First of all, yes I am fine. No-one that I know was involved in the craziness. I was actually off-site at the time, and ended up going home early because of the lock-down
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A gun nut I am not, owning precisely none. I agree that there is no particular need for all people to be armed at all times, though people might be a touch more polite if that were the case. However, unless one is a sniper, using a handgun is usually not a distance killing. I rather think that the guy at NASA and the nutcase at Va.Tech did their killing up close and personal, with blood aplenty quite visible, if not literally on their's hands.
No thing that is a weapon is truly a defensive weapon; they're all meant to disable, injure, or kill. I've worked on several cases where stun guns were used to commit acts of violence.
I don't know how easy it would have been to prevent the NASA shooting, but from what I understand at Va.Tech, the shooter would not have been able to legally get a gun if his state psych files had been made available to the federal database, assuming the dealer did in fact check the federal database. If Va.Tech had been able and willing to expel Cho after the multiple incidents that showed that he was more than a little disturbed, he might still have gone ballistic, but not on campus. Apparently his rights as a mentally disturbed individual trumped safety concerns.
Va.Tech's handling of the matter after finding two corpses in the morning wasn't exactly stellar, but it would appear that the school is insulated from any lawsuits, and I doubt that anyone will get fired over it.
As for why people get more worked up over local crazies killing people, you know the answer to that. All of us can picture some whack job with whom we work going off the deep end. It happened at your workplace, it happened at Robin and Mark's office, it happened at the County Courthouse where I used to work (though that was a disgruntled litigant, not an employee). Same thing with school shootings. We all likely know someone who could lose it that way. There was a history grad student at Rice who admired Hitler and thought that Charles Whitman was misunderstood. In defense of the department, he looked good on paper, and his personal quirks emerged after he was there. He only lasted a year from what I am told. Unless you have a family member or friend in the Army or Marines, it's not personal.
No thing that is a weapon is truly a defensive weapon; they're all meant to disable, injure, or kill. I've worked on several cases where stun guns were used to commit acts of violence.
I don't know how easy it would have been to prevent the NASA shooting, but from what I understand at Va.Tech, the shooter would not have been able to legally get a gun if his state psych files had been made available to the federal database, assuming the dealer did in fact check the federal database. If Va.Tech had been able and willing to expel Cho after the multiple incidents that showed that he was more than a little disturbed, he might still have gone ballistic, but not on campus. Apparently his rights as a mentally disturbed individual trumped safety concerns.
Va.Tech's handling of the matter after finding two corpses in the morning wasn't exactly stellar, but it would appear that the school is insulated from any lawsuits, and I doubt that anyone will get fired over it.
As for why people get more worked up over local crazies killing people, you know the answer to that. All of us can picture some whack job with whom we work going off the deep end. It happened at your workplace, it happened at Robin and Mark's office, it happened at the County Courthouse where I used to work (though that was a disgruntled litigant, not an employee). Same thing with school shootings. We all likely know someone who could lose it that way. There was a history grad student at Rice who admired Hitler and thought that Charles Whitman was misunderstood. In defense of the department, he looked good on paper, and his personal quirks emerged after he was there. He only lasted a year from what I am told. Unless you have a family member or friend in the Army or Marines, it's not personal.
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