Miscellaneous Thoughts: Virginia Tech

[B E C K]

-- Merla and I were talking about how high schools seem more violent than when we were in high school.  I said something about "glad I'm not in hs anymore.  Then again, I shouldn't say that because someone could just as easily come and shoot up the university".  The next day, the Virgina Tech thing happened.

-- The crazy Korean guy is getting waaaaay too much media attention.  He's been on the front of the local paper at least twice, which is twice too many in my opinion.

-- I wish the people who released crazy-guy's photo had fixed his oily t-zone before doing so.  You gals know what I mean.

-- Jeanne Jakle of the Express-News is a fucking moron.  She actually complained in her Wednesday column about the lack of media attention on the broadcast networks, saying she was "irritated" and "disgusted" (or "in disgust", it was those two words basically) that broadcast channels would show regular programming rather than constant coverage on VT. On Monday no less, when many of the victims' family and friends didn't even know their loved ones were dead.  I was going to write in to complain but thankfully, many other people wrote in to ream the bitch.  Drama-hungry freaks like her are why at fourteen-years-old I had to sit there and watch a white Bronco trying to uselessly evade the police because no station would fucking show regular television.

-- Oprah again is a fucking moron.  "The whole world is shocked."  Only deluded idiots would ever be shocked given the trend for this sort of thing.

-- At work, Merla was encouraged to wear her maroon and orange on Friday for the day of mourning.  Merla then wondered to me who the fuck would keep that combination in their closet besides a Virginia Tech student.

-- How the fuck were two hours permitted to elapse between the first shootings and the second wave?

-- It never even occurred to me that backlash against Koreans or other Asians would be a problem, until I kept hearing and reading about the fear of it.  I guess it's just a matter of time until somebody inanely stupid makes some innocent person pay for this.

-- Merla was just thankful it wasn't a Muslim student who did this.  Those people are getting it bad enough.  We don't even want to imagine.

-- I keep planning escape routes at school, but then again I've kinda thought about that sort of thing before.

-- Merla said if there was a shooting she'd abandon the library patrons and flee for her life.  I told her that given karma, I'd probably be one of those patrons and end up dead.

-- Is the lesson here not to be such a bastard to people because you never know who will turn that into murderous rage?  Of course, if you happen to be the one who sets off years of rage, it's not like you could've done anything about it.

-- It's gotta suck to be that guy's sister.

[Wickedly Yours E]

I've not seen the video, nor do I want to. Just the act he committed is enough to label him as psychotic, I don't need a video to confirm what has been confirmed in blood.
I'm still wondering how two hours elasped between the first shooting at the campus and then the second, and nobody was able to stop the guy from doing the second shooting. Did anyone KNOW he was the shooter the first time?

[IDE]

People talk about not blaming the president of the university or the chief of police because it would've been really difficult to shut down the school.  Fuck that.  They should have at least tried to shut it down.  The emergency broadcast system and police stationed at every parking lot to turn people back might have helped and that's just off the top of my head.

I don't know that the librarian actually owes the library patrons any form of protection.  It's not like she's a teacher and they're her responsibility.  However, that old professor who bought those kids enough time to escape at the expense of his own life was a raw ass motherfucker.

[B E C K]

He lived through the Holocaust, he was OG!

I've not seen the video, nor do I want to.

I have no need to.  I mean, WHY?  There's really no reason to see that.  People can go dog on NBC all they want to, but these same people tuned in and watched at least some of it, because the ratings were huge.  I wasn't one of them.

They should have at least tried to shut it down.

Really, just shut it down.  Once people pop up all shot up, it's time to call it a day.  One day wouldn't have made any difference academically speaking.

I don't know that the librarian actually owes the library patrons any form of protection.

Meh, I don't think they do.  Besides, poor Merla would be screaming all over the place so in the end I don't think she'd be doing anyone any favors anyway.  I've seen her screaming and crying to, like, a roach flying around the place.  I'm fairly certain a psychotic, oily, angry little Asian dude with a gun in each hand shooting people dead all willy-nilly would be hugely worse.

[Wickedly Yours E]

It'd be fair to say even I'd be given pause in the face of such a thing before diving for cover.

[B E C K]

I'd try to save whoever was next to me, but if they're gonna be one of those uncorporative types, then sucks to be them: I'm running and finding a place to hide if I can't escape.  Depending on where I'm at on the campus and how far things have escalated, I may try to go to the library and find Merla.  Or maybe to her car first.  Since I'm never guaranteed to be at one place any particular time, she really couldn't find me if she wanted to.

[Sam]

However, that old professor who bought those kids enough time to escape at the expense of his own life was a raw ass motherfucker.

I don't often quote things for truth, but I'm quoting this for fucking truth.

[Faye Valentine]

i better start treating the losers from my university nicely.

[Derrick]

Just fuck one, then the other will think you're a slut. They won't kill sluts, otherwise who will fuck them when they become millionaires?

[B E C K]

i better start treating the losers from my university nicely.

More like all losers.  Any one of them could snap.  At any moment!    

[Rodent of Unusual Size]

Anybody remember the high school shooting in Pearl, MS?  I'm betting that if you do remember the shooting, you don't remember hearing how it was brought to an end.

Vice Principal Joel Myrick held his Colt .45 point blank to the high school boy's head. Last week, he told me what it was like. "I said 'why are you shooting my kids?' He said it was because nobody liked him and everything seemed hopeless," Myrick said. "Then I asked him his name. He said 'you know me, Mr. Myrick. Remember? I gave you a discount on your pizza delivery last week."

The shooter was Luke Woodham. On that day in 1997, Woodham slit his mother's throat then grabbed a .30-30 lever action deer rifle. He packed the pockets of his trench coat with ammo and headed off to Pearl High School, in Pearl, Miss.

The moment Myrick heard shots, he ran to his truck. He unlocked the door, removed his gun from its case, removed a round of bullets from another case, loaded the gun and went looking for the killer. "I've always kept a gun in the truck just in case something like this ever happened," said Myrick, who has since become Principal of Corinth High School, Corinth, Miss.

Woodham knew cops would arrive before too long, so he was all business, no play. No talk of Jesus, just shooting and reloading, shooting and reloading. He shot until he heard sirens, and then ran to his car. His plan, authorities subsequently learned, was to drive to nearby Pearl Junior High School and shoot more kids before police could show up.

But Myrick foiled that plan. He saw the killer fleeing the campus and positioned himself to point a gun at the windshield. Woodham, seeing the gun pointed at his head, crashed the car. Myrick approached the killer and confronted him. "Here was this monster killing kids in my school, and the minute I put a gun to his head he was a kid again," Myrick said.

Wish that bad-ass Israeli professor had that option available to him.  He and a lot of other people might still be alive today.  But then he'd have had to deal with this....

Myrick and his gun, no matter how one looks at it, saved lives. His actions saved the lives of waiting victims at a nearby junior high. He may have kept Woodham from shooting police, who would have arrived at the scene disoriented, without Myrick's home turf frame of reference. Arguably, Myrick and his gun even saved the life of the killer, who likely would have killed himself or been shot by SWAT cops after spilling more blood.

Although Myrick saved lives, beyond question, some treat him as a leper. After the shootings, and the relatively peaceful ending to something that could have made Columbine pale in comparison, Myrick was in exile. He'd held a gun to a student's head, and his colleagues simply couldn't accept that.

"Nobody wanted to dog me, but nobody wanted to side with me, either," Myrick says. "I felt like I was being betrayed by everybody."

And that was Mississippi. This summer he studied at Harvard, where he'd been awarded a prestigious education fellowship. That's when uppity intolerance and mass stupidity took on new meaning for Myrick. "Once people found out my story, I got a lot of dirty looks and strange stares," Myrick said. "A few people confronted me."

http://www.davekopel.com/2A/OthWr/principal&gun.htm

[TM2 Rampage]

-- At work, Merla was encouraged to wear her maroon and orange on Friday for the day of mourning.  Merla then wondered to me who the fuck would keep that combination in their closet besides a Virginia Tech student.

I think if I were ever killed, I'd want people to wear black, or my favorite colors. Not my school colors or anything. School spirit woo yay eh?  

[Rodent of Unusual Size]

This whole "We are Virginia Tech!" bullshit's got to go.  I'm going to hate them come football season like I always have, so they can STFU.

It's one thing to feel sorry for people when something bad like this happens to them.  It's another thing to get this into it.  But such is the way of a society where people identify themselves through victimization.

[Faye Valentine]

SO TRUE. They are whoring the whole thing up in facebook. it makes me want to barf.

[IDE]

I can't believe people were pissed at that principle.

 

[Bernie AKA]

I'm still annoyed with the e-mail warning thing.  Now the theoretical plan is to text warnings - HUH??! What the hell ever happened to a good old-fashioned siren?  What's next, IM'd fire drills?

And yes, in an ideal world, every who had a gun would be a stable, law-abiding citizen who would never dream of using it for anything ecept self-defense, but things don't work that way.  How about teaching people not to be so damn passive if threatened in such a manner?  One VT classroom excaped because two guys had enough snap to upend a heavy desk and shove it against the door - an inanimate object, not vulnerable bodies.  Cho couldn't get in, shot a barrage through the door, which the desk blocked, and moved on to a more vulnerable target.

Oddly enough, in the street self-defense class I took from a former Marine sergeant, we learned that one of the biggest factors in not fighting back was not fear, but squeamishness.  My stiletto-heeled shoe can be a formidable weapon, but I can't tap my attacker on the knuckles with it and say "shoo" - I have to watch for my chance and put the heel through his eyeball.  Or bite through his upper lip where there are enough nerve endings to send him into shock if I'm on my back about to get raped.  I won't even go into the forced oral sex suggestions.  Could I do any of those?  If it's me or him, you bet.  

[B E C K]

In the world where e-mail and text warnings are the rule, I'd be so dead.  

I never heard that about that principal.  I feel bad for him.  That man was a hero.  What the fuck is wrong with people?