Holy Shit
Virginia Tech campus police chief says at least 22 are dead after a shooting the university.
WTF is going on there?
Update: Timeline here.
Now: 21 killed and 21 wounded.
Update: Some news outlets are reporting this as two incidents (i.e., two shooters).
Update: Conflicting reports. Some say one shooter. Some say shooter is dead. Some say shooter is in custody. One report says both. Still no certainty as to the number of shooters.
Latest report are two shooters, no evidence they’re related. One shooter described as Asian wearing a vest ‘covered in clips.’
Latest: One shooter. Dead.
Update: Latest reports are the shooter used a handgun.
Update: Everyone says to me: see what happens in gun free school zones. I say: don’t dance in the blood of the dead. That’s what the other side does and we shouldn’t (update: See).
Latest: Apparently, it started in a dorm and spread to classrooms. Shooter reportedly stood in door ways blasting away.
Map of where the shootings occurred. Can’t tell distance from the graphic but it looks like the shooter covered a lot of ground.
Update: Reports of a two hour time lapse between the shootings.
Update: R. Neal:
ATF says shooter killed himself, two 9mm handguns recovered. White male, connection to university unknown at this time.
Update: On the shooter, seen at Ace’s:
Apparently based on a picture of an Asian student being handcuffed on the ground. But this doesn’t seem to be the shooter, who we’re told was killed outright. The picture of the Asian student shows him clearly alive and bearing no obvious wounds.
Also, still some reports confused as to the number of shooters with one source still saying one shooter dead and one arrested.
Update: number of dead count keeps changing. Latest is 29 22, including shooter. I kinda wish this body count stuff would stop. Just wait until the counting is done then release the number.
April 16th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
That’ll be the gun ban on campus coming into effect:
http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/wb/xp-50658
April 16th, 2007 at 12:54 pm
One shooter still being reported here.
April 16th, 2007 at 12:55 pm
The news commentary is getting stupid.
On Fox News a call in guest opined “It had to be an automatic weapon like an AK-47, you couldn’t do this with a revolver”. When corrected and told the reports are the gunman used a semi-automatic handgun the dufus says, “There had to be signs, we have to find out what happened that would make a person do this”.
This will be a long day.
April 16th, 2007 at 12:56 pm
These shootings typically occur where the perpetrator(s) know they can expect to find a mass of unarmed victims–that are usually kept that way by imposition. And the killers don’t obey the no firearms rules or laws.
April 16th, 2007 at 12:57 pm
Dave, I’m not sure events like this are a good example of having guns helps. You can’t block a sucker punch.
A handgun doesn’t work well when facing a psycho with a rifle and a scope. Most people don’t tote around a rifle to return fire with and if you had one in a room, you’d be a fool to parade outside to try to find the SOB. He’s got the advantage.
April 16th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
Ahh… He had a handgun? Then that changes things (sorry, posting delay). This is definitely one of those times when being armed would help.
April 16th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
If I were a betting man, I would bet on our Asian perp being Indonesian or Malayan.
April 16th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
Yet another “Gun Free Zone” all shot up … hmmmmm.
April 16th, 2007 at 1:05 pm
I’m betting we’ll hear a lot about the gun, and not a lot about he (most probably) had the gun in violation of existing gun control laws.
But not until hour 3 or 4.
Hour 1: Examining the chaos, getting the “story”
Hour 2: Focusing on the grief and tragedy
Hour 3: Focusing on information about the shooter
Hour 4: Anti-Gun Propaganda & “How could this happen in America?!” and “What went wrong” and “This wouldn’t happen if there were no guns.”
Hour 5: Helmke quote
I’m just guessin’…..
Frankly, I wish they’d just focus on the tragedy and not turn it into another poster child for gun law.
April 16th, 2007 at 1:06 pm
[...] I don’t really have much to say or add, so I’ll just link to Uncle’s post. [...]
April 16th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
BOHICA. HR 1022 just rocketed to the top of the docket, folks.
We are screwed.
April 16th, 2007 at 1:10 pm
Why Jay? If the reports are true of a handgun, 1022 would have had no effect.
April 16th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
When, ever, have politicians had to have a rational justification for the laws they pass? Politics is a purely emotional sphere.
April 16th, 2007 at 1:23 pm
What infuriates me the most here is that the many victims were almost certainly defenceless. It’s one thing to die for a reason – trying to stop a murderer – but just to be slaughtered without any reasonable chance of stopping the madness is something that disturbs me greatly.
Legal firearms always give an OPTION, whether exercised or not.
The prevailing “need to FEEL safe” has unintended consequences.
I pray for all concerned.
April 16th, 2007 at 1:27 pm
Bush’s fault. That didn’t take long.
April 16th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
This is a very sad day, but I am worried about HB 1022.
I just ordered a lot of Glock mags from CDNN.
The have 2800 G22 15 rounds demos for $9.99 each, so load up.
April 16th, 2007 at 1:51 pm
Don’t get hysterical yet folks. We haven’t seen the political reaction. This could end up focusing a lot more on police failure and less on the guns.
April 16th, 2007 at 1:59 pm
It’s another tragic day in our nation’s schools. *feeling lightheaded*
My thoughts go out to the families of the victims and to the young people who had to witness this horrible event.
This did not have to happen today and I wished the gunman had decided earlier today to take his own life, rather than what he did, which was end 22 others because of his own madness.
April 16th, 2007 at 2:37 pm
One shooter attacks 20+ people over two hours? What the hell were the police doing? Feel sorry for the folk there. Ugly mess.
But, yes, this is going to boost 1022. It doesn’t matter whether or not 1022 would have actually even applied (since we know it wouldn’t have stopped him); the Democrats will scream “for the children” and it’ll all be over.
April 16th, 2007 at 2:43 pm
[...] Twenty-some defenseless people being gunned down in cold blood is an emotional issue. It should strike a chord in all of us. It should drive us to mourn for the state of mankind and in sympathy with those who will never see their loved ones again. But we’ve had our emotions played to by every issue to come tumbling down the pike that we almost have no emotions left. We don’t know how to sit quietly and mourn any more. We have to allow one hour for overwhelming by chaos, an hour to gather the details, an hour to mourn… [...]
April 16th, 2007 at 3:04 pm
Write your congressman and tell him/her you want legislation forbidding universities from having rules against guns on campus. I’m going to be working hard at my school to get this issue out in the open, but we need support from the states.
April 16th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
Holy moly … over at Knoxviews, someone is likening guns to smallpox? WTF???
April 16th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
What happened is what the school and the anti-gun crowd wanted to happen. It translates to power for them. Sound like a harsh judgment? Well, it is. But its still true.
There will more calls to make more people defenseless in more venues and to garner more police power to the state and quasi-state organizations. This happens EVERY time there is a push for more gun control. Too damn much coincidence for me to believe.
April 16th, 2007 at 3:51 pm
I’ve been through enough of these to know that you never make definitive statements until all the information is gathered. There’s going to be a whole lot of new information coming out between now and tomorrow morning.
One thing is clear: This is horrible, no matter what the reasons for it.
I will predict one thing: I was sure that after Columbine that gun shows would be banned. Didn’t happen, even though the NRA and Republicans were ready to compromise because they thought there was no stopping it.
Nothing is a done deal at this point.
April 16th, 2007 at 3:57 pm
[...] Chronicles mLog R. Neal An American Front Porch The Freedonian Katherine Coble Mel’s Diner Say Uncle Elephant Biz Jay Bush Spread It Around: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where [...]
April 16th, 2007 at 3:58 pm
Actually, there are independant eyewitnesses who are saying that they saw an Asian gunman at the time of the shootings. I’m guessing the guy they arrested was guilty of Matching the Description.
April 16th, 2007 at 4:10 pm
A very sad day.
But this isn’t the moment to worry about legislation, knee jerk responses typically bite us all in the butt a little later.
April 16th, 2007 at 4:16 pm
Heartbreaking and Horrific: 32 Killed in Virginia Tech Shootings, At Least 24 Injured…
I’m not sure if I can find the words to describe how this makes me feel, after spending Saturday checking out 1 of 3 of the college campuses my daughter has been accepted to, this news is just incredibly heartbreaking and horrific to me. We all …
April 16th, 2007 at 5:01 pm
Several eyewitnesses, included wounded students, are still saying that he was Asian.
April 16th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
I’m sorry. That’s wrong on two levels. 1) It isn’t dancing in the blood of the dead. You can talk about self-defense as a reason for less restrictive gun laws all you want in the abstract. But the reason for it is to avoid real life tragedies. Real life tragedies just like the ones in VA today. That’s only dancing if your pro-gun stance is rooted in something much less serious than real-life life and death situations. I’ll tell you that among my first thoughts when I heard about this is, “what do I have to do to get a concealed carry permit”, and “am I going to carry even if I can’t obtain one”. If something like this happens somewhere I am, I damn well want to be armed when it does.
A similar thing occurred when a coworker dropped dead at work one day from a heart attack. I was enrolled in a CPR class the next week. Is that dancing in the blood of the dead?
2). When some individuals do something tantamount to “dancing in the blood of the dead”, that’s not something that “the other side” does. Sorry – that’s just partisan blindness. It’s something some assholes on both sides do, and no one from either side should do.
April 16th, 2007 at 5:19 pm
What an awful thing.
This is the sort of day when I mourn the death of true old-fashioned newspeople and their replacement by the entertainment folks. If one more cute and perky of either sex coos at me one more time, I will puke, just as I’ll puke if I hear one more presidential hopeful give a premature reaction to get votes. Now is not the time.
May God have mercy on the victims and their familes.
April 16th, 2007 at 5:28 pm
[...] I’m with Uncle on this much: this is a tragedy, not some opportunity to score cheap political [...]
April 16th, 2007 at 6:19 pm
Tomorrow will be when the time line and event line trickles out. This will be very tough if cameras show the shooter having breakfast and walking around campus after the first shooting.
There were some serious security breakdowns. This may be the textbook security case five years from now and not only will this bring the issue of security to the front burner it will also probably create the biggest debate yet on guns in America.
A tragic glass half full or half empty debate is inevitable. A single armed person could have made a difference. This is a wake up call.
April 16th, 2007 at 6:54 pm
Truly a black day.
April 16th, 2007 at 7:01 pm
P.S. this might qualify as dancing in blood.
April 16th, 2007 at 7:09 pm
Gun Lovers of America:
I was engaged in discussion with SayUncle after an OpEd I wrote in February, which was published in the WV Sunday Gazette-Mail. I just wanted to follow-up by saying to him and his followers that you were all right. Just like it did in 2002, a gun saved the day today in Southwest Virginia and was responsible for the end of a massacre. The shootings stopped today when the shooter was shot by your hero, the gun. The general NRA opinion that follows-up every Appalachian School of Law Shooting article that guns “allegedly” (I say allegedly because I was there, saw what happened and disagree) stopped the ASL shooter from shooting more people – - proved true today. Score another one for the NRA and the almighty gun. Let’s look at an updated scorecard, shall we?
The gun won on January 16, 2002 in Southwest Virginia. Result: 3 dead, 3 injured
The gun wins again on April 17, 2007 in Southwest Virginia. Result: 32 dead (not including gunman), several injured
FINAL SCORE: (subject to change)
Students at Southwest Virginia Colleges: 0, Guns: 35 (score subject to change as more people are clinging to life because of the bullets that pierced their skin or scalp)
Is it still the general opinion that today’s gunman would have killed 32 people with an axe or nun chucks? How many more people have to die for going to school because you claim you have some imaginary right to bear an Uzi?
I am not blaming you all for what happened. I blame that thing you have secured on your hip. It’s time you woke up and saw who the true enemy is and stopped trying to impersonate John Wayne, or worse, Thomas Jefferson. If you all really are concerned about what happened today, do something about it- – holster your weapons so that mad gunmen stay out of the news and most importantly, out of our schools.
Jeremy Burnside
April 16th, 2007 at 7:17 pm
Really Burnside? Are you really that dense? This man came into contact with hundreds of people during his rampage and he was more powerful than all of them because school regulations made him so. and you are in favor of that?
Hope your shoes are already red.
April 16th, 2007 at 7:52 pm
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:
http://www.thoughttheater.com
April 16th, 2007 at 7:57 pm
This man came into contact with hundreds of people during his rampage and he was more powerful than all of them because school regulations made him so. and you are in favor of that?
I wouldn’t “blame” the fact that the university was a “gun free” zone enabled him to kill 30+ people. How many carry permit college students do you know that are “packing” when they roll into class at 8am? Blame the police and college administration for not locking the school down/sending out BOLO messages/emails to students or evacuating during the two hour gap.
These shootings typically occur where the perpetrator(s) know they can expect to find a mass of unarmed victims–that are usually kept that way by imposition.
I don’t think the guy gave a rats ass about who was carrying a weapon or the fact it was a “gun free zone” He was a nut that snapped.
April 16th, 2007 at 8:04 pm
Jeremy,
Why the presumption that the only non-firearm weapons are edged weapons and blunt trauma implements like nunchaku and knives?
Timothy McVeigh killed five times as many people in a heartbeat.
Guns aren’t the problem. The criminally insane are.
April 16th, 2007 at 8:16 pm
Good Lord…have fun picking this one apart.
http://tinyurl.com/2pgmbw
AK-47 assault rifles and Uzi sub machine guns can be bought legally over the counter.
April 16th, 2007 at 8:44 pm
I left a comment at that site. Let’s see if the post it.
http://tinyurl.com/2pgmbw
Paul Thompson is totally ignorant about American Firearms laws. Automatic weapons have been strictly regulated under the 1934 national firearms act (NFA). Sales of these weapons require a background check, approval of local authorities and a $200.00 treasury stamp. In 1986, the law was further tightened to ban the sale of any automatic weapons made after that year to active duty military and law enforcement only, and only after the approval of their commanders. The weapons banned in 1993 were semi-automatic weapons, they only looked like automatic weapons. Only 1 crime involving a gun purchased under NFA has ever been recorded and that was by a policeman! UK banned most guns and gun violence skyrocketed! If a criminal intends to commit murder, why does anyone think they will be deterred by gun control laws?
April 16th, 2007 at 8:54 pm
[...] don’t have all that much to say as yet, so I’ll link to SayUncle’s liveblogging coverage of the news networks “Did/Didn’t/One shooter/Two shooters/Ak/Glock/” and leave it [...]
April 16th, 2007 at 10:08 pm
Burnside:
No, but if the killer had chosen to use a couple of gallons of gasoline in rag-stuffed beer bottles the carnage would have been far worse.
And your “score” of Guns: 35 conveniently leaves out the school shootings that have been stopped by students or administrators with guns. Belatedly stopped, that is – the good guns were stored in parked vehicles by owners honoring the school’s mistaken victim disarmament zone rules.
April 16th, 2007 at 10:20 pm
Virgina Tech Victims Are In My Prayers…
All I want to know is who is protecting our children?…
April 16th, 2007 at 10:37 pm
Sebastian-PGP Says:
April 16th, 2007 at 8:04 pm
Jeremy,
Why the presumption that the only non-firearm weapons are edged weapons and blunt trauma implements like nunchaku and knives?
Timothy McVeigh killed five times as many people in a heartbeat.
Guns aren’t the problem. The criminally insane are.
As much as I hate to say this, PGP is exactly correct. Nobody could have said it better or more succinctly.
Justin B says “I wouldn’t “blame” the fact that the university was a “gun free” zone enabled him to kill 30+ people. How many carry permit college students do you know that are “packing” when they roll into class at 8am?
No problem, none, remember? They could lose their chances at education if they are armed and capable of defense of self or others. So yes you should blame the university. Nobody else set that policy. It wasn’t the Mouseketeers, it wasn’t me, it wasn’t even the legislature of Virginia. It was the university. This murderous sonofabitch was the most powerful person among hundreds. Why? Ask yourself why, Justin B? Why?
The only answer you can come up with is the university supplied him with victims whom they mandated be helpless. And by default made the killer all powerful everywhere he walked.
You can’t blame the police. They cannot be everywhere all the time. How many sleep in your bedroom, justin? Huh? None! Well, what do you do if you are assaulted in your home at night? Oh, that’s right, you die. Just the same as these children did.
Not only is it not possible for the cops to be everywhere, it isn’t even their duty to protect you. Look it up. True.
April 16th, 2007 at 10:41 pm
JustinB, isn’t it great to be able to speak your mind? Appreciate how this site is different from other sites that do not allow such freedom?
April 16th, 2007 at 10:43 pm
Sorry, Jeremy
Your trolling won’t work here.
April 16th, 2007 at 11:39 pm
Anybody who wants a gun badly enough will manage to get one. (Scroll down to the “Nazi-killer”.) Even when its mere possession carries the death penalty.
April 17th, 2007 at 12:56 am
[...] Tech leaves 32 dead (UPDATE 21: LIBERAL ICON LARRY JOHNSON COMPARES VTECH SHOOTINGS TO IRAQ) Holy Shit VCDL on Va Tech shooting Gunman kills 21 at Virginia Tech the deadliest campus shooting in US [...]
April 17th, 2007 at 7:18 am
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osaka_massacre -8 killed by stabbing, when we will demand more restrictions on kitchen knives?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9/11 -3,000+ killed by intentional demolition of buildings with planes, when will we demand more restrictions on box-cutters?
I demand more restrictions on asshats like you that blame atrocities on inanimate objects and your feelings rather than using common sense. When will you dipshits realize that the criminally insane will use whatever is available to them while completely ignoring the laws already on the books?
April 17th, 2007 at 10:05 am
[...] folks are saying we should stand down about this outrage (ed: he’s updated this to say we should be respectful, fully [...]