Gunman kills 21 on Virginia Tech campus

[amrit]

Lucky13, you've brought back some memories. I remember the first time I was getting ready to visit Glasgow as a kid (early 80s) - my friends scarred me sh*tless with stories of the gangs and hooligans attacking people on the streets with razors. Happily, the closest I came to a gang was a group of Brownies who "stormed" my friend's dad's shop to buy chocolate

Do you remember the Millwall brick - a broadsheet newspaper folded very small, the corners of which could be used like a knuckle-duster (during the period when football fans were not allowed to take any objects into matches)?

 

[YakFlyer]

That's why I always bear a MEB (Monadnock Expandable Baton) when I work in night clubs.

Where can I get me one of those.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

only in America could someone like that get hold of powerful hand guns.. and blast 32 people into oblivion in one hit...still lets keep things in perspective..its not like its central Baghdad yet is it..

No and that incident is not representative of the norm here, even in the most crime ridden cities, yet the media blows it up and folks like you buy it hook line and sinker...

yes we're going the same way in the UK - but then we import all your crap eventually..

What crap? Music? Culture? That was the most ignorant statement made yet.

Bottom line, we have unprecedented freedoms here that has made this country the melting pot of the world. It unfortunate that things like this have happened but its the price paid for those freedoms. We have shown that yours and other countries in Europe can be just as if not more violent. If you really knew anything about this country you would find that Monday's even is a rare occurrence, not to deny that things like this haven't happened before (I live 15 minutes from Columbine HS). Again, I suggest you look within because as Americans have been criticized as a whole to know little of the outside world, you have demonstrated the same from your side of the pond, just ten fold...

 

[Lucky13]

I think that we can agree on though fellas, that those who's against the gun laws will breath fresh morning air....

 

[FLYBOYJ]

I think that we can agree on though fellas, that those who's against the gun laws will breath fresh morning air....

Agree - The gun lobby here won't allow this to be politicized. The whole gun violence and "assault weapon" issue was never an issue until a left wing California Assemblyman made it his crusade as a tool to ensure he would remain in office. In the end the state established term limits and this freeloader had to leave office...

"Campaign Laws Aim to Stifle Pro-Gun Activist
by Larry Pratt

Russ Howard, a former NRA director, was one of the principal architects of ending the political career of rabidly anti-gun State Senator David Roberti of California. Howard now faces an $808,000 fine.

Roberti and Assemblyman Mike Roos were the chief sponsors of the legislation that banned semi-automatic firearms. They pushed it in the name of fighting crime, even though then Attorney General Van de Kamp had found that the targeted weapons were involved in less than one percent of the state's homicides.

Howard was a volunteer with Citizens Against Corruption (CAC) in 1990 when the group spearheaded a campaign against Roos. While Roos was re-elected, his amazingly small margin prompted his resignation a few months later after CAC announced preparations for a recall campaign.

CAC employed a re-mail technique to leverage the relatively scarce grassroots dollars they had raised to use against Roos. They made voter names in Roos' district available to volunteers, with a letter explaining why Roos should be voted out of office. The volunteers mailed the letters in their own envelopes into Roos' district.

CAC volunteers bore all the expenses themselves. These donations were independent expenditures that were way less than what would be required to be reported to the state's speech police, the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC). Later the Commission would include non-reporting of unknowable independent volunteer expenses as part of the unconstitutionally draconian fine (the Eighth Amendment bars excessive fines).

In 1992, Howard became executive director of Citizens Against Corruption. Because redistricting had unfavorably shifted David Roberti's old Hollywood district, he ran that year in a special election for a Senate seat that was vacated when one of his cronies went to prison for extortion. It was a safe Democratic district, but the hope was to force him to spend enough in the primary to wound him. CAC's efforts indeed resulted in Roberti spending $2,500,000 on the primary and the runoff.

Roberti raised so much money that other campaigns around the state were harmed because money they might have raised went to Roberti instead. Partly because Democrats worried that he might do it again, he later had to step down as President of the Senate.

Immediately after Roberti limped into the runoff primary victory circle, CAC began planning a recall campaign on him. The April 1994 legislative recall was the first to qualify for the ballot since 1914. Roberti had about maxed out his political credit card with Democrat donors. And what made them even less inclined to extend him more political financing was the fact that he was to be term-limited out at the end of 1994.

Moreover, Roberti had announced his candidacy for the State Treasurer's office. That primary was scheduled for June 1994, just a few weeks after the recall. This jacked his need for campaign funds much higher, even while his credit limit with fellow-Democrats was being exhausted.

Roberti survived the recall, but only by a small margin. The primary election for Treasurer was just a few weeks away, and Roberti lost. He blamed the "gun lobby" for ending his career by exhausting his resources.

But Howard learned that fighting people like Roberti was a contact sport. During the petition campaign to force the recall election, the firm getting signed petitions for Citizens Against Corruption explained that Roberti had made them too good an offer.

Moreover, the recall Chairman, Bill Dominguez, was personally victimized. His firearms collection was stolen from his house. Even though Dominguez never reported the theft to the press, Roberti's campaign began gloating within hours that an "arsenal" had been stolen.

Howard received death threats. CAC Chairman Richard Carone and his wife received lewd and threatening calls. Donors complained of harassment. CAC headquarters was burglarized, and Roberti claimed to have a "mole" in the campaign. It appeared that part of CAC's mailing list had been stolen and that political hate mail was being sent to members.

In view of Roberti's great power, his dirty colleagues and the very real threats being made, Howard chose to withhold the full identities of CAC's donors, although the donation amounts were reported. This decision was consistent with Supreme Court rulings that have held that disclosure must be waived in such conditions.

The Fair Political Practices Commission did not see it that way. It held that donor identities should have been reported along with all the volunteers who re-mailed anti-Roberti letters. Contrary to the law that prohibits stacking by one party, two of the five Commission seats were vacant during the time in question, enabling Roberti's pals to do their evil deeds in darkness.

Now Howard is in court. The FPPC wants to make the $808,000 fine a court judgment. The trial judge is none other than Lloyd Connelly, a former anti-gun assemblyman and political ally of Mike Roos and David Roberti. Connelly has admitted that Roos donated $5,000 to one of his campaigns, and that Roberti paid $12,000 to Connelly's law firm.

But, Judge Connelly says that there is no conflict here, and that is why he said nothing of it until he was confronted with it. And of course, he is not willing to recuse himself.

The anti-gun extremists in California are trying to do to Howard what he did to Roberti. But whereas Howard worked through the electoral process with money voluntarily given for the cause, Roberti, Roos and Connelly are using tax money to conduct a vendetta through the machinery of government.

Please step up to the plate. Don't let Russ Howard be hung out to dry. He desperately needs funds to pay his legal bills."

And because of @ssholes like this the gun lobby only got stronger....

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

..

.. I've no idea what point you're trying to make...but there is a culture difference sure ...what would you put that down to ..? the fact that you live in a society where violence is the norm..?

Excuse me? Have you ever actually lived in the United States because Violence is not the norm. You people just happen to only see that stuff and then you generalize and make assumptions that you can not back up about the United States.

I have news for you the violence is no more or less than in any other country in the world. The only reason it is more noticable is because the population is bigger. You have the same problems in the UK so please dont stereotype, that is just wrong.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

FBJ, I'm gonna have to dig up the Un stats that I posted about 9months ago that showed the number of knifings in the UK and how they have gone up drastically since the Dunblane incident and it's subsequent ban. Now where did I put that...

Then you have the Muslims in the UK blowing up bombs in the Subways and everything. Wait a minute aren't bombs illegal in the UK? How the hell do they do it then?

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

only in America could someone like that get hold of powerful hand guns.. and blast 32 people into oblivion in one hit...still lets keep things in perspective..its not like its central Baghdad yet is it..

yes we're going the same way in the UK - but then we import all your crap eventually..

 

[Lucky13]

As in ANY other country may it be US, Germany, UK OR Sweden which I'm from, you'll always have a few nuckleheads that'll ruin everybody else, who's lawobiding (spelling?) and some of them only have these guns because of these other few.....

 

[pbfoot]

What can be said from my point as an outsider mind you only 2km away is that the vetting process wherebt this chump obtained his weapon is seriously flawed . He was an alien and nuts either one should have prevented his aquisition of a fire arm. But I feel your stats as to killings by weapons may be a bit skewed for example in Toronto a city of approx 4 million there were 72 murders of which 52 were by guns in comparison to Chicago with 452 can anyone explain the difference. The fact that in 2004 firearms were used to murder 58 people in Austrailia, 184 in Canada , and 73 in the Uk but in the US it was 11344 of which only 143 were justifiable. I'm not slamming your choice in the US but I'll wager that there are 32 some new anti gun converts that no longer have a say

 

[Lucky13]

By MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writer
9 minutes ago



BLACKSBURG, Va. - The disturbing video of an armed Cho Seung-Hui delivering a snarling tirade about rich "brats" and their "hedonistic needs" had some marginal value to the official investigation, but it didn't add much that police didn't already know, State Police said Thursday.

The self-made video and photos of Cho pointing guns as if he were imitating a movie poster were mailed to NBC on the morning of the Virginia Tech massacre. A Postal Service time stamp reads 9:01 a.m. — between the two attacks that left 33 people dead.

On Thursday, university officials announced that Cho's victims would be awarded their degrees posthumously during commencement.

Cho, 23, speaks in a harsh monotone in most of the videotaped rants, but it isn't clear to whom he is speaking. Some of his photos resemble scenes from a South Korean movie in Chan-wook Park's "Vengeance Trilogy."

"You had a hundred billion chances and ways to have avoided today," Cho says in one, with a snarl on his lips. "But you decided to spill my blood. You forced me into a corner and gave me only one option. The decision was yours. Now you have blood on your hands that will never wash off."

In another, he appears more melancholy, saying: "This is it. This is where it all ends. What a life it was. Some life."

NBC said the package contained a rambling and often incoherent 23-page written statement, 28 video clips and 43 photos. It was given to State Police but contained little that they didn't already know, Col. Steve Flaherty said.

On NBC's "Today" show Thursday, host Meredith Vieira said the decision to air the information "was not taken lightly." Some victims' relatives canceled their plans to speak with NBC because they were upset over the airing of the images, she said.

"I saw his picture on TV, and when I did I just got chills," said Kristy Venning, a junior from Franklin County, Va. "There's really no words. It shows he put so much thought into this and I think it's sick."

The package helped explain one mystery: where the gunman was and what he did during that two-hour window between the first burst of gunfire, at a high-rise dorm, and the second attack, at a classroom building.

"Your Mercedes wasn't enough, you brats," says Cho, a South Korean immigrant whose parents work at a dry cleaners in suburban Washington. "Your golden necklaces weren't enough, you snobs. Your trust funds wasn't enough. Your vodka and cognac wasn't enough. All your debaucheries weren't enough. Those weren't enough to fulfill your hedonistic needs. You had everything."

There has been some speculation, especially among online forums, that Cho may have been inspired by the South Korean movie "Oldboy." One of the killer's mailed photos shows him brandishing a hammer — the signature weapon of the protagonist — and in a pose similar to one from the film.

The film won the Gran Prix prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2004. It was the second of Park's "Vengeance Trilogy" and is about a man unjustly imprisoned for 15 years. After escaping, he goes on a rampage against his captor.

The connection was spotted by Professor Paul Harris of Virginia Tech, who alerted the authorities, according to London's Evening Standard.

It has become commonplace for movies or music to be linked to especially violent killers. One blogger for the Huffington Post, filmmaker Bob Cesca, dismissed the connection as "the most ridiculous hypothesis yet."

Authorities on Thursday disclosed that more than a year before the massacre, Cho had been accused of sending unwanted messages to two women and was taken to a psychiatric hospital on a magistrate's orders and was pronounced a danger to himself. But he was released with orders to undergo outpatient treatment.

The disclosure added to the rapidly growing list of warning signs that appeared well before the student opened fire. Among other things, Cho's twisted, violence-filled writings and sullen, vacant-eyed demeanor had disturbed professors and students so much that he was removed from one English class and was repeatedly urged to get counseling.

Some of the pictures in the video package show him smiling; others show him frowning and snarling. Some depict him brandishing two weapons at a time, one in each hand. He wears a khaki-colored military-style vest, fingerless gloves, a black T-shirt, a backpack and a backward, black baseball cap. Another photo shows him swinging a hammer two-fisted. Another shows an angry-looking Cho holding a gun to his temple.

He refers to "martyrs like Eric and Dylan" — a reference to the teenage killers in the Columbine High School massacre.

NBC News President Steve Capus said the package was sent by overnight delivery but apparently had the wrong ZIP code and wasn't opened until Wednesday, NBC said.

An alert postal employee brought the package to NBC's attention after noticing the Blacksburg return address and a name similar to the words reportedly found scrawled in red ink on Cho's arm after the bloodbath, "Ismail Ax," NBC said.

Capus said that the network notified the FBI around noon, but held off reporting on it at the FBI's request, so that the bureau could look at it first. NBC finally broke the story just before police announced the development at 4:30 p.m.

It was clear Cho videotaped himself, Capus said, because he could be seen leaning in to shut off the camera.

State Police Spokeswoman Corinne Geller cautioned that, while the package was mailed between the two shootings, police have not inspected the footage and have yet to establish exactly when the images were made.

Cho repeatedly suggests he was picked on or otherwise hurt.

"You have vandalized my heart, raped my soul and torched my conscience," he says, apparently reading from his manifesto. "You thought it was one pathetic boy's life you were extinguishing. Thanks to you, I die like Jesus Christ, to inspire generations of the weak and the defenseless people."

A law enforcement official said Cho's letter also refers in the same sentence to President Bush and John Mark Karr, who falsely confessed last year to having killed child beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak to the media.

Earlier Wednesday, authorities disclosed that in November and December 2005, two women complained to campus police that they had received calls and computer messages from Cho. But the women considered the messages "annoying," not threatening, and neither pressed charges, Virginia Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum said.

Neither woman was among the victims in the massacre, police said.

After the second complaint about Cho's behavior, the university obtained a temporary detention order and took Cho away because an acquaintance reported he might be suicidal, authorities said. Police did not identify the acquaintance.

 

[Lucky13]

On Dec. 13, 2005, a magistrate ordered Cho to undergo an evaluation at Carilion St. Albans, a private psychiatric hospital. The magistrate signed the order after an initial evaluation found probable cause that Cho was a danger to himself or others as a result of mental illness.

The next day, according to court records, doctors at Carilion conducted further examination and a special justice, Paul M. Barnett, approved outpatient treatment.

A medical examination conducted Dec. 14 reported that that Cho's "affect is flat. ... He denies suicidal ideations. He does not acknowledge symptoms of a thought disorder. His insight and judgment are normal."

The court papers indicate that Barnett checked a box that said Cho "presents an imminent danger to himself as a result of mental illness." Barnett did not check the box that would indicate a danger to others.

It is unclear how long Cho stayed at Carilion, though court papers indicate he was free to leave as of Dec. 14. Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker said Cho had been continually enrolled at Tech and never took a leave of absence.

A spokesman for Carilion St. Albans would not comment.

Though the incidents with the two women did not result in criminal charges, police referred Cho to the university's disciplinary system, Flinchum said. But Ed Spencer, assistant vice president of student affairs, would not comment on any disciplinary proceedings, saying federal law protects students' medical privacy even after death.

Some students refused to second-guess the university.

"Who would've woken up in the morning and said, `Maybe this student who's just troubled is really going to do something this horrific?'" said Elizabeth Hart, a communications major and a spokeswoman for the student government.

One of the first Virginia Tech officials to recognize Cho's problems was award-winning poet Nikki Giovanni, who kicked him out of her introduction to creative writing class in late 2005.

Students in Giovanni's class had told their professor that Cho was taking photographs of their legs and knees under the desks with his cell phone. Female students refused to come to class. She said she considered him "mean" and "a bully."

Lucinda Roy, professor of English at Virginia Tech, said that she, too, relayed her concerns to campus police and various other college units after Cho displayed antisocial behavior in her class and handed in disturbing writing assignments.

But she said authorities "hit a wall" in terms of what they could do "with a student on campus unless he'd made a very overt threat to himself or others." Cho resisted her repeated suggestion that he undergo counseling, Roy said.

Questions lingered over whether campus police should have issued an immediate campus-wide warning of a killer on the loose and locked down the campus after the first burst of gunfire.

Police said that after the first shooting, in which two students were killed, they believed that it was a domestic dispute, and that the gunman had fled the campus. That man is no longer a suspect.

A dormitory neighbor of the first two victims, Ryan Clark, 22, and Emily Hilscher, 19, described on ABC's "Good Morning America" what she saw that morning in Ambler Johnson Hall.

"I heard a really loud female voice scream. I opened my door and that's when I saw the blood and the footprints, the sneaker-prints, leading in a trail from her room," Molly Donahue said.

That's when she saw Clark, a resident assistant in the dorm, on the floor against a door, she said. A friend later told her he was dead. Donahue she said has since tried to return to the dorm but felt physically ill and is still terrified.

"I got to the point where I can't be alone," she said.

 

[Lucky13]

Murders with firearms by country

Rank Countries Amount (top to bottom)
#1 South Africa: 31,918
#2 Colombia: 21,898
#3 Thailand: 20,032
#4 United States: 8,259
#5 Mexico: 3,589
#6 Zimbabwe: 598
#7 Germany: 384
#8 Belarus: 331
#9 Czech Republic: 213
#10 Ukraine: 173
#11 Poland: 166
#12 Canada: 165
#13 Costa Rica: 126
#14 Slovakia: 117
#15 Spain: 97
#16 Uruguay: 84
#17 Portugal: 84
#18 Lithuania: 83
#19 Bulgaria: 63
#20 United Kingdom: 62
#21 Australia: 59
#22 Hungary: 44
#23 Switzerland: 40
#24 Latvia: 30
#25 Macedonia, The Former Yugoslav Republic of: 26
#26 Estonia: 21
#27 Moldova: 20
#28 Azerbaijan: 18
#29 Denmark: 14
#30 Ireland: 12
#31 Slovenia: 12
#32 New Zealand: 7

Murders by country

Rank Countries Amount (top to bottom)
#1 India: 37,170
#2 Russia: 28,904
#3 Colombia: 26,539
#4 South Africa: 21,995
#5 Mexico: 13,829
#6 United States: 12,658
#7 Venezuela: 8,022
#8 Thailand: 5,140
#9 Ukraine: 4,418
#10 Indonesia: 2,204
#11 Poland: 2,170
#12 France: 1,051
#13 Belarus: 1,013
#14 Germany: 960
#15 Korea, South: 955
#16 Zimbabwe: 912
#17 Jamaica: 887
#18 United Kingdom: 850
#19 Zambia: 797
#20 Italy: 746
#21 Yemen: 697
#22 Japan: 637
#23 Romania: 560
#24 Malaysia: 551
#25 Spain: 494
#26 Canada: 489
#27 Papua New Guinea: 465
#28 Kyrgyzstan: 413
#29 Lithuania: 370
#30 Moldova: 348
#31 Bulgaria: 332
#32 Australia: 302
#33 Portugal: 247
#34 Costa Rica: 245
#35 Georgia: 239
#36 Latvia: 238
#37 Chile: 235
#38 Azerbaijan: 226
#39 Hungary: 205
#40 Netherlands: 183
#41 Czech Republic: 174
#42 Uruguay: 154
#43 Finland: 148
#44 Estonia: 143
#45 Slovakia: 143
#46 Armenia: 127
#47 Tunisia: 113
#48 Saudi Arabia: 105
#49 Greece: 81
#50 Switzerland: 69
#51 Denmark: 58
#53 Norway: 49
#54 Macedonia, The Former Yugoslav Republic of: 47
#55 New Zealand: 45
#56 Ireland: 38
#57 Hong Kong: 38
#58 Slovenia: 36
#59 Mauritius: 26
#60 Seychelles: 6
#61 Iceland: 5
#62 Dominica: 2
#63 Qatar: 1

NationMaster - Crime Statistics

 

[Matt308]

..what ..?! ..I'd have thought that was a given...

fact is, although I 'know nothing' I accurately profiled him way back at the start of this thread before anyone knew anything about him..

only in America could someone like that get hold of powerful hand guns.. and blast 32 people into oblivion in one hit...still lets keep things in perspective..its not like its central Baghdad yet is it..

yes we're going the same way in the UK - but then we import all your crap eventually..

We have got to talk to Horse. He must be advertising on mentalmidget.com. Kids.

 

[Matt308]

And here is a more telling statistic from the same nationmaster site.
________________________________________

#1 South Africa: 12.0752 per 1,000 people
#2 Montserrat: 10.2773 per 1,000 people
#3 Mauritius: 8.76036 per 1,000 people
#4 Seychelles: 8.62196 per 1,000 people
#5 Zimbabwe: 7.6525 per 1,000 people
#6 United States: 7.56923 per 1,000 people
#7 New Zealand: 7.47881 per 1,000 people
#8 United Kingdom: 7.45959 per 1,000 people
#9 Canada: 7.11834 per 1,000 people
#10 Australia: 7.02459 per 1,000 people
#11 Finland: 5.32644 per 1,000 people
#12 Iceland: 4.66406 per 1,000 people
#13 Tunisia: 4.02561 per 1,000 people
#14 Jamaica: 3.95943 per 1,000 people
#15 Portugal: 3.59445 per 1,000 people
#16 Chile: 3.32476 per 1,000 people
#17 Norway: 3.2064 per 1,000 people
#18 Netherlands: 2.68964 per 1,000 people
#19 Ireland:

 

[Matt308]

And if this wasn't so tragic, tell me that this could have been Napolean Dynamite impersonating the killer's voice.

Yahoo!

 

[Torch]

Everybody is blaming the guns, How about society's failure to recognize a problem with a human being, 4 freaking years in college without a friend? Never spoke to anyone, yeah someone raised a small flag but I'm sure the shooter had more rights than the defenseless kids he killed..

 

[FLYBOYJ]

for example in Toronto a city of approx 4 million there were 72 murders of which 52 were by guns in comparison to Chicago with 452 can anyone explain the difference.

After living in both countries I will admit, we have more @ssholes. Overall there are a better class of citizen when comparing large Canadian cities with the US, Canadians have a different mentality about things, not to say there isn't a substantial share of scumbuckets in Canada as well...

But those who abide by the law shouldn't be punished by criminals....

 

[Matt308]

Not only that Torch, but he did a stint in 2005 in a mental institution. And within the last month or so was checked in again. He was already flagged by the VirginiaTech administration for a need for couseling regarding his violent musings. This was a ticking timebomb that our society is ill equipped to deal with. When the laws were changed back in the 60s to allow the release into society all the mental misfits in this country, we really did a disservice to ourselves. We now have crime and homeless problems that are costing us not only money, but lives. He should have been locked up for his...AND OUR protection long ago.

Just think about this. If only 1/10th of 1% of the US population had some form of mental disorder that resulted in violent tendencies, that's 300,000 wackjobs running around in our society. That's that basis for Shawn of the Dead.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Everybody is blaming the guns, How about society's failure to recognize a problem with a human being, 4 freaking years in college without a friend? Never spoke to anyone, yeah someone raised a small flag but I'm sure the shooter had more rights than the defenseless kids he killed..

BINGO!!!!