to this pithy quote by George Orwell, who wrote things other than 1984. (My son just finished Animal Farm, and loved it.)

People sleep peaceably in their beds at night
only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf
--George Orwell--

Occhi

[Occhidiangela]

I don't feel my statement was off. They are, as a whole, under more stress than anyone else on campus.

But those damn Arabs, always blowing up... so true:rolleyes:

I note that you seem to completely discount the espresso threat. :ph34r::unsure: :ph34r:

Watch your back, :shuriken: the next time you are near a Starbucks, or you may be the next crime statistic. :ph34r:



(I actually had to reach quite far to play the silly Asian (Japanese) suicide joke. It was hardly where you were coming from. )

Occhi

[ima_nerd]

I note that you seem to completely discount the espresso threat. :ph34r::unsure: :ph34r:

Watch your back, :shuriken: the next time you are near a Starbucks, or you may be the next crime statistic. :ph34r:
(I actually had to reach quite far to play the silly Asian (Japanese) suicide joke. It was hardly where you were coming from. )

Occhi

Who pays attention to Europeans anyway?:ph34r:

[Occhidiangela]

Who pays attention to Europeans anyway?:ph34r:

Well, look at what happened when "Europeans" were ignored in 1938. :P The dreaded Espresso Curse is spreading. Black t-shirts, and dressing all in black, is big with the artsy crowd. Espresso is big with the artsy crowd. Mussolini and his fascisti wore black shirts. I hear that the art fascists are a dangerous force, whose final solution is to ban beige and pastels, forever, from color palletes. If we don't pay attention, we'll soon all be dressed like the Amish, in black. You might think the Axis of Noir is a hoax, but that's what they are counting on.

You may say this is all mere coincidence, but I think not! ! ! :ph34r:

First they came for the muave, and I did nothing
For I didn't care for that color in my carpet.

Then they came for the fuscia, and I did nothing
Since I preferred earth tones

Then they came for burnt orange, and I did something
I locked and loaded, and slaughtered them in great numbers

Hook 'em Horns. :lol:


Occhi

[Doc]

Well, look at what happened when "Europeans" were ignored in 1938. :P The dreaded Espresso Curse is spreading. Black t-shirts, and dressing all in black, is big with the artsy crowd. Espresso is big with the artsy crowd. Mussolini and his fascisti wore black shirts. I hear that the art fascists are a dangerous force, whose final solution is to ban beige and pastels, forever, from color palletes. If we don't pay attention, we'll soon all be dressed like the Amish, in black. You might think the Axis of Noir is a hoax, but that's what they are counting on.

You may say this is all mere coincidence, but I think not! ! ! :ph34r:

First they came for the muave, and I did nothing
For I didn't care for that color in my carpet.

Then they came for the fuscia, and I did nothing
Since I preferred earth tones

Then they came for burnt orange, and I did something
I locked and loaded, and slaughtered them in great numbers

Hook 'em Horns. :lol:
Occhi

I survived the horrors of harvest gold, and saw wisdom in the Axis of Noir.

Paint it black.

[Taem]

The sheepdogs were thinking far more clearly than you were in that post, a manifestation of herd animal mode.

By your logic, you should lock down any small town of 20,000 people whenever a single homicide is reported. In Corpus Christi where I live, they should lock down 10% of the city of 300,000 anytime there is a homicide. Do you realize how ludicrous that is?

The initial report was apparently a homicide call, so the cops pursued a homicide and "question people and try to find who did it." Standard police procedure. Most homicides don't turn into a follow on mass slaughter.

Your appeal to hysteria, and the control freak impulse, reflects your infestation with the victim virus. I'd recommend you do something to root that out and kill it. In a related thought, John Cleese made a comment in the "Penguin Exploding on the TV" vignette of Monty Python that I have taken to heart:

"Don't be sentimental, Mother, people {die} explode every day."

Nystul presents a very common sense and applicable approach to deal with that. You treat people right and hope for the best. You, I, the sherriff, the DHS, can't control all of life. There is chaos, which is in general good, as chaos and change are children of the same father.

Once one accepts the existence of change and disorder as natural, one can accept the simple axiom that life is not fair. You can be the finest mother or father in the world, and your kid can still die in a car accident. A truck can jackknife and kill your sister. You can get food poisoning. All of this is beyond your control. Accept that you are going to die. (Yes, we mostly like to delay that some decades beyond college age) but don't fear the fact of death. That's a negative motivation. Embrace living and life, a positive motivation.

Life would be immensly dull and empty without risk. To get out of bed in the morning and leave the room is to risk that something bad might happen. Embrace it.

Occhi

No, your right about not closing down the school. I wasn't sure if the first shooting took place on campus or not. Also, my children recently had a stabbing next to their school (very scary for a well-off, small town like mine) and the entire school went into lock-down and the police blocked off several blocks and brought out the canine units. However, this was a grade school... I guess I just assumed all schools had the same national standards in regards to when a school should and shouldn't go into lock-down, but again, I wasn't sure where the first shooting too place.

[Taem]

It's interesting in the newspapers how this subject seems to get brought up every time something like this happens. In the local morning newspaper today, there are two articles about the shooting, one about the shooting itself, and another about gun-control in America. Apparently all these school shootings are causing a real stir and an outcry for gun-control is becoming a real issue. Watch out, "All Your Guns Are Belong To Us" may soon be the new national quote if this [shootings] keeps happening, however I doubt our current congress will buy it.

[Jester]

And of those other things he wrote (or said), which is that quote from? Wikiquote tells me he never said it, and I can't find anything better than "attributed" anywhere else, although it certainly is popular with a certain crowd.

Apparently Kipling once said something vaguely similar, but comparing Kipling to Orwell is apples and oranges indeed.

-Jester

[eppie]

I was referring to this pithy quote by George Orwell, who wrote things other than 1984. (My son just finished Animal Farm, and loved it.)

People sleep peaceably in their beds at night
only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf
--George Orwell--

Occhi

I knew it. Thanks for the info. I by the way refuse to read animal farm ever since I here people abusing the some are more equal than others quote. I had the same for 1984, but it turned out to be great.....and completely different then I expected following 'the morons'....... I will not take the advice of the morons again. So I will get me a copy of animal farm.

Anyway, also this quote is not very realistic.....especially in the age of guns.....where every loser can shoot anybody he wants........rough men? That was in the times we still lived in caves.

[Doc]

I knew it. Thanks for the info. I by the way refuse to read animal farm ever since I here people abusing the some are more equal than others quote. I had the same for 1984, but it turned out to be great.....and completely different then I expected following 'the morons'....... I will not take the advice of the morons again. So I will get me a copy of animal farm.

Anyway, also this quote is not very realistic.....especially in the age of guns.....where every loser can shoot anybody he wants........rough men? That was in the times we still lived in caves.

I dare say one of those "rough men" could hold their own against a dozen "losers with guns."

Holding a gun and shooting randomly is one thing... Being well trained and having deadly marksmanship is another... With but a lowly revolver I can squeeze off six shots in about 2 seconds, and hit a different target with each shot. I practice with clay ducks being shot at me. So if I miss, I get a broken rib or some other painful punishment for my failure.

This is what training is for... It seperates the men from the boys, the living from the dead. I know some damn fine shooters that have come out of the Marines and the Army. In a firefight, these men can be counted on to make each shot count... Something that a random spree shooter depends on luck for.

Do not confuse firepower for skill...

[ima_nerd]

Anyway, also this quote is not very realistic.....especially in the age of guns.....where every loser can shoot anybody he wants........rough men? That was in the times we still lived in caves.

I think any military man worth his salt would beg to differ.

[eppie]

Because I want to keep things nice here, I up front state the following post is very ironic.

With but a lowly revolver I can squeeze off six shots in about 2 seconds, and hit a different target with each shot.

Wow Doc I'm so impressed and amazed that I have fallen in love with you....6 shots in 2 seconds....

This is what training is for... It seperates the men from the boys, the living from the dead. I know some damn fine shooters that have come out of the Marines and the Army.

Most of them however are very average or below average people. And there are the ones that come back from Irak, handicapped and that have the honor to recover in Walter Reed.


...the following part is more serious again....
Listen I can see the point you are making, and also what occhi and imanerd are making.....but the way of writing it down...pffff. Maybe in America you can impress people with this 'marines' and 'guns' stuff......but we all know that you don't become a rough guy just because of some job.
I understand that training makes you better, of course very true, no need to explain but this almost being in love with your marines (which also a lot of dutch people seem to be) sounds a bit silly to me.

You also obviously didn't want to understand the way this thread was going. We are not here to have a pissing contest of who is toughest or who can shoot more or faster or better. If your idea of rough is good shooting....this korean guy in Virginia was pretty rough.....I mean he got quite a record there.....those to amateurs in Colombine didnt even reach half the number of victims and they even had heavier arms.


My whole point is that any flipped guy can even he has easy access to a gun do something like this......it is not the point if there are 30 victims or 5 it is the same big tragedy. But if your point of being rough is that you are able to kill people....than we strongly disagree on that. (but I guess it isn't).




Another point: are these kind of acts influenced by the amount of media coverage. In Holland a few months ago we had 4 or 5 cases in which one parent killed his/her children and him/herself in a timespan of 10 days or so. Research showed that these tragedies have somewhat a copycat effect on others.....as strange as it might sound. I mean for a parent to kill his/her children something seriously must have snapped in their head.........you would guess these people wouldn't think clear anymore to make this decision of copying another case.

[Doc]

Because I want to keep things nice here, I up front state the following post is very ironic.
Wow Doc I'm so impressed and amazed that I have fallen in love with you....6 shots in 2 seconds....
Most of them however are very average or below average people. And there are the ones that come back from Irak, handicapped and that have the honor to recover in Walter Reed.
...the following part is more serious again....
Listen I can see the point you are making, and also what occhi and imanerd are making.....but the way of writing it down...pffff. Maybe in America you can impress people with this 'marines' and 'guns' stuff......but we all know that you don't become a rough guy just because of some job.
I understand that training makes you better, of course very true, no need to explain but this almost being in love with your marines (which also a lot of dutch people seem to be) sounds a bit silly to me.

You also obviously didn't want to understand the way this thread was going. We are not here to have a pissing contest of who is toughest or who can shoot more or faster or better. If your idea of rough is good shooting....this korean guy in Virginia was pretty rough.....I mean he got quite a record there.....those to amateurs in Colombine didnt even reach half the number of victims and they even had heavier arms.
My whole point is that any flipped guy can even he has easy access to a gun do something like this......it is not the point if there are 30 victims or 5 it is the same big tragedy. But if your point of being rough is that you are able to kill people....than we strongly disagree on that. (but I guess it isn't).
Another point: are these kind of acts influenced by the amount of media coverage. In Holland a few months ago we had 4 or 5 cases in which one parent killed his/her children and him/herself in a timespan of 10 days or so. Research showed that these tragedies have somewhat a copycat effect on others.....as strange as it might sound. I mean for a parent to kill his/her children something seriously must have snapped in their head.........you would guess these people wouldn't think clear anymore to make this decision of copying another case.

I think you fail to appreciate how much dicipline goes into learning to shoot like that. Shooting from the hip and aquiring new targets in a fraction of a second with your hands... Men that can do this have won wars and saved lives... A good marksman can save lives in hostage situations by nailing the target and not nailing the hostages... For every bit of evil you can think of, I can think of the good to match it. I've saved countless numbers of livestock, cows, goats, chickens, lambs, helpless cute little animals by a good clean shot to remove something threatening them. God himself only knows how many snakes I've had to snipe, and how many lives have been effected by my efforts.

People I have trained to shoot have gone on to do some great things themselves. They don't go around blowing people's heads off... Nor do they have accidents with firearms like so many seem to do.

Guns are not evil. They are tools. Objects. People killed each other with pointy sticks, and those weren't evil either. Just the people using them.

[Doc]

As for this being the worst school disaster in history, what a load of bollocks.

The truth.

If you are gonna kill a whole lot of people, guns aint the way to do it. Explosives are the way to go for a real body count.

[Roland]

Can't agree with this more.

Look at Philadelphia and our rediculous murder rate right now. Hell, a week or two ago, a man was hit by a stray bullet while getting ready for work, and killed. All because some people decided to have a gun battle on the street outside his house.

What's Philly up to now? 120 homicides?

Since the inception of increasingly harsher gun control laws, gun-related deaths in the city of Boston have increased over the years, compared to when gun control laws were (slightly) less circus-like.

What does that tell you?

I will say I am a proponent of gun SAFETY, gun EDUCATION, and LIMITED gun control. Here in Mass. things are WAY out of whack, but from the sound of it, Virginia hasn't caught on since Columbine. Hell, most of the U.S. hasn't. Up here, we have laws that state you MUST have a license in order to purchase and own a gun, and in order to obtain said license you MUST have taken at least 1 Gun Safety Course that the state deems qualifying. That's in addition to the background checks and waiting period for handguns, and the fact that if you have ever been convicted of a felony (or even had a restraining order taken out against you), you will never own a gun legally in Mass.

What intrigues me is there is a 30-day wait before you can buy another gun, from what I have heard, in Virginia. Therefore, he bought one gun, waited the 30 days (exactly), then purchased the second gun. That's a full month of preparation beforehand for this slaughter. This was not some random break, but a premeditated onslaught, much like Columbine.

Personally, I find fault with the school administration for not closing the campus down, and taking the first shooting more seriously. "We thought it was a murder-suicide" does not cut it with me. If it's a murder-suicide, where's the damn smoking gun in-hand? They screwed up, big time, and I fault them for that, and tell it to the friends and families of those 33 dead that you didn't take action because "there were too many people in transit to the school".

Having said that, the real blame lies on one sick, demented individual, and nothing more. I'm glad he's dead. I only wish he had taken his issues out on solely himself, but we didn't have that luxury this time around.

The saddest thing about all this? There'll be another, sooner or later. And another after that.

[Rhydderch Hael]

I'm not much one in the way of guns, that may be obvious. My own deadly art comes in the form of something a tad more archaic. But in the end, the device itself is not the object that changes in the situation or temperment: it's the man.

In the medieval German swordfighting philosophy of Johannes Liechtenauer and his disciples, there is this focus on the concept of "initiative" and the way it swings between two combatants in a fight. There is the vor, the essence of being in control of the conflict: where your actions dictate the flavor and timing of the fight. Then there is the nach, reaction instead of action: where you have to move in order to accomondate your opponent (by 'accomondate' I don't mean you "help" the other fellow in what he wants, but rather your moves are made solely as an attempt to stave off whatever he is doing).

In between those definite extremes is the more immaterial concept of indes, the sense of immediacy. Hard to explain, really. Superficially, it's summed up as the pivotal moment where one can seize the vor or otherwise rescue yourself from the nach. But trying to probe further into it, I see it as the instant where conflict is joined— where forces in opposition are presented and measured, then from there your choices turn the conflict one way or the other.

Absorbing the above as a bit of background, I'll sum up my point by saying that those who believe all merit and honor lies in defense, where you can win by enduring the conflict and making wise reactions to the events, are defeated. Too many people today find it an acceptable course of action to bend rather than break, to stay out of the way and hope that fortune will favor them when all is done. That they have a better chance at winning by reacting rather than taking an action that is fraught with clear and obvious risk.

Problem with avoiding the obvious risk in the initiative is that you are left at the mercy of the not-so-obvious risks which will come by surrendering the intiative to your opponent. You stand on his terms, 'accomondating' his actions through your reactions. Worrying more about what is he doing, or might do, rather than taking a course where your actions may save yourself or others.

"Go in hard, and you won't get hurt"— the action, made on your terms and through your choices, may save you where passive reaction and hesitation may condemn you to defeat. Through that initial clash, when you are presented with the problem, you are at indes: your choices then determine who's in the vor and who's in the nach. Mind you, I don't mean to blindly choose "fight" over "flight": the vor may very well be finding a way to retreat to a more advantageous position, rather than tuck into a corner and hope for help to come to you.

I hope you can see that I'm trying to speak far beyond the scope of a simple, physical fight. It's a mindset applicable to many forms of conflict beyond the clash of weapons or bodies. I won't say that how it answers the present tragedy, or how it will precisely resolve any other conflict. But I hope you consider its implications through many other guises— the simple warning of what happens should you acquiesce the 'control of the fight' to the other party.

Taking the initiative— the outright risks may daunt you, but don't be fooled by the illusion of assured safety that passive endurance presents you. It's better to end up naked yet victorious, instead of being beaten in your clothes.

(Yes, I realized that I just went from medieval sword combat to a double entendre) :huh:

[LemmingofGlory]

As for this being the worst school disaster in history, what a load of bollocks.

The truth.

If you are gonna kill a whole lot of people, guns aint the way to do it. Explosives are the way to go for a real body count.

Were any schools in session when Hiroshima and Nagasaki got nuked?

-Lem

[Roland]

You know Occhi, that's the first sensibly argument I've heard against locking-down the school. You may have just changed my mind about it... but I doubt it.

You're talking a matter of degree, of scale. Locking down a city is no small task. It can take days to pull off effectively. Locking down a school, even a large one like that? Hours, within a single day. I suppose my reaction may read like barnyard braying to you, but to me it's simple logic. Mayhap it's because I am not acquainted with the full facts on the story, or because the only things I have to go on are soundbytes and the stumbling, bumbling administrators who look like they're participants in the Special Olympics trying to compete in the traditional Olympics, but I just feel that they really dropped the ball on this one. It just strikes me that they didn't take the issue seriously enough, and no matter what anyone says about the size of the campus, nor how "inconveniencing" it would have been to lock it down, will change my mind on that. It may very well be that they did everything in their power to find and apprehend the shooter, but from what I hear, it's Louisiana all over again - those in power failed to act, properly and timely.

Maybe I'm just colored from my small-town schooling, but to me, ANY shooting in such an environment is a HUGE deal, much more-so than any random homicide in any town, big or small. That may be foolhardy and ignorant of me, I'll leave it to you to try and open my eyes on that one, but I just can't fathom how two students getting killed, with no gunman found, can be taken so lightly. The e-mails (E-MAILS, for crying out loud! Don't they have PAs? Ways of communicating with teachers who can tell all their students?) about the FIRST shooting did not come until AFTER the second shooting. That, to me, reeks of fault, and for that reason, and many others like it, I hold the administration to blame for their shortcomings. I do not feel they caused this incident, nor am I convinced in any way that they could have prevented it, but I do feel that they dropped the ball big time on what can be reasonably expected from them in such a situation, and their soundbyting about heavy foot traffic does nothing but make them look like even bigger idiots.

Anyway, that's what I have to say about that. You always seem to have a sharp eye, so maybe you'll enlighten me to some things I would not have otherwise known or seen, but my feelings thus far are as such. In any case, it's a terrible tragedy that should not have occurred, but it is the price we pay for living, for beig human. A Social Studies teacher I had back in middle school had a fond saying, that has always rung so true: You can do anything until someone or something stops you. This incident, this atrocity proves that. No amount of screening, counseling, passing of laws, nothing can prevent completely incidences like this. All we can do prepare.

I fear this will certainly not be the last of its kind. I grieve for all.

[Roland]

I don't know where you're getting your soundbytes from, but I haven't heard anything about "worst school *disaster*". I have, however, heard it called the "worst *mass shooting* in a school". World of difference, as you so correctly pointed out.