Folks, I am tied up in all-day meetings yesterday and today, which is why you haven’t heard from me since Monday.
Until I get back, I thought I’d start a thread on the horrific murders at Virginia Tech. I don’t know what to say about things like this, but maybe you do.
While you’re composing your thoughts, here is our lead editorial today on the subject, some letters, an op-ed piece and some snippets from what others said, from The State today.
I’ll be back to read your comments soon.
Related Posts
From the time man figured out a rock could do more damage then a fist, man (as a species) has used weapons; rocks, sticks, clubs, knives, spears, swords, muskets, etc…
Was the V-Tech killings a horror? Yes. Is death by gun any more horrible then death by stoning?
Gun control debates are fine and dandy, but, they don’t address the real issue; man will find a weapon, and some men will use them in violation of the laws of society.
This was true thousands of years before Christ and it is true in the few thousand years since.
Yes, be shocked, outraged, and mourn. But, will putting even stricter controls on guns solve the problem? Hardly. Man will kill, and if it isn’t with a gun, it will be with sticks and stones.
“… will putting even stricter controls on guns solve the problem?”
It would be a great start. Canada has stricter gun laws than the U.S. and a lower per-capita murder rate. Coincidence? I think not.
bud,
And Britain used to have policemen that carried clubs instead of guns, yet, did they keep that policy?
Crime will happen. Murder will happen. Knife, gun, club, doesn’t matter.
It isn’t the weapon, it is the culture of our societies, and even in Canada murder still occurs.
The 800 pound gorilla in the room is that we live in a nation where:
– You have white folks who teach their children to hate blacks and foreigners.
– You have black folks who teach their children to hate whites.
These I’ll speak out against. If you preach hate, don’t be surprised when people grow up hating.
– Where we glorify violence.
Did you miss your latest dose of torture on “24”? Don’t worry, next week you’ll get it. Hear the latest song about “get rich or die trying?” Don’t worry, there are plenty more about killing people and getting your gun and how cool a tec-9 is “bust some caps”.
– In the name of a “free market”, advertisers yell “sex sells”, and we get sexy-clad women and men in the majority of commercials, television shows, etc, and yet, we are shocked when Janet bares a nipple. Gee… who’d have thought it could get that far? Then people just can’t understand why federal abstinence programs are a failure. Call it free speech, call it a free market, call it what you want but when sex becomes the main seller don’t be shocked when teens don’t abstain from having sex. They even started marketing thongs for kids. KIDS. Just to make a buck.
This is our society, and I am not advocating going back to “I Dream of Jeannie” or “Father Knows Best” or “Leave it to Beaver”. I’m not saying we can’t have sexy commercials. I’m not saying get rid of the first amendment. But, I’m not shocked at the events our society bred, either.
Be for guns or against them. Be for free speech or against it. Be for a free market or against it. But at least acknowledge that if we preach hate, violence, guns, sex, and glorify them in the name of a buck, then events like that at Virginia Tech are going to occur more frequently then in a society that doesn’t.
But NO society is without violence, or sex, or guns… or murder. America just chose to profit from it.
^^ Hear, Hear.
Michael, that was well said.
Speaking of “I Dream of Jeannie”, how do we put the sex/violence genie back in the bottle? That’s the $64 billion question.
At least we don’t live in this place.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2007-04-18-nitric-acid_N.htm
Right now I don’t think we need to say anything. It seems to me that a time of silence is most befitting. People tend to talk and analyze and discuss things too quickly. Allow a campus, a town, a state, a nation to grieve for a while. Give them the gift of silence and our tears. The time to speak, to look for the “why” and to analyze will come. Now is not that time.
A bill that would have given college students and employees the right to carry handguns on campus died with nary a shot being fired in the General Assembly.
House Bill 1572 didn’t get through the House Committee on Militia, Police and Public Safety. It died Monday in the subcommittee stage, the first of several hurdles bills must overcome before becoming laws.
The bill was proposed by Del. Todd Gilbert, R-Shenandoah County, on behalf of the Virginia Citizens Defense League. Gilbert was unavailable Monday and spokesman Gary Frink would not comment on the bill’s defeat other than to say the issue was dead for this General Assembly session.
This is the real kicker:
Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker was happy to hear the bill was defeated.
” I’m sure the university community is appreciative of the General Assembly’s actions because this will help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on our campus.”
bud,
We DON’T put the genie back. Once you open pandora’s box, there is no closing it.
What we CAN do is teach our children better. Don’t teach them to hate. Don’t reinforce the violence. Don’t make it “cool”. Explain what advertising is and why it sells. Teach your kids about STD’s and how they kill now. Give them something called “sex ed” so they at least are aware how to protect themselves while we market sex to them. I did and my step-daughter grew up to be a great kid.
In a few generations, maybe we’ll have made some progress… maybe…
“A bill that would have given college students and employees the right to carry handguns on campus died with nary a shot being fired in the General Assembly.”
It’s refreshing to see there is at least some common sense left in the world. Aren’t 30,000 gun deaths a year enough? Why is it so hard for people to realize that we have so many gun deaths because we have so many guns.
It’s interesting to me that when some crazy person kills 20+ people at random the news media drops all coverage of everything else for days on end to focus all it’s energy and resources on a single event. Yet, every day in this country dozens of people are murdered one or two at a time. We really do live in a violent country. Events such as the Virgina Tech massacre underscore just how violent we are.
33 would be a good day in Iraq… if 33 is a horror, what do you call today’s 183 bomb victims? Progress?
Without “getting off topic”, no, Iraq isn’t “progress”… but it does underscore just how insulated Americans have been from the horror that is Iraq today.
I’ve been to Iraq twice (’91 and ’06). I’ve seen the destruction firsthand and talked to Iraqi’s 3 years after the invasion.
Yes… 33 deaths in America shock our citizen’s. In Iraq, that is now a GOOD day. But that is another “editorial”…
Michael, on your comment before last, I’m not following you: Who taught Cho Seung Hui to hate?
Don’t you think that’s sort of a) a cliche, b) irrelevant, in the present case?
Cho Seung Hui bought into a lot of the rhetoric of self-labeled socialists, liberals and progressives who criticize America.
He was a deranged individual, trying to cloak his insanity and legitimize his crimes with the lingo floated by a lot of people who consider themselves to be intellectual moderates. Some of them are already trying to justify his murder spree, instead of questioning the common bond they share with the murderer.
As an historical note, VA Tech had guns on campus until the late 1960s, because it was a military school, with mandatory ROTC and uniforms until 1964. There were no dormitories, only barracks, with rifle racks built to the closets. You can look in the yearbooks from the 1950s and 1960s and see the cadets cleaning their weapons. Yet they had no misuse of firearms.
The difference is character, not the instrument.
Ah, I think Lee is back as BizWiz7. The first sentence of the last comment is typical Lee.
I haven’t heard anyone “trying to justify his murder spree.”
I have read on here people trying to justify and legitimize the concept that anybody has the right to an efficient, handy, easily-concealed instrument of murder.
I have to chuckle at your implication that liberals and progressives are the only ones to criticize America. Conservative and reactionaries criticize America and Americans all the time. They just pretend to be criticizing liberals– who represent much of the founding philosophy.
Which exposes the futility of Brad’s censorship methodology…
Here’s today’s quote from our chosen leader of Iraq:
“Our Iraqi people are being subjected to a brutal attack that does not differentiate between an old man, a child or a woman. This targeting of civilian populations brings back to our minds the mass crimes and genocide committed by the Saddamist dictatorial regime,” said a statement from al-Maliki’s office.
I’m trying to remember what the next stage is after “last throes”…
Mr. Warthen,
In direct answer to your question, “who taught Cho Seung Hui to hate”, I can’t answer that anymore then I can tell you who taught Timothy McVeigh or Eric Rudolph to hate.
I can say that everything I am reading on Cho from CNN states that:
– he had a green card (thus legal immigrant).
– he wrote scripts for two plays that were extremely graphic with twisted and macabre violent content.
– he attended an “honors” high school and a note left in his dorm room stated he hated “rich kids”.
So, while I can only guess who “taught” him to hate, my `guess` would be that he was picked on continuously in high school by rich kids whose parents taught them they were better then everyone else; and he got his extreme graphic violence from the slew of movies in the past few years (such as Saw) that have been increasingly more graphic and demented in nature.
Do I think it is cliche`? Not at all. My step-daughter was born with what is called “a lazy eye”, meaning her left eye doesn’t “track” the same as her right and she has been ridiculed for it for years by other kids. Kids can be cruel, no doubt about it, but especially so if they have been taught to hate (immigrants, blacks, whites, etc), or if they grew up in a household that believed it was better then others (rich vs poor or immigrant, for example).
Do I believe my statements hold a relevancy? Yes. We need only see that violence permeates every part of our society, from movies, television, and music to console video games like Grand Theft Auto. There is even a Christian “blow up and kill the infidel” video game now. Add to that the increasing amount of graphic “blood-n-guts” in horror movies today (again, I direct you to the movie “Saw”) to see how kids today can be not only be desensitized to violence, but that promoting violence is actually rewarded (want big cash? make the most graphic movie to date, or the next hit rap song about gang violence, etc).
That isn’t to say that Cho Seung Hui may not have had mental issues to begin with, he may have (one CNN article alludes to anti-depressants). But, even if he was unstable to begin with, we are then only talking about creating a “perfect storm”, if you will, by combining the promotion of violence, of increasing graphic bloodiness of movies, with an already unstable mind.
Now, I fully admit, I’m no psychologist, but, does that mean we cannot see trees in a forest?
I would add to Michael’s comments this: The constant fixation by the media on war, especially those who support war as a solution, suggests that violence can be used to solve problems. Our sickening involvement (and endless stories about) Iraq simply adds to the culture of violence that further twists a vulnerable mind such as Cho Seung Hui’s.
The Graham article in the paper today is yet another example of our media fixating on war. Apparently our welcome is long worn out even among the moderate Iraqi’s. This from NPR:
Iraq Security Measures Failing, Iraqis Say
by Tom Bullock
Morning Edition, April 19, 2007 · Amid a flurry of fatal bombings, many Iraqis say U.S.-led attempts to increase security in Baghdad are failing. Critics say additional checkpoints simply mean larger crowds — and make for bigger targets.
EXCUSES for the killer:
Joseph Palermo – Blame Bush for VA Tech killer
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-a-palermo/virginia-tech-here-we-go_b_46004.html
Andrew Foster – President Bush defends the killer
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-a-palermo/virginia-tech-here-we-go_b_46004.html
Rank Democrats say Bush has not right to attend memorial service
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389×675556
European press blames the NRA and “gun culture”
http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,477686,00.html
Charles Wrangel calls gun owners “a cult”
Obama Compares Va. Tech Tragedy to “Verbal Violence” against blacks.
Media pundits blame law enforcement and administration for not recognizing mental illness and helping the killer obtain better treatment.
Defenders of violent entertainment say it is just a coincidence that Cho Seung-Hui was imitating a Korean movie about revenge.
BizWiz7 seems to have a difficulty discerning the difference between “excusing” and analysis.
How is criticizing authorities for not responding differently to warning signs– or even the first shooting incident– “excusing” the shooter?
If “European press blames the NRA and ‘gun culture'” is “excusing” the shooter then what is your implied blaming of “Defenders of violent entertainment?”
I think Herb is correct. “BizWiz7” is actually Lee.
Mr. Hurl, you have have not stated whether you agree with any of those people listed above who are trying to spread the blame to suit their own political agendas. Until you explain your agreement one of these, or offer some theory, excuse, blame or rejection of any of them, no one can really respond to what you have not said.
Apparently BizWiz7 (Lee) has divided the blame between the shooter and some Korean film maker.
Left out of this calculus is the role of enablers that made access to murder devices easy for a man who recently had been committed to a mental health facility for being “a danger to himself.”
These enablers include the NRA for paying politicians to keep murder devices easily available to almost anybody with a couple hundred dollars to spare.
Criticizing the response of authorities isn’t in any way diminishing the responsibility of the murderer.
I’ll tell you what gave you away, Lee: the intellectual blind spot and irrationality that you’ve always displayed. In this case, you attribute criticism of the authorities’ response to a “political agenda” while grinding your partisan ax on “defenders of violent entertainment.”
Mr. Pot meet Mr. Kettle.
RTH, notice how Lee wants to put you in “a group.”? Same old tactic. Don’t try and search out the truth, but rather stick the label on, and then aim the cannon at the group. That way, the issues don’t have to be debated, just kill the group.
For clarity’s sake though, I don’t share RTH,s view of the Iraq war, or necessarily his view of the President. Though those issues are so tangled and complicated, it is almost impossible to discuss them, at least for me.
Has anyone here looked at the repulsive comments of John Derbyshire or Neal Boortz blaming the victims for being wusses – this because none of them tried to rush the gunman. This was an ambush and anyone who’s had any experience with ground warfare will tell you that, when an ambush erupts, even trained soldiers sometimes have trouble responding correctly. For these e-pundits to write such things ought to arouse at least much outrage as the recent furor over Don Imus.
Derbyshire and Boortz are just good little reactionary conservative propagandists attacking American society and America.
They routinely make such ridiculous attacks. It furthers the reactionary rightwing storyline that America has been weakened and corrupted. Repeat a canard loud enough and often enough, so the Big Lie theory goes, and people will start to believe it.
People are never good enough or strong enough for wingnut philosophy. It demands superhumans, just like Communism.
Ironically, wingnuts project their own alienation from the country and the people by tagging liberals as the “blame America first contingent.”
Mr. Hurl, you are playing a lot of games to avoid acknowledging the examples of various forms of excuses some people are making for this killer at VA Tech. Most of them have some political agenda and seek to use anything to serve it.
You apparently have something against honest people owning firearms. Do you also support the recent changes put in place by liberals to protect the privacy of mentally ill persons like this killer? If you do, then you have to find a way for them to show up in the FBI background checks. When Virginia ran their own background checks, which was the model for the rest of the nation, this guy would have been stopped when he attempted to buy his first gun, and his name given to police.
Mr. Moderate Guy, are Derbyshire and Boortz “making excuses” for the killer by libeling and slandering innocent college college students shot to death while in class? These two repulsive commentators quite obviously are seizing on the tragedy for their agenda.
Why would they blame the victims, whom they’d never met, when they had only the sketchiest details of the events? Firstly, it suits their Big Lie storyline that “liberalism” has made us a nation of wimps. Secondly, it blunts the inevitable national outrage that murder devices are so readily available that a guy who’s been committed to a mental facility could purchase one legally.
Yes, I’m opposed to general ownership– by honest and dishonest people– of any firearm other than long guns used for hunting. After putting a stop to handgun sales, I’m sure that there could be some remedy to exclude mentally ill from purchasing long guns.
Are you “excusing” the killer by suggesting that privacy concerns made it possible for him to pass background checks? I don’t think so but it seems to fit the pattern of BW7’s thoughts above.
If you’re not concerned with privacy when, for instance, the government (and, who knows who else) seems to have a database for antidepressant users then you’re not paying attention.
I don’t know what Neal Boortz said, but I guess he must have asked why roomfuls of students didn’t rush the gunman, who apparently stopped to reload over 15 times, each time for over 1 minute. That seems a legitimate question to ask. Perhaps we will learn more as the police interrogate the wounded.
Back in the 1950s, when VA Tech students were issued 1903 Springfield rifles and kept them in their rooms, don’t you suspect the students would have quickly broken down the doors and put and end to this?
Other students and faculty have used their personal weapons in recent years to stop campus shooters before they could accomplish much.
Or today in Israel, where teachers are armed, attacks on schools have stopped. In Switzerland, where businessmen kept their 9mm service pistols in their desks and homes, you won’t see any of this. Both those countries also have a strong inculcation of respect for firearms and each other.
On the other hand, go to the VA Tech English Dept web site, and read the Marxist, anti-business, anti-industrial writings by the professors to see where this killer may have had some of his hate unwittingly validated, at least in his demented mind.
Lee aka “Moderate Guy or BizWiz7,” has your psychosis developed to multiple personalities?
The shooter had two pistols. At least one had a clip with 30 bullets. The other, I believe, had a clip with 15 bullets.
Had a shooter burst into your college classroom when you were 18, 19, 20 or 21 I’m sure that you would have played the hero and taken one for the team.
However, most people would have instinctively hit the floor and taken cover. When there is a slight pause– probably about 30 seconds to eject one clip and insert another– you seriously think that students, who are probably in shock, should jump up with split second timing and rush a man armed with a gun in each hand?
Most people in the reality-based community would disagree.
BTW, one of VA. troopers who hauled a victim out of the classroom building called the young man a hero. This simply because he had the presence of mind to apply a tourniquet to his wounded leg. Maybe this is a continued devaluation of the word but the trooper– who is trained for such situations and witnessed the immediate carnage– certainly wasn’t of the same opinion as you.
The shooter fired over 200 rounds from two handguns. One, a .22, held 8 rounds. The Glock 9mm shown on TV had a Glock magazine, which is either 15 or 17 rounds, and a 3rd party magazine, which can hold 30 rounds.
Reloading the pistol only takes a few seconds. Putting each cartrige into the empty magazine takes about 5 to 10 seconds per round.
If you figure it up, he had so reload quite a few times, and it takes over a minute for each 9mm magazine.
When I was in college, VA Tech students, like those at over 100 other colleges, could keep rifles in their rooms, and many had them issued by ROTC. VA Tech did. The yearbook shows the students cleaning rifles in their rooms.
Those who want to take away the Constitutional right to self-defense (and self-government), depend upon the ignorance of most TV viewers to place them in a state of hysteria for surrendering their liberty.
Ever consider multiple magazines, Mr. Multiple Personality? The guy had planned this rampage for weeks. He was wearing a vest with many easily accessible pockets.
But, I’ll even concede a point just to make your ridiculous argument even more transparently stupid. Let’s say that you’re 19-year-old student sitting in German class. A heavily armed (courtesy of Lee, gun fetishists, NRA payoffs and chicken-crap pols) maniac bursts into the room.
He shoots your teacher in the head. Blows the guys brains all over the wall. Then he shoots the girl next to you. And, the guy on the other side.
There’s a pause. You look up from the floor from behind your overturned desk. He’s put both murder devices on the desk in front of him. He’s reloading a magazine. He’s ten feet away. You’re prone.
Are both murder devices empty? What are the odds that he empties both rather than just leave one loaded murder device ready to blow your brains out?
Frankly, your ignorant criticism of ANYONE in that situation is disgusting. Suggesting that ROTC rifles in dorm room closets would either have presented a deterrent or been useful in ending the murders is ludicrous.
Almost as ludicrous as suggesting that making easily concealed, convenient, murder devices available to mental patients, jilted lovers, alcoholics, depressed NASA contractors, terminated postal employees, drug addicts, wanna-be ganstas, jealous husbands, abused wives, neo-Nazis, drug dealers, terrorists, survivalist militias… has squat to do with preserving self-government.
This is my last reply to you, Lee/Biz… Maybe you should try arguing with your alternative personas– or, get therapy. It’s a shame that people get murdered because you confuse your delusions with reality.
BTW, that “Constitutional right” is for arming duly constituted militia– not any ole fool on the street.
The Bill of Rights protects individuals in explicit terms.
All rights belong to the People, and the Constitution only grants a few of those rights to the federal republic.
The First Amendment protects all important speech, not just paid newspapermen.
The Second Amendment allows The People to keep the means of self defense, defense of country, assisting the sheriff in control of crime, and kill tyrants, and resist rogue militias under the control of tyrants.
Read the writings of the Founders. Washington, Jefferson, and others were protecting the traditions of English freemen and German jaegers.
Mr. Hurl, you need to fantasize less and pay attention to the facts at VA Tech more. The killer had 2 magazines, 15 and 30 rounds, as shown on TV. He fired over 200 shots
15
30 = 45 = 2.5 minues reloading each time
30 = 75
30 = 105
30 = 135
30 = 165
30 = 195
6 = 201
If he just reloaded the factory magazine, he had to reload 13 times, at 90 seconds each time.
Young people who are indoctrinated to lie of the floor or huddle in a corner will do that. Young people who are taught to keep their heads, escape and fight back will do that. There is one lesson in this tragedy.
TWO magazines, Lee? I read news reports that he had six 9mm magazines (30 rounds each); the photo which shows him pointing his weapons at the camera shows him wearing a vest with adequate pocket space for that many. PLUS, a 15-round magazine for the .22. That comes pretty d*** close to “200 shots”.
I saw the police holding two handguns, and two Glock magazines. You claim to have seen something else, which would indicate that he only needed 5 to 10 seconds to change magazines. The news tonight said 102 rounds struck his victims, which means that if he fired 200 times as reported, he missed 98 times, or nearly half his shots.
If his victims had been trained to spread out, encircle and rush him from all directions, 4 or 5 of them might have stopped it before he fired more than a few times.
But we don’t know all they facts yet.
I do know that in the close knit military cadet culture VA Tech from 1875 to 1965, this killer would have been spotted and removed.
There is no 15-round magazine made for that tiny Walther .22. Go to the gun store and check it out. The media is lying to you again. Don’t be their sucker.
Glock does not make a 30-round magazine for any of their handguns, but there were some 3rd party ones made in the early 1990s. A quick search of the Internet and various gun trader magazines showed none for sale.
Time Magazine reports that, “According to a Roanoke, Va., news site, a police affidavit says Cho possessed Walther P22 and Glock 9 mm handguns..”
The LA Times reports that the FBI and ATF said he had a Glock Model 19 with two 15-round magazines, and a Walther P22 .22 training pistol with one 10-round magazine.
That means he had a maximum of 40 round available before he had to stop and reload, at 75 to 90 seconds per magazine.
The 30-round magazine shown on CNN April 17 was a prop, not what the killer had.
Cho prepared in advance for rampage
Killer amassed arsenal, practiced shooting for at least a month
Virginia State Police say they’re nearly done with their on-scene investigation at Virginia Tech. But inside the classroom building, investigators say they found a surprising number of handgun magazines, or clips — 17. Some, officials say, were high-capacity magazines that hold 33 rounds. That means, investigators say, that Cho may have fired at least 200 times during his killing spree on Monday.
Virginia Tech Gunman Purchased Magazines on eBay
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Seung-Hui Cho purchased two empty magazines about three weeks before the attack in which Cho killed 32 people and himself. The magazines were designed for one of the two types of handguns he used.
Given the fact that most reporters know nothing about firearms, the state police may not have said there were 17 magazines, when the feds said there were two (2) 15-round 9mm magazines and one (1) 10-round Walther .22 magazine.
They may have said that these were 17-round magazines, which are available for the Glock Model 19.
All Glock magazines have a serial number, so I remain skeptical of media reports until I can see the magazines and serial numbers entered into evidence, and the purchase trail constructed by the ATF investigation.
Denial isn’t just a river in Egypt.
It isn’t denial for us to reject your fabrications and conjecture.
If you come up with some good information from verifiable sources, then we can adjust our impressions of the situation. I hope your mind is open to change when confronted with the facts.
Where’s YOUR verifiable sources for the following:
– most reporters know nothing about firearms;
– state police may not have said there were 17 magazines;
– They may have said that these were 17-round magazines…
Surely you recognize ALL of the above statements as “fabrications and conjectures.”
My sources were reporters and news organizations. Their reports are at least a few steps above pulling “contrary evidence” out of your butt.
Well, if you can’t understand your grasping at straws in a desperate attempt at mitigating cognitive dissonance then your readers do.
Mr. Multiple Personalities, Please do the math.
=======================================
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Va. Tech gunman fired 170-plus shots
By KRISTEN GELINEAU — Associated Press
BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) The gunman who carried out the massacre at Virginia Tech fired more than 170 rounds in nine minutes and died with a bullet to his head in a classroom surrounded by his victims, authorities said Wednesday.
Seung-Hui Cho chained shut three public entrances to Norris Hall before starting his rampage through the classrooms where he killed 30 students and teachers, police said. Two hours earlier, he had gunned down his first victims in a dormitory across campus.
Being a reasonable man, I will wait until I learn how many magazines the killer had, how many times he reloaded, each set of victims he killed, and how long he took to reload each time.
Bigots need not wait on the facts before launching into a campaign to disarm more honest Americans for the next killer.
A few years ago, our gun club invited all the news reporters, editors and anchors in the Midlands to gun safety classes. Four came. One enjoyed it so much that she became an active club member. In 40 years of talking to journalists, I have only met a few who knew anything about firearms. They seem to enjoy being duped, and helping to dupe the public.
Yeah, why don’t you get one of your personalities to actually do some firsthand research. Call up the VA. State Police and ask them directly– unless they’re in on the conspiracy, too.
You lose, Lee, again, and again, and again…
I guess that name-calling means you don’t trust your sources enough to post them.
I already posted what the VA State Police and the BATF said to the press. If I find that they have changed their original story, I will certainly post it. At this point, all I cannot imagine any information which justifies more laws to disarm more honest people.
LOL. Don’t be deliberately obtuse, Lee. I went to some trouble to hyperlink to the original articles.
In simple terms, the blue colored words in bold are links. Click on them to see the source and the entire article.
The one article that I didn’t link was clearly labeled as from the Associated Press.
Really, you have a Guiness Book of Records case of denial.
PS The hyperlinks within the message may be some other color besides blue. It’s a preference on your computer. The hyperlinks will be the same color as the name of the poster at the bottom of the message.
So why can’t YOU provide the definitive inventory of the make, model, capacity and quantity of rounds for each handgun magazine?
10 minutes spent reloading
NBC News has now admitted that Keith Oberman used photos of the 33-round Glock 18 machine pistol magazines in his “news” report. The Glock 18 is not imported into the US, civilians are not allowed to purchase them, and the VA Tech killer used the standard size 15-round Glock 19 magazines.
eBay reports that the killer purchased 5 10-round .22 magazines for his Walther P22 autopistol, in addition to the one which came with the firearm.
That means he had 30 9mm rounds loaded for the Glock, and 60 rounds loaded for the Walther.
If he fired 172 rounds, as reported, he would have had to reload at least 7 times if they were all for the Glock, at 90 seconds minimum per 15 rounds, for 9 to 10 minutes of reloading time.
If he only reloaded the Walther, he would have had to reload at least 9 times, at 60 seconds each, for 9 to 10 minutes of reloading time.
Loading the last few rounds onto the stack is difficult and slow, so he may have not been able to fully load each magazine, which would mean even more reloading sessions.
Gee, lessee, what possible reasons could I have… uhm, (1) I’m not a member of the VA. State Police; (2) I didn’t witness the press conference; and (3) I’m not a delusional idiot who only believes what supports his delusions.
Neither do I seize on a national tragedy to insult the memories of 32 innocent college students; or, to blame the victims for being murdered.
And, oh yes, a couple of national news organizations reported independently that the shooting spree in the classroom building took NINE minutes. Obviously, the shooter couldn’t have been reloading magazines in NINE minuts so that fact destroys you attempt to smear the memories of the victims.
You post above is little more than mental masturbation.
The facts are plain. The shooter had two murder devices which he bought after being released from a mental health facility. He easily concealed these devices; carried them around campus without detection and unleashed a NINE MINUTE hail of death on college students who had no reason to believe that they would be in danger in Blacksburg, VA college classroom.
You have parroted the specious faux-sociological/psycho babble of the America-hating rightwing. You have desperately sought to blame everyone but the two causes for this mass murder: the shooter and the people who enabled his easy access to devices of mass murder.
In the illogic of your gun fetishism, you suggest that everyone should be armed in anticipation of an infrequent nutcase equipped with efficient murder devices. You ignore the automatic affect of your “solution” which would be to make murder and mayhem just another alternative for any individual momentarily angered, drunk, high, depressed or vengeful. That’s not even mentioning the self-evident benefit to terrorists.
Two last questions:
PS Since you seem to think that the Walther P22 somehow merits less respect than larger caliber murder devices, perhaps you should check out it by having one of your gun club friends shoot you in a leg or arm and see how trifling the experience would prove.
I suggest you try to reload and fire 102 of 170 rounds into 30 targets, reloading as you would need to as outlined above, and tell us how long it took. Since the reloading takes 9 minutes, I doubt you or anyone else can perform all the shooting in 9 minutes. Since you didn’t provide any sources for your claim, and I can’t find any news organizations who claimed that the shooting took only 9 minutes, I suspect you just fabricated that.
I will be happy to continue this discussion with someone who honestly wants to try to prevent a similar terrorist act, but not with someone so uncivil that they have to make things up.