Shooting at VA Tech!!

[Vovchandr]

Noone is asking me to react in any specific way, but apparantly I am expected to react in a certain way, because if I don't I automatically become a deuchebag.

As of todate, there are 3300 Dead soldiers in Iraq, that are all murdered, and are just about the same age as those students, 24 THOUSAND, wounded, and a dozens die daily... but we brush that off as "normal".

Two years ago, nearly one THOUSAND, women, children, and elderly were killed in Iraq stampede.

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Iraq stampede deaths near 1,000

I'm not even going to talk about Darfur where millions are being massacured and we don't hear about that at all.

As far as it being expected to happen, every once in a few years something major happens, if you cannot see a trend to this, you're an idiot. If you really think that nothing worse will happen to US within the next 10-15 years, well then I got nothing to say to you.

Amish school shooting (2006)
Terrorist Attacks of September 11, (2001)
Columbine Massacre (1999)
West Paducah, Ky. School Shooting (1997)
Pearl, Miss. School Shooting (1997)
Moses Lake, Wash. School shooting (1996)
Oklahoma City Bombing (1995)
World Trade Center Bombing (1993)

Originally Posted by MYIX8UR8

also, for the one that expected it. NOTHING like this should ever be expected to happen.

Nobody expected it? There were plenty of precedents, how many do you need to see a pattern?

and many many many more school shootings
A Time Line of Recent Worldwide School Shootings — Infoplease.com

It was just a matter of time when one of them shot more people then any previous one.

If you say this is different, because this is innocent people on American soil, well then, there are 40,000 Americans who die in car accidents, every single year, but once again we just brush that off. I'm sure drunk drivers, claim more lives then all the school shootings of the past combined, and coincidentally kill more students.

And finally my quote relates to this, because everytime something happens like this where there are few people to focus on and talk about, its national tragedy, but when Millions die daily in other countries its barely even worth mentioning, and when thousands of americans die over seas or in car accdients on US soil, it just becomes a number that they list, instead of a breaking story.

Edit:

2006 ALONE

Aug. 24, 2006
Essex, Vt. Christopher Williams, 27, looking for his ex-girlfriend at Essex Elementary School, shot two teachers, killing one and wounding another. Before going to the school, he had killed the ex-girlfriend's mother.

Sept. 26, 2006
Bailey, Colo. Adult male held six students hostage at Platte Canyon High School and then shot and killed Emily Keyes, 16, and himself

Sept. 29, 2006
Cazenovia, Wis. A 15-year-old student shot and killed Weston School principal John Klang.

Oct. 3, 2006
Nickel Mines, Pa. 32-year-old Carl Charles Roberts IV entered the one-room West Nickel Mines Amish School and shot 10 schoolgirls, ranging in age from 6 to 13 years old, and then himself. Five of the girls and Roberts died.

Unexpected? I dont think so. This guy just had more bullets, more time, and more targets then any previous incident, this was BOUND to happen.

[Celtic1982citleC]

just because there is a precedent for something happening, does not make it expected. and if you don't think that everyone thinks about our soldiers everyday overseas, you should look at pretty much 99% of the cars tha tdrive around with the ribbons on them to support the troops. you can not possibly say that people don't think about others lost in accidents every day, either. every accident effects peoples lives. also, as far as international incidents, do you not watch the news and just pretend that you're the only one that knows about these things? cnn/msnbc/abc/bbc all stations report everything that goes on in the world. if you feel that most people are uneducated on these matters then that is your opinion. of course people think its horrible when there are mass casualities anywhere in the world, nobody cheers for that. unless they're one sick mother f*#&$r. timelines aside, that doesn't mean that it's "expected" to happen. that's why they're called trajedies. if people expected them, it wouldn't b e such a shock and catastrophic loss. that's like saying it's okay that new orleans was devistated by katrina cause there have been hurricanes in the past, so we knew it was coming. did people see hitler coming? was there a precident for that? what you're saying is madness. events are deemed catastrophic and as tragic because they were never expected and typically result in huge heart-felt losses. being insensitive to those families who lost loved ones and to those who lost their lives is just inconsiderate and black hearted.

[slowtaco]

VOV, you cannot compare a war with what happened at VT. The adults killed at VT were students and faculty. INNOCENT pedestrians trying to get a higher education to better their future and/or help the students achieve their goals by educating them. The men and women who have lost their lives over in IRAQ signed up for that type of duty. When you enlist yourself into the military, you have to assume (depending on what you're enlisting to be) there is a possibility you MAY be killed and you're accepting those possibilities when signing up.

It's a completley different situation, in war casualties are expected NOT the same for schools, offices, markets and malls.

This event is extremely tragic and should be deemed catastrophic.

[GranMassaX]

Originally Posted by Vovchandr

Nobody expected it? There were plenty of precedents, how many do you need to see a pattern?

how is that a pattern? You just listed school shootings. A list is much different than a pattern.

Please explain the pattern.

If there is a pattern than you should be able to predict the next time this will happen

[Vovchandr]

My beef is not abou the event itself, that was a tragedy, and its a horrible moment.

What bugs me is the way people are reacting to it.

As far as me not watching the news, for the past year in a half, I've been pretty much watching CNN for 40 hours a week, 50 weeks in a year, so thats about 2000 hours of CNN, granted thats not all I was doing so I'll not count the extra 6 months of it, ballparking its about 2000 hours, since it plays at my work 24 hours a day, and I used to work overnights where there is nothing better to do.

Those ribbons? I rarely see them at all anymore, I was the thing to do the first year of the war, by now they are almost non existant.

Yes those accidents effect people's lives, just like this event does, and their life is taken often in an unfair way, just like this event, but nobody makes a huge deal of out those 40,000 people, and here its a huge deal out of 30 people. The only difference is, news cant single out all those accidents, but in here its very easy to make it a top story, because its a single event. You guys are forgetting that news is a business just like anything else, they only show you what sells. Darfur is RARELY, by rarely i mean like ONCE a month is mentioned on CNN, why? Because no americans care about it as long as it dosnt effect them. They barely cover any major international stories. "So 300 more troops in Iraq died today, the civil war goes on, 5000 iraqi's die, so now back to you bob with the old lady who's too fat to get out of the house, breaking news".

The event being "unexpected" has nothing to do with it being called a tragedy.

tragedy - a dramatic composition, often in verse, dealing with a serious or somber theme, typically that of a great person destined through a flaw of character or conflict with some overpowering force, as fate or society, to downfall or destruction
2. a lamentable, dreadful, or fatal event or affair; calamity; disaster: the tragedy of war.

Did people see Hitler coming? In what way, as a ruthless dictator? Most likely because there is always one out there somewhere. As far as what he did exactly... no.

Just like in this situation, it was bound to happen that there would be another guy that would bring in a gun to an education institution, the only thing thats "unexpected" is the number of casaulties, but statistically when there are many instances of people shooting up schools, eventually in one of them there will more casaulties then in any other, which is what happened.

Slow - granted yes some of those people wanted to enlist and did it out of their own free will, and then there were very many who didn't have nowhere else to go, who couldnt afford to go to the higher institution such as the Virginia Tech.

Gran - when you plot the amounts of school shootings for every year, it will be most likely a pretty linear graph (I can check if needed), so with that said, that means there is an EXPECTED amount of school shootings that would happen in 2007, we already had one. Nobody knows how many people would be killed, thats UNEXPCTED, but eventually one is going to be very different then the others and worse then all others.

School shootings are expected, the amount of deaths is not.

Fail to see how my quote relates to this? A million people can die somewhere else, and it will just be a number to people, 30 people die here, and its a nation wide tragedy.

I fail to see how this is worse then any other events that occur.

Because they are young people? There are kids of all ages dying everywhere else.
Because they are Americans? More americans die daily to other events.
Because it wasnt supposed to happen? There are murders that happen daily, when the person wasnt supposed to die.
Because they are in school? At least they had a chance at a higher eduction.

There are psychos out there, millions of the, and they have access to guns, simple math tells me, someone is going to end up dead somewhere.

Once again, I'm not cold hearted towards the event itself, but rather to the news portrayal and people's reaction of it, is just simply, unjustified.

Perfect example: nobody really made that big of a deal of the College Lacross (baseball?) team bus that flew of the highway and killed plenty of college students, who's lives were unjustifiably taken. Parallel scenario, college students dead, completely different reactions from people.

[Celtic1982citleC]

there are several horrible tragedies where buses crashed, planes went down with student athletes on-board (marshall, ok state, etc) that changed peoples lives for years. marshall even had a movie made after what happened there nearly 3 decades later. ALL tragic deaths receive equal attention from the media. the media reports all of these things. it's only the ones that YOU chose to notice that make a difference in your opinion. you say you watch cnn 2000+ hours, then you realize that they report deaths everywhere all the time and give everything the attention it warrants. so i'm very confused as to where you are headed with the argument on your point of view.

[Vovchandr]

Will you understand my point better when I tell you that the Darfur GENOCIDE, will recieve nearly no media attention (I Havent heard of any mention of darfur in about 2 months), and we will hear about these 30 people for the next 3 weeks NON STOP.

Nevermind the fact that one is an ongoing problem that has been going on for years and will keep going, or this isolated event (In this scale).

Everybody in america will know about VA tech, willing to bet over 50% of people on the street even heard of Darfur, of if asked if there is a genocide going on anywhere in the world, they woudl be likely to say no.

They do not get equal media attention, not even close.

If you think all tragic deaths receieve equal attention from the media you're very mistaken.

Michael Jackson trial, and death off ana nicole smith coverage probably exceeds any coverage of any tragic event in recent historiy probably besides 9/11.

[Celtic1982citleC]

apparently in your vast consumption of cnn you never saw the oj trials in that case

[GranMassaX]

Originally Posted by Vovchandr

Gran - when you plot the amounts of school shootings for every year, it will be most likely a pretty linear graph (I can check if needed), so with that said, that means there is an EXPECTED amount of school shootings that would happen in 2007, we already had one. Nobody knows how many people would be killed, thats UNEXPCTED, but eventually one is going to be very different then the others and worse then all others.

thats not a pattern... try again.

All you are saying is that there were some school shootings in 2005, some in 2006, so therefore there will be some in 2007. Is this your pattern?


not as linear as you thought, eh? especially the last 5 years:


A Time Line of Recent Worldwide School Shootings — Infoplease.com

[waltbabyluv]

dont compare this to a war please thats rediculous. Oh and CNN is a joke, this happened in america, where we live, im sure if you went out on the streets of the UK they wouldnt know about this or care, and they shouldnt, it didnt happen to there people, your comparisons are st00pid