What is Digg?57 Comments
- ralewis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+19Another 2 cents of mine. It pisses me how there are people in this world who feed off tragedies such as the shooting at our school.
People such as
-Dr. Phil
-Jack Thompson
-douche bags apart of www.godhatesamerica.com
especially so soon after the event occurred. - YellowStar, on 10/12/2007, -7/+23Typical, they neglected a Canadian instructor also killed.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2007/04/17/qc-quebecvictim20070417.html - Ninja337, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14One of the professors was a Romanian Holocaust survivor. He sacrificed his life to save this student.
- ralewis, on 10/12/2007, -3/+16This is a horrible event which happened yesterday...I'm still not exactly sure how to feel just yet, since no one i knew directly was affected...but two people my friends knew were, which is horrible.
These professors were great people, and it's a sad sight to see them gone.
Needless to say, it's rather creepy being on campus still especially as most of the other people seem to be going home to their families. - amitton, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11The guy is not a gunman. He is a killer. The event is not a tragedy. It was an act of evil.
- NerveBand, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Why would it matter? It was already said that there was no political motive behind the massacre.
- foolfromhell, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11I still cant believe somebody would go and kill 33 people in a school...
Some people are driven over the edge...
Murderers are made, not born. - 1ivewire, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11With all due respect, this article was about professors, not instructors.
- SuperSunny, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10While your comment seems to fit in correctly, it's missing something.
1. He was a gunman. He had guns. He shot people.
2. He was evil? No, there really is no evil. It could work both ways. Good people coming in to shoot the evil. He was just depressed. Madly. - flak9, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Purdue President Martin Jischke just released a statement about the two professors (who happen to be Purdue alumni) today.
http://news.uns.purdue.edu/x/2007a/070417JischkeVatech.html - killinger777, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4"Need I mention that the gun was legally purchased and that this would have been difficult to accomplish with a baseball bat?"
The real problem is that the school is a so called "gun free zone." Which in effect, means that only criminals have the guns. - broohaha, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4thediggpig: "NOT ONCE have I heard the media ask were this kid got these weapons"
Well, actually, they may not be asking because they know the answer and they're simply reporting it. I don't know what news publication(s) you're getting your news from, but I've already read it froma few sources that the guns were purchased from two different gun stores. Cho may have filed off the serial number, but they were able to find the receipt of at least one of the purchases.
And it wasn't hard for him to obtain them. As a person with no prior history of crimes and being a legal resident, he was able to clear the background checks and purchase them legally.
One of -many- articles on how he purchased the guns:
http://www.wjla.com/news/stories/0407/415129.html - SuperFarStucker, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3It is disturbing that so many are turning this into a political platform to advocate gun control. A similar thing happened in UK approximately a decade ago and the consequences of the ban have been rather insubstantial. In UK gun crime has steadily increased since firearm prohibition, this claim is sourced @ wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_the_United_Kingdom#Homicide_and_firearms_crime . It is of note that the UK was already a country with extremely low gun ownership rates (.1% is what wikipedia cites) prior to prohibition (also sourced @ wikipedia).
Gun control isn't the answer. It is impossible to control the flow of weapons into this country or any country for that matter so the only real affect firearm prohibition would have would be the empowerment of criminals. It is plausible that circumstances similar to these may be averted entirely -- but the deficit will be more than paid by the increase in unchecked violent crime (precisely what is happening in the UK).
Need I remind everyone that firearms are not the only way to commit mass murder. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_city_bombing .
It is unfortunate that some people choose to prey upon the defenseless as their final act on this earth. The answer to this, however, is not to strip all of us of our right to self defense. - jizzimmy, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7It just isn't fair that so many good people had to die because of the acts of one selfish piece of *****.
RIP - Creeture, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Yes, you did get way off topic, but since we're here, let us discuss it.
Guns are not evil. Guns do not kill people. We've discussed this many times in many threads for many years, but that fact remains. The media does not care where the guns came from because that is not the story. The media should not care that he was a South Korean because that is not the story. There is no reason to care that this happened at Virginia Tech because that is not the story. Are we going to get off onto the video game thing again? Because if we are, let's remember: that is definitely not the story. Maybe he was sexually abused as a child, maybe he was sexually abused on Sunday, but that is not the story.
Do you want to know what the story is? The story is that it is "Somebody Else's Problem" (thank you Douglas Adams). For me, for you, for the mindless readers and watchers of the world, it is something that we see as a horrible tragedy that happened to other people. It didn't happen to us. We'll be pissed off, we'll be concerned about the families and friends who will mourn. Legislation will be brought up, they'll call it Cho's Referendum or some such, and it will continue to be somebody else's problem. Then we will go on about our lives. The guns will be blamed, but the guns didn't do it. A .22 and a 9mm will be allowed no matter how strict you make gun control laws. The old adage goes something like, "If you make it a crime to own guns, then only criminals will own guns." That again makes it somebody else's problem. I'm not even talking about the shooting anymore, I'm talking about our civilization, the people of the United States of America. We will let anyone that wants to control us (read: government) make our decisions for us because hey, it's somebody else's problem after all. You can't legislate morality, you have to let people live their lives. If living includes some people dying, then maybe we aren't doing something right. Maybe try to make it your problem instead of somebody else's.
This turned into a complete ramble and for that I apologize. I started off to say something but got mired in the politics of things. Can we please stop putting people in control who only want more power, money, and control and get some damned common sense up there? - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Name calling. Cute. Did you learn that in 1st grade, or 2nd grade?
Why is it callous to decide to turn OFF the media blitz that is "We're the best news on the planet, because we can tell you precisely what the gunman ate for lunch?" If you want to read about this story, there are gazillions of places to get it from. My point is simply, do we need to bring it here too? And you, my friend, need to get outside and interact with people....not everyone out there is talking about this like O'Reily and Oprah. Turn off the tv... you will survive. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4I *really* dont mean to sound uncaring about this....and Im sure Ill be dugg down, but I just need to say...
dont you guys think that the media is doing enough of a wiz-bang job on this story, that we don't really need it blasted every so often on Digg? There isnt a television station or radio program that isnt talking about this. Everyone has an opinion about it. Seems like the media frenzy is in full force on this issue. Turning into issues of foriegn students, gun control, blah blah blah... The fact is, there's just not much more to really say. It happened.
I am very sorry about their loses. But I think that even the victim's friends and family might appreciate a nice quiet place to go hide out for awhile, without being blasted with more stories about what happened. Some folks use the Internet as an escape from reality. Let Nancy Grace-less, Geraldo, Fox's "friends", and O'Reilly handle all this. - burke, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2How is that sad? I'm trying so hard to resist the urge to turn this into a gun control debate, so I'll leave it at this:
Albert Einstein once said something to the effect of: "There are only two things infinite: The universe; and human stupidity. I'm not entirely sure about the former." - there, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1........
"Well thats funny, because there IS no rational reason for what he did"
........
We're playing with semantics here. He was irrational yes but what it comes down to is do you believe that the universe has rules that can be described? There are processes in his mind and life that occured that can be broken down futher than then euphemistic "he's the devil. He's the devil". It sounds to me like your more interested in punishing people rather than trying to find solutions to problems. I'm not saying we should let dangerous roam freely, only that we should examine the causes.
..........
I think your example of the cows is a non-sequiter. Sure, you may figure out what he claims his reasons are, and come up with a theory about HIM, but he's dead. Your theory will have no predictive value. But in order to figure out that he was sick and get treatment to him preemptively, we would also have had to violate his privacy and rights. There have always been psycopaths and maladjusts and I resent you saying that I'm being irrational for recognizing that you can't force people to be other than they are.
..........
Schizophrenics were once looked at as "evil" too now they are treated with drugs. This is not "stepping on their rights" because they weren't functioning properly in the first place. If some crazy starts yanking it in public he'll be arrested. This isn't stepping on his rights... its protecting everyone elses. Laws exist to decide what happens when two interests conflict someone always loses something that's the nature of choice.
I'm pretty sure technology in the future is going to improve to the point we can spot problems before they happen.
.......
We don't even understand psychiatry enough to prevent depression, and now you want to figure out how he came to lose his moral footing and somehow prevent it in the future. Good luck, you'll need to put cameras in every childs home to make sure the parents aren't ever abusive. And yet, even though many people are abused, he was the one who decided to spread around his pain. He made himself, as we all do, and to try to make him different is an insult to human dignity and personal freedoms.
.......
Why is it illegal to have sex with children when it was common decades ago? What data do you think drove their creation? Do you view those laws as an insult to human dignity and personal freedom?.Would you repeal them?
.......
And ultimately you're trying to blame society; that we failed our responsibility to fix other people. I disagree. Its not society's fault. Its his.
.......
Absolutely not. You have some stereotype in your head but its not me. My motive is to solve problems so me, my wife and my kids.. and hopeful you and yours never have to run into the same problem.
People have the tendency to think that because some problem has always existed..it always will. IMO this is a very negative attitude. Where would all the fantastic things in this world be if all the people that first improved things said "oh its never been done... we'll never know how.... it's impossible".
Any ancient philosopher would have told you x-rays are clearly impossible using what appeared to be a priori thinking. They would have been wrong though. Thankful there is this thing called empericism that leads to all sorts of wonderful things. Think back a million years ago what man knew and look at him today. Maybe I'm an optimist but I get the distinct feeling nothing we can imagine is impossible. The only thing that limits us is our own ability to solve a given problem. - groovytrance, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@xlar54
I understand what you're saying..
But for some, digg is a primary source of news. That's kind of its purpose; to find interesting and/or new information that's of common interest. Take people like me for example who don't have cable/satellite or listen to the radio (yes, by choice). Where would I get my news from if not the Internet? I honestly had no idea about this incident until I got online late last night. - broohaha, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1ricefarmer: "notice all the asian and korean community leaders and groups all send their condolenses to the victims and worry about how the world will think of asians in general? while the muslims haven't said ***** about 9/11 or london or any other ***** terrorist attack... the leaders say their ***** and go behind closed doors and praise the hi jackers....
"see the difference in culture?"
Actually, countries from all over the world sent in their condolences after the 9/11 attack. You may have forgotten that the unified support for Bush and the U.S. was not limited to the Democrats and Republicans and people in the U.S. We had international support worldwide. It's why we were well-backed in our attack on Afghanistan.
Now, Saudi Arabia was and continues to be no where near apologetic about the fact that it was mostly Saudis that were in those planes. And indeed there were those in the fringe that celebrated the incident. But let's not use that to obscure that fact the Muslim world in large part expressed their condolences.
Also, just a reminder, Muslims don't comprise of one culture, and they're not exclusively Arabic, either. - umbrae, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I don't see the guy who held the door shut from the previous dugg article.
Does that mean he survived?
Edit:
This one:
http://www.digg.com/world_news/I_don_t_think_my_teacher_got_out_VT_prof_sacrfices_life_to_save_students - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3It's sad this didn't need to happen.I don't want to get off topic but I hear people in media blaming violent video games and such for what happened,
The real problem here is there are guns being sold on every street corner and
all it takes is a angry kid(who probably got picked on) to get one
and go completely berserk.I'm not trying to be disrespectful but I'm
surprised this doesn't happen more often.
It really angers me,that NOT ONCE have I heard the media ask were this
kid got these weapons.They use violent video games as an excuse just
to hide the fact that gun manufacturers are making to much profit selling us
these weapons.
Sorry I had to get that off my chest. - there, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1" think its a waste of time trying to figure out how sickos like him get created."
You are arguing purely from a moralistic perspective. You should be arguing from a rational one.
If we do root cause analysis to improve things, history repeat themselves. You can ignore him as much as you personally want.... I can assure you the system won't and will fine pick every aspect of his existence.
This incidentally is how we went from burning witches at the stake for dead cows.... to figuring out how to keep our cows healthy without the need of a mob and fire. - joelevi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Related: http://digg.com/world_news/Virginia_Tech_policy_created_an_ideal_killing_ground_for_criminals
- www.JoeLevi.com - nickerj1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It isn't about gun deaths. It's about violent crimes. The amount of violent crimes increase as the gun control laws increase in severity.
And the argument about gun related accidents is moot, because with proper training, accidents are preventable. In Maryland, we have some of the strictest gun laws in the US. It is impossible to get a CCW permit in Maryland unless you're retired police or a gun dealer. We also have some of the worst violent crime in the nation. Why? Criminals know they have the upper hand in every situation.
Because I'm a law abiding citizen, I don't carry my handgun with me. To be completely honest, the VT shooting scares the ***** out of me. Because I know that if someone goes crazy on my campus and comes into my classroom, there is absolutely nothing I can do but wait for the calvary to arrive. We see how effective that was at VT. I know the officers did a good job at stopping the gunman. But there is no way that they could ever respond quick enough to save the everyone. My personal safety is no longer in my hands.
The reason Universities are different than other buildings with lots of people is the amount of entrance security. There probably isn't a University in the nation that has armed guards at each University building doing searches.
And if you want evidence of what concealed carry can do, look at the 2002 shooting at the Appalachian School of Law. A student went berserk and killed three people. Two other students, both with concealed handguns (Before they were outlawed on Virginia campuses), engaged the shooter and stopped him. - Afreyt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Well thats funny, because there IS no rational reason for what he did. So its funny that you'ld say I'm the one being irrational for saying you can't figure this one out and never will.
I think your example of the cows is a non-sequiter. Sure, you may figure out what he claims his reasons are, and come up with a theory about HIM, but he's dead. Your theory will have no predictive value. But in order to figure out that he was sick and get treatment to him preemptively, we would also have had to violate his privacy and rights. There have always been psycopaths and maladjusts and I resent you saying that I'm being irrational for recognizing that you can't force people to be other than they are. We don't even understand psychiatry enough to prevent depression, and now you want to figure out how he came to lose his moral footing and somehow prevent it in the future. Good luck, you'll need to put cameras in every childs home to make sure the parents aren't ever abusive. And yet, even though many people are abused, he was the one who decided to spread around his pain. He made himself, as we all do, and to try to make him different is an insult to human dignity and personal freedoms.
And ultimately you're trying to blame society; that we failed our responsibility to fix other people. I disagree. Its not society's fault. Its his. - Afreyt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Theres a difference between figuring out how to keep crazy people from killing others, and figuring out how we could have "recognized" the insanity. Until we start the thought police, his motivations don't matter. He was responsible for his actions. I'm generally not for or against gun control, because whether I have the right or not I wouldn't use it. But if one sane person in that building had a gun, instead of cowering behind desks and doors they could have prevented him from killing more people.
But I think its a waste of time trying to figure out how sickos like him get created. Abused as a child, alienated as an adult, it doesn't matter. Nothing happened to him that hasn't happened (or worse) to thousands of other people who are rational enough not to go on killing sprees. Life is pain, there is no reason to add more because you felt angry about something. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2notice all the asian and korean community leaders and groups all send their condolenses to the victims and worry about how the world will think of asians in general? while the muslims haven't said ***** about 9/11 or london or any other ***** terrorist attack... the leaders say their ***** and go behind closed doors and praise the hi jackers....
see the difference in culture? - BTfreek, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1That professor was Liviu Librescu, who actually is mentioned in the article- his picture is the one in the centre.
- there, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1
What you neglect to mention is the UK already has far far stricter gun laws than the US AND far far less gun deaths. A slightly important point don't you think? Criminals have easy access to guns because there is a larger supply of them on the market. There is no factory for "criminal guns". Remove the vast quantifies of guns from the market it becomes harder to acquire for criminals.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2005/06/28/gun-deaths050628.html
What I find disturbing is people having yet-again witnessed the effects of lax gun laws and want to doom even more people to unnecessary deaths in the future out of stubborn pride. What' particularly frustrating is countless first world nations already have strict guns laws.... and far fewer gun deaths per capita.
For those interested in facts not Heston speeches (and make sure to check out the date of the Brady bill and gun deaths trends after it)
http://www.campaignadvantage.com/services/websites/archive/agsfoundation/asp/gundeaths.asp - Afreyt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1You are WAY off base lecturing me on empiricism.
And as an aside, Yes, forcing a schizophrenic onto medication they don't want IS a violation of their civil rights. As someone who has had to deal with reticent psychiatric patients in the past, it is extremely difficult to know where the line is when one is morally compelled to intervene against the patient's wishes. I appreciate your faith in science and your desire to fix everything wrong with other people, but the first person one needs to fix, before one goes to solve everyone else's problems is yourself.
Cho said "we could have stopped him a billion times over". I say "Cho could have stopped himself ONCE", and we're wasting our time. But since its not my money you're wasting trying to figure out what society did wrong, be my guest. While you're busy working on the problem of "Why evil?" I'll be trying to solve some more tractable problems that aren't being created by bad parenting and poor socialization.
As far as I'm concerned, we HAVE had a billion chances. Every Columbine, Every Oklahoma City, this naval-gazing happens, and nothing changes. If you're going to talk about preventing Cho's, I'd like to see some results this time around. Otherwise its just more people talking out of their ass trying to feel superior. I am a scientist, and THE principle problem is where to put money to get the most solid information you can per dollar. It is not with trying to figure out what went wrong with Cho. With 7 Billion people on the planet, a few Cho's are going to happen no matter what scientific-psycho-utopia you try to build. - gardnert1, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1It seems America is once again getting international sympathy for the death of 32 college kids... Is that all it takes to get pity from the world? There are hundreds dying every day in Iraq; where is THEIR pity? There is genocide in Darfur; where is THEIR pity? All I'm saying is that these sentiments of pity for Virginia Tech's tragedy are awfully fake. People don't ACTUALLY care what happened; rather, they just want people to THINK they care. Call me pessimistic, but that's generally how the world works these days. There's no point trying to deny it.
- umbrae, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Edit: (whoops. double post)
- there, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1....
"he real problem is that the school is a so called "gun free zone." Which in effect, means that only criminals have the guns."
....
Jurisdictions and households with less guns have been shown again and again to have far less gun deaths. The guy that bought the gun wasn't a criminal. It was purchased LEGALLY. You seem to be arguing that on the chance some guy with 9mm was in class that day we would have saved the day right but this is flawed logic.
What you don't say is having zilliions of schools with people with 9mms running around every day would lead to dramatically MORE deaths than might have been possibly saved on an off chance one day of one year at one school someone pulled out a gun and managed to stop him. Policing is the role of police... not vigilantes.
I wonder how many more times this has to happen before people realize their do need to be tougher gun control laws. I'm not for outright banning them but perhaps limiting the types of weapons further, requiring better training, extending waiting periods even longer (prevents some crimes of passion) and limiting where these weapons can be stored (e.g. gun ranges) - deanau, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1If only the students were wearing their iPods.
- jchrome, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1With a comment like that--you're either a mentally disturbed sociopath, 12 years old or a complete emotional retard. I recommend professional counseling.
- jchrome, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1It's ONE DAY LATER asshat. Jeezus have people become so callous and jaded in this day and age that they can't mourn/discuss/reflect for a ***** DAY when 32 innocent people are slaughtered for no good reason? You need to get the ***** outside and actually interact with other humans. Your soul is shriveling up fast.
- catalysis, on 10/12/2007, -4/+3Then people would complain that America is too concerned about foreign issues and not enough about national issues...because people like you always find something to bitch about.
- rabidjade, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Another article that's going to shovel coal into the furnace of gun control. Sad
- there, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1......
"I think we spend more time talking about him and his motivations, and what was wrong with him, than the waste of skin deserves"
......
I disagree. I think that's precisely what's important. Otherwise we are just going to miss the warning signs the next time someone tries to set the bar higher and doom more to the same fate.
There are reasons why people do such things. While we might view them as sick or immoral there still are always reasons. If average people learn about the underlaying forces it helps reduce the number of future tragedies but if we ignore them we'll have learned nothing and the lives of these people will have ended for nothing. This is dishonorable.
We need to examine ever step which lead to this event and what steps we could have taken that may have broken the chain of events. (e.g. Need I mention that the gun was legally purchased and that this would have been difficult to accomplish with a baseball bat?) - FatalTragedy316, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1I'm pretty sure Digg didn't exist in 1994.
- burke, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Consider Jack Thompson's immediate response to this event and rescan that statement for humour. You might find some. I did.
- crawfishsoul, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1forget it, digg me down.
- killinger777, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2"Murderers are made, not born."
I don't buy that. No one is responsible for this sick ***** actions but himself. End of story. - bluenash, on 10/12/2007, -5/+3A nation mourns.
- stealth658, on 10/12/2007, -6/+4RIP
- Afreyt, on 10/12/2007, -7/+4I think we spend more time talking about him and his motivations, and what was wrong with him, than the waste of skin deserves. He was insane. What his reasons were don't matter. Maybe the sky was the wrong sound of tapioca yesterday.
- levyjl1988, on 10/12/2007, -5/+1I think that killer played too much Counter Strike, I mean holy ***** 32 people! WTF!
- BLACKEAGLE, on 10/12/2007, -6/+2hey deltabourne i am sure the digg based out of Rwanda has there one million slaughtered on there front page you jack ass
-
Show 51 - 55 of 55 discussions
Browsing Digg on your phone just got easier with our enhancements to the 
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is