Just checking back in so apologies if this had been reported, but they are now saying the shooter was 26, not 20 .
The press conference was pointless, with the exception of the president of the college.
President Obama’s anger and indignation is what we needed to hear. It is horrendous and vile that this nonsense has become “routine.” As he said, everything about it is routine; the reporting of the event, the condolences, the despair. Sad.
This. So much of what was initially reported later proved to be absolutely false at Columbine. I have recommended the book Columbine on CC before and will do so again - it is a fascinating, if not depressing read. So I would take anything you hear coming out of the media with a grain of salt for the first few days. Look at how many key facts they have gotten wrong already - number of victims and shooter’s age.
A BIG reason so much false information became ‘truth’ at Columbine is because victims are in a state of shock after an event like this - they can’t necessarily be relied upon to be reliable witnesses. So they tell a story to some reporter that is inaccurate, and other victims, who are also in a state of shock, hear what someone reported and believe it as the truth, and start reporting the same information themselves. Before you know it, all media outlets are reporting it, with several victims/witnesses saying it’s what happened, but really, they are only reporting what they heard someone say to the media that was said in a state of confusion and trauma.
Right now, given the similar Columbine story that turned out to be a fabrication, I believe that unconfirmed story that the gunman was targeting Christians about as much as I believe that Carly Fiorina saw that non-existent video. Remember the way certain politicians tried to spin the South Carolina mass shooting as having nothing to do with racism, and as being directed not at black people but at Christians? If it’s actually confirmed, fine, but at the moment it’s just a distraction from the real issue here: the epidemic of gun violence in this country.
I am disgusted. The that’s right, totally disgusted. The only life we are willing to go to the mat for in this country is hypothetical life of the unborn. We can gain political traxon by threatening to shut down government over Federal funding of Planned Parenthood (however minute that funding is compared to the overall budget), which by law, cannot be used to fund abortion. But, after that supposedly precious fetus becomes a breathing human being in need of food, housing, and education, we stand ready to shake our collective fingers in the faces of their mothers, and tell them just how little they’re worth, because we resent our tax dollars going to subsidize their existence. They should have chosen a better mother.
Likewise, we pay mere lip-service to the sacredness of human life when we accept as commonplace (or the “cost of freedom”) the wholesale massacre six year olds at their miniature desks, and movie goers gunned down for daring to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. But let’s get real here. We can wring our hands and tsk-tsk over the loss of precious human life after every one of these shootings, but until we are well and truly fed up, until we are actually collectively willing to address this problem head-on, we don’t really give a flying flock.
Unfortunately, every kindergarten child and first grader in the entire country could be slaughtered tomorrow by a series of men with guns, and it wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference. There is no number of dead children (much less adults) that would cause the NRA and its supporters in Congress to change their positions one iota, or to suggest any solution more helpful than arming kindergarten teachers. The hypocrisy poetsheart points out is real, and irremediable, as long as voters keep electing such people to public office.
His name is known, but I won’t repeat it. This is a link to his Internet dating profile: http://spiritualpassions.com/seeme/ironcross45.html. I’ve also seen photos of him posing with guns (of course!), and he was a fan of both Nazi and Irish Republican Army memorabilia.
The world is just plain screwed up. No human legislation can take away evil, it can only control it to a certain extent.
And yes, the story of the shooter targeting Christians isn’t confirmed. But it is out there, and related (with different scenarios) by multiple people. Not that changes anything even if it’s true… the people are still dead.
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The world is just plain screwed up. No human legislation can take away evil, it can only control it to a certain extent.
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And yet no other country has this problem. Are Americans so much more evil than everyone else in the world? No. We’re not unique in our evilness, or in having mentally troubled people in our midst, or in our exposure to violent movies and video games. America is different in only one respect: gun fetishism and failure to do some legislating which would obviously help the problem.
I always post (or at least think) the same thing when we have one of these mass shooting threads…
…and just think about that phrase “one of these mass shootings threads” because, yeah, we have so many mass shootings in this country that we have multiple threads on the subject…
Somewhere along the line we as a country have “decided” that the ability to own guns is worth the collateral damage. Somehow, some way, we have gotten to the point that the murder of first-graders in their classrooms is the price we’re willing to pay for the right to buy/own guns with relative ease.
I don’t know what the answer is. We’ve apparently decided that we’re willing to live with the possibility of mass shootings in our schools, community colleges, churches, movie theaters, and shopping malls.
I hope this isn’t considered too political but as a person who is horrified by this and lives in a red state I am at a loss about what to do. I have written notes to my legislators but it is like spitting in the wind.
He also had body armor at the scene. I have trouble picturing any viable situation where a private citizen (outside Anderson Cooper) needs body armor. The hunting and protecting my family issues do not apply there.
Unfortunately the NRA’s checks and threats to those same legislators trump anything you can say or do.
The problem is defective humans and we are generating more daily, both biologically and socially. How do you propose to address or fix that?
That’s my opinion too. I think these are just very sick people who find pleasure in making others miserable.
Not muslim, just an autistic nut job who “hates organized religions”. Per Washington Post he singled out Christians for killing. He was clearly mentally ill. Why was he allowed to buy guns?
Because we have a gun culture. Because bubba’s gotta have his guns, so therefore, unlike the rest of the civilized world, we have this nonsense.
Being a nut job and being autistic aren’t connected.
I blame society that forces kids into college who really shouldn’t go. My one son is very very smart but might be much better off becoming a computer technician than a computer scientist or computer engineer.
We have a student who cannot pass a basic freshman course, has taken it 5 times with clearly no knowledge of the subject. He refuses to switch to an easier degree, because he HAS to be an engineer. He can’t hack it. And that’s a set up for trouble.
We need to have a national conversation about whether college is a right as opposed to a privilege, and whether trade school needs to be elevated to the same level - certainly there are MANY college majors who will end up making less money than a plumber or electrician or even construction worker.
As for the US only having these types of incidents, you have to realize that the only way we find out about such incidents in non-Western countries is if news is leaked. China for example has had more than a few horrific slayings of kindergartners with knives and hatchets by crazy individuals. We only find out way after the fact, if at all.
Just like the lie about Chinese students being way ahead of the US in math and science on average. The US educates all of its students, the Chinese pick and choose who gets to go to high school.