<p>And the gun control activists need to be coming out in droves.</p>
<p>Aww, for the love of God, Kent State (and what an “appropriate” moniker), please do not turn this into a political event at this juncture.</p>
<p>We’re having one of our admitted student days, so I stepped away from the office for a while to go to one of the events. I can’t believe the developments. I can’t imagine…this is so horrible.</p>
<p>Dean J and all in your line of work – this must be your worst nightmare.</p>
<p>We’re thinking of you guys, too.</p>
<p>Prayers for the families, friends and the entire VT community… an unspeakable tragedy.</p>
<p>I agree with Art (#62). No gun control would’ve stopped someone this intent on killing. The focus right now needs to be on helping the community heal, not on using it to forward a personal agenda.</p>
<p>Such a sad day…</p>
<p>prayers to all.</p>
<p>D just called from Boston College where they had been out watching the marathon runners going past their school. She had just heard about VT, and was so upset!!! We know soooooo many kids there and she wanted to know if I knew if kids were ok. So far I know some are, but haven’t heard about others. Those of us in Virginia are worried sick about these kids, and I feel such a pain in my heart that we will know some of those who are wounded or killed–may God be with them and their families! Still waiting to hear from S2 (at Duke) if he knows anything about his friends there.</p>
<p>22 dead; 28 being treated in area hospitals according to local tv station. See Dean J link on the first page.</p>
<p>I live in Maryland, but my next-door neighbor’s daughter goes to Virginia Tech. </p>
<p>People all over are waiting for news.</p>
<p>Heartbreaking. Those who say gun control would not have prevented this might ask themselves the question, in what other supposedly civilized country do mass killings of young people happen as they have here? </p>
<p>They are all our children. I feel their blood on all our hands and I am praying not only for the suffering families but for our country and its leaders.</p>
<p>irishforever, I hope that no one you know has been injured or killed. This is just horrible. My thoughts and prayers are with you and all those at VT.</p>
<p>Art,
This tragedy is a political event, and it’s time for people to do whatever it takes to stop this kind of gun violence that is causing so much pain in this country. There literally is no place in this country where one can feel comfortable that this kind of violence will not happen. Many such crimes are impulsive acts of violence by temporarily angry people. If the people had lacked guns, they may have been able to harm some people, but their violence probably wouldn’t have been lethal.</p>
<p>When I lived in Detroit, 100 children 16 and under were murdered each year; many were killed by handguns.</p>
<p>When I taught a writing class there to a dozen stellar high school students and gave them each the assignment of a personal essay to write, 5 of the 12 chose to write about murders.</p>
<p>This included a student whose 13-year-old brother had been shot to death in a dispute with his best friend over a glass of water. It also included a high school seniort who said that 12 members murdered from of her original freshman class of 400 had been murdered. </p>
<p>Two years later, one of the 12 students, then a college freshman with a merit scholarship, was convicted of second degree manslaughter after he opened his car trunk so his friend could take out an ouzi and shoot up a home where someone had dissed the friend that night at a party.</p>
<p>Recently, in the normally very peaceful college town where we now live, one of my husband’s star students was shot to death by a guy who wanted to date her. </p>
<p>One of my graduate school professors from GWU was shot to death in a car jacking.</p>
<p>A guy who was in the graduate class behind me was shot to death while driving a taxicab to help pay his bills. He had a couple of young children, and his wife had brain cancer.</p>
<p>A classmate of my husband’s wife was shot to death by their two-year-old who found their dad’s handgun in a nighttable drawer.</p>
<p>The U.S. has one of the highest murder rates in the world because we so freely allow people to own guns. </p>
<p>I know only one person who has managed to protect themselves by using a gun: A woman who pointed a gun at her violent husband and scared him off for good. That one situation in which owning a gun helped a person doesn’t make up for the many people whom I know who were harmed by gun violence often from temporarily angry people who probably if guns hadn’t been available would have committed much less harm.</p>
<p>Those who are trying to check in with friends/family, it’s often easier to get a text message out when cell phones aren’t working.</p>
<p>I don’t know why, but during/after Katrina, friends in NOLA took to texting because it worked more often than getting a cell phone call to go through.</p>
<p>I hope you all hear from your loved ones soon.</p>
<p>4 of injured in critical condition …such horror</p>
<p>Updated 25 dead now</p>
<p>Words can’t describe how disgusted I am at today’s news!</p>
<p>The friends and families of Va Tech students are in my prayers!</p>
<p>aparent, I didn’t mean gun control wasn’t needed. I just meant the timing might not be the best to focus on that. Also, where there’s a will, there’s a way - and this shooter obviously was determined to do significant damage. I believe in this kind of situation, it’s not as easy to say gun control would’ve prevented it.</p>
<p>Now they are saying 30 people dead. This is unbelievable. How can anyone do that to others?</p>