32 dead in Va - why do you care?

[eleanorigby]

@TokyoPlayer

Original sin? WTF?

Well, people say that either these types are mentally ill (funny, most of the mentally ill I’ve known are more afraid of us than we are of them) OR they chalk it up to “man is evil, since Cain slew Abel.”
I think both “theories” are bullshit and allow us to deplore these tragedies while doing nothing to stop them.

I have no idea what can be done–these guys are always shot and killed, either by themselves or a cop. We don’t know what goes through their minds–what triggers this type of behavior. I would like to know–I would think we all would want to figure it out.
I also think of future Christmases or holidays, birthdays etc.

[MaddyStrut]

@Dinsdale

I’m a bit curious at the folk who identify a personal connection with the victims or the settings:
I am a college student; I was a college student; I know a college student; I worked there; I work at a college; etc.
I wonder if or how you draw lines as to which tragedies are related/meaningful to you. Do you feel badly for every victim of a drunk driver just because you have at some time been in a car? I’m serious. Really trying to figure out why some senseless tragedies affect some folk more than others.
When those Amish kids were killed did you empathize because they were little girls, or not because they were members or an odd religious sect?
A couple of months back a couple of lawyers were shot by an irate client in the office building in downtown Chicago that also houses my train station. Hey, I’m a lawyer working in an office building a couple of blocks away, and I pass through that building two times every work day! But my primary concern was what the police response would do to my commute home.

This is a better answer than I could give:

@Intravenus De Milo

It’s not so simple to equate the Va Tech shootings to, for example, bus bombings in Israel or genocide in Sudan, because the latter two are much less random. While true, they are terrible events, sad to say they are also not entirely unexpected given the political and societal conditions at the time and place of their occurrence. There’s something about the suddenness and randomness of an event like the recent shootings that evokes more profound emotions in people; perhaps it’s because we are reminded that death on such a scale is NOT entirely removed from us, in lands torn by constant war and atrocities.

I don’t get incredibly upset hearing about a victim of drunk driving because it’s not such an unusual occurrence. Drunk driving accidents are something that I’ve already accepted can happen to me or my loved ones. I drive defensively around bar closing times and watch out so my friends don’t drive after drinking, but, besides that, I just accept the risks.

I was upset by the shooting of the Amish children. I haven’t yet come to the point where I accept school shooting as just another risk.

[Lissa]

I am extremely empathetic to those who experienced such a loss. It is sad, it is tragic and it does not make sense.

I wish them only the best as they pass through the phases of grieving. I hope they movee quickly through the self damaging phases of anger and depression, and gain a level of acceptance that is positive and progressive.

I hope the survivors mentally come to grips with this and move on with their lives with as little scarring as possible.

I hope the responding officers do not carry too much regret for going right when they should have went left. I hope they do not question their courage when they waited for back-up instead of charging in.

I hope the administration at VT do not listen to detractors who call them stupid or insensitive that they did not “do something to stop this”. I hope no one, parents, students, teachers, admins or cops second guess themselves.

However, I know they will, and I wish upon all of them the strength to ignore the rest of the idiots in this country and focus on the good will that those among us who are intelligent, wise and thoughtful send their way.

But, I am even more concerned about the politicians, pundits, right-wingers, left-wingers, morons and media who will use this to spurn another moral panic that will focus our attention on the Dancing Monkey.

I only wish we, as a society, could collectively say, “damn that sucks, I am sorry” and then move on. There will be lawsuits, blame games, political manueverings etc…

God help us if there is a copycat in the next few months, then we will be in full blown moral panic that will only waste time, resources and brain cells.
That’s how I feel. Oh, and I hope it never happens to me.

[enigm4tic]

@enigm4tic

I’d suggest taking this to the pit thread, where arguments like this are being hashed out in detail. (thread is: Catsix, STFU)
You can even personally insult people there.

oops, btw I’m an idiot, thought I was in the MPSIMS thread when I read this exchange, apologies (though the other thread DOES hash it out better)

[sinjin]

@Intravenus De Milo

FWIW, and I don’t think I’ve seen anyone mention this, but the school massacre in Beslan, Chechnya a few years ago struck me as a terrible tragedy as well.

I also was horrified/outraged what’s the right word? by the Chechnya massacre but mostly because it was rational??? adults vs innocent children.

I left out most of your very eloquent post. Please consider becoming a member.

[Frostillicus]

I am a teacher, so this naturally bothers the hell out of me.

[silenus]

@sinjin

I left out most of your very eloquent post. Please consider becoming a member.

I’ll pay your freight if you want. Drop me an email…it’s in my profile.

[Intravenus_De_Milo]

@MaddyStrut

This is a better answer than I could give:

Say, thanks!

@MaddyStrut

I don’t get incredibly upset hearing about a victim of drunk driving because it’s not such an unusual occurrence. Drunk driving accidents are something that I’ve already accepted can happen to me or my loved ones. I drive defensively around bar closing times and watch out so my friends don’t drive after drinking, but, besides that, I just accept the risks.

I was upset by the shooting of the Amish children. I haven’t yet come to the point where I accept school shooting as just another risk.

That’s a good point, and I hadn’t thought about the Amish school shooting when I originally posted. I don’t think there’s anything crass or ethnocentric about having particularly strong feelings about an event like this, because it just sort of takes you by surprise. While it’s true that many more people are killed each year by drunk drivers than by school shooters, drunk driving fatalities are also not normally the product of any sort of malice or calculated aggression. Everyone knows it’s a bad idea to drive while impaired, and it’s not so hard to comprehend the results when someone does it anyway. With a school shooting, on the other hand, you can’t help but think of what in the world must have been going through the mind of the shooter. Not just total disregard for the lives of others, but a willingness to toy with their lives in such a way, for some incomprehensible purpose. That alone, to me, is sickening.

About a year ago, a student who attended my high school confessed to having murdered both his parents. But that to me was not the most upsetting aspect of the event: what was upsetting was the fact that he apparently killed them both with a combined 7-8 rounds from a single-barrel shotgun, implying cold calculation with each reload. What was also upsetting was that he barricaded the door to the room where he hid their bodies with the bodies themselves…and then invited several of his friends over to the house a couple of weeks later for a pre-prom party, showing utter apathy for the fact that he had introduced them, unwittingly on their part, into a scene of such horror.

So it’s not necessarily the fact that this madman killed 32 people that upsets people. It’s also the fact that he killed them with no rhyme, reason, or agenda, other than his own anger and marginalizing attitude towards the lives of others.

[Argent_Towers]

@Scornhole

While this is a terrible tragedy, it’s too bad we as a society only express shock and sadness when this kind of thing happens to white people. Things like this (and worse) have been happening in places like Iraq, Sudan, and the Congo on a daily basis for years, and when it happens here once it’s like the end of the world. If anything good can come out of it, the Virginia shooting should remind us to be grateful of how lucky we actually are.

I don’t understand what your point is in bringing this up. The Virginia shooting feels more painful to us because it happened here in our country. Incidents in Iraq or the Congo don’t carry the same weight, obviously, because they happen far away. And it has nothing to do with “white people” either. It’s not like we got particularly worked up over the Beslan school massacre in Russia, either, and all those people were white.

[BobPi]

I find this very disturbing and disheartening. What drives someone to do something like that? What’s wrong with such people and with society that creates such a condition or doesn’t recognize and react to it? It may be impossible to know, and even if we did know, it might be impossible to address anyway.

I deal with news like this by abstracting it, moving it from an emotional plane to an intellectual one.

[straight_man]

Here’s my thought on the matter: death is, paradoxically, both highly personal and highly impersonal in its tragedy.

On the one hand, thirty-nine (?) people are dead. That’s not even a blip. Consider that last Friday was the thirteenth anniversary of the beginning of the Rwandan genocide that killed 800,000 people. Or that, as I was reading yesterday evening, 400,000 political prisoners have died in Camp 22 in North Korea since its creation. Consider that, if we chose to treat tragedies with sadness proportionate to scale, we should spend our lives sobbing for the starving residents of Darfur.

On the other hand, tragedy happens person by person by person. As a student, I can imagine being gunned down so horridly in the middle of lessons. The tragedy of my life abridged would certainly matter to me, so it should matter to me when it happens to others.

Yet even by that second technique, I have a hard time prioritizing this particular tragedy. What does such an attack mean? You’re sitting in class, then you are horrified, then you are injured, then you are dead, in the “best years of your life”, having lived an easy life* in the world’s wealthiest country. Contrast to a baby born into Camp 22 (the authorities imprison entire extended families, not just individuals.) You know nothing but starvation, forced labour, rape, abuse, torture, and when you are no longer a sufficient worker, death. You never have hope of anything better, nor should you. If you’re that political prisoner, you would realize a fact of the world: those students were lucky. Thus, the important conclusion for me is that I’m so freaking lucky that I will never even be able to comprehend how lucky I am. In all, that’s probably a better lesson than, “Life sucks.”

*I understand the extent to which this is a ridiculous generalization, but work with me here.

[Ronald_Salmond_MD]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scornhole
You do realize that if everyone were carrying guns, people would inevitably end up shooting each other in panic in a situation like this. So instead of just having to disarm the gunman, the police would have to deal with a bunch of armed, freaked-out people who have become just as dangerous. Idiot.

Scylla responded:

Perhaps you should be careful and think things through before you call others idiots.

Do you really think that you could walk into a room full of heavily armed people, whip out a gun, order them all on the floor and get compliance?

I believe that the answer depends upon how well trained the room of heavily armed people are. I served in the US Army for 15 years. I served two combat tours (Infantry 11 Bravo). I’ve put the enemy within the crosshairs of the scope of my M-16, pulled the trigger, and then seen their head explode in a red mist. It’s not an easy thing to aim a firearm, pull the trigger, shoot another individual, (particularly when they have you under fire), and then confirm that you’ve killed them. I’ve seen highly trained soldiers freeze despite extensive training (and I’m talking about Army Rangers) under effective small arms, mortar or artillery fire. I can’t tell you the number of experienced soldiers I’ve seen shit or piss in their pants in these situations. Many of the people who died at VA Tech would have been killed anyway even if they were armed. First, many of them were caught by surprise. The alleged gunman acted in a very coordinated fashion. It’s reported that he chained the doors in advance to prevent the exit of his victims. He was goal directed. It’s remarkable that he didn’t kill more individuals. I’d be interested in knowing how many rounds did he actually expend. He went through there eliminating people like he had special ops counter insurgency training. Secondly, many of the people would have hesitated to use a firearm even if they were allowed to possess a firearm on the campus. If one of the victims had discharged a firearm that they had in their possession, I think it is more likely they would have killed an innocent person rather than the gunman. Experienced law enforcement officers and soldiers often kill each other in friendly fire (remember Pat Tillman, he was a member of the elite 75th Ranger Regiment and was killed by fellow Rangers). I’ve known of instances where trained law enforcement officers have been disarmed by unarmed individuals as a result of their hesitation to use deadly force. As I alluded to in an earlier post, simply having a permit to carry a concealed firearm makes it no easier to pull the trigger of a weapon when it becomes necessary for one to do so when your life and the life of others is at stake.

[pool]

You know why I fucking care? Because one of the dead victims, Ryan Clark was in band with me in highschool and we both played Euphonium and he sat right next to me for years and we had some fun times playing at football games and concerts and having conversations. I kept up with him a little bit and talked to him online. What an absolute waste of life and potential. I can’t imagine what his parents and his twin brother must be going through right now. I’m sure when they heard about it they thought well its a big school I’m sure he is fine.

[Zoe]

My older stepson attended VT in the 1990’s. We were estranged at the time and are again estranged. Yet there has never been an angry word exchanged between us.

Is it any wonder that I feel numb about what happened today? I’ve blocked my feelings just as surely as I’ve learned to block them with that stepson.

I’m usually a very empathetic person. I can take things so hard that it’s not good for me. I don’t want to let this one in.

[Intravenus_De_Milo]

@sinjin

I left out most of your very eloquent post. Please consider becoming a member.

Thanks a lot! 8) I’m planning on it, actually. I’m getting very fed up with another news/current events board that I frequent, where the threads routinely degrade into hyper-zealous religious hissy-fits, and I’m glad to see that many of the people here seem to be more articulate and civilized than that. Even when I don’t agree with people here, at least they seem to argue their own side with a bit more tact. Which is quite pleasant, really

[sinjin]

@pool

You know why I fucking care? Because one of the dead victims, Ryan Clark was in band with me in highschool and we both played Euphonium and he sat right next to me for years and we had some fun times playing at football games and concerts and having conversations. I kept up with him a little bit and talked to him online. What an absolute waste of life and potential. I can’t imagine what his parents and his twin brother must be going through right now. I’m sure when they heard about it they thought well its a big school I’m sure he is fine.

Damn pool I know this isn’t MPSIMS but damn. I’m not a huggy person but damn if you were here I’d hug you.

[straight_man]

Pool, I am very sorry for your loss.

[MoodIndigo1]

Pool, I’m so sorry. {{{Pool}}}

[SailBunny]

I can’t get over the arrogance of such an action. So sure, you’re feeling depressed, lonely, hopeless, and YOU are the pilot of your own life…but to walk into a university building, and line students up execution style who have never done a damn thing to you, and just choose to erase them from existence, then I hope that you die 1000000 horrible deaths in a hell more horrible than I can imagine. Its just so meaningless.

War, at least on the surface level is supposed to have some sort of meaning, and there is a bit of expectation, a bit of risk, and a bit of dignity that surrounds such a death.

Perhaps it is just being a college student, and trying to imagine sitting in class, thinking about the assignments I have to do, or the date I have next Friday, or whatever, and some freakazoid god complex rolling in and blasting us all away, simply because he wants to. I know that everyday there are similiar senseless acts commited, serial killers, robbers, lovers quarrels, car accidents. But this was a cold blooded massacre. Theres a difference.

I cannot even fathom how this doesn’t strike a chord of empathy in some people.

[Cat_Whisperer]

Ronald Salmond, that was also an excellent post.