Virginia Tech Massacre

[PerfectWagnerite]

well, i'm probably going to be going to a technical school in a few months from now  

Where are you going buddy? MIT, Georgia Tech?

[knight66]

Yeah but does anyone really care about what goes on in Bagdad?

I am not sure that is exactly the point being made. But to have roughly say two such events as Bagdad has each day somewhere in the US each day would be a very shocking thing. Day on day the people in Bagdad are living with neighbours intent on blowing anyone up.... as many as possible, as often as can be arranged. That must be a very difficult atmosphere to live in.

Whilst on one hand that gives a small perspective to the relative infrequency of such savage events in the US; I still don't grasp why the methods of delivery of these murders is so readily available. Part of the difference in culture that I grapple with, and which I would like articulated to me without placing me in some mindset of an enemy camp.

Incidentally, the Dumblane shootings were 11 years ago, not really recent in the terms we are discussing. The only other one I can recall in the UK happened in Hungerford 20 years ago.

Mike

[greg]

ok, isn't it weird how this works?
there's cultures that are "open" and others that are "closed".
another way of saying it is that the "open" ones are more uptight, work-oriented and are high achievers while others don't really care as much about working, and normally wouldn't be something like a scientist or a bodybuilder (though it's best to have a balance, which is what I try to do   0:)).

cultures/races that are more open/uptight/conservative are most Asians and certain white people. This is excluding all the surfers, hillbillies, certain people from England that are loose (anyone who can help me out here?) that i know are white, but aren't likely to graduate with a Doctorate in Quantum Physics.

the ones that are moore "loose" are most Hispanic people (at least the ones around here, Mexicans, Cubans, Dominicans and especially Puerto Ricans) and most black people, actually anywhere for them. (As for Arabic people, that's a completely different thing entirely, lol).

Now from which group does petty crime happen and from which group does little crime ever happen, but when it does, it's usually extremely shocking and horrific? You guys can figure that out easily, right? In the ghetto, you have to worry about crime daily, but it's never going to be some guy planning to kill as many people as he can and then shoot himself before he's done- they express their anger more freely (which is why in the ghetto they're more "open") instead of holding it back and having it accumulate until they decide to plan something grandiose.

Here's a good example besides Columbine, Virginia Tech, and that one time in Germany: that one time in Japan where this guy kidnaps a girl (or was it a couple), rapes her and then cuts her up into tiny pieces until she's put into a bottle or something, i forget the details. This happens in the safest country in the world, where there's almost no crime. In fact, as I've read it once, you could "leave a bunch of money on your table at the restaurant your eating and come back an hour later and it'd still be there", or you could "let your 4-year old daughter wander the streets with a 100,000 yen bill and not have to worry about anything at all, except finding her."

Either way, a safe society is a great place to be but I see how it can be frustrating for angry people when they don't have an outlet. They just need to find some sort of outlet that helps them, and in their type of culture or society, which directly affects their mindset, stuff like picking fights might not happen so much. Maybe if the guy got into fights more to release his anger he wouldn't have the desire to shoot so many people? (still, even though I've said this, I haven't done much research on the particular guy, so i'm off to read some more)...
----
It's just a thought and I think with this it's a little bit easier to understand the human mind, has anyone else thought if it like this? It's like something I already knew, but haven't thought of it quite like this.

[greg]

Where are you going buddy? MIT, Georgia Tech?

nope, just a minor technical school in Central Florida that hardly anyone has heard of.
it's just the whole "Tech" thing that's just weird, since i am likely to be going to a technical school before long

[PerfectWagnerite]

nope, just a minor technical school in Central Florida that hardly anyone has heard of.
it's just the whole "Tech" thing that's just weird, since i am likely to be going to a technical school before long

I don't think massacres and "Tech" schools are in any way correlated. But maybe you have added stress in engineering schools since the courses are more rigorous, but that is just a guess.

I went to a Tech school. My junior year a young woman in my dorm jumped from the 11th floor, hit a balcony on her way down and then onto the cobblestone sidewalk and created so much blood you needed a ShopVac to clean her up. That ate at me for a little while, but I didn't know her personally so it wasn't a big deal. Then a couple of years later another girl I knew killed herself the same way. That one hurt...

[Harvested Sorrow]

It's a sad thing that occured.  It's even more sad that people are using a lack of gun control and pretty soon Guns 'n' Roses as a scape goat for this.

[greg]

here's an article i found:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/20070417-2102-university-bombthreat.html

[Harvested Sorrow]

http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=70750

Why Guns 'n' Roses is going to be blamed.

[mahlertitan]

I don't think massacres and "Tech" schools are in any way correlated. But maybe you have added stress in engineering schools since the courses are more rigorous, but that is just a guess.

I went to a Tech school. My junior year a young woman in my dorm jumped from the 11th floor, hit a balcony on her way down and then onto the cobblestone sidewalk and created so much blood you needed a ShopVac to clean her up. That ate at me for a little while, but I didn't know her personally so it wasn't a big deal. Then a couple of years later another girl I knew killed herself the same way. That one hurt...

That's terrible. Personally it is tragic no matter who died, be it someone you know, or don't, to me it hurts just as much. All you need to do to realize this is to think them as individuals, individuals just like you and me, and not look at them as "rich folks" or "Americans", life is precious, and it has made me more aware of my own mortality. I go to college, a big college just like VT, excerpt we have about 20000 more people than they do, anybody can come into our campus to do anything they want, there is no way to stop that.
In fact, just a few weeks ago, a 24 year old campus worker was killed by her boyfriend on our campus.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003648679_uwshooting03m.html

[greg]

this post is so full of fallacies that i don't even know where to begin to take it apart...

there's some truth in it, though- these types of school shootings don't happen in ghettos, but they happen in places that tend to be more upper-class in comparison- there is a reason to this.

[greg]

there's some truth in it, though- these types of school shootings don't happen in ghettos, but they happen in places that tend to be more upper-class in comparison- there is a reason to this.

lol, where i live there's usually just going to be fights- in fact, there was this one fight at the beginning of the year at my previous high school that i missed (even though i normally sit in the lunchroom, i was absent that day since i had to go to my granma's funeral)- it was so big, they had to have the police come in and arrest them, and a bunch of students and teachers were hurt. It was just two kids fighting over a girl. But they were the type of kids that came from this one area of town which is notorious for having a high crime rate.

[PerfectWagnerite]

there's some truth in it, though- these types of school shootings don't happen in ghettos, but they happen in places that tend to be more upper-class in comparison- there is a reason to this.

I grew up in the South Bronx and I can tell you Brothers don't shoot other Brothers for no reason. They shoot for drugs, money, and turf. Shootings for no reason are not Brothers' cup of tea.

[greg]

I grew up in the South Bronx and I can tell you Brothers don't shoot other Brothers for no reason. They shoot for drugs, money, and turf. Shootings for no reason are not Brothers' cup of tea.

exactly my point! 

[Redbeard]

I still don't grasp why the methods of delivery of these murders is so readily available. Part of the difference in culture that I grapple with, and which I would like articulated to me without placing me in some mindset of an enemy camp.

Wonderfully put!  I think I can help with your stated objective, with the full knowledge that neither of us is likely to change the other's opinion and without demonizing each other in the process.  This kind of discussion could go on for many pages with great detail, but I think the key point of divergence is actually fairly simple: 

Aside from an underlying belief that free, law abiding & sane adults have the right and obligation to defend themselves, those in the US (like me) who support generally open gun laws aren't convinced that stricter gun laws would be effective in preventing these kinds of tragedies.  The thinking being that laws by their very nature are most effective at changing the behavior of the law abiding, and least effective at changing the behavior of criminals.  Applied to the VA Tech case, the 99.99% of law abiding students and faculty arriving on campus that day did so unarmed in compliance with the law and university policy.  The .01% of the population intent on homicidal mayhem declined to abide by that law and was thereby in a position to inflict mass murder on the student body.

I'm being intentionally dispassionate about this, and deliberately avoiding supporting evidence for the argument because your request was to understand why some others can see this so differently than you do.  I think this kind of understanding of why we disagree with others is likely the best we can hope to achieve with discussion of issues like this. 

[Lethevich]

It's even more sad that people are using a lack of gun control [...] as a scape goat for this.

Of course, pointing out the ease which which a nutcase can buy guns and kill people is completely unneccessary in the debate as to how to stop nutcases with guns killing people...

[Harvested Sorrow]

And of course, pointing out that if it's banned they'll just get it illegally like in any place where it's banned or restrictions are severe doesn't make a difference.  Of course, if we're going to ignore all the widespread issues that could have factored into this and just attempt to use one particular issue as a scapegoat, we're not going to look at the obvious problem with that one idea. 0:)

[knight66]

Redbeard, Thanks, I was starting to think that my posts were being ignored.

I can see the argument you are putting forward, it is dispassionate and practical and I am not about to try to counter it, I am wondering though if it is more fundamental to the psyche of the nation....in the way that The Stars and Stripes is seen as a sacred totem. In the UK, stamp on the Union Jack and most people would shrug, in the US I know it would be unacceptable behaviour.

So I guess I am asking why the right to bare arms seems so much an issue akin to the right to vote?

Mike

[head-case]

Of course, pointing out the ease which which a nutcase can buy guns and kill people is completely unneccessary in the debate as to how to stop nutcases with guns killing people...

Especially since, as we have learned, a person with a mental illness and who had been transported to a mental hospital for treatment was cleared to purchase a semi-automatic handgun on the spot.

[Redbeard]

Redbeard, Thanks, I was starting to think that my posts were being ignored.

I can see the argument you are putting forward, it is dispassionate and practical and I am not about to try to counter it, I am wondering though if it is more fundamental to the psyche of the nation....in the way that The Stars and Stripes is seen as a sacred totem. In the UK, stamp on the Union Jack and most people would shrug, in the US I know it would be unacceptable behaviour.

So I guess I am asking why the right to bare arms seems so much an issue akin to the right to vote?

Mike

Interesting question.  I suspect it is a combination of the enumeration of the right in our founding document, as well as a legacy of a society with it's roots in the frontier.  Even today you can generally predict how a group of voters will feel about this issue by whether they live in an urban or rural environment.

[Harvested Sorrow]

Knight,

I'd say it's threefold:  First, we don't like it when people attempt to mess with a right granted by the constitution.  This sort of thing scares us.

Second, we don't like the idea of having our right to defend ourselves taken away just so a group of people can have a false sense of security while we're all made sitting ducks.

Thirdly, gun control is something amazingly useful for conspiracy theorists, in particular since the whole point of giving everyone access to weapons was in case a rebellion against the government was necessary to prevent another tyrannical system to coming into place.  Combine people wishing for further restrictions/banning on guns with the Patriot Act and you have a good case for a conspiracy theorist to say we're heading in just that direction in regards to our government.