0341: I’ve heard similair stories from police officers, no matter how trained or ‘macho’ you are there is no way you can tell how you will react in these situations, especially when they hit you unawares.

Why not, some fine day, when you’re in a store, restaurant or workplace, think about all the options available to you, should you have to deal with a murderous maniac? Where can you run? What can you throw? What are ways you can deal with your instinctive fear? If you have some ideas imprinted in your brain in safety, then they may instinctively kick in, in a time of danger. There’s nothing right-wing, left-wing or macho about pondering scenarios ahead of time. It’s a pretty regular topic in martial arts studios.

I agree that none of this is any consolation, to those who had to bury their loved ones in the wake of such bloody treachery. I have little faith in any institutional solutions, though. I’m not willing to exchange even the least politically popular liberties for a dubious guarantee of safety by the state and corporation. I don’t know what I would have done, if I was in those students’ situation–I’m sure they did the best they could with what they had, in terms of physical, mental and emotional resources. I don’t know if I would have functioned any better, but it’s a lot more empowering to think about some relatively positive outcomes than to automatically assume total doom for every dangerous scenario.

Also, it’s not that easy scoring a bullseye with a gun, even at twenty yards. A retired cop tells me it becomes even less easy when a shooter’s concentration is disrupted. Just something to file for future reference. I hope & pray that pops into my mind, should such a situation arise. Maybe I’ll prevail, maybe I’ll die like a dog. But I have less of a chance of survival, if I don’t think about these things at all and just assume the government will protect me.

Finally, I doubt we’d be any safer without guns than with. History is replete with bloody massacres and repression which took place long before the invention of the gun. There may not have been any guns in the city of Rome during the reign of Caius Caligula, but to survive in that place at that time was to fear for one’s life every day.

tactless chronic masturbators with superhero fantasies who, for all your talk would soil yourselves if your life really was on the line

Never having been confronted with a weapon, never having seen people next to them have their faces blown off and blood gushing out of their heads, never feeling steel rip through their flesh, not understanding what was happening or watching their friends slaughtered like some Hollywood movie…

Yep, they’re all cowards. They deserved to die.

On her MySpace page, McCain listed “the love of my life” as Jesus Christ.
Her family said McCain became a Christian some time ago.

“Her life since that time has been filled with His love that continued to overflow to touch everyone who knew her,” the family said in a statement.

Her uncle Jeff Elliott told The Oklahoman newspaper that she was an avid reader, was learning German and had almost mastered Latin. She was home-schooled, he said, and had worked at a department store for about a year to save money for college.

She spent several years of her childhood in Oklahoma, but her father’s Navy career also took the family to Florida, Texas and then to Virginia.

“Lauren had such a sweet innocent heart,” Jeanne Meadows, who attended church with McCain, wrote to MSNBC.com. “I can bet you at the last moment of her life she was most likely praying for the gunman and forgiving him.”

Friend Steve Craveiro described him as smart, responsible and a hard worker, someone who never got into trouble.

“He would come home from school over the summer and talk about projects, about building bridges and stuff like that,” Craveiro said. “He loved his family. He was pretty much destined to be extremely successful. He just didn’t deserve to have happen what happened.”

O’Neil graduated in 2002 from Lincoln High School in Rhode Island and graduated from Lafayette College in Easton, Pa., before heading to Virginia Tech, where he was also a teaching assistant, Craveiro said.

A Lafayette publication said that while there O’Neil was vice president of the Arts Society. His high school yearbook noted he was on the cross country and outdoor track teams, the drama club and the National Honor Society, according to the Providence Journal.

Ortiz graduated magna cum laude from the Polytechnic University of San Juan, Puerto Rico, and arrived at Virginia Tech last August. He was married to a fellow student pursuing a teaching career, and they had planned to have a child soon.

“He was an extraordinary son,” his father, Juan Ramon, said. “On his wedding day, I told him … what I felt in my heart, I thanked him for being my son, it was special.”

Ortiz was also in a band with his father and other relatives. “He loved salsa dancing,” his father said.

She wanted to be an architect like her father, who died four years ago.

Panchal was very keen to go to the United States for postgraduate studies and thrilled when she gained admission last year, said Chetna Parekh, a friend who lives in the bustling middle-class Mumbai neighborhood of Borivali, where Panchal lived before coming to Virginia Tech.

“She was a brilliant student and very hardworking. She was focused on getting her degree and doing well.”

Panchal was worried about her mother, Hansa, living alone and wanted her to come to the U.S., neighbor Jayshree Ajmane said. Hansa left earlier this month for New Jersey, where her sister and brother-in-law live.

Ajmane called Panchal a bright, polite girl who would help the neighborhood children with their schoolwork.

It was not known if Cho knew the victims.

Peterson was 6-foot-1 and played center for the school’s girls basketball team, helping lead it to a district championship.

“She could do a layup on anyone,” said Anna Richter, a high school teammate.

She recalled how Peterson’s parents attended nearly every game and were among the most enthusiastic fans.

Pat Deegan, Peterson’s high school coach, said he couldn’t remember a better leader.

“She was just a super child,” William Lloyd, Erin’s godfather, told the Washington City Paper.

“Her and her dad, man, you couldn’t separate them. He lost a child from cancer — a daughter, 8 years old. A week later, (Erin) was born.”

Lloyd said that Erin and her father, Grafton Peterson, did part ways on one thing: pro football allegiances. “She was a Redskin,” he said. “He was a Cowboy.”

“He had a bunch of job interviews and was all set to start his post-college life,” Blanton told The Star-Ledger of Newark.

At the high school, Pohle played on the football and lacrosse teams.

One of his old lacrosse coaches, Bob Shroeder, described him as “a good kid who did everything that good kids do.”

“He tried to please,” Shroeder told the newspaper. “He was just a great kid.”

She was an “exceptional student academically and personally,” said Saied Mostaghimi, chairman of the biological systems and engineering department where Pryde was seeking her master’s degree.

“She was the nicest person you ever met,” Mostaghimi told The Star-Ledger of Newark.

Last summer, Pryde had traveled to Ecuador to research water quality issues with a professor. She planned to return this summer for follow-up work, Mostaghimi said.

A 2001 graduate of Middletown North High School, Pryde was on the school’s swim team and played softball in two town leagues.

Her hometown has been touched by tragedy before, losing 37 current and former residents in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

“The town pulls together in these situations. Everything that we can do for this family, we’ll see what can be done,” Middletown Mayor Gerard P. Scharfenberger said.

She was born in South Korea into an Air Force family and lived in Texas and California before settling in the northern Virginia suburb of Annandale, said Kuppinger.

Read considered a handful of colleges, including nearby George Mason University, before choosing Tech. It was a popular destination among her Annandale High School classmates, Kuppinger said.

She had yet to declare a major.

“I think she wanted to try to spread her wings,” said Kuppinger, whose niece had struggled adjusting to Virginia Tech’s large campus. She’d recently begun making friends and looking into a sorority.

Kuppinger said the family started calling Read as news reports surfaced.

“After three or four hours passed and she hadn’t picked up her cell phone or answered her e-mail … we did get concerned,” Kuppinger said. “We honestly thought she would pop up.”

Julia Singer, who attended Annandale High School with Read, wrote this to MSNBC.com: “I remember telling her ‘I just know you’re going to be that girl at our ten-year reunion; the one the girls want to be and guys want to be with,’” she said.

“‘I expect you to show us all up, Mary Read.’”