Two Journalist Shot Dead During Live Broadcast

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21

Amazing, isn’t it? If we lost 30,000 military troops to battle in a single year, this country would erupt in outrage, even though solders by their very profession are meant to be in harm’s way, and subject to gun fire. Why do we accept this kind of carnage on our streets, in our homes, in our classrooms, in churches, and in movie theaters, year in and year out as just the cost of freedom? Perhaps if the nightly news reported a daily body count every evening as we sat at dinner, we would start to grasp how widespread and relentless gun violence is in this country.

Or not… :frowning:

22

Same for me. When that happened, I sent messages to my Rep and Senators that I was fed up and demanded that something be done. I got back “thanks for your interest” messages and that was it. I can’t imagine what kind of catastrophe would be needed to get people’s attention if Sandy Hook didn’t do it.

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Continued prayers and thoughts for the victims, their families and loved ones and the community. No one deserves to be rocked by this kind of madness.

24

Killer’s EEOC complaint was rejected. Killer’s FB page fingered both people killed directly as related to that case.

I work at a college. I do my best to first protect my family, when I deal with students, coworkers, superiors. I have dealt with students who I have had to refer to administration, and have also told others “if anything happens to me, please keep a copy of the following”.

I do not know any more details of this case, but I do know that disgruntled employees have been problems for years and years and years. There was a shooting last week in NYC - a guy killed a security guard then killed himself. The security guard of course had NOTHING to do with that guy getting fired, more than 5 years ago, but that didn’t matter to the shooter.

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And supposedly humans are evolving into something advanced and better? This is insane. So sorry for those poor reporters.

26

Let’s stop calling them disgruntled employees and call them mentally ill people who shouldn’t have a gun. Disgruntled employees do thinks like come in late and leave early/gossip about other co-workers, etc… they don’t kill people.

27

I am wondering how the shooter knew where Alison Parker and Adam Ward were going to be doing their live broadcast. Did they broadcast the day before something like “tomorrow we’ll be at XXX during the morning show”? Or did he still have contacts at the station who told him where those two were going to be broadcasting?

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He might have just followed them.

29

Sounds like the shooter is confirmed dead now.

30

Are news stations going to have to put live reports on a delay after this?

31

Apparently this guy was a ticking time bomb. They even cleared the area and called police when he was fired from one of his jobs because they thought the may react badly.

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Based on what he sent has written, “he admired Columbine, and what sent him over the edge, was the Charleston church shooting.”

33

So disturbing. What kind of person videotapes himself executing two human beings? Then posts it to his facebook and twitter pages?

@TatinG , it sounds to me like he had some warped idea that he was wronged by his former employers, and possibly the two he killed today, in particular. From what I understand, Parker was the on air reporter and did these types of local interest and breaking news stories all the time for the morning news. And Ward was her usual cameraman. I think it is more likely that the shooter was just watching TV earlier this morning or even yesterday(continuing to fume about how he was “screwed over” two years ago) and saw a plug for the story she was going to do, then drove on over. If he lived or was staying close by, I can’t imagine it would have taken long to find exactly where they were filming.

@Hunt , Maybe they should. Still won’t stop the nuts from posting their own “point of view” videos though. Sadly for the families of the victims, those images will never be completely gone from the internet.

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Whats so sad, is that I am sure there is another disturbed person watching all of this, especially the intersection with social media. I wish they would stop covering it. It literally has been on all day.

35

Appears that he was another madman for whom there was no permissible reason to confiscate his weapon(s), since he probably hadn’t broken any laws heretofore. Just like Adam Lanza, James Holmes and Seung-Hui Cho didn’t have a history of violence, but were all as crazy as can be in their violent fantasies. I would not be surprised if we discover that there also were red flags about this fellow at Smith Mountain Lake.

36

When will the political correctness stop and the improvement in MH services and tightening of regulations re: access to firearms be initiated? This guy called HIMSELF a ticking time bomb. And he posted videos of the shooting form his vantage point on his facebook page. These people do not deserve the on air attention that they get. It could fuel the fire in others. Prayers to the families and the community.

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Just an aside note - just because the complaint was rejected does not mean he didn’t have a valid complaint. Companies will cover their backsides until the cows come home, and they have better lawyers than individual complainants. Been there.

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@LakeWashington see my earlier post, there were already signs. When he was fired, the manager removed everyone and called the police because he was afraid of this guy. At least that is what is being reported.

39

Very true, but understanding perspective is everything:

— Of those 30,000, 60% are suicides. That is some 18,000 people who are destined to kill themselves. Do not blame the gun for their motives; it is psychological, a mental illness. Taking away one instrument of suicide from everyone (even the non-suicidal), does nothing to stop the intent of suicidal people - they will do it regardless.

— Of those 30,000, 11,000+ are homicides of which the overwhelming majority is black on black young people crime, some 8,000 blacks kill other blacks annually, where 85% of the population is not even a target. These are criminals who will always get guns, just as Europe is finding out that criminals can get guns and shoot up trains and newspaper offices if they want, even though the law-abiding citizenry is disarmed and cannot buy guns.

— Of those 30,000, almost 800 are accidents, not murderous intent of any kind. Extremely low compared to the 40,000+ killed by car accidents “in the U.S. EVERY SINGLE YEAR,” even though there are 25% more guns than cars in the country - 320 millions guns vs 255 million cars. Currently, the biggest danger, which incidentally is faced every day, is not a law-abiding gun owner, it is a car owner with a cell phone behind the wheel of a car.

Basically, until the gun control advocates can also show that guns can and will also be taken away and effectively kept away from criminals, it will be impossible to convince the law-abiding gun owners to give up their guns.

However, the government has proved it cannot even stop illegals, drugs and guns from coming across the mexican border, therefore. there is no demonstrated way it can stop criminals from getting guns, and thus law-abiding gun users know that the only result would be that the criminals will have guns, while they are rendered defenseless.

Instead of going after an inanimate object, it might be wise to go after mental illness and ghettoe crime. Hint - 95%+ of deaths using a gun are not done by law-abiding, non-criminal, non-mentally ill citizens. It is just silly to go after the 95%+ who are doing nothing wrong, while you turn your back on the real issue, the criminals and the mentally ill. Best to solve the real problems instead of blaming something else.

Ironically, total gun control only affects the working class, which is the group most affected by crime. The rich has private security and the politicians use the working class’ tax dollars to get themselves private security as well. It is Mr. and Ms. 9-to-5 who will be the open season target.

Note - These numbers off the top of my head, but pretty sure I am close enough on the magnitude of the numbers - someone will correct if I am in gross error, I am sure.

40

Regardless of the stats that have been posted in other threads before, and with hopes that this thread doesn’t go down that path again, it is pretty apparent that these sensational attacks (Sandy Hook, Aurora, Va Tech, Charleston, Lafayette LA, etc) were done with… wait, um… machetes? no, boxcutters? no, sledgehammers? no, bows and arrows? no, oh right— firearms.