More blaming the victim.
More blaming the victim.
Conservative Nathaniel Blake at Human Events Online links positively to John Derbyshire’s post, then writes that the students at Virginia Tech should feel “heartily ashamed” for not acting more bravely:
College classrooms have scads of young men who are at their physical peak, and none of them seems to have done anything beyond ducking, running, and holding doors shut. Meanwhile, an old man hurled his body at the shooter to save others.
Something is clearly wrong with the men in our culture. Among the first rules of manliness are fighting bad guys and protecting others: in a word, courage. And not a one of the healthy young fellows in the classrooms seems to have done that. …
Like Derb, I don’t know if I would live up to this myself, but I know that I should be heartily ashamed of myself if I didn’t. Am I noble, courageous and self-sacrificing? I don’t know; but I should hope to be so when necessary.
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What a moron. I’ll bet he’s so brave that he’s for the war in Iraq yet doesn’t have the courage to go there himself.
April 17th, 2007 at 3:32 pmGood thing Imus didnt say this…
April 17th, 2007 at 3:34 pmAm I noble, courageous and self-sacrificing?
No.
This has been another installment of easy answers to stupid questions.
April 17th, 2007 at 3:34 pmGotta love detached hindsight, not to mention retinas.
April 17th, 2007 at 3:35 pmwatchers of “24″ unite!
April 17th, 2007 at 3:36 pmLet’s see how he would have reacted to bullets being shot at him.
April 17th, 2007 at 3:36 pmWow. Just wow.
April 17th, 2007 at 3:36 pmFriggin’ oy!
These pansy a$$ed neocons sure do talk a big game. How come none of them will sign up and serve their country? I am pretty sure Bush said something about it being the highest calling.
April 17th, 2007 at 3:36 pmThis coming from a person hiding behind a keyboard.
Sounds like a typical chickenhawk of the 101st keyboard brigade – all words and no action.
April 17th, 2007 at 3:38 pmAmazing,
for people who’ve gone out of their way avoiding being on either side of a gun, they sure seem to have their opinions on what to do when they’re looking down the barrel of one
April 17th, 2007 at 3:38 pmNote left by Cho rails against “rich kids” and “deceitful charlatans,” Chicago Tribune reports
Sort of a side note: Juan asked on the thinkfast thread today what would cause this behavior in a developed society.
I responed with the cause being mental instability which is not noticed, ignored, and goes untreated. I also noted that lack of justice and lousy attitudes (snotty, don’t give a crap, selfish, etc.) contribute as well. Seems Cho had an issue with liars and inequality. Poeple who are treated poorly and experience injustices sometimes snap.
April 17th, 2007 at 3:39 pmBlaming the victims is a Repuke tactic.
They love to blame victims, and they think they’re Christians?
April 17th, 2007 at 3:40 pmwhen i enrolled in school, i don’t recall pledging to defend myself against gun wielding maniacs. people are at college to get an education, not to act like rambo. what a fucking dolt.
April 17th, 2007 at 3:40 pmThen grab a weapon and stand a post my man!
April 17th, 2007 at 3:40 pmWhile I think along these lines, it’s that we citizens aren’t… trained to fight back.
Our culture certainly fantasizes a lot about “fighting back”–but it’s horrendous when those fantasies masquerade as “opinion” or “cogent observation.”
April 17th, 2007 at 3:41 pmThese morons spend too much time watching Rambo-type movies. They’d probably wet their pants if a thug pointed a gun at them.
This is yet more “compassionate conservatism” from the bloviators -it won’t be long before the braindead trolls pick up on the newest talking point, start smearing the student body, as their talk about their own manly accomplishments.
There is simply no low these people won’t stoop to…
April 17th, 2007 at 3:41 pmWow. What a freak. I bet this guy is a grade A pussy.
April 17th, 2007 at 3:41 pmAnother arm chair quarterback trying to prove his masculinity, and over compensating for a serious short coming.
We all don’t know what we’d do in that situation. Some would be shell shocked, some would be analytical, most would panic. Some would even be heroic (the R.A. of the dorm comes to mind).
Whose to say there wasn’t heroism, that some tried to jump this guy, only to get blown away?
It’s only been over 24 hours, yet we’ve already got idiots questioning the victims.
April 17th, 2007 at 3:41 pmNICE
What is it with these guys? Not only callously spouting off, but without paying attention to those who did indeed show heroism.
What about Ryan Clark, the RA who did confront the assailant in the dorm at the tragedy’s beginning and was killed for his efforts?
What about Liviu Librescu, the 76-year-old engineering professor and Holocaust survivor, who barred the door and told his students to flee and was also killed?
There were heroes amidst the tragedy. Let’s not pretend things would have been different had Derbyshire and Blake been there.
April 17th, 2007 at 3:42 pmwiener savage had already blamed the ACLU yesterday for this. There are more Horse’s asses in the world then there are Horses.
wouldofs, shouldofs, and couldofs is what we’ll hear, see and read for the next few days. I’ll listen to the professionals (FBI, ATF, state and local police) and I’ll ignore the asses with mouths.
April 17th, 2007 at 3:42 pmAmazing.
Nobody, but nobody has the right to second-guess these people’s actions. CERTAINLY not someone who’s never been shot at.
John, there’s an easy way to examine your heroism.
The recruiting ofice is right down the street.
April 17th, 2007 at 3:44 pmNeocons like to talk tough.
What would this moron have done if he was there? Probably wet his pants, and assume the fetal position, rocking back and forth.
April 17th, 2007 at 3:45 pmI woulda…I woulda kicked his little Chinese ass! You better believe it.
April 17th, 2007 at 3:45 pmAh, the Conservative thinking in a nutshell…
“You go and fight and I’ll call myself one brave, badass mofo.”
April 17th, 2007 at 3:46 pmI’d like to see John spend a weekend in East L.A.
Without a gun.
He’d neve live to see Monday.
April 17th, 2007 at 3:46 pmVile pigs, Derbyshire and Blake…Today’s Wooorst Persons in the Wooooooorrrrld!!
April 17th, 2007 at 3:47 pmWhere’s the right-wing defense at here?
April 17th, 2007 at 3:47 pmSome idiots watch the boob tube and mix it up with reality.
If it had been ME in that situation, I would have killed the shooter from 200 yards away with mind bullets! that’s telekenesis Kyle!
April 17th, 2007 at 3:47 pmWhat a sexist load of crap.
I won’t hold my breath waiting for the feminists to challenge this blatantly sexist statement.
April 17th, 2007 at 3:49 pmIt has come out that this Cho kid was a “troubled loner”. This puts him in a high risk category. So what does society do with a “troubled loner”?
They make his life even worse, by making fun of him and doing other abusive things to him.
There is your “developed society” for you.
April 17th, 2007 at 3:49 pmActually probably one of the most heroic victims who did act bravely and still died was an old man named Professor Liviu Librescu.
He held the door and blocked to save his students, and was shot and killed.
The old man was a refugee of communist opression and a survivor of the holocaust. he was an israeli professor at tel aviv university before he came to virginia tech.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3388753,00.html
April 17th, 2007 at 3:50 pmThe reichwingnuts are attempting to DARVO the innocent victims and collegians now! Amazing how low these twisted sickos will stoop! DARVO IS THE MANTRA OF THE VERY SICK GOP:
DARVO = DENY, ATTACH, REVERSE VICTIM & OFFENDER
DARVO IS THE PRODUCT OF A VERY SICK, DELUDED, PSYCHOLOGICALLY TWISTED GROUP OF REPUBLICANS.
April 17th, 2007 at 3:51 pmI bet Nathaniel Blake wouldn’t sign up to go to Iraq, probably because he’s a wuss….like most of his conservative buddies.
All talk and no action by themselves.
April 17th, 2007 at 3:51 pmDid ANYONE else even notice the blatant sexism in the statement?
April 17th, 2007 at 3:51 pmSince the kid was from another country, he probably had zero support system here in the US.
Instead of more metal detectors, and guards. How about a program to help students from out of the country get plugged into a support system. How about its mandatory for them, for national security reasons.
April 17th, 2007 at 3:51 pmNathaniel Blake would have ripped his shirt off, put a bandana around his head, made a lethal weapon out buttons and thread, and taken on the shooter without any body armor, head on, in deadly singular combat.
After ripping the shooter into pieces with his bare hands, he would have used the thread to sew his wounds with a needle made out of a metal hanger.
John Derbyshire would have been covering Blake’s back with a fearsome looking machete made out of plastic spoons.
/sarcasm off
In the meantime, in the real world, real people got killed…
April 17th, 2007 at 3:52 pmToday’s Wooorst Persons in the Wooooooorrrrld!!
Comment by nffcnnr
I hope so. Let’s watch Keith tonight and see what he has to say about the whole issue. I thought his special edition last night was very well done.
April 17th, 2007 at 3:52 pmPerhaps we should blame the reichwing neocon gun lobbies of the Rethuglican party for the laxity of gun controls and hold all of them accountable for this mass murdering spree?
April 17th, 2007 at 3:52 pmThese people; Blake, Derbyshire, and their ilk; confuse courage with stupidity. One does not have to throw themselves in front of a bullet to be brave. These people do not consider that it took much more presence of mind to attempt to barricade the room and keep as many alive as possible. It was far more corageous in my estimation to use one mind in a situation and then engage the body in keeping people, including oneself, alive.
Throwing yourself to block the gunman may have gotten more people killed than serivng the greater good of protecting the group of students. Men are called upon to protect and that includes making good decisions in order to create a safe environment among the chaos.
April 17th, 2007 at 3:52 pmSo, have we heard the “it happened because America is soft on homosexuality” explanation yet?
Nathaniel Blake sounds like he’s never been in harm’s way. I’d recommend a play by Bernard Shaw, Arms & the Man. It’s about a mercenary fighting in the Balkans and the patriotic nonsense about war and honor that the middle class routinely swallows.
April 17th, 2007 at 3:53 pmI agree, DARVO is a very, very, sick and twisted tactic used by the Republicans.
April 17th, 2007 at 3:54 pmSee how these Re-thugs are attempting to shift the dialogue from our lack of homeland security in monitoring gun purchases of foreign nationals? See how these demented Re-Thugs are attempting to shift the dialogue off the very sick individual who committed these crimes (because it all points back to their gun lobbies owning this white house) and, instead, shifting the blame to others in the classroom who were victims? Very sick and time to get these Republican criminals out of public office. This country needs to boot them all in 08 in order to save itself from going totally down the tubes.
April 17th, 2007 at 3:54 pmThey make his life even worse, by making fun of him and doing other abusive things to him.
There is your “developed society†for you.
Comment by ForTruth
Unfortunately, that is the sad, sad truth. Children can be extremely mean to those they deem weaker than themselves. I was the fat, four-eyed, red headed freak all through school. Yes, I was clinically depressed for over a decade. Yes, I thought of suicide. NO, I never thought of taking anyone “down with me”.
I just wish someone would have been kind enough to befriend Cho before he snapped.
April 17th, 2007 at 3:55 pmWhere’s Dale, lecturing that people need to pay respect to the families again?
Come on Dale, explain to us why your *friends* in the Conservative ranks are a bunch of heartless punks! Come on, we’re waiting on you to condemn your fellow conservatives for their outrageous remarks!
Dale is conveniently gone when his side looks like a bunch of hate filled hypocrites and heartless b*st*rds.
April 17th, 2007 at 3:56 pmWhen the students held the door shut as Cho kept firing his gun….
That was pretty effin’ brave.
April 17th, 2007 at 3:57 pmnot THAT is classy
April 17th, 2007 at 3:57 pmNo surprise, This is the crowd that goes after Hostages when they have the nerve to come back alive…
April 17th, 2007 at 3:57 pmWhat a first-class a$$hole. I think he ought to put his mettle to the test and enlist post haste and go off to Iraq to see if there’s some loose grenades he can toss himself on top of.
April 17th, 2007 at 3:59 pmIt’s Nathanael Blake, and by the looks of this picture: http://oregonstate.edu/~blakena/DSCN1777.jpg
he appears as if he is a young and able-bodied 20-something year old just out of college at Oregon State. Go sign up for Iraq, Nathanael, and show us what a real man you are.
I’m assuming this is the correct guy – since there are many other writings that seem to follow his though that can be found here:
http://oregonstate.edu/~blakena/
April 17th, 2007 at 4:01 pmThis guy is grandstanding. We should all be thinking of the families dealing with this loss and not causing them more grief.
April 17th, 2007 at 4:02 pmHey, you know, I’ll be your local Marine recruiter could find work for a noble, courageous he-man such as yourself! Give him a call.
April 17th, 2007 at 4:02 pmemail him and tell him what you think….i did.
gxnmvw7e@gmail.com
April 17th, 2007 at 4:03 pmProject your inferior masculinity much?
What a loathesome worm. Typical Rape-Public-Can displacement. Riddled with fear and delusions of control this maggot has the audacity to attack the innocent victims?
How pathetic can you be? This is so typical of the Chickenhawk cowards. Project your own insecurities onto others. This excrement is too coward to enlist but will attack innocent victims? You Reich wing have no shame.
April 17th, 2007 at 4:03 pmAnyone else think this and flight 93 are comparable?
1. An airplane in flight is an inescapable situation, a collage classroom is not.
2. would the pupils think they were going to “die anyway” or would they think they could escape.
3. flight 93 passengers would have had time to talk and team up. their actions took place after the situation was revealed, The student here would have been at the point where the plane was initially taken over, the part before the “fight back”.
Could you imagine the uproar if this was said by someone on the left that had actually served in the military or been in such a situation before?
April 17th, 2007 at 4:03 pmToo bad that German class wasn’t full of right-wing pundits so they could have all gotten one chance to play “Rambo” before they died.
April 17th, 2007 at 4:03 pmRush a guy with two semi-automatic handguns? Honestly, these guys watch too much HBO. These insulting SOBs don’t even know what happened and they’re setting themselves up as superior beings. The one heroic act they do mention is mocked with the words “an old man”; no name and no story and no credit. This man’s heroic act apparently didn’t count because he wasn’t the Hollywood hero type.
April 17th, 2007 at 4:05 pmWell, for everyone who’s worrying about why the shooter acted and what could have been done differently to save him, etc., I’d say it’s 99% that he was psychotic. May have had a brain tumor, or a head injury, possibly it was developing for a few years. There isn’t any cultural or social explanation for shit like this — it’s just random craziness. Don’t look too hard for meaning.
April 17th, 2007 at 4:06 pm#22 DAMN STRAIGHT
April 17th, 2007 at 4:06 pmIf Blake really does think this:
the students at Virginia Tech should feel “heartily ashamed†for not acting more bravely
then he should go there and tell people that. That way, he can answer this question for himself:
I don’t know if I would live up to this myself, but I know that I should be heartily ashamed of myself if I didn’t. Am I noble, courageous and self-sacrificing? I don’t know; but I should hope to be so when necessary.
I think the good people of Virginia will give you a chance to really know yourself, Blake.
April 17th, 2007 at 4:07 pm.
Well, on the bright side (and there isn’t much of one), tragic events like this really show the republicunt’s true colors. Go on Republicants, show the world (and the voters) just how out of touch with reality you really are.
April 17th, 2007 at 4:07 pmI’ve had a gun held to my head in a robberery. Let me tell you…..there is no more helpless feeling in the world. You can’t do a thing, can’t move, can’t think, it is very hard to describe unless you’ve been there like I was.
April 17th, 2007 at 4:08 pmI will not judge these kids for what they did and didn’t do in their situation. I always thought if it was me that i’d act bravely and rush or fight the prick that did that to me. I didn’t do that. I was frightened out of my mind.
When I see S**t like this being spewed by these idiots I can think of but one thing to say and its from the Bible
JUDGE NOT LEST YE BE JUDGED.
Kind of sums it up for me.
how dare that a$$hole mention flight 93- they were up against box cutters, not 2 semiautomatic pistols!
That piece of $hit big-talking coward.
And the teacher who threw himself at the shooter to save his students and was eventually killed, was an Israeli, who may or may not have seen time in combat in his 70+ years of life.
Has any of the students who lived or died yesterday, seen combat or received any military training? probably not.
that is not their fault. I can only assume that those young adults in a situation so horrific were thinking about self preservation.
Again- what an A$$HOLE.
April 17th, 2007 at 4:09 pmThis guy (Derbyshire) is so tough that he doesnt even accept comments to his drivel..typical loud mouth conservative pussy!!!!
April 17th, 2007 at 4:09 pmClinton said it, too. So did Pelosi.
April 17th, 2007 at 4:09 pmhey I am sorry, but I did think yesterday when details started to come out….why didn’t anyone jump the shooter. Why didn’t anyone wrestle him to the ground. I also thought, sh….t if I am going to die, I would die fighting back and I wouldn’t allow myself to be placed against a wall and be shot execution style……….
It has happened many times before that a shooter was taken down by very, very brave people, the one example that comes to mind is the guy that started shooting infront of the White House, I think during the late 1980s and he was wrestled to the ground by some brave tourists.
April 17th, 2007 at 4:09 pmWhat exactly are you supposed to do when you’re 15, 20, 25, 30+ feet away and having bullets shot at you? the first person to stand up from behind whatever is shielding them is going to get shot, that’s not bravery, that’s suicide. That’s f***ing outrageous.
April 17th, 2007 at 4:10 pmI think it’s wrong of Blake to assume that all those males must have been College Republicans. But at least he finally admits just how much shame College Republicans cause him.
April 17th, 2007 at 4:10 pmI’m tempted to suggest bets on:
1) how long this post of his stays up
April 17th, 2007 at 4:11 pm2) how long it is before he whines about the vicious harrassment he’s getting from us DFHs.
why didn’t anyone jump the shooter
He did. He died.
April 17th, 2007 at 4:12 pm.
Good Lord, I just don’t understand these people. It must be nice to have such a high opinon of yourself. And, nice slam on women at the same time, because of course we have no courage.
April 17th, 2007 at 4:12 pmGood point on Darbyshire’s Flight 93 comparison–those passengers acted because they knew if they didn’t they and many others would die, even if there was only a small chance they would succeed.
Everything before that always taught you to not fight back and to not make yourself conspicuous–that anything an untrained civilian did would probably make the situation worse.
Mr Blake, that’s not fair. Surely not all of those young men were College Republicans.
April 17th, 2007 at 4:12 pmUmmm Kirk,
was the White House shooter aiming at the tourists? focused on them? Don’t think so. Easy to for a bystander to take action, than the untrained, unsuspecting target.
Don’t be an jerk and defend the indefensible.
April 17th, 2007 at 4:13 pmhey I am sorry, but I did think yesterday when details started to come out….why didn’t anyone jump the shooter. Comment by Captain Kirk
I just love those armchair commandos. You are probably one of those people that go up to a widow on her husband’s funeral day and say, “I’m sorry, ma’am, I know how you feel.”
You never know what you will do until you are put in that position.
SULOGA!
April 17th, 2007 at 4:14 pmComment by Captain Kirk
Maybe our society perpetuates the “all about me” mentality. Maybe we are not encouraged to look out for our fellow Americans. Maybe we are taught to do whatever it takes to get one over on our own people. Maybe we are the most selfish nation on the planet.
Social psychology studies have shown when people witness a situation as a group, the responsibility is diffused and many people do not act. However, when alone, these people would act.
April 17th, 2007 at 4:14 pmHey Capt.Jirk,
Who the F**k are you to question these kids or anyone else in this situation??? If you have the option to flee versus take on a 9mm then I say do it! You have NO idea what you would do in that situation. Keep your Rambo fantasies to yourself..Jackass.
April 17th, 2007 at 4:17 pmyes, please refer these morons to the corp of cadets at tech so they can tell them in person what cowards they are – serving our country and all
April 17th, 2007 at 4:17 pmThese people who blame the vicitms are plain loud mouths and do not deserve to be called conservatives, eventhough they call themselves conservatives. These people only understand brute force.
I agree that it is not smart to unnecessarily draw fire. In some cases if those holding the doors shut would have stood up to draw fire the gunman would have entered the room and there would have been more carnage.
April 17th, 2007 at 4:18 pmThis is not a reality based comment. When gunshots are fired, and screams are heard, WHO RUNS IN THE DIRECTION OF THE GUNFIRE without a weapon? At least one guy organized a resistance by building a barricade. The element of surprise is one hell of an advantage, unless you are an ex navy seal or something. The phantasy world of masculine virtue these Republicans live in frankly makes me want to puke with revulsion.
April 17th, 2007 at 4:19 pmHow old is this guy? Cuz if he’s under 42 and not blogging from Iraq, he’s just another blowhard, Republiclone chicken hawk. No wonder these clowns start wars – they all think they’re John Wayne killing bad guys and cleaning up Dodge. Ugh!
April 17th, 2007 at 4:19 pmOne of the victims did fight back and was killed for his trouble. He just happened to be a survivor of both the Nazi Holocaust and Communist Romania.
From MSNBC:
Shame on the Right-Wing-Nut-O-Sphere. Shame, shame, shame.
April 17th, 2007 at 4:20 pmOkay suit him up, he goes to the frontline so he can throw himself in front of a suicidal bomber.
April 17th, 2007 at 4:23 pmThere’s an odor to that guy’s comments, but it is fair to say that we should all wish to be courageous and noble. Not many of us are. Not many of us ever were. But it’s a good ideal.
April 17th, 2007 at 4:25 pmWhat a douchebag! How can anyone blame someone for not running into a hail of bullets.
And what is with the “young men at their physical peak” comment. I didn’t realize Nathaniel Blake was the next Jeff Gannon/Matt Sanchez.
April 17th, 2007 at 4:27 pmWhat a tool that guy is. He’s probably the one who makes the comment that starts the bar brawl and then jumps behind a table while everybody else slugs it out.
He’d have probably peed his pants if he’d been in Norris Hall yesterday.
April 17th, 2007 at 4:32 pmAlso, a handgun is pretty precise… only in movies it’s not.
April 17th, 2007 at 4:37 pmDerbyshire is tool. He’d rolled up in a ball sucking his thumb while trying to play dead.
April 17th, 2007 at 4:41 pmDamn straight. They seem to enjoy to take weapons to schools and mass murder people. While everyone is eyeing the dude in the turban, the guy with the mullet has the shotgun under his coat.
April 17th, 2007 at 4:42 pmWhat makes anyoe do something ?
i remember 2 incidents when i was young.
in one, i saw a lady get her purse nabbed, i probably could have run the guy down, but i hesitated, and didnt do anything.
The other, about 2 years later, i saw a guy pull a gun on a friend of mine i was dinking with (i was a bartender that just got off work)
he was somewhat disabled. Someone pulled a gun on him demanding money, his wallet etc…
i kept verbally assaulting the gunman, and he finally went away, yep, more stupid than courageous, but i dont think he really wanted to shoot anyone.
Why did i act one time, but didnt the other ?
i really cant tell you.
Maybe it was cos the time i acted i was drunk, and the other time, i was off-guard ?
I dunno.
These people are young, thinking about class and so forth
“Conservative is, as Conservative does”
April 17th, 2007 at 4:44 pmRun Forest Run…
Thank you, Nathaniel Blake, you’re my hero!
Let us know where you live so that we can organize a spontaneous parade in your honor.
April 17th, 2007 at 4:50 pmI think this should be seen as just the latest sign that conservatives are wandering off into the ozone in terms of their contact with both reality and popular opinion.
If we’re lucky, they’ll never come back.
April 17th, 2007 at 4:50 pmThere is something wrong with our culture that men decide to take weapons into schools and murder people. The level of violence represented in the media and public policy rather than focusing on trying to find and treat the ills of society causes this problem.
A teacher noticed the gunman’s writing and referred him to counseling. However, he felt like an outcast in the community. How should an outcast be handled so they at least feel welcome. He seemed to have an issue about a situation that happened a while back regarding the shooting of a friend by a police officer. He withdrew and suppressed the feelings of anger until he exploded in this violent rage that led to the death of 33 innocents.
One problem with our society is the message we send young men that they must ignore their feelings and get through situations themselves, never admitting to needing assistance or care. This message needs to be changed. We need to let our boys and men know that we want them to ask for help.
April 17th, 2007 at 4:52 pmUnless I missed it, all we are waiting for now is John Lott to make up more data saying that if all of us faculty had 9 mm Glocks (& students had 22s–we need the advantage, especially @ exam time) then none of this would have happened.
April 17th, 2007 at 4:53 pmWhat do these chickenhawks have instead of brains? Marshmallow fluff?
How about ammending the constitution? If anything needs fixing, it’s the second…
April 17th, 2007 at 4:54 pmIt’s absolutely repugnant to blame the victim in this situation. What is wrong with this guy.
April 17th, 2007 at 4:54 pmAnother bad-ass neocon douchebag who wants other kids to fight so he won’t have to. Pretty soon these neo-con jock-sniffers will be blaming what they see as the wussification of society on the liberals.
April 17th, 2007 at 4:56 pmI am ashamed of my fellow conservatives that insist on saying horrid things. These individuals are out of touch with reality.
I feel it is far better to conserve your life and the lives of your students by reducing the possibility of harm. The only way to do this is to barricade the doors. Anyone who sees weakness in this presence of mind that it took to conserve the lives by taking a path that did not risk their own is themselves weak in mind. Mental strength, not physical strength, is what we look for in unversity students and professors. The moral courage to act in a way consistent with preserving as many lives as possible, including one’s own, far outweighs any “physical courage” that comes from jumping infront of the bullett or jumping the gunman.
April 17th, 2007 at 4:59 pmWhat poetic justice it would be if some psycho with a gun decides to test this guy’s snactimonious maniless!
April 17th, 2007 at 5:03 pmCan we please stop saying that “the kid was from another country”?
When you are a green card holder who’s lived in the US since you were 8 years old, you are de facto American and entitled to immediate citizenship should you request it.
More than that, you’ve done all your schooling in American schools, all your friends are Americans, all the TV you’ve ever watched is American TV.
April 17th, 2007 at 5:03 pmblake is a wussy.
April 17th, 2007 at 5:05 pmActually, it may be a sign of *treated* instability.
April 17th, 2007 at 5:06 pmOn the gun argument, we need to be more sensible with regard to laws and protect the community as well as the rights of the individual under the second amendment. The right to own does not preclude to right of an individual to be safe.
Instead of either completely banning private ownership of firearms or protecting the right to “keep and bear arms” over the imperative of comunity safety we need to open a dialogue about sensible laws regarding ownership of firearms. I think it is reasonable to require background checks, waiting periods, and other safety measures.
On the subject of the youngman, though I normally would not ask, I have to wonder about his religion because in his murder/suicide note he used very stron religious language such as accusing his schoolmates with debauchery. This is not a shot at people of faith, because I myself am a Christian, however this student used language very similiar to the language the terrorists use to describe anyone they percieve as a threat. A person guilty of debauchery is not far removed from an infidel.
April 17th, 2007 at 5:08 pm32 people were killed in this attack, many of them students. How does this guy know that none of them died doing exactly what he says they should have?
April 17th, 2007 at 5:08 pmOh Lordy, bring back the draft!!
April 17th, 2007 at 5:09 pm“Am I noble, courageous and self-sacrificing? I don’t know”
Actually, you DO know. You are not, sir Chicken Hawk.
April 17th, 2007 at 5:13 pmIt is easy for those of us who are looking at this from the outside to say how those in the situation should have handled themselves. We do not know how we would react in a similiar situation. I think that most of us no matter our political stripe would do what ever we thought necessary and proper in order to preserve the largest number of lives. Our actions would be decided by our particular circumstance and not what some silly commentator says.
April 17th, 2007 at 5:14 pmIf I were a student at Virginia Tech, I would have rushed the shooter, dodged his bullets, and disarmed him. Then I would have tortured him until he confessed his role as part of a larger terrorist plot. Which would, I am sure, involve that nefarious liberal President Palmer.
April 17th, 2007 at 5:15 pmExacta-mundo
That professor who blocked the doorway with his body and allowed students to escape (and was subsequently shot) is a true hero. VT should name a building after him.
April 17th, 2007 at 5:19 pm#105
You are assuming that you have a clear path to rush him. Would you rush him if you were in a classroom where you could shut the door, barricade it, and be fairly safe?
April 17th, 2007 at 5:20 pmThese pansy a$$ed neocons sure do talk a big game. How come none of them will sign up and serve their country? I am pretty sure Bush said something about it being the highest calling.
Historically military personnel are more conservative.
April 17th, 2007 at 5:20 pmOh man, I just hate repukes. K, little story. I was going to my car after a war protest. This repuke I saw was yelling at a mom and little girl who had peace signs. I told him to pick on someone his own size. He is about 32 6′ tall, I am 53 6′ 1″, so the brave little repuke gets his belt off (with a big redneck buckle) and starts a swinging at me, I have taking kick boxing for 24 years, oops for him, one punch he goes down, I think well, mmm, no belt, so I roll him over and pull his shirt over his head and pulled his pants around his ankles, not his underwear, did not want to see his butt.
April 17th, 2007 at 5:22 pmThis is a typical repuke thug, thinking he could take out a white haired old man.
Couple of point to wrap your liberal brains around;
1) Blaming is finding fault. Nobody is BLAMING the students for the actions of the murderer. But Derb is saying that IF you are trapped why NOT rush the attacker instead of cowering in fear like good little liberals? I know that in this post modern world words don’t mean anything but it does help to agree on the meaning of SOME of them.
2) Viriginia is a “right to carry” state. You can carry a concealed gun everwhere except a couple of places. Yup, you guessed it, the academics didn’t want guns on their campus so they are banned. Look up Pearl, Mississippi and Gundy, Virginia, just two of many places where armed citizens stopped a massacre on school campuses.
When you disarm the good guys only the bad guys have guns.
So all your liberal bed wetters, go on and rely upon the law and the state to protect you from the bad guys. I LIKE the concept of self-defense.
April 17th, 2007 at 5:25 pmNever heard of Nathaniel Blake or John Derbyshire. Like those are real names. Right. And my name is Dylan Yeats.
April 17th, 2007 at 5:26 pmThis guy ought to be put to the test right now!!! i am infuriated at his comments.
April 17th, 2007 at 5:30 pm1) Blaming is finding fault. Nobody is BLAMING the students for the actions of the murderer. But Derb is saying that IF you are trapped why NOT rush the attacker instead of cowering in fear like good little liberals? I know that in this post modern world words don’t mean anything but it does help to agree on the meaning of SOME of them.
There is a reason your kind are called chickenhawks.
April 17th, 2007 at 5:30 pmMaybe it takes a certain kind of noble courage to be that big of an idiot.
April 17th, 2007 at 5:31 pmThis a-hole ought to be put to the test right now. i am infuriated by this comment and cannot even fathom the insensitivity and callousness of this!!
April 17th, 2007 at 5:31 pmSo all your liberal bed wetters, go on and rely upon the law and the state to protect you from the bad guys. I LIKE the concept of self-defense.
So, you think a bunch of gunmen, untrained in law enforcement waving around their 9mm is going to help? Let’s say there are 5 macho guys with “self-defense” on their mind. 5 guys shooting 5 different directions, none knowing that the first shot took down the shooter. Now they are aiming for the other 4 guys because they have guns. Dozens caught in the crossfire as Billy Bob, Cletus, Clarence and Dewayne keep blazing away. Great idea!!!!!
April 17th, 2007 at 5:36 pmNathaniel Blake?
Who the Hell is he anyway? Has anyone else ever heard of this clown before? Why publicise this nobody?
April 17th, 2007 at 5:39 pmReads a lot like the conservatives who are all in favour of war so long as they don’t have to go fight themselves. But THEY are the patriots while everyone else are immoral or worse. Right.
I especially like how this article is all about what people should do but then they guy can’t absolutely say whether he would live up to his own standard. Next we’ll have people who have never eaten apples arguing that anyone who dislikes apples are unamerican elitists. I mean, why waste time condemning the actions of anothe person if you’ve never been in the situation yourself, or have no idea what you would do IF YOU WERE in that situation.
I consider myself to be tough and brave but I’m not about to attempt fighting a bullet if I don’t have to. My first instinct would be to find a safe exit and use it like everyone else.
April 17th, 2007 at 5:40 pm#65 Captain Kirk:
It has happened many times before that a shooter was taken down by very, very brave people, the one example that comes to mind is the guy that started shooting infront of the White House, I think during the late 1980s and he was wrestled to the ground by some brave tourists.
It’s happened other places as well. Like here.
A fire extinguisher. Then they beat him to death.
But not before he’d killed 29 and wounded 150 or so. So in the grand scheme of things, such grandiose dreams as Blake here has of his own fame and glory may be a little … say, “unrealistic”.
April 17th, 2007 at 5:40 pm#106 – terrific idea. Rename it Librescu Hall, immediately.
#69 – Grand Moff Texan is one of the better screen names I’ve heard in a while, good show!
And both of the original posters this thread is about are asses. Derbyshire’s comments are especially offensive:
So you’ve recently hit 60 or so moving targets in the space of a few minutes, you ass? Yeah, I’m sure you’re in this guy’s class.
32 dead, 26 wounded. Those sound like pretty damned lousy odds to me, you son of a bitch.
April 17th, 2007 at 5:41 pmThat idiot says he feels as if he would act bravely by rushing the shooter. I wonder if he would have vilified his own son…..son, why didn’t you rush the guy instead of hiding behind that desk? Son, next time, I expect you to rush a man who has a gun pointed at you, a man who has fired shots, a man who is obviously intent on shooting as many people as he can? I am sorely disappointed in you, son….I am sorry that you didn’t die for the cause of “stupid bravery.” As my son, I am more concerned with you acting brave than being alive. Total idiot.
April 17th, 2007 at 5:47 pm2) Viriginia is a “right to carry†state. You can carry a concealed gun everwhere except a couple of places. Yup, you guessed it, the academics didn’t want guns on their campus so they are banned. Look up Pearl, Mississippi and Gundy, Virginia, just two of many places where armed citizens stopped a massacre on school campuses.
Comment by Weakheart — April 17, 2007 @ 5:25 pm
What you’re suggesting is outright stupid if not ignorant you nazi scumbag. I’m sure you’d have no problem allowing students in any school carrying concealed weapons. How about Detroit? Oh one other thing, in houston texas the right to carry concealed weapons is allowed the crime rate you guessed it, is high. Shut up and serve panzy ass!
April 17th, 2007 at 5:48 pmAND YET THEY HAVE VERY STRICT GUN CONTROLS IN JAPAN: “Nagasaki mayor dies one day after being shot on city street.”
April 17th, 2007 at 5:52 pmI wonder if today laura Bush had any flashbacks of killing fellow classmate Michael Douglas when she was 17?
http://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/laura.asp
April 17th, 2007 at 5:52 pmThe definition of “manhood” changes over time.
April 17th, 2007 at 5:57 pmIn the 16th & 17th centuries “gentlemen” (read wealthy) NEVER would have engaged in such things as defense. That’s why they ‘hired’ seconds to do the dirty work and die if need be!
And men wore the ‘frilly-frocks’ (ruffles and beauty products to mask odor).
It appears Mr. Blake hasn’t a clue but a big mouth.
How sick can you get. This like people who criticized the Holocoust victims for not having fought back hard enough.
April 17th, 2007 at 5:57 pmYup, I’m one of those academics and you better believe I will have no guns in my classroom. No, a militarized, everybody-armed-to-the-teeth society is not the answer. The loony right sounds like self parody. Can you be for real? The solution is more guns?
April 17th, 2007 at 5:58 pmHow did Mr. Blake know what did the students go thru, before he claims they should be ‘heartily ashamed” .
I am tired of this ‘mashismo journalism’. Accusing others with gun to their heads and chests to fight back….how did he know that they didn’t fight back .., and got killed…
I thought after schools killings before this one in Virginia,and after all the prayers..people will take actions against the ‘easiness of buying guns…
A young man can walk into a gun store, buy a gun or two with boxes of ammunition, go and kill people,and gun supporters don’t see anything wrong with that…
Prayers are needed, but also actions.
MR. N. Blake , What if the class room was all full of women…or children?…it makes no difference who is the target..but it does make a difference to curb ‘buying guns with ease’.
This kid is not even a US citizen and was able to buy guns and bullets……although it would have made no difference in this case…but the laws are not strict…like they should be.
I hope beside prayers, lessons where learned.
April 17th, 2007 at 5:59 pmI am extremely disgusted with those who act as if the only way to be brave and save lives is to physically place themselves in danger. Those who feel they need to place themselves in danger to prove their manhood are cowardly because they do not think that there is any other way to solve a problem. If the circumstance makes it necessary to rush the attacker and there is a way to do this that does not put others in dangert than do it. However, if the best action is to seal a room to protect the lives than do that. It takes far mor courage and manliness to make a decision while in danger that in the end protects lives than it does to play rambo which may have endagered scores more lives.
We are looking at this after being pretty sure that there was only one attacker, but it the heat of the situation when individuals would not be certain of the number and nature of the attackers placing yourself and others in danger in order to prove your bravery is just unnecessary and crazy.
April 17th, 2007 at 6:00 pmSo first these chickenhawks criticize the British soldiers for not getting themselves killed, now they’re criticizing these students for not getting themselves killed. And in both cases, the people doing the criticizing have said “I don’t know how I would react to this situation, but I expect these people to react with self-sacrificing bravery.” I’m starting to think that the only people these guys don’t expect to react to a crisis situation with self-sacrificing heroism is conservative journalists.
April 17th, 2007 at 6:20 pmIf there’s any justice in this world (I know, I know, it’s highly questionable), this fellow will find himself in a situation much like this and have the glorious opportunity to find out precisely how brave, daring, selfless, and bulletproof he is.
We all fantasize that in a crisis we’ll be coolheaded, heroic, strong, and Save Everyone with nary a scratch. Since we’re human, it seldom happens that way. But hey, I could be wrong about him. It would be satisfying to find out for sure.
April 17th, 2007 at 6:20 pmWingnuttery of the first class. Shameless.
April 17th, 2007 at 6:26 pmrapidbunny: “Historically military personnel are more conservative.”
“Historically???!!! ” Hmm. Sounds like we’ve got an historian here.
“As mankind becomes more liberal they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protection of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations in examples of justice and liberality.â€
– George Washington, Letter to the Roman Catholics, March 15, 1790
Ike or Teddy couldn’t even begin to get a nomination in your party today. Too liberal.
April 17th, 2007 at 6:27 pmOh my God. What is wrong with Conservatives? There was a school shooting, this man had two weapons and some hard line conservative thinks the kids should have been fighting back? Give me a break, he would have p*ssed his pants in the same situation. Holy, conservatives are nucking futs. These kids deserve nothing less than our prayers and Conservatives are insulting them? Reich wingers will never find new levels to stoop to.
April 17th, 2007 at 6:29 pmBrave heart is now known simply as Dumbass. Where do all the se stupid people come from? I suppose someone’s gotta vote for ol’ Virgil Goode. This nation is in the toilet. We cannot overcome the volume of idiots before us…Remember, guns don’t kill people…..BULLETS kill people. Pass the bullets. I appreciate the comments by “our” thinking regulars. Hope this wasn’t a hoax…
April 17th, 2007 at 6:31 pmA few weeks ago, my girlfriend and I were almost run down when a car skidded out of control on some icy snow. The car’s tire tracks drove directly over where we had been standing. We both jumped out of the way just in time and therefore we both survived unharmed.
Afterwards, I realized that neither one of us grabbed the other and pulled, shoved, or otherwise moved the other person to safety.
Was my prioritizing my own safety over hers normal? Yes, I suppose so. Understandable? Sure. Can I justify it? Well, yeah; I had my back to the car and she was looking at it, so she knew before I did that it was coming, yada yada, yada. But am I a little ashamed? Yeah, I have to confess that I am. A little.
So, I understand something of where Derb was coming from (or MAY have been, depending on how generous I want to be, which is probably too much so).
Two caveats, however. First, “SHOULD” (Derb’s word) I be ashamed? That’s a more difficult question. Second, would I ever suggest that someone ELSE would or should be ashamed? I doubt it.
April 17th, 2007 at 6:37 pmLooking at the source of this thread and some of the posts by conservative trolls, one can’t help but come to the conclusion that this is not just a difference of opinions. These are just NOT good people. What happened to conservatives? When I was a kid, there were honorable conservatives.
April 17th, 2007 at 6:38 pmUh-huh. Probably never served; typical chickenhawk, war mongering neo-Con _scum_. He wasn’t there, can’t second- guess those who were. What a weasley loser.
April 17th, 2007 at 6:39 pmJust thought I’d say that I emailed Derbyshire today Regarding his NRO post. He responded fairly quickly and conceded that the parallel he drew between the passengers of flight 93 and the victims at VT was probably false. But he still said, essentially, that defense against attack shouldn’t be left only in the hands of authority figures (I’m paraphrasing, of course).
At least he read my letter (which was long-winded) and responded.
April 17th, 2007 at 6:42 pma man at his physical peak still cannot withstand bullets… you’ve been watching too much Superman, idiot… if anyone had tried to be a hero, they’d be dead now, too…
can we get them to fire Blake???
April 17th, 2007 at 6:47 pmThis guy obviously is immature and stupid. Let me get this straight, the shooter has a semi-automatic weapon that can fire 25 rounds in how many seconds? By the time this delusional Rambo wannabe got up to even begin his rush, well, there’s about three rounds into his pasty-white body before he has even taken a step. Yes, too bad he did not have teh opportunity to be a big, bad-a$$ hero and tried that little rush the shooter. He would have found out the hard way how devestating these “hunting” weapons truly are before every newly created orafice in his pasty white body opened up to bleed him to death. Absolutely, astonishing the stupidity of some people.
April 17th, 2007 at 6:48 pmRe my 136, above, “should” is this fellow Nathaniel Blake’s word, not John Derbyshire’s word.
April 17th, 2007 at 6:50 pmThe Glock this guy had can fire bullets as fast as you can pull the trigger, has a 15-shell clip, and takes about 3-seconds for a competent user to load a new fully-loaded clip. Each 9 mm shell has more knockdown power than the 38 mm revolver that police typically carry. These silly trolls just don’t know what they’re talking about. Those students were like fish in a barrel and they had no chance. Accounts are clear. People DID try to rush the shooter. They were killed. These conservatives just make me sick.
April 17th, 2007 at 7:00 pmhate to say this, but i agree with the post. the sense of self-sacrifice among our average college students has disappeared.
years ago, if a politician’s son didn’t enlist during a time of war, he was shamed. now, politician’s sons who serve are the exception, not the rule.
now, that being said, not all the facts of the incident are out yet. we may not yet know about singular acts of bravery that took place.
April 17th, 2007 at 7:01 pmAnd how many others were shot in Japan this year?
Hint: the firearm death rate in Japan is one per two MILLION people.
Guess you failed stats.
April 17th, 2007 at 7:02 pmI would just like to remind the other posters here that people such as the ones who have made these comments about what the students SHOULD have done are also the same ones who criticized Jill Carroll (the Christian Science Monitor reporter who was kidnapped and held hostage in Iraq) for her actions.
They are very brave when they’re nice and safe but you can damned well bet that if they were in Ms. Carroll’s position or that of the students yesterday they would piss and crap in their underwear.
April 17th, 2007 at 7:05 pmComment by Braveheart — April 17, 2007 @ 5:25 pm
Yes, “Braveheart” it is so much easier to defend yourself when you’re hiding under the covers in Murka.
April 17th, 2007 at 7:07 pmNathan supposes unarmed students are to stop are armed madman by throwing their textbooks at him. What a f*cking idiot!
April 17th, 2007 at 7:36 pmIt is so sad. Such strong opinions that deserve to have facts to back them.
In the words of encounter groups, what we have here is a “learning moment.â€
Most foolish liberal policies cost us money and time but rarely our lives. Here we definitely have an example of how the liberal policy of banning guns has cost many innocent lives. Actually gun bans cost untold tens of thousands of lives in the inner cities of such liberal paradises as DC, Detroit, Chicago and Los Angeles. But those are high crime neighborhoods and the people die there only one or two at a time. At Virginia Tech it was 32 in a couple o’ hours! ! The only difference between the incidents in Gundy, Pearl and Morristown was the presence of guns in the hands of the good guys.
Like lambs to the slaughter, those poor students, well versed in the mantra of “trust the state to protect youâ€, they died by the numbers. Truly heart wrenching and so unnecessary. At Thurston High School in Springfield a gunman with 400 round of ammo walked into a crowded cafeteria and opened fire. One of the first people he shot was Jacob Ryker and he was shot through the lung. As a young man, a hunter, and familiar with guns, he recognized when the gunman’s pistol was empty and rushed him, subduing him and stopping a massacre.
If you are trapped in a hall and people are getting shot all around you why, as a young man, would you not at least take a chance on rushing the guy? Pistols AREN’T that accurate. But this would demand an ethic that in an emergency it is not, “every man for himself†but “woman and children firstâ€. It is an ethic of enlightened self-interest. I defend others by defending myself. The exact ethic that was found on Flight 93. This would be in contradiction to what is taught by liberals especially in academia:
Violence begets violence,
Violence never solves anything,
Don’t resist the aggression; it will only make it worse,
We should ask what we did to make the perp hate us so much so we can change,
Defending yourself is taking the law into your own hands and makes you a vigilante,
Defending yourself only takes you to the same level as the criminal.
Can’t we all just get along?
Note how ineffective liberal answers are on someone who wants to kill you.
What is the conclusion of this learning moment? The gunman at VT (I won’t use his name because I never want to remember it) was enabled in his bloodthirsty quest by a liberal policy of disarming the good guys and leaving them defenseless. In addition the overall liberal policy of government dependence strengthened the apparent meek response by the students towards the threat. This is not unlike the response seen in New Orleans before, during and after Katrina.
This doesn’t blame the victims because their tragedy is the ultimate result of government policies that creates this dangerous exposure. My thesis DOES blame the policies and the ideology that fosters such foolishness.
April 17th, 2007 at 7:49 pmI wish Jonah Goldberg and Bill Kristol had been there at VT to prove their neo-conservative manliness.
April 17th, 2007 at 7:50 pmThis is not a natural tragedy, but rather a man made tragedy. The sad part about this is every few months we hear another one…we pray and later we do nothing to change this course…
Praying is good, but we need to crub and control guns..or we will be in the same situation in the near future again,and many other innocent citizens will be killed as a result.
To gun lovers who do not want to see strict gun contol laws and policies..I ask this question : Of all the killing you read and hear about daily…what percetage of it is ’self defense’..?!!
April 17th, 2007 at 7:58 pmBraveheart, I knew it was only a matter of time before one of you sociopathic a-holes blamed liberals for this. Again, if you look at the facts instead of just vomiting out your libertarian dogma, you might find that a number of people did rush the guy with the Glock. The ones who tried were killed. This was a competent shooter. You evidently have not handled a Glock or anything like it. If you did, you wouldn’t be making these absurd statements about rushing a guy with a Glock. In the real world, it’s next to impossible to survive. That’s why swat-team members are covered in body armour.
April 17th, 2007 at 8:02 pmHow many guns were in Dealey Plaza? All that typing and still, you have nothing to offer. You are a pathetic featherhead. And where were you when my buddies were ambushed in the jungle back in ‘69? I’ve known hundreds of pantywaist like you, and I would never want you on in a foxhole with me. Your thinking is clouded there at home. Wouldn’t expect any better under fire. CFF
April 17th, 2007 at 8:03 pmI can be reasonably sure that no one here would know how they would react. Of course, if the first class attacked had instantly swarmed the shooter, the total death toll would have been just a few people, but those dead would have been the first ones to reach the shooter. One can be trained to do that, but I am reasonably sure that it would be the extremely rare group that would act that way instinctively. (flight 93 is not a precedent, those guys had 40 minutes to think about it, here it would be only seconds).
Boy those rightwing loonies just continue to be loony.
April 17th, 2007 at 8:07 pmCowardheart you are an A$$HAT.
April 17th, 2007 at 8:07 pmIn place of “scads,” might I suggest the word “oodles,” Mr. Manly Man?
April 17th, 2007 at 8:12 pmIn place of “scads,” may I suggest the word “oodles,” Mr. Manly Man?
April 17th, 2007 at 8:14 pmRE 151
In answer to your question guns are used between 700,000 times per year (Gary Kleck) and 2.5million (John Lott). Fortunately or unfortunately most uses of guns to defend oneself don’t result in the perp dying or getting shot, they just run away. Additionally most uses of guns to defend oneself aren’t reported to the police for statistical purposes. Also, many uses of guns in self-defence are in cities where their possession or use is illegal. Reporting a self-defense use will put you in jail. Remember Berhard Goetz, the “subway vigilante”. He used a gun in self-defense and was convicted of ILLEGAL POSSESSION OF A FIREARM. The irony runs thick.
April 17th, 2007 at 8:14 pmAND YET THEY HAVE VERY STRICT GUN CONTROLS IN JAPAN: “Nagasaki mayor dies one day after being shot on city street.â€
Comment by Patrick1 — April 17, 2007 @ 5:52 pm
———
Patrick,
I’ve lived in Tokyo for the last 17 years. For a dense metro area much larger and than any US city, it’s amazingly safe. I can walk the streets feeling as safe as I did in my rural hometown in the Midwest. You don’t know what you are talking about.
Moreover, advocates of gun-ownership often seem to suggest that owning a firearm and professing one’s willingness to use it is the equivalent of courage. But for every hundred “I’ll defend my family to the death,” etc., Rambo-like fantasies out there, there’s another Cho-like perpetrator who will feel empowered to do the unthinkable — simply because he has the means, a gun… Owning a gun doesn’t automatically make one brave or chivalrous, as so many naively seem to think. Our society is a testament to that fact.
At the moment I’m fortunate to live in a society where there’s little need for people to conjure up Rambo-like fantasies to suggest they are manly and courageous — much less try to score partisan political points by doing so. People here feel have emotional problems and lose control, too — it’s just harder to take other’s lives in the process. Give them guns and watch the murder rates soar.
April 17th, 2007 at 8:21 pmSo circusfifthfloor,
So where is my reasoning so bad and what does any of this have to do with your flash backs to nam??
All talk and no analysis but, oh such strong opinions.
I await your cogent answer.
April 17th, 2007 at 8:22 pmBraveheart:
First, did you ever attend college? You think college students should be packing heat everywhere, including to class? What planet do you live on? You think any professors would actually teach in such an environment? You think gun violence would actually be reduced in an environment where people get drunk and fight regularly?
You and your silly, evil comrades need to take your insane viewpoints and go found a new country. Maybe we can just give you Texas, and you boys can fuck it up all you want.
You literally sound like the most retarded, scared little $hit ever.
April 17th, 2007 at 8:22 pmYes, a pitiful spectacle from the chickenhawks and chickensquawks (those who don’t have comments sections.) Think of this: the worst school *killings* were committed by an guy protesting *taxes* back in 1927. This is something to throw at arrogant righties complaining about Cho’s gripes against rich kids, or that if everyone there had a gun they could have stopped him (our local ex-marine talk show host at WNIS 790 pointed out that many could die in a cross fire from untrained kids at that time, and in fights before such a tragedy), or Cho’s having an Islamic-themed “Ismael Axe” tattoo on his arm ,etc:
http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~bauerle/disaster.htm
On May 18, 1927, 45 people, mostly children, were killed and 58 were injured when disgruntled and demented school board member Andrew Kehoe dynamited the new school building in Bath, Michigan out of revenge over his foreclosed farm due in part to the taxes required to pay for the new school.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_School_disaster
The Bath School disaster is the name given to not one but three bombings in Bath Township, Michigan, USA, on May 18, 1927, which killed 45 people and injured 58. Most of the victims were children in second to sixth grades attending the Bath Consolidated School. Their deaths constitute the deadliest act of mass murder in a school in U.S. history. The perpetrator was school board member Andrew Kehoe, who was upset by a property tax that had been levied to fund the construction of the school building. He blamed the additional tax for financial hardships which led to foreclosure proceedings against his farm. These events apparently provoked Kehoe to plan his attack.
…
tyrannogenius
April 17th, 2007 at 8:27 pm159 dale62
Japan is a homogenous society 99% Japanese and 1% other.
Indeed it is a safe society due in no small part to its homogeneity. Other homogenous societies also have small crime rates, Denmark, Sweden, Norway etc.
The effectiveness of gun control in a society such as Japan is apparent but is doesn’t explain the INEFFECTIVENESS of gun control in this nation. Nor does it explain the low crime rate in Switzerland that has virtually no gun control. In fact most male citizens have real assault weapons and ammo in their houses.
Guns are a tool, neither moral or immoral, and a very effective means of self-defense. WHO thinks that owning a gun makes them chivalrous or brave. I can think of no writer or anyone I know who subscribes to that idea.
Methinks you should get out and actually MEET people who own and carry guns and not subscribe to cliche fantasies about gun carrying Rambos. It is not a true observation of anything in the real world.
April 17th, 2007 at 8:35 pmI’m a liberal but you liberals on this issue make me sick. Apparently, not a one of you has given this matter some thought and decided it is better to fight than to be slaughtered like cattle. Please, please do NOT breed. A generation of parents who wouldn’t sacrifice themselves to save their children we do NOT need in this country.
April 17th, 2007 at 8:38 pmBluedog 152
How much better it woudl be if you were to actually argue the facts instead of going on a rant.
We indeed might find that some of them rushed the scrot and were killed but my guess is that would be untrue. The real tragedy is that they were placed in a hopeless situation, without any recourse except to cower or. . .charge.
The point that you obviously missed, is that making people dependant upon the state to DEFEND themselves from criminal acts DOESN’T get the job done and in fact makes the DEFENSELESS.
And the sick irony is that they reside in a state that allows them to defend themselves EXCEPT on campus.
I hope that isn’t too simple for you.
April 17th, 2007 at 8:51 pm#162 “I’m liberal but…” Good one.
April 17th, 2007 at 9:08 pm#163 Braveheart. Do you think if 100 of those students and faculty were armed it would have been better. Christ, 100 people shooting at whatever they feel is a threat??? Can you imagine the chaos and bloodshed???
April 17th, 2007 at 9:10 pmBraveheart,
Since when does homogeneity insure a lack of violence? Indeed there are acts of violence everyday in Japan, but rarely ones that result in the killing of multiple people. Lack of guns is certainly a vital part of that equation.
Undoubtedly things are different in the US. But the thought that proliferation of guns in the hands of ordinary citizens will somehow make things less violent in the US is a pipedream, IMO. More guns = more guns being fired = more violence and death. Whereas some may think twice about using a gun, my guess is there will be as many or more people who never thought about using a gun who will. We just see the world differently.
Maybe you think a well-armed student body will make things better, and maybe a freshman biology major with a gun of his own could have prevented a few of the deaths at VA Tech. But the price you will pay for that is the slower but steady stream of kids being shot in the cafeteria or after football practice over minor disputes that should never have escalated, but did. And the occasional retaliatory killing. And probably still the rare tragedy like we’ve seen in VA perpetrated by an even more heavily-armed gunman.
April 17th, 2007 at 9:33 pmJPark 165
In fact yes I do think it would have been better if many of the students and professors had been armed for the following reasons;
1) The type of people that get carry permits are dedicated and have to be because it is a pain shlepping around a pound and a half of unyeilding steel.
2) Part of that dedication is practicing shooting and they enjoy the sport of shooting so they tend to be pretty good.
3) They practice the finest form of gun control – they hit their targets
It is pure fantasy, in fact it is pure hollywood, to believe that there would be this huge firefight with lots of people dying in a cross fire. At best their might be two people in 100 that have a gun and they would know who the bad guy was immediately (something the police would have trouble determining) and they would have shot him.
The one thing that the puke shooter knew is that there WERE no guns on campus ’cause thats the law.
Look up the instances in Pearl, Mississippi and Gundy, Viriginia to see where people, in the case of Gundy two people, used their guns to disarm and stop a massacre.
April 17th, 2007 at 9:37 pmStill typing…still stupid…I’m still liberal and please don’t ever cross me or my family. This is not the issue. The second string trolls just don’t get it. Hollow points…Get it? Now, THAT”S typing.
April 17th, 2007 at 9:39 pm#167 Wow, so many words and nothing real. The fact is after the first few shots and a bunch of panicking armed civilians taking shots at where they thought the first shot came from it would be an ugly bloodbath with innocent people slaughtering innocent people.
April 17th, 2007 at 9:41 pmdale62 166
The only pipedream is your belief that a defenseless populace will be less vioent. I would direct you to three definitive statistical studies on crime;
Under the gun done in the 70s
Point Blank done in the 80s and
More guns less crime which was done in the 90s
The one conclusion that all three studies agree upon is that gun control i.e. gun bans, do NOTHING, NADA, ZIP to reduce crime.
The two most recent studies conclude that gun control actually INCREASES the violent crime rate.
And the most recent study concludes, not surprisingly, that more guns in the hands of the good guys actually reduces violent crime.
It is not a coincidence that the most violent cities in this nation are the ones with the strongest gun control measures.
I leave you with one parting thought, in the US there is an direct correlation between the per capita ownership of firearms in an area and a low level of violent crime.
April 17th, 2007 at 9:47 pmJpark 169
So few words and even less logic. Prove your thesis. Where are your facts? Such a strong opinion should be backe by reality. You need to stop believing that what you see on CSI is actually the way things work in the real world.
Did you know that a .38 snub nose pistol really can’t be used to hit a target out 100 feet?
Did you know that a car really DOESN’T blow up when it goes off a cliff, even with a full tank of gas?
Hollywood would have you believe that both things happen. They don’t.
The fact is . . . YOU don’t know what the fact is. Why would you believe the gun owner is going to panic?? In an emegency a person acts he way they are trained and the gun owner, who has a carry permit, will have trained to shoot his gun accurately.
Look to see how actual gun owners have reacted in similar situations in this nation and you will see that they hit their targets more often then police do.
April 17th, 2007 at 9:54 pmdale62 166
First off, I am no sociologist but the fact still remains the same; Homogenous societies consistently have much lower levels of violent crime then do diverse societies. I don’t know why but they do therefore solutions that work in those societies just don’t translate to ours.
Secondly, there is absolutely no evidence that carry permit holders do the things you envision they will do. If so you can be assured that the 40 some states that have carry laws would recind them pronto!
The absolute fact is that the carnage predicted by Handgun Control and the othe anti gun orgs just didn’t happen. . at all.
So your belief that it would is not grounded in facts but a product of the usual left wing dreck.
Cheers
April 17th, 2007 at 10:05 pm#171 Yeah, Braveheart, being a gun owner makes you cool under pressure. Ridiculous. If you can’t even admit that more guns in the area could cause more confusion and death you might as well change your name to Wayne LaPierre’s anal cyst.
April 17th, 2007 at 10:06 pmhmmmm. pro-gun and pro-heroics. I guess bullets don’t hurt him.
Must read a lot of comics.
The idiocy we’re witnessing (not the incident itself) makes me hope my dual citizenship shows up soon. This country is increasingly for the stupid.
April 17th, 2007 at 10:41 pmBraveheart, that’s some of the stupidest dung I’ve ever read. Have you ever been in a college classroom? No professor in his/her right mind would teach in a classroom where students could carry guns. You’d end up with lowlife dregs like yourself teaching American history where the South won the Civil War.
You really think that arming every student on every college campus in America would *reduce* gun violence? Think about the “logic” you’re using here. You people need to be institutionalized, ASAP.
April 17th, 2007 at 10:54 pmGun control laws don’t really have an effect if a person has no regard for the law. And where would we be if the minutemen in the Revolutionary War hadn’t armed themselves?
I’m liberal and all for protecting myself from the government.
April 17th, 2007 at 10:57 pmGun laws, and laws in general, don’t work if people break them. I don’t know why my fellow liberals don’t ever see this.
Exercise your 2nd Amendment to protect yourself from your government.
April 17th, 2007 at 10:59 pmPeople need to get the word out about this one.. please. America NEEDS to know the depth of the sickness of the right wing of this country.
April 17th, 2007 at 11:00 pmbtw, braveheart, your studies all suffer from a few major flaws.
1) accidents, domestic incidents, etc. don’t count as gun crimes, for purposes of many of these studies;
2) “gun control” has never actually succeeded in reducing the number of guns out there, thanks to folks like you.
I’m actually undecided on whether or not guns should be regulated and to what extent, since there are already so many guns in this country, we’ve reached saturation. That being said, you really have to be criminally stupid to be confronted with a situation where a kid buys a Glock in a state where such a purchase is easy, takes it to his college campus, and massacres people in dorm rooms and in classrooms, and you conclude that the problem is that guns aren’t allowed in college campuses.
Again, I really have to ask, have you ever been to college? No college administrator or professor in their right mind would want kids, who are dealing with being away from home for the first time, mass binge drinking and partying, high stress situations, and still frankly incredibly immature, to be able to carry guns around. You really want the #1 demographic for irresponsible behavior, fights, and suicides to be packing heat everywhere?
Moron. Get a clue, go back to Chile or Texas or some other armpit, and go ruin that place with your neanderthalish thinking.
April 17th, 2007 at 11:02 pm#
AND YET THEY HAVE VERY STRICT GUN CONTROLS IN JAPAN: “Nagasaki mayor dies one day after being shot on city street.â€
Comment by Patrick1 — April 17, 2007 @ 5:52 pm
#
yeah, by a mobster you f#cking jacka$$. not by a student who went into a store and bought 2 semi’s in the span of a month.
sorry jake you lose this one also.
April 17th, 2007 at 11:28 pmJake-obin 174
Hmmm, just looking through my notes and I don’t see that I am advocating arming everybody, only those that want to get a permit. Your vision of an armed society is rather histrionic. Time for you to review your history.
Actually time for you to grow up and think adult thoughts and not childish left wing cliches.
Rather then call me names and make assumptions about my disposition why don’t you actually educate yourself about guns, gun control and crime.
Your ignorance is evident. Smarten up.
April 18th, 2007 at 12:01 amEvilNeoCons 177 Please, please on my knees I beg of you, tell the world WHAT IS THIS SICKNESS of which you speak. I am certain we would ALL love to know.
I need a good laugh :-))))
April 18th, 2007 at 12:06 amI think Derbyshire is guilty of misunderstanding the relative power of someone who has and knows how to use a gun over someone unarmed, no matter how healthy and strong. He just doesn’t have a clue. Perhaps, a coordinated effort of unarmed persons could have been successful, but coordination in that rapidly developing situation would have been a miracle.
April 18th, 2007 at 12:16 amJake-obin 178
Now we are getting somewhere.
1) You are correct, accidents are not part of the statistics because they are. . well. . accidents and NOT violent crime which the statistics serve to measure. Therefore there INCLUSION would be a flaw and not their exclusion. Catch my drift?
2) You are completely and utterly incorrect in that assertion because it is not factual. Chicago, DC and New York both confiscated tens of thousands of guns so the overall gun ownership declined preciptously but ONLY amoung law abiding citizens. The reason that gun control doesn’t work is not do to people like me. It due to people like you who believe that making more laws will somehow make people who don’t obey laws to start obeying them ! !
Please tell me why, the violent criminal who, by definition, DON’T OBEY THE LAW, is going to obey gun laws whilst raping or robbing people. I think not.
3) Since when is a 23 year old a kid?? Last time I checked you stopped being a kid at 17. A kid didn’t buy a glock, an adult did. And that adult broke a gun control law by bringing it on campus. So tell me again how another gun control law is going to stop him from doing that?
4) I have been to college and anybody that thinks college is more stressfull then parenting is woos. Almost anything outside of college is more stressfull than college. The only thing is that college is, for some youg adults, the first REAL stressfull situation with which they have had to deal. In addition your stress out college dudes can get all the meth and Oxy they want they can get a gun as well. Why don’t they? Do you think the LAW is stopping them? Get a grip.
So, in conclusion I have effectively crushed all your silly notions with a dose of reality.
So who is the moron now?
Instead of calling me names why don’t you try to think straight and get your self edumacated. A refresher in logic would be a good first step.
Liberalism would be a lot more appealing to adults if it were better thought out.
Cheers
April 18th, 2007 at 12:25 amSS 183,
Google “Jacob Ryker” and “Thurston High School” for your answer on your so-called relative power of the gun. If every person wants to defend themselves and is willing to risk harm to do so then coordination wouldn’t be necessary would it? Everyone would see the opportunity and go for it.
You are correct that it would be unrealistic. But some people would and some people may have, but I doubt it. We do know that one man had the stones to resist. So one 72 year old stood between death and his students.
An alternative outcome would have been if one citizen protecter, trained and permitted, had pulled their gun and stopped the killing spree. Not unlike what happened in Pearl, Mississippi and Grundy, Virginia.
April 18th, 2007 at 12:40 amAn alternative outcome would have been if one citizen protecter, trained and permitted, had pulled their gun and stopped the killing
Woulda, coulda, shoulda.
I know that I should be heartily ashamed of myself if I didn’t.
I’m ashamed of you now.
Question 1:
“Handguns aren’t very accurate, even at close range” is to “Virginia Tech Incident Called Worst Mass Shooting in US History”, as “It’s a slam dunk” is to “_______________”?
We retort, you decide.
April 18th, 2007 at 12:49 amLove to see a camera crew walk in on Blake or Derbyshire having lunch,with a gun and watch their heroics. UNloaded of course. Might be fun for all. Might be a foul odor during dessert. don’t you think?
April 18th, 2007 at 8:25 amBH the twit:
You haven’t crushed anything. If you’re not proposing that college campuses allow guns on campus, what are you proposing? Twit.
If a university were to have a policy that said guns could freely be carried on campus, I can guarantee you that no top-tier professors would teach there, that the vast majority of parents would not let their kids go there, and you’d likely have tons of violence. There’s a reason that accredited colleges don’t allow guns on campus. Twit.
You can drag out examples of seizures of guns all you want. The point of my statement is that gun control can never work, because people like you keep advocating for loopholes, etc. to effectively decimate any gun control policy. So what if guns were seized in Detroit, if they are readily available to anyone anywhere outside of Detroit. Twit.
As for your moronic attempt to try to mitigate the lack of gun violence in other countries with strict gun control policies by claiming that “homogenous societies” have less crime, a claim which is empirically retarded, because the main heterogeneous society that people might use as a counterpoint is the USA (and which exacerbates your stupidity since you were the one who tried to bring up Japan in the first place by citing one isolated example, twit), you might look at more homogenous societies such as in Southeast Asia, Latin America, and Africa for examples of states where gun availability = higher gun violence. Twit. It’s pretty clear, both intuitively and empirically, that where you have higher poverty you have higher crime. And where you have freer availability of guns, you have a higher percentage of crimes committed with guns. Only a total tard would argue otherwise, in the face of overwhelming evidence. Likely by citing selectively researched and otherwise biased “studies” or singular examples promoted by gun freaks. Twit.
Like I said, I am wavering on gun control, simply because I don’t think effective gun control is possible in the US anymore. That being said, anyone who tries to make the claim that higher gun availability leads to less crime involving guns is, frankly, retarded to a degree that’s pretty shocking.
“So, in conclusion I have effectively crushed all your silly notions with a dose of reality.
So who is the moron now?”
That would still be you, cochise. Perhaps you can next elaborate on your argument that the increased availability of meth leads to less meth usage. Twit.
April 18th, 2007 at 8:33 amI have e-mailed the links to the articles penned by those two vile cowards to every e-mail address I found on the Virginia Tech Website. I do not have the time to do a thorough search but these pieces of garbage need to be e-mailed to every Dean at Vtech and possibly to every professor and administrator.
Please do your share. This is absolutely intolerable and both Debyshire and Blake must be piloried for this.
April 18th, 2007 at 8:53 amI agree wholeheartedly with nathanial’s comments. Men today are changing. This faiure to act is indicative of the type of conformity that is happening today. We are signing away there rights and waiting for some ‘authority’ figure to come in and protect us.
This is a viscious spiral, the more rights we loose, the less we believe in our ability to act, so the more rights we sign away.
I haven’t heard one person suggest that had one of the students posessed a legal fire-arm, they might have cut down the killer and saved dozens of lives.
A good government empowers its people, it does not encourage them to be sheep. What kind do we have?
April 18th, 2007 at 9:07 am“… had one of the students posessed a legal fire-arm, they might have cut down the killer and saved dozens of lives.”
Or killed and wounded a dozen others caught in the crossfire…
April 18th, 2007 at 9:47 amI don’t know how this got into a discussion of students carrying guns on campus, because that’s ridiculous. The question was whether the outcome could have been different if students tried to knock the shooter down, or knock the gun away, or something.
I’m a liberal, and I agree. No, I don’t think arming students, installing a network of metal detectors or creating a prison-like atmosphere is an option. This is a campus. It should say open and free. You can’t completely prevent random violence like this. However, the writer has a point about the behavior of young adults in dangerous situations like this, and what more could have been done.
He said an old man hurled himself against the shooter to protect others. I saw on tv that yet another old man, a Holocaust survivor, blocked a door to allow others to flee, and he died in his brave attempt.
So if old men can act, why can’t young men? I think the writer has made us think. These are not children on a high school campus, these are men in their prime, facing a lone gunman, with a HANDGUN, not anything larger. Had the gunman not commited suicide, how many others would have died? Would the students have just run around like chickens in a coop until each and every one of them was dead?
I’m not trying to blame anyone. If I had kids on campus I’d want them to run and get the hell away from whatever was going on. But at the same time, this was SUCH a bloodbath. It was one guy, walking around shooting everyone, and no one doing anything about it. 30 students? It could have been 40, 50, 60, a hundred, or more, until he ran out of bullets or a cop showed up to stop him. Is that acceptable? Would I have been proud of a son who threw a chair at the suspect while another student knocked his arm down and eventually got this guy on the ground? Yes.
April 18th, 2007 at 10:15 amThe average student in one of those classrooms had less time to react to this crisis then the time it takes you to read this sentence.
Consider that. No matter how you think you might have reacted in such a crisis, the simple fact is that you do not have the time or the facts to react in such a situation that you have in reading about it. I know its great to imagine a manly-man saving the day in such a situation, but life is not like Hollywood.
All any person can do in that situation, whether they are some highly-trained expert or some stunned innocent, is hope that they make those who know them proud. Those who survive such an ordeal should NEVER be judged: I have no doubt that their own conscience will spend the rest of their lives tormenting them about what they could or should have done.
April 18th, 2007 at 11:24 amComment by Sam — April 18, 2007 @ 10:15 am
If you’re a liberal you should be absolutely ashamed of yourself. So, you’ve now watched law and order enough that your fantasies about yourself have become reality. Congratulations.
These are the ruminations of a child. An completely deluded child. If you can truly fantasize about how to act in a situation like that and come to believe you can make judgments of how people acted, you are not a man. You are a person that fantasizes about being Superman. I’ve met people like you time and time again. You fantasize about what a hero you are in your own mind.
Dude, anyone can see through you. It’s embarrassing. Writing on “the Interwebs” does not make what you think about yourself true.
Ooh, “a Handgun, not anything larger”. This isn’t “24″ and you’re only Jack Bauer in your own mind.
Tell you what, let’s go into the human brain of everyone, alter the fight or flight response, and give you the knowledge of how people will react when faced with death. Oh, apparently you’ve already done that.
Get out of the house Sam. Reality is outside.
April 18th, 2007 at 11:26 amI agree wholeheartedly with nathanial’s comments. Men today are changing.
Comment by kirkmcquest — April 18, 2007 @ 9:07 am
You agree with nathanial. Great, you guys continue to pretend to be men in your parents’ basement and share it with the world on the internet. Why is it that people like you an nathanial are always the least likely to be courageous in any situation but the ones in your own mind? An imaginative fantasy life as the result of home-schooling is not reality.
And kirkmcquest, those things you and nathanial are feeling underneath your macho internet bravado are called feelings of self doubt. And the men are changing thoughts, that’s called projection. You may want to look into them. It’s why things aren’t working out so good for you.
Tragedy brings out the fantasy heroes yet again.
April 18th, 2007 at 11:37 amJake-obin 187
Ahh so now I am a moron AND a twit! Name calling as a substitute for rational thought, typical of liberal thinking.
Here, let me type this s l o w l y so you can grasp it.
The Commonwealth of Virginia has a concealed carry law that allows law abiding A D U L T citizens to carry a concealed weapon.
That right is banned on the campus of VT
The students at VT are A D U L T S and not kids.
I only posit the notion that if that “right” had been allowed to exist on campus, based up past H I S T O R Y in Virginia and the rest of the nation, there would likely have been less victims.
In fact there are two things required for a criminal mass murder;
1) An armed an motivated dirtbag and
2) A DEFENSELESS populace
Without those two there is no massacre.
Your BELIEF that if concealed guns were allowed on a campus the best professors wouldn’t teach there, the finest students wouldn’t go there, and only right-wing trolls would drag there knuckles there is without foundation and unproveable at this time. It is a belief and only that. Suck it up and get used to bitter disappointments.
Additionally, what makes VT, populated by A D U L T S, any different from the rest of Virginia. The rest of the STATE allows people to carry guns ! What makes the bastion of liberalism in VT so sacred that an A D U L T there must rely upon an ineffective administration to defend them?
Dial in on the fact that those poor students DIED because they were disarmed by the law. The dirtbag that killed them broke numerous laws doing so. The LAW enabled him to kill those people with impunity. The bloody result proves it.
April 18th, 2007 at 12:05 pmBraveheart,
Thank you for a well needed logic injection. If the liberals had their way we’d all be at the mercy of violent criminals. The fact that the students (* adults) were stripped of their rights is the major contributing factor to this massacre.
I believe, unlike most liberals, in the ability of Americans to take care of themselves. But only when their hands are untied.
April 18th, 2007 at 12:27 pmSeeing as a young man as jaded as Nathaniel couldn’t possibly be swayed by the words of human beings, he will stand his ground until experience proves him wrong. Our pithy expressions are meaningless.
Let us hope insted that someday he gets mugged, preferably shot. only then will he realize the errors in his statement.
April 18th, 2007 at 12:35 pmTypical RIGHT WING A**HOLE. SO FULL OF FALSE COURAGE but I bet when it comes down to fight he’s the first one to crap his pants.
April 18th, 2007 at 12:48 pmI only posit the notion that if that “right†had been allowed to exist on campus, based up past H I S T O R Y in Virginia and the rest of the nation, there would likely have been less victims. Braveheart
Or more victims, injured in a western-style shoot-out. A roomfull of testosterone pumped 18 – 19 -year-olds, with guns, in a classroom? I don’t see a good outcome for anyone in the room. Bullets would be flying everywhere; many more than with a single shooter. Even cops hit innocents in gun battles, and you think barely trained post-adolescents would do better? Sheesh!
April 18th, 2007 at 1:10 pmHe is 100% right. If you are shaking waiting to be executed like everybody else, youre not only cowardly, youre not very smart either.
April 18th, 2007 at 1:31 pmA cure might be for Bi-yearly Psychiatric Exams for gun owners….but then ppl like braveheart wouldn’t like that because 80% + of the gun owners WOULD NOT PASS !
April 18th, 2007 at 1:32 pmWhy? Because you are sick in the head.
It is beyond my comprehension how you americans produce so many fucking idiots like this nathanial blake twat. Fuck me dead if I’m lying music lovers.
April 18th, 2007 at 1:45 pm‘Braveheart’ opined, “Dial in on the fact that those poor students DIED because they were disarmed by the law.”
This is one of the fundamental problems with his and others’ similar blowhard arguments. They assume an inevitable outcome based on conjecture.
There’s no possible way you can say that because the students and faculty were not allowed to have guns, they died, or were even less safe. The number of potential outcomes in the scenario is a wash–if someone else had a gun but didn’t hit their target, it could well have enraged the first shooter and led to more deaths. Or the defender-bystander could have accidentally shot someone else. Or could have chased the gunman away to a different location where no one else had a gun, and more deaths could have resulted. Or if the defender was disarmed, the main shooter now has another gun. Or if a defender gets mistaken by another shooter or the police for the criminal, then they could be killed. And so on.
I’m not saying that any of these would have resulted, because we can’t know that. And that’s the point. If ‘Braveheart’ and his ilk can’t acknowledge that, then their contribution becomes worthless.
Anecdotal evidence of past occurrences (with different criminals of different ability) is just that–anecotal. The supposed commitment and accuracy of gun owners is a meaningless generalization. In short, there is abolsutely no proof whatsoever that having concealed weapons would have made one iota of difference in this situation. You can speculate–but you can’t prove. Simple as that.
Carrying a weapon doesn’t guarantee the safety of anyone. It introduces a complex set of variables that most people cherry-pick from in order to feel safer, all based on a hypothetical notion of “what would happen if…” A gun might make you safer in a given situation, and it might not. Period.
There are valid arguments and examples to back up all positions on this issue. What makes ‘Braveheart’s’ contribution negligible is that, in support of a dogmatic ideology, he claims to know more than he can. We all fall victim to that, but this is the example I’m calling out.
April 18th, 2007 at 1:52 pmB.Fly 199
Those same testosterone pumped 18, 19 and how about 23, year olds have the right to own and carry a gun outside the campus. We are not seeing your “wild west shootout” vision there are we?
No, we are not seeing that because it doesn’t happen. In fact it didn’t happen in the west either. It only happens in the movies and TV.
If that is where you get your ideas about human behavior then we should also be seeing all our troubles resolved in one hour segments.
Your vision of gun carrying citizens is influenced by all the TV and movies you have watched and doesn’t reflect the actual behavior of those individuals.
That is the fact so now ya know.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:59 pmKevin G 202
Hmm, first I am a moron, twit, A**HOLE and now a blowhard. It is always fun blogging with intelligent people.
So Kevin, I acknowledge that life is filled with uncertainty and that nobody can truly KNOW what might have happened. But, one can make general predictions based upon, not anecdotal evidence, but statitistical studies that have been peer reviewed. I earlier gave two examples that are NOT anecdotal but verifiable where, under similar situations as VT, armed civilian protectors stopped a massacre. Those are FACTS that you can not refute becuase they happened.
I posit that you ARE safer if you are carrying a handgun when confronted by violent criminals becuase the data supports that thesis. This is also why so many States have cancealed carry laws. If the DATA didn’t show a positive impact then it is far easier to vote down those bills. In a fact based ideology, such as mine, if you can show that the arming of law abiding citizens is unsafe, then I would be forced by reason to change my views. Those facts have yet to come to the surface in peer reviewed studies.
I list for your THREE peer reviewed studies that support my thesis. It is up to you to educate yourself away from YOUR dogmatic, fantasy based views.
Under the Gun,
Point Blank
More Guns Less Crime
Go to Amazon or your library. They are more like text books but then that is how a peer reviewed study reads.
Have fun.
April 18th, 2007 at 3:13 pmBraveheart writes a content-free defense of the Derb. Here’s a few questions for Braveheart.
1. How do you know the students were liberals? You seem to imply this since you say they failed to attack the killer and instead acted like “good little liberals.” You don’t know the political ideology of the students so you must just be talking out of your ass- as usual for somebody who goes by “Braveheart.”
2. You call us liberals “bedwetters.” It seems to me that anyone who feels they have to carry a concealed weapon to a college campus is more of a bedwetter than a person who believes guns should be prohibited on campus. Think about it, clown.
3. Speaking as a college professor, gun owner, and former Army officer, I would prefer that students didn’t walk around campus armed. We hire campus police to deal with these problems. I don’t want some armed and dangerous yokel blasting away at every Arab or Asian-looking person because they are afraid of being terrorized. I don’t trust people of your sort to defend me. Now if you want to go and enlist in the Army or USMC or become a cop, then you have a responsibility to defend me. Until then, keep you guns off my campus.
4. You should read up on the number of cases of shootings precipated by armed people who are arguing or having another kind of dispute. Many of those people didn’t have criminal records before they blew somebody away in the heat of the moment. Perhaps they didn’t talk about that in your concealed carry training but they did in mine.
5. By the way, who peer-reviewed those studies, the NRA?
6. Do you know the difference between anecdotes and properly conducted empirical research?
7. Is your real name “Glen Reynolds?”
9. Would it be all right for me to carry a bazooka around with me? How about a Barrett .50 cal sniper rifle? Did I tell you that I look Arabic? Does that change your opinion about whether you’d like me to pack heat, either concealed or in the open?
10. Why do you refer to yourself as “Braveheart?” Is there some interesting story that goes along with that? Are you Mel Gibson?
11. Is it really your thesis if you weren’t the one to publish the peer reviewed studies?
12. I’d like to be able to carry a gun into your church or into your child’s daycare- would that be all right with you?
April 18th, 2007 at 3:57 pmBraveheart, you’re still not getting the picture. You’ve been making very hard, specific, definitive claims that others having guns at the scene would have reduced the severity of the incident and made the students safer. You’ve made very specific claims that more people were hurt in this case because they didn’t have access to guns. A very specific causal relationship.
Now you’re saying, “one can make general predictions”. Then do that, please–don’t claim to know. All you know is statistics and previous events, which are not in any way predictive of a specific event. They may be predictive of an overall statistical trend, but that cannot be used to predict with any kind of certainty the outcome of a specific incident, which is what you’ve been wasting your time doing.
You’ve also been wasting time on snide language, broadly dismissive remarks, and vague insults. Your first post here was an insult–when no one had personally insulted you, you chose to introduce yourself to the discussion with an insult directed at most everyone here. This approach undermines the larger point you’re trying to make. You’re trading the fortification of your larger ideology for the cheap pleasure of snideness–do your beliefs a favor and stick to what can be known.
As I said before, there are valid arguments on both sides of this gun-control question. There are risks involved in both the presence and lack of guns. Having a gun present does not always make one safer. Not accepting that statement is foolish. Having a gun present does sometimes make one safer. That’s an equally inescapable statement. But the issue will never be as black-and-white as you’re trying to make it.
At the end of the day it may just come down to the nation making a judgment call about what type of country we want to be, because either course of action involves risk. Do we choose the risk of unnecessary violence against unarmed innocents, or do we choose the risk associated with an increased presence of firearms–the attendant accidents and capacity for spontaneous violence? Who knows, the country-as-a-whole crime and death numbers may not even add up to be all that different when it’s all said and done.
You believe in one approach. Many people here believe in another. None of us really know what would happen, either way. If we claim we do, we’re wrong. If we present our beliefs, then it stops being a question of who’s right and who’s wrong, and starts being a productive discussion. If you truly care about what you believe, and want it to be accepted instead of rammed down the throats of those who disagree with you, that’s the only productive course.
April 18th, 2007 at 6:14 pmDerbyshire, you are the fricken pussy coward. This is what American conservatism has come to folks. Feels good, don’t it Johnny boy.
April 18th, 2007 at 7:26 pmBraveheart, You’ve mislabeled yourself. You are not brave and have no heart. Your ignorant rants have just proven you to be nothing more than a mouthbreathing, knuckledragger. I think it would be best for you to just go away. Failing that, foad.
April 18th, 2007 at 10:27 pmGee, the last time i had self defense training of any kind. I don’t remember them mentioning anything about rushing the man with the gun because he’s most likely more afraid of you than you are of him….
This isn’t a movie, there are no stunt doubles and retakes. I wonder if they would suggest that their own child run into an armed gunman..
April 18th, 2007 at 11:33 pmBlake just graduated from Oregon State University last year. He regularly annoyed the student body with his thesaurus-laden rants about the evils of liberalism and conservative morality in the school newspaper. Considering his lack of life experience and empathy for others, Blake doesn’t deserve your attention. Perhaps he can display that courage he found lacking in his age/gender cohort at VT, and sign-up for duty in Iraq….probably not.
April 19th, 2007 at 12:55 amBlake just graduated from Oregon State University last year. He annoyed the student body with his thesaurus-laden rants about the evils of liberalism and conservative morality in the school newspaper. Considering his lack of life experience and empathy for others, Blake doesn’t deserve your attention. Perhaps he can display that courage he found lacking in his age/gender cohort at VT, and join the army in Iraq….probably not.
April 19th, 2007 at 12:57 amIt is easy for a moron who was probably sitting in underwear in his dark bedroom punching on keyboard in the safety of his home to spew out such venom. Pure goofball who watches to many Rambo movies.
April 19th, 2007 at 9:29 amNicole White, 20, of Carrollton, Va., was a junior majoring in international studies and German. White graduated from Smithfield High School in 2004, according to The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk.
White worked at a YMCA as a lifeguard and was an honor student in high school, the newspaper reported.
Her family was planning a news conference Thursday in Suffolk.
Laurie Guiffre, who grew up with White, remembers her friend as a person of great character with a genuine love for animals.
“I keep trying to come to terms with the fact that she is no longer here and I will never see her again.” Guiffre wrote to MSNBC.com.
Another childhood friend, Michelle D. Clay, of Toccoa Falls, Ga., recalled that ” was one my four best friends, and we all shared everything.”
“I never imagined she would be gone in the blink of an eye.”
April 19th, 2007 at 9:59 amMaxine Turner, 22, from Vienna, Va., was a senior majoring in chemical engineering.
Turner had finished her required credits and was preparing for her May graduation but took German as an elective, said her father, Paul Turner. The 22-year-old was shot in the German class.
“She was very excited — she was very excited about school in general,†her father said.
An anonymous poster told MSNBC.com that she had been a classmate of Turner’s at James Madison High School in Vienna. “She was at the top of our class and did really well in school … Vienna is a very close, tight-knit community and I know those from our graduating class of 2003 and all other JMHS students past and present are grieving from this tragic loss of life.”
Turner was accepted by a handful of high-profile schools, including Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. But she was determined to be a Virginia Tech Hokie, her father said.
“We tried to convince her to go elsewhere. When you get accepted to Johns Hopkins, it’s a very prestigious school,†he said. “But no, she wanted to go to Virginia Tech.â€
Turner recently helped found a chapter of Alpha Omega Epsilon, a sorority for women in engineering. She had accepted a chemical engineering job with W.L. Gore & Associates in Elkton, Md.
“It’s a terrible loss,†her father said Wednesday, weeping. “I cannot understand the legislators in this country, not putting in laws that protect people.â€
April 19th, 2007 at 10:00 amWhat a complete moron! Its easy to say that you would have rushed the killer when you are not even in the situation. I’d like to challenge Nathaniel Blake to a fist fight and see how he runs away like the little prick he is.
April 19th, 2007 at 11:21 amHmmm… You are safer with a gun than without. Proven by science, you say. Weeeeell, I guess I can’t argue with science.
I grew up in a place where everybody had guns– the wonderful utopia in L.A. called Watts. A dead body lying on the street on a weekly basis must have been the result of people choking on the salty air of freedom. Funny thing about it, everyone of those bodies fell on its own bullets.
If you think that you would be far safer there than where you are, you should move there and carry all the guns you like. I don’t live there anymore, but that’s just because I’m some coward. When the time comes to stand up to an AK-47, I can’t even shoot my gun with enough accuracy to block the bullets of another gun being fired at me.
Hey! I bet Baghdad is the safest place place around! They have guns everywhere AND bombs!
April 19th, 2007 at 11:52 amDidn’t you know that conservatives think they can dodge bullets? …like in the Matrix.
duh!
April 19th, 2007 at 1:50 pmDear author, you’re very foolish. They should have fought back. If you’re going to die anyway, you may as well go down swinging–and then you might not die. No one is blaming the victims here–their deaths are tragic and horrible and senseless. And maybe, if one or two had thrown a book at the evil nutjob shooting at ‘em, maybe some of their deaths were unnecessary, too.
And I’m not a conservative of any stripe, by the way. Pro-gay, pro-labor, pro-choice, pro-ACLU and pro-atheist–but none of that means I think you should just take it when a madman inflicts his will upon you.
Some of the discussion is of the form “Well, you can’t fight back because he’s got a gun.” Well, why can’t you? These scenarios play out as little dramas: “Aggressor with guns rushes in, people scream and are shot to death” was this plot. But the aggressor sets the plot and the roles. If you refuse to play your role, you might just end the scenario in victory.
Note that I don’t mention “shoot the aggressor.” If you can just set your own role, you might well win without a gun (when flaming this post, please let’s talk about the mental stance, rather than the gun possession for/against stuff).
April 19th, 2007 at 11:36 pmwhat a dick! where does he get off criticizing these people? if he were put in the same situation, he would do the same damn thing. these kids werent expecting it, no one was.
April 21st, 2007 at 1:31 amSo let me see if I get this straight…
If any of us had been in that same exact situation, we would have been better off running up to the killer and dying rather than breaking both our legs jumping out the window and surviving.
Alright, Alright. Let’s put a pin on that to examine about half past never.
Did it ever occur to you that ACTUAL heroes, like the brave professor who held the door closed before being killed– not the loser on his computer who thinks posting a comment on an obscure website or newsletter is an achievement– were probably trying to give people a chance to escape and possibly survive while sacrificing themselves, instead of maybe thinking “Eh, I’m a gonner anyway!”? We’ll never know, but I strongly doubt the latter.
Let’s take a look at some other heroes. Heroes who have made it their profession to save lives. Do you recall any story involving the Iraq Occupation where a soldier runs unarmed at a suicide bomber? Really? None?
Maybe running face first into death– not unlike the killer– isn’t the best tactic. That probably has to do with the fact that in real life, there is no reset button and when you die, you die. Maybe true heroes understand that because they know that there is a time to pick your battles.
Or maybe the people who resent the victims themselves wish a more honorable death than atrophy behind a desk.
I honestly worry about some of you. I hope you never send press packets to NBC and blast your heads off in a vain attempt to seem heroic.
April 21st, 2007 at 2:02 pmHey, Some Coward: no, that’s not what I said. I’m not making any statement about tactics and which are preferable.
The point is about the moral stance of refusing to let others dictate to you. If you want to run and break both your legs and survive, you’re doing exactly what I think you should: you’re exercising your will and deciding to live, rather than falling into the drama that the nutjob has created for you. If you fight back, you’re exercising your will and deciding to live, rather than fall into the role. I see the two as morally equivalent, since they’re really the same class.
Maybe making a strawman of other’s positions isn’t itself the best tactic.
April 22nd, 2007 at 11:43 amI apologize then, Locker. I guess I am growing a little frustrated by people who seem to believe that there were so many options and so much time to do them in.
I just find it deplorable that people openly mock victims of a tragedy that they do not even know. Especially when all they have to go on about it are vague reports on the news.
I feel that this is a very bad platform to base this argument on. Especially when one takes into consdieration that after the attack many students stayed behind to help those shot. But in the minds of Blake, they don’t count. Nathaniel Blake raises an argument on a false statement.
April 22nd, 2007 at 2:37 pmHa! Nate you rule! Hopefully you’ll come back home this summer so I can buy you a beer!
May 10th, 2007 at 2:58 pmyour HS Soccer Goalie….