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"Virginia Tech Shooter"

I assume most of you have heard about this in the news today

EDIT - Current figure now stands at 32 students shot dead at Virginia Tech College, Blackburn, USA.

All Police have confirmed is there was a heavily armed, ammunition carrying Asian man - who was killed. However, they're looking for a possible accomplice.

Apparently it's the worst occurence of this type of shooting since the six students were shot at the Kent State University for their Anti-Vietnam protest, back at the start of the 70s.

Story Here

Ladybird wrote:
> Really. Like what pray tell..? It's terroristic killing no
> matter what angle you choose to look at it and it does not only
> happen in America.

Erm... How is a kid shooting teachers/classmates etc. at their school comparable to terrorist activity...? (apart from the deaths involved, obv.)

Terrorist activity has a political motive. A group will own up to it, and say something like they'll continue to carry out attacks until some condition is met, or simply to try and incite hatred and tensions between certain segments of a society...

A kid shooting up people at school... Where are the political motivations? As far as I'm aware, none of these school shooters have made any demands, nor had any political motivation. It's simply something that snapped, and they went on a rampage. Like road rage, but with guns and in a school (so not that much like road rage, but you get the point...)

It's not pre-meditated in the sense that a terrorist attack would be at all, nor is the motivation comprable. The only similarity is the outcome of dead people, which could be applied to almost anything... Road accidents are terrorism! Old age? terrorism!!! (and so on and so forth)

Are you saying the school shootings in America should be thought of in the same terms as the hostage situation in the school in Beslan a few years back?

Is Ladybird American?

Aye.

Lol.

Sibs wrote:
> Ladybird wrote:
> Really. Like what pray tell..? It's terroristic killing no
> matter what angle you choose to look at it and it does not only
> happen in America.
>
> Erm... How is a kid shooting teachers/classmates etc. at their
> school comparable to terrorist activity...? (apart from the
> deaths involved, obv.)
>
> Terrorist activity has a political motive. A group will own up
> to it, and say something like they'll continue to carry out
> attacks until some condition is met, or simply to try and incite
> hatred and tensions between certain segments of a society...
>
> A kid shooting up people at school... Where are the political
> motivations? As far as I'm aware, none of these school shooters
> have made any demands, nor had any political motivation. It's
> simply something that snapped, and they went on a rampage. Like
> road rage, but with guns and in a school (so not that much like
> road rage, but you get the point...)
>
> It's not pre-meditated in the sense that a terrorist attack
> would be at all, nor is the motivation comprable. The only
> similarity is the outcome of dead people, which could be applied
> to almost anything... Road accidents are terrorism! Old age?
> terrorism!!! (and so on and so forth)
>
> Are you saying the school shootings in America should be thought
> of in the same terms as the hostage situation in the school in
> Beslan a few years back?

No, I'm not. You've narrowed your own definition of terrorism to make your argument fit. The term 'terroistic' does not only apply to politically induced acts of violence. For instance, if someone says "I'm going to kill you" and places you in fear with irradict behavior (crashing into your car, breaking into your house, etc..), it is considered terroristic threatening. It is not only punishable in criminal court, but substantiates civil penalties for the acts.

Regardless, school shootings terrorise our nation with the fear that our children are not safe in the educational environments we are all mandated to send them to every day. The only common thread that the shootings appear to have is that they are motivated by desperation, depression, askew beliefs..just to tap the surface. These underlying threads are seemingly prevalent in acts of terrorism with political motives, as well. There is no denying these acts certainly make a statement with the fear and confusion they induce.

pb wrote:
> Firstly, I don't mean to upset you, I just seem to always have
> the knack of saying things that get on your nerves :)
>

Don't worry about it. :)

> I think you need to look at the cases on the basis of what they
> are, rather than looking at all murder-suicides as a whole.

Murder-suicide is exactly what these shootings have been.



> If you take Britain, it has a lot more muggings and plenty of
> teenage gang shootings, but very few school shootings. It also
> has more sword related crimes than some other countries. This
> is possibly due to swords being far more available than guns,
> but I think kids at British schools/colleges seem far less
> pressured to ‘belong’ or find ‘meaning’. This is only my
> limited understanding of the school situation in the US, though,
> from what I’ve read or heard from people.
>
> In the same respect, the US has more school related shootings
> than other countries. While I believe that the 'freedom' to
> bear arms is part of the cause of this (as a general gun
> culture) and the media does play some part as well, I think it's
> more to do with the pressure on the youth today and in this last
> case, it sounds suspiciously like the after effects of cannabis
> was involved.
>
> Different pressures and impacts from different countries create
> different types of crime. I don’t believe you can cover this as
> any sort of Terrorism, though, it’s psychological issues that
> drive most of these school related shootings. This is why I
> originally asked what could cause these to be a far greater
> occurrence in one particular country.


Having psychological issues does not preclude an individual from being convicted of terroristic acts. If individuals are that ill they can not control themselves, they should be confined to hospitalisation. Although most attempts at suicide are a reach for help. With the lack of access to medical care, I can see how many fall through the cracks and how an ill individual might lash-out at society.

The way I see it, the law in the US is pretty lenient when it comes to offenders. We put them up with government-subsidized three hots and a cot for three life-time sentences (psh) and call it good. If they're really REALLY bad, they get euthanized with civility and even the morality of that is still under debate. In some countries, they'd get hung or shot in a firing line for their offenses. I don't hear of school shootings in those countries at all..



>
> In Spain, for instance, there are less pressures on youths at
> school, families are close and morals are built in to the
> society, so you get far less general violent crime, teenage
> pregnancies and family splits, but there is also a belief that
> people should be ‘passionate’ about things, so you get far more
> crimes of passion than you would somewhere else. They also
> express respect for law and order whilst complying with very
> little unless it suits them.


Tis true, there has been a breakdown in the moralistic fiber of our society in the past few decades, predominantly in the US, but you see it in other countries as well. Its my belief that the economy has a lot to do with it, taking both parents (if they're lucky to have both) away into the workforce to make ends meet, leaving poor Johnny to be raised like a wild weed in a day care facility. I'd go into depth right now, but I've actually got to start getting ready for work.

Your country sucks as much as ours does!

Ladybird wrote:
> No, I'm not. You've narrowed your own definition of terrorism
> to make your argument fit.

Meh. Nowadays I'm sure most would not define school shootings as acts of terrorism. I have no idea what the 'dictionary definition' is, but given the context terrorism is always used in now, I wouldn't have thought people would class school shootings as such, unless carried out by a politically motivated group. I could be wrong...


> Regardless, school shootings terrorise our nation with the fear
> that our children are not safe in the educational environments
> we are all mandated to send them to every day.

But, statistically, a kid is probably FAR more likely to get run over, etc. than shot by a gunman/woman at school. Yesyes, there's a big difference, but the end result of the kid dying is the same, but we don't 'fear' roads... I dunno. It's a bit like the London tube bombings, when they happened some people were scared of travelling for a while (fortunately I wasn't around at the time, but was using the tube again a few months later) but statistically it's far more dangerous to drive to wherever you're going than get the underground (or so I heard at the time).

Ladybird wrote:
> Having psychological issues does not preclude an individual from
> being convicted of terroristic acts. If individuals are that ill
> they can not control themselves, they should be confined to
> hospitalisation. Although most attempts at suicide are a reach
> for help. With the lack of access to medical care, I can see
> how many fall through the cracks and how an ill individual might
> lash-out at society.

If you don't find and treat the cause, then you won't stop the effect. What I meant by 'labelling everything as one thing' was that you're not looking at the individual cause/motive in each case. I believe that there is a pattern and usually the same or similar reasons for all these school shootings and you need to look at this in order to stop future events.

Yes, mentally ill people should be found and helped earlier, we have the same problem in this country with a number of recent cases of murder by people who should have been in care. Yet the current government's idea of 'care' is to let them live in a house in a street with maybe one or two visits a week from a social worker.

>
> The way I see it, the law in the US is pretty lenient when it
> comes to offenders. We put them up with government-subsidized
> three hots and a cot for three life-time sentences (psh) and
> call it good. If they're really REALLY bad, they get euthanized
> with civility and even the morality of that is still under
> debate. In some countries, they'd get hung or shot in a firing
> line for their offenses. I don't hear of school shootings in
> those countries at all..
>
It's been shown time and again that the death sentence does not stop crime and isn't a deterent, certainly not to anyone who isn't thinking 'straight' in the first place. In Isreal children are tried as adults sent to prison for small displays of rebellion. Even if this stopped crime, it wouldn't exactly be a good thing to bring to our countries.

The question is; do you bite a child to tell them that biting is wrong? It's the same as killing someone to show them killing is wrong. For a country like the US that is allegedly Christian (you know, that religion that says money is evil and you need to be humble) it's a bit strange that some states still believe in a non-christian form of punishment.


>
>
>
> In Spain, for instance, there are less pressures on youths at
> school, families are close and morals are built in to the
> society, so you get far less general violent crime, teenage
> pregnancies and family splits, but there is also a belief that
> people should be ‘passionate’ about things, so you get far more
> crimes of passion than you would somewhere else. They also
> express respect for law and order whilst complying with very
> little unless it suits them.
>
>
> Tis true, there has been a breakdown in the moralistic fiber of
> our society in the past few decades, predominantly in the US,
> but you see it in other countries as well. Its my belief that
> the economy has a lot to do with it, taking both parents (if
> they're lucky to have both) away into the workforce to make ends
> meet, leaving poor Johnny to be raised like a wild weed in a day
> care facility. I'd go into depth right now, but I've actually
> got to start getting ready for work.

Certainly single parents will find it harder to instill virtues in their children if they're being brought up by strangers, even by other family members. But the issue is also with forcing both parents out to work where the same situation occurs. I agree that governments in the US and UK should change their stance on funding families and encouraging children to be brought up by day care.

pb wrote:
> It's been shown time and again that the death sentence does not
> stop crime and isn't a deterent, certainly not to anyone who
> isn't thinking 'straight' in the first place.

I dont think anybody has shown that. I think its virtually impossible to show it.