6:23pm (the reference frame blog) – Supposed student account with SPECULATION of the gunman’s identity.
6:15 pm (AP) — List of deadliest campus shootings.
5:30pm (SFN) — Press conference just ended in Blacksburg. There was a student reporter from “15 minutes down the road” that you could identify as an amateur a mile way. The kid should not be allowed back to the 7:30pm briefing; he was horrible and embarassed himself beyond reproach.
5:20pm (BBC) — Eyewitness emails.
5:20 pm (Michelle Malkin) — You can also see an eyewitness email here. It is pretty amazing. The author calls the response from authorities “exemplary”.
5:15pm (ABC) — ABC News is running a fascinatingly perverted poll asking if the shooting is grounds for more gun control? I don’t understand this at all. Guns are already banned at Virginia Tech. They are ‘illegal’ in Norris Hall (where the murders occured). How is the solution to defend yourself against a deranged murderer who doesn’t care about ANY laws to tighten restrictions to keep guns out of the hands of law abiding citizens? (For the record, I have never owned a gun.)
^ This was pretty easy to call. Many pundits were predicting it almost immediately. The following comments were interesting.
As the initial shock wears off you can bet that the anti-Second Amendment people wall be coming out of the woodwork. By the time the evening network newscasts hit we will have no shortage of spokesmen for various anti-gun groups stepping forth to issue their tired call for an end to the private ownership of handguns.
…earlier this year the Virginia General Assembly failed to act on House Bill 1572. This bill would have allowed college students and employees to carry handguns on campus — with appropriate permits, of course. It died in subcommittee. Larry Hincker, a spokesman for Virginia Tech, the site of today’s carnage, said “I’m sure the university community is appreciative of the General Assembly’s actions because this will help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on our campus.”
How’s today for safety?
If it had been legal for students, employees or faculty members with permits to carry guns on the campus, is it at all possible that there might be some students alive today who didn’t make it through the carnage? Do you think the actions of the Virginia General Assembly stopped the gunman from getting his guns and carrying them to the campus?
This is undoubtedly the worst school shooting, high school, college or otherwise, in the history of our country. There are some facts, however, about some of these school shootings of which you probably are not aware. Do you know, for instance, that at least three shootings in high schools were stopped by civilians with guns? Civilians, not law enforcement. In one case a civilian was traveling past a school when he saw children running from the building. One told him that there was a student inside shooting people. The civilian pulled his gun, ran in side, and confronted the student. The student put down the gun and surrendered. In another case a high school vice-principal heard that there was a student in the hallways with a gun. He sprinted a half-mile to his car. He had a gun in his car so he had to park off campus. He then sprinted back with the gun to confront the student. Lives saved.
The point here is that you are never ever going to get the guns out of the hands of those who want to use them for carnage. Never. Gun control programs will only succeed in getting the guns out of the hands of people who want them and need them for self-defense. Never, in the history of America’s gun control movement, has anyone set forth a viable program to get the guns out of the hands of those who would use them to commit crimes. Similarly, the gun control movement will never give any fair coverage at all to the people who use guns to save their own lives, or the lives of others.
Perhaps it is prudent to recall some history related to today’s situation.
Late Afternoon (ABC) — 33 people confirmed dead. ABC News has some of “the first pictures” from the tragedy available here.
1:20 pm (ABC) — At 1:20pm ABCNews reported at least 32 fatalities with the number expected to rise.
Police at Virginia Tech say that the shootings happened at a dormitory and a classroom on opposite sides of the university campus in Blacksburg, Va.
Virginia Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum said that one person was killed in the first shooting, just after 7 a.m. at West Ambler Johnston Hall, a large dormitory. Flinchum said that at least 20 more people were killed in a later shooting at Norris Hall, an academic building.
(CNN) — The Virginia Tech police chief said at least 20 people were killed in twin shootings on the Blacksburg campus Monday morning. “Some victims were shot in a classroom,” Chief Wendell Flinchum said, adding that the gunman was dead.
(SFN) — Our prayers are with any and everyone with any connection to Blacksburg and VPI.
