<p>My heart goes out to all the students, families, faculty of Virginia Tech. My young cousin is a student there. We got word that he is alright. Being from NYC, it is like 9/11 all over again in that I spent the day worrying about my cousin just as I worried about my husband and many other family members on 9/11.
This is a horrible tragedy. We must do more to safeguard our campuses.</p>
<p>Oh, Singersmom, I wil lkeep those parents in my prayers.</p>
<p>After burying a loved one today and hearing this on the news…you just think of how senseless it is.</p>
<p>Singersmom, I am so sorry. They are in my prayers, as is your daughter.</p>
<p>I can’t imagine what would possess a person to do something so heinous. Sad as it is, it’s one thing for someone to take their own life whether it be from depression or other reasons, but to take innocent lives just makes no sense. I’m so terribly sad for all these parents.</p>
<p>Singersmom, I am so sorry to hear about your DD’s friend. I can only imagine your desire to throw your arms around your DD as soon as possible.</p>
<p>I’m a columnist at my college newspaper and my editor asked me to write a piece about this incident for Wednesday’s paper. I am completely at a loss. How does one put an incident like this into words? While every major news network is trying to point fingers without having all of the information, I think what’s more important is to recognize that this incident isn’t a reflection on the school itself. This could literally have happened at any school in the nation, and this is why it’s so sobering for current students.</p>
<p>Many people are questioning whether the gunman was Muslim, Christian, Jewish etc. I think this is erroneous as none of these religions believe in murder. </p>
<p>Others are questioning the actions of the Va Tech Police. The problem is that the police were given a 50/50 judgement call and they just made the wrong decision. For students living on campus, they had two options. 1. Stay in their dorms (where their had been two people shot) 2. Or go to classes under the assumption that they gun man had fled. There’s no way the university could have anticipated that a mass execution would take place.</p>
<p>Finally, and most absurdly in my opinion, many are saying that this is an issue of gun control. I do not own a gun, nor does any person in my family, but I do not believe you can stop a murderer that is set on killing simply by banning guns. The right to arms is apart of our Constitution, like it or not, and it probably will not be amended in our lifetime.</p>
<p>What I want to focus on is not blame, but grieving. Don’t focus on the person that committed this atrocity, but the people who were victims of it. I’ve been staring at a blank Word Document for about an hour now and I’m too intimidated to add any words to it. Maybe this is just something that just can’t be editorialized. If any one has any thoughts or sentiments, I’d be happy if you’d share them with me so that I might get the ball rolling. I’m an emotional wreck right now because of this and I can’t seem to get ideas flowing.</p>
<p>The thoughts wil lflow after you get through the shock and the mourning. If you are a student, of course you identify with the lives lost. I know that my son who is at McGill is also a emotional wreck now for two reasons, one that he is a university student like those murdered today and also that his cousin is a student, thankfully spared from today’s slaughter, at Virginia Tech.
Take a deep breathe and then write. And write and write and write. Your words will make a difference.</p>
<p>Singersmom~</p>
<p>{{{{{{{Gentle hugs}}}}}}}} to you and your precious D. I’m <em>SO</em> sorry for the loss of her friend. Such a senseless loss of an irreplaceable young life…</p>
<p>~berurah</p>
<p>I just brought my mail in, and there was a letter from The office of the Mayor of Blacksburg, VA.
The second paragraph reads ,“…Along with the primary educational goals, you are also naturally concerned about safety, quality of life…accordingly it gives me great pleasure, as Mayor, to invite you to visit our town and get acquainted with the community that serves as a home away from home…” It is the most charming college-related letter we have received…but…what tragic timing :(</p>
<p>I think your post already has the gist of a column. If you take the different topics in each of your post paragraphs, you have a great column. The bottom line is “What I want to focus on is not blame, but grieving.” And just to add my two cents, how about grieving for the person who did this. The criminologists on the news are saying that people who perpetrate these kinds of crimes feel out of control, feel like a failure, have no parental or other support. So what can kids do…? Keep their eyes open, be a friend to someone, provide support to a fellow student. There is a lot of academic and social pressure out there, obviously. (Look around these boards at 7th graders worried about getting into college).
Anyway, I digress. I think your post has the start of the column. Put a bunch of words downk, edit later.</p>
<p>Man the pain is going to double tomorrow when friends and family find out the names of the poor students who were shot and killed today. My heart truly goes out to Hokie Nation tonight.</p>
<p>What the hell did the shooter do in the two hours between shootings?</p>
<p>Geraldo has the name of the Asian kid who reportedly did this and on his facebook page he is seen in many photos holding weapons and what not.</p>
<p>Thanks for you help and your thoughts. If you want I’ll try to send you a PM with the preliminary edit of my column after I finish it.</p>
<p>Kent State: Where is that info re: the name of the shooter, his Facebook profile, etc. Was he a student at VT or not?</p>
<p>They won’t say his name yet, but from what I have pieced together, he is the 24 year old Chinese kid who was a Va Tech student here on a student visa. I could figure out his name in about 10 seconds if I had access to a Va Tech facebook account.</p>
<p>Do you have the website address of where it says this information? ie: that Geraldo has it. </p>
<p>You can still search the names of people in the VA Tech Facebook network even if you can’t look at their profiles, by the way</p>
<p>You can search the names, but not the age or gender, which significantly hinders the search. There is no link that says he has it, he just stated it on Fox News. I tried searching common Chinese surnames to no avail.</p>
<p>This tragedy could have been minimized had the VA tech students had access to firearms. A bill was recently discarded that would have allowed qualified VA tech students and faculty to have firearms on campus. If even one of the students in the building had been armed 20 or maybe 30 lives could have been saved.</p>
<p>No gun control law would have prevented this. The people that go on rampages aren’t going to be deterred by a stupid law when they are planning mass murder. If they can’t buy a gun in a store, they will just buy one illegally from the street. Gun control laws don’t hurt thugs-they have plenty of access to guns-no background check needed-because they are all stolen or smuggled in. The only people that such laws hurt are those of us that abide by the law.</p>
<p>My heart is broken tonight. I almost didn’t participate in this thread because I hardly even know what to say. So many students from our part of Virginia (Hampton Roads) attend Virginia Tech each year. A classmate and friend of my D’s (they graduated in the same class), a brilliant student athlete (a URM who wouldn’t qualify as a poster child of the anti-AA set in the least) is also a Junior Engineering Major at VT. We don’t yet know her status, whether she is safe or not. Several other kids from my D’s high school class attend VT also. We are still both in a state of shock. D didn’t know about the shootings until we talked at about 4:00 this afternoon, as she had been in classes all day. I agree we need to do something about the proliferation of guns in our culture. We need to stop talking about it and actually DO something after we bury our dead from this devastation.</p>