Shootings at NIU

[DegenerateDish]

My wife was in her car, five minutes from campus when she got a call that her grad school class in DeKalb was cancelled.

Sad that this keeps happening. Reports are they have the shooter. My wife said the town is on lock down right now though, and she's heading home.

[tower912]

My prayers, and those of my family, go out to the students and their families at NIU.   Another tragedy leaving us asking why.   May God's blessings be on all of them.

[🏀]

These situations are becoming ridiculous. Colleges really need to step up to the plate and do something to protect their students.

[reinko]

i'm not sure colleges can do anything to protect against random acts of violence.  Unfortunately anyone that is messed up in the head can walk in to any public place with a gun or weapon and do serious harm

[muhoosier260]

ya i have to agree with reinko on this one. i don't really know what they can do.

[ChicosBailBonds]

ya i have to agree with reinko on this one. i don't really know what they can do.

Some schools are letting students carry guns, with the idea that if some nutcase pulls this the damage will be minimal as the students will take him/her out.

Not saying it's the right answer or the wrong answer, just saying some schools are going in that direction.

[🏀]

i'm not sure colleges can do anything to protect against random acts of violence.  Unfortunately anyone that is messed up in the head can walk in to any public place with a gun or weapon and do serious harm

I can think of one easy thing, require teachers to close the doors at class time. No opening to door after that. I hate people that are late anyway.

[muhoosier260]

ya i have to agree with reinko on this one. i don't really know what they can do.

Some schools are letting students carry guns, with the idea that if some nutcase pulls this the damage will be minimal as the students will take him/her out.

Not saying it's the right answer or the wrong answer, just saying some schools are going in that direction.

Really!? I hadn't heard that. Do you happen to know where? That's kind of scary.

[Mayor McCheese]

ya i have to agree with reinko on this one. i don't really know what they can do.

Some schools are letting students carry guns, with the idea that if some nutcase pulls this the damage will be minimal as the students will take him/her out.

Not saying it's the right answer or the wrong answer, just saying some schools are going in that direction.

that is the worst idea ever, the last thing I want is a bunch of students walking around with guns on my campus... things will get out of hand, will lead to another and wham.  Or I can see some crazy jealous boyfriend seeing his girlfriend talking to another guy and shoot the guy up. That is an awful idea, just as bad as the proposed bill by some crazy republican in Wisconsin to allow teachers to have guns in high school, great so now we have teachers shooting students, fantastic.  It is sad, but by adding guns is definitly not the solution.

[jaybilaswho?]

these senseless shootings need to stop. there have been too many over the last month. trouble is... there is no way to ensure it never happens. This guy seemed to everyone like a normal kid, until he went off his meds. I am disgusted with the frequency of acts like this.

the world is a scary place and only getting scarier. I dont want to admit it, but there does not appear to be an end in sight.

[ChicosBailBonds]

The question is why....guns have been legal for more than 200 years.  Hell, my dad had one as a kid and so did all of his friends, but you almost never heard of this stuff back then in the 30's, 40's, 50's. 

Society changed, parenting has changed, what people watch on television, what is accepted as ok now, etc.

[ChicosBailBonds]

ya i have to agree with reinko on this one. i don't really know what they can do.

Some schools are letting students carry guns, with the idea that if some nutcase pulls this the damage will be minimal as the students will take him/her out.

Not saying it's the right answer or the wrong answer, just saying some schools are going in that direction.

Really!? I hadn't heard that. Do you happen to know where? That's kind of scary.

Utah allows it.  No shootings there that I'm aware of.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18355953/


I understand the scary factor....then again, I doubt 20+ people are murdered at Va. Tech if a student or prof had a weapon to defend themselves.  I can argue it both ways.

[Pakuni]

The question is why....guns have been legal for more than 200 years.  Hell, my dad had one as a kid and so did all of his friends, but you almost never heard of this stuff back then in the 30's, 40's, 50's. 

Society changed, parenting has changed, what people watch on television, what is accepted as ok now, etc.

Why, I suspect, has much to do with the fact we've raised a generation of narcissistic kids who have little empathy for anyone but themselves, vastly overrate their own importance, suffer from extreme hubris and self-esteem and react aggressively when they feel slighted (because, after all, they're superior and should never be treated as anything but).
That's not to say all, or even a majority, of the so-called Generation Y carry this trait, but obviously too many of them do. Acute narcissism seems to be a common denominator among the great majority, if not all, of these kids who take a gun to school and kill their classmates.

How many school shootings have been prevented by guns in Utah classrooms?

[jaybilaswho?]

i was a little concerned when i got home from work yesterday at about 8pm and turned on the tv and expected to see every station covering the story. Not a single channel was covering it. My concern was this: that VT set the bar at, what was it?  20 deaths?, and if a school shooting doesnt reach that "threshold" then no need to cover it. Big or small every one of these shootings need the attention that it deserves. Not to the shooter, but to the victims, the families of victims, the school and everyone associated with it. I hate when this happens and the shooters get all this coverage. these guys should not even be mentioned. Who cares what his name is? i want to know who was affected, perhaps i know one of them or know someone who knows them.

regardless, my heart is full of sorrow for all that have been effected. May the shooter rot in hell.

[ChicosBailBonds]

How many school shootings have been prevented by guns in Utah classrooms?

Great question, impossible to answer.  It's like saying, how many nuclear wars have our own missiles in our own silos prevented.  It can't be answered.  Is it a deterrent?  Tough to say.  Then again, I haven't heard of any Utah kids that carry guns going off and shooting people just because they have them either.

Sort of like the argument about people having guns in their homes, many argue that it's unnecessary, though if you dig hard enough you can find enough stories (mostly via police reports and not the media) of homeowners scaring off burglars, etc.  But the exact number will never be able to be quantified.  In a place like Britain with no guns, robberies per capita are higher then in the US where guns are allowed.  Is it it due to the deterrent?  I don't know.

[SoCalEagle]

Chicos, maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but are you advocating for a law that would allow college students to carry a guns on campus?  Wow, I hope that's not your position. 

On the Utah thing, it may not be possible to answer EXACTLY how many school shootings have been prevented by guns in Utah classrooms.  However, it is possible to answer if ANY have been prevented.  Surely there would be a press report somewhere, anywhere, if such a thing occurred just once.  Is there such a press report? 

[StillAWarrior]

On the Utah thing, it may not be possible to answer EXACTLY how many school shootings have been prevented by guns in Utah classrooms.  However, it is possible to answer if ANY have been prevented.  Surely there would be a press report somewhere, anywhere, if such a thing occurred just once.  Is there such a press report?

I'm not arguing in favor of arming college students, but I'm not completely sure your position is accurate.  If a campus shooting was "thwarted" by a gun-carrying student, that would be newsworthy.  I don't think that has ever happened in Utah.  But, it is possible that a campus shooting would be "prevented" by rules that allow students to carry weapons without that fact ever making the news.  This is because some think that campuses (like Va. Tech.) are targeted because the shooter knows it is a gun-free zone.  Since there is virtually no chance of armed resistence, the shooter knows he can carry out his plans and kill as many people as possible without any meaninful opposition.  The Va. Tech shooter might have thought twice (or chosen a different target) if he would have believed he would face armed resistence.

There have been multiple reports of shootings being thwarted or interrupted by civilians with concealed carry permits.  If I'm not mistaken, the issue in Utah is merely that people who are licensed to carry concealed weapons may also do so on college campuses.  While I'm a proponent of concealed carry laws (although I don't own a gun or have a permit), I'm not entirely convinced I'm comfortable with college kids carrying loaded weapons.  I really don't have concerns about them intentionally shooting each other, I'm just a bit worried about accidental shootings by drunk kids.

But, on the issue of what schools can do, I think there are some things.  Locked classrooms would be one.  Another would be allowing professors who have a concealed carry permit to carry weapons on campus if they wish.  I doubt many would exercise that right, but who knows.  It's a shame that we even have to consider these issues.

[ChicosBailBonds]

Chicos, maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but are you advocating for a law that would allow college students to carry a guns on campus?  Wow, I hope that's not your position. 

On the Utah thing, it may not be possible to answer EXACTLY how many school shootings have been prevented by guns in Utah classrooms.  However, it is possible to answer if ANY have been prevented.  Surely there would be a press report somewhere, anywhere, if such a thing occurred just once.  Is there such a press report? 

How is it possible to answer if any have been prevented....is there a way to interview potential criminals that don't commit a crime?  Of course not.  That's the deterrence part.

Every day during the cold war nuclear war was prevented because of a deterrence...mutually assured destruction.  Yet we don't run around and say 365 days a year a nuclear war was prevented.

Same thing. It's impossible to gauge.

Now, as for guns by students....I ask again, if students or professors had guns at Va. Tech, do you think 23 students would have been killed?  I don't.


And I'm not the only person throwing out this idea....and it's only an idea.  My point is that places like Utah allow it and yet this idea by some that places that allow guns will lead to people shooting up like the old west hasn't happened...has it?  No, it hasn't.


An interesting article


http://www.townhall.com/columnists/DennisPrager/2008/02/19/five_questions_about_shootings_at_universities

[Mayor McCheese]

I am glad they didn't give this the media that the VT shootings got.  I really think things like this happen partly because the last one got attention, and so the killer gets the idea, and says "I can do better".  I am really glad this one didn't get the ridiculous attention that VT got.  VT was on the news for months, especially about the condition of the shooter (which I was taking Abnormal Psych, and the accusations of mental illnesses was completely wrong, at least most of them).

I started reading that Dennis Prager article Chicos, I couldn't finish, that man was just too hate the University for me.

[ChicosBailBonds]

You don't think the shooter at Va. Tech was mentally ill?  Not sure I understand your comment

[Pakuni]

I hope Chico's is not suggesting universities hand out guns during freshman orientation or anything of the sort. God help us. Knowing some of the people I've met at Marquette and other schools, the last thing I want is for them to be strolling around armed. Lord knows how many stupid, usually drunken, fistfights would have escalated into gunfights under those circumstances. But I sure am glad we've never had to find out.
I think recent history has shown us that young people carrying firearms isn't such a swell idea.

Regardless, it's a ludicrous notion that a mentally disturbed young man intent on killing others before taking his own life would somehow be deterred by the 1 in 1,000 chance that one of his fellow students is armed.  These guys a) obviously aren't thinking of consequences, b) obviously aren't afraid to die and c) may, in fact, relish that kind of a shoot 'em up.

Whether the chance of an armed victim may serve as a deterrent to a "rational" crime, i.e. armed robbery, burglary, etc., is one thing. But when you're dealing with a completely irrational crime, it's not going to make a difference.

While there are conflicting studies out there as to whether concealed-carry laws make a difference, one thing that is uncontroverted is that a gun in a household is many, many times more likely to kill one of that home's residents - either accidentally or not - than it is to fend off an intruder.

[🏀]

You don't think the shooter at Va. Tech was mentally ill?  Not sure I understand your comment

The VT Shooter was definitely mentally-ill. He had pictures of himself with guns, he was known to be a 'freak' with the opposite sex, and he had anti-culture manifests.

So far this NIU Shooter seems to be a new breed. He is out of school, shared a residence with a long time girlfriend, she said he was a happy guy, never really into guns, so something new is going on here.

[Pakuni]

You don't think the shooter at Va. Tech was mentally ill?  Not sure I understand your comment

The VT Shooter was definitely mentally-ill. He had pictures of himself with guns, he was known to be a 'freak' with the opposite sex, and he had anti-culture manifests.

So far this NIU Shooter seems to be a new breed. He is out of school, shared a residence with a long time girlfriend, she said he was a happy guy, never really into guns, so something new is going on here.

The NIU shooter had a long history (10 years or so) of mental illness. In the weeks and months prior to the event he stopped taking his psychotropics and started accumulating macabre tattoos and a gun collection. The kid had some pretty serious issues.

[🏀]

You don't think the shooter at Va. Tech was mentally ill?  Not sure I understand your comment

The VT Shooter was definitely mentally-ill. He had pictures of himself with guns, he was known to be a 'freak' with the opposite sex, and he had anti-culture manifests.

So far this NIU Shooter seems to be a new breed. He is out of school, shared a residence with a long time girlfriend, she said he was a happy guy, never really into guns, so something new is going on here.

The NIU shooter had a long history (10 years or so) of mental illness. In the weeks and months prior to the event he stopped taking his psychotropics and started accumulating macabre tattoos and a gun collection. The kid had some pretty serious issues.

Really? CNN last night went for about 20 minutes without mentioning any of that.

[tower912]

I have worked with/dealt with many people over the years with mental issues that are manageable when they stay on their meds, who choose to go off their meds for a myriad of reasons.   It never ends well.  Usually, there is a hitting of bottom before violence occurs, but to talk to someone off of their meds and listen to them explain something that seems completely normal to them always makes me shiver.    The kid at NIU, if he was bi-polar/schizophrenic and off of his meds, probably thought he was being completely rational.