<p>At least 20 people dead, according to CNN. One gunman who's dead too, now. Anyone know any details?</p>
<p>Well, from what I got at CNN.com, there were apparently two separate shootings, one in a dormitory area, one in an engineering buliding. A lot of panic going on, with people jumping out of buildings and such. And from what I saw CNN, campus is secure, but closed, will open again tomorrow without classes.</p>
<p>Absoultely tragic what's going on.</p>
<p>It's pretty messed up. Why would a guy just go around shooting kids?</p>
<p>hmm...I haven't checked the news in a while.</p>
<p>Now I have.</p>
<p>Well, considering how easy it is to get into dorms, and how any random person could look like a student's friend, it's not that surprising...</p>
<p>Now due to this, people all across the nation will crack down on campus security.</p>
<p>I remember all of the fuss over Columbine, though I was only 10 back then. Now it doesn't feel as personal anymore for some reason...</p>
<p>==</p>
<h1>Well, this might be a news item that will posted all over the Internet (and all over all sorts of online forums). <em>looks around</em></h1>
<h1>Now it's very likely that Virginia Tech will increase campus security a lot, and it's highly unlikely that a similar event would happen again since people there will be a lot more vigilant over it. But it's still nonetheless likely that applications for Virginia Tech will decrease next year as a result of this (anyone heard of how applications to Tulane were affected as a result of Katrina).</h1>
<p>On a side note, this could possibly leave more concerned parents to force their kids to stay nearby (applications to many universities declined following 9/11).</p>
<p>Just awful. My condolences to all of the families who were affected by this.</p>
<p>Virginia Tech will probably now be one of the safest, most secure colleges in the country.</p>
<p>My deepest condolences to all who are affected by this horrendous tragedy.</p>
<p>The eerie yet telling coincidence is that many of the college campus shootings in recent history, from the Iowa shooting to Virginia Tech shooting today have been committed Asians (Chinese, Indian, Taiwanese...).</p>
<p>i just spoke to a friend. she's pretty shaken up about it. many students are going home. rumor has it classes are cancelled for the week.</p>
<p>Just came home and saw this on AOL News. Im shocked and upset. Especially due to the fact that the second shooting took a full two hours after the first one. You would think that wouldn't be allowed to happen.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Why would a guy just go around shooting kids?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Simple. Cost/benefit analysis.</p>
<p>Depressed person hates the world. Depressed person looks for excitement. Depressed person wants to leave the world. Depressed person decides to take people along with him for some last-minute excitement.</p>
<p>Costs: Risk of getting caught by police before suicide
Benefits: The excitement of revenge + Successful Suicide</p>
<p>Most depressed people won't do such a thing. But out of all of the thousands there are, a few with combined anti-social and depression traits will have no impetus not to try - after all, they're going to kill themselves anyways. </p>
<p>This probably explains copycat incidents too. Someone at another school sees that it's possible to start a school shooting without getting caught by the police, and decides to try it as well.</p>
<p>EDIT:</p>
<p>In the next few days, we'll probably learn more about the shooter. We'll learn...</p>
<ul>
<li>whether the shooter was socially isolated or not (probably yes)</li>
<li>whether the shooter had depression/anti-social personality disorder/other mental illnesses or not</li>
<li>whether the shooter had medications or not</li>
<li>whether the shooter played violent video games/watched violent TV shows or not</li>
<li>the shooter's immediate family (or whether the shooter had a family or not)</li>
<li>whether the shooter had pursued support services or not, and whether they were adequate or not, and whether they helped or not (oftentimes, it is difficult to emphasize with such a person)</li>
</ul>
<p>Obviously, such trends must be identified within-context. Correlation does not imply causation, given that thousands more have the above psychological profiles and are still yet at little risk in causing a shooting spree.</p>
<p>As deeply saddened as I am about those twenty or so people who lost their lives for nothing, I'm glad the gunman is dead. Without even knowing him, I hate him more than anything on this Earth. Just senseless killing. Part of me wants to cry, part of me wants to punch something, part of me wants them to shoot the *****er to make sure he's dead...</p>
<p>Ugh.</p>
<p>
[quote]
As deeply saddened as I am about those twenty or so people who lost their lives for nothing, I'm glad the gunman is dead. Without even knowing him, I hate him more than anything on this Earth. Just senseless killing. Part of me wants to cry, part of me wants to punch something, part of me wants them to shoot the *****er to make sure he's dead...</p>
<p>Ugh.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Though I understand that you feel that way, why don't you feel hatred towards Hurricane Katrina, which killed far more people?</p>
<p>It seems a part of human nature to hate any entity that seems to have an "intentional stance" that has caused such damage. But to not hate any entity that has not been identified as having such a stance.</p>
<p>Hatred could be a deterrence to some (who have issues with social anxiety and depression). But maybe not to so-called sociopaths, who don't care whether other people hate them or not.</p>
<p>Now, let's identify a shooter as A.
It may be that A genuinely wants to get involved with other people - but then A's offers of socialization are rebuffed and then A gets resentful over a period of time, and finally contemplates such an act. Resentfulness often comes when A cares about what others think of A-self. So the question is, will hatred towards such people deter a potential A from such an act?</p>
<p>What about a sociopath?
The sociopath may not become resentful as such (not caring what others think of him), however, he has no moral inhibition towards committing such a murder. Not caring about what others think of him, he pursues what he likes to do. For a small subset of sociopaths, it seems to be murder. But it seems that most murderers fit in the category above - in the category of being resentful and depressed (as opposed to apathetic and sociopathic). </p>
<p>Hmm, I'm trying to find whether anti-social personality disorder has a significant comorbidity with depression or not.</p>
<p>Moreover, it depends on the murderer's moral circle - who the murderer values and who the murderer does not value. The murderer's moral circle may have been made smaller by various factors. Sociopaths have narrow moral circles.</p>
<h1>hmm <em>looks at Pubmed</em></h1>
<p>
[quote]
[Relationship between depression and anger in patients with antisocial personality disorder]
[Article in Turkish]</p>
<pre><code>* Turkcapar H,
* Guriz O,
* Ozel A,
* Isik B,
* Donbak Orsel S.
</code></pre>
<p>SSK Ankara Egitim Hastanesi, Ankara.</p>
<p>OBJECTIVE: This study examined the relationship between aggression and depression in male antisocial patients with and without comorbid depression and in normal control subjects. METHOD: Seventy-two antisocial patients were evaluated for depression using SCID. The antisocial patients were treatment-seeking soldiers, mostly substance use is recruited from military hospitals. The control group consisted of forty age and sex matched subjects. Twenty of these antisocial patients were diagnosed with depressive disorder (major depression or dysthymia). In order to assess aggression and depression the Beck Depression Inventory and the State-Trait Anger Scale (STAS) were used. RESULTS: Antisocial patients with depression and without depression had higher trait anger, anger-in and anger-out scores than the controls. Antisocial patients without comorbid depression had lower scores than the antisocial patients without depression in the anger control subscales of STAS. On the other hand, in this subscale, scores of the antisocial patients with depression did not differ from those of the normal controls. Correlation analysis revealed a significant positive relationship between BDI scores and trait anger, anger-in and anger-out scores. CONCLUSION: The result of our study did not fully support the view of depression which assumes that depressive disorder is related to anger and hostility at least in antisocial patients. According to our results higher anger scores and lower anger control scores were related to being antisocial rather than being depressive and also not only suppressed anger but also outwardly expressed anger were increased in depressive antisocial patients.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>My thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the victims, and the staff, administration, and students of VT.</p>
<p>I'm just beyond disgusted at how horrible people can be. I'm sure they didn't even know 90% or more of the people they shot and killed...it's just disgusting.</p>
<p>And anyone who gives the shooter one ounce of pity is disgusting as well.</p>
<p>I think in one of the news reports someone said he had been looking for his ex-girlfriend? I don't know. I think the thing that ****es me off the most about things like this is that the person always kills himself right afterwards, so he never has to suffer any consequences for it.</p>
<p>A friend of my best friend's goes there, though she's not an engineering student so hopefully she wouldn't have any reason to be in the engineering building. She lives on my street. I know another girl from my high school applied, and I'm sure if she applied that she got in, but I don't know if she went there or not...I hope not. I looked at the school, but I decided it would probably be to boring to go there...</p>
<p>"The eerie yet telling coincidence is that many of the college campus shootings in recent history, from the Iowa shooting to Virginia Tech shooting today have been committed Asians (Chinese, Indian, Taiwanese...)."</p>
<p>You've got to be f***ing kidding me...</p>
<p>Talk about the most racist bull I've heard all day.</p>
<p>Um...what was the race of the shooter in Seattle last summer? What was the race of the shooter in Utah a couple months ago? Need I go on? </p>
<p>Yep...complete BS to bring up race at all. <em>rolls eyes</em></p>
<p>The simple fact of the matter is, and you can deny it all you want, that when things like this happen a lot of people look differently at those who fit the physical descriptions of the ones at fault. After Columbine I remember the changes that happened in my school district and how differently people treated kids that dressed in black and trench coats. It's not racism...it's a natural human response.</p>
<p>
[quote]
And anyone who gives the shooter one ounce of pity is disgusting as well.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Such as the psychologist who may have treated him?</p>
<p>A little amount of consideration into such personalities may make such personalities less resentful towards society (and reduce the number of such incidences). What we need to identify, however, is those who may care if they had more respect, from those who won't care if they had more respect. Some types with anti-social personality disorder are immalleable.</p>
<p>That being said, disgust towards such a person is a deterring factor for many. So it's probably a good thing</p>
<p>
[quote]
It's not racism...it's a natural human response
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Racism is natural, it's just society is amazing in how it can make people more tolerant of different races. Just don't assign normative conclusions to any natural phenomenon.</p>
<p>I go to UVA which is two hours away from Virginia Tech. I have friends whose friends go to Virginia Tech; one got shot in the triceps, while the other jumped out of the e-school building to avoid the possibility of being shot.</p>
<p>This sucks. Depression or not, there is no reason to kill innocent people like this.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Such as the psychologist who may have treated him?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>The only exceptions I'm willing to make for what I said in my first post is for family.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Racism is natural, it's just society is amazing in how it can make people more tolerant of different races. Just don't assign normative conclusions to any natural phenomenon.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I don't believe that racism is natural. As far as I'm concerned, it's completely learned...and can be completely unlearned. </p>
<p>People aren't born with prejudice, but they are born with instincts that tell them to beware of possible danger. That's why some people fear or are cautious of folks who dress in black, who are heavily tattooed, who dress in gang colors, etc.</p>