First of all...

...I can't help but get the feeling that your article presupposes that there were no heroes in the shootings at Virginia Tech. This is simply not true.

Professor Liviu Librescu, holocaust survivor died trying to protect the lives of others. There are others whose actions in barring the entry of Cho Seung-Hui into the rooms they were in kept people from dying.

Even beyond the actions of these people, the attempted proactive warnings of his play writing teacher to campus police also show there were those who were trying to prevent this tragedy. For you to dare to suggest otherwise bastardizes the actions of those who were brave enough to take some action to stem the bloodbath. Whether or not these heroes were effective in their attempts, it is incredibly foul to even suggest no one took any action whatsoever to stop Cho Seung-Hui's insane murderous rampage.

Frankly, I can't help but see your article as blaming the victims for their deaths. How can you be so fucking heartless? How can you turn the deaths of these people into grist for your bullshit political mill?

You have NO WAY of knowing the hell those victims faced. How dare you sit there and presuppose that you know what went on, or that there was anything that could have been done by the victims of this event?

Just because you call yourself a preacher doesn't mean you know it all. Just because you think you are a drug-store Rambo that would be Mr. Ass-kicker in such a situation doesn't make you that person you think you are.

I always thought I'd be able to handle it if a fire broke out in my home. Then it happened. In the attempt to be heroic and put it out ourselves, one of my roommates died. He died from smoke inhalation and a heart attack brought on by an unbelievable fear! Whether or not we put out the fire, the cost in the life of my roommate was not worth any of the things we would have lost due to the fire.

So, don't sit there and say there were no heroes. Don't sit there and blame the victims for being shot. If you want to blame anyone, blame the campus Keystone Kops for ignoring the professor who gave warning about Cho Seung-Hui's writings and probable mental state. Blame those same assholes for not locking down the campus. That would have prevented a lot more murder than a gun-toting student.

But no, you have to blame the victims instead. Please! How can you be so fucking callous. I guess, like every other preacher I have ever known, you think your "connection" to your "god" gives you the knowledge of the universe.

Charade you are!

Pappy

by Pappy (61 articles, 0 quicklinks, 11 diaries, 863 comments) on Wednesday, April 18, 2007 at 3:19:25 AM
 

Yes, you are right.

Yes, you are right. Your criticisms are justified, and I am now in the process of rewriting the article. Thank you for boldly and correctly pointing out the problems.  Yours, Bill McGinnis

by Rev. Bill McGinnis (87 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 19 comments) on Wednesday, April 18, 2007 at 8:00:24 AM
 

We weren't there, but...

We weren't there, so it's true, we can't know what it was like.  But 31 people...from a 9mm Glock and a .22LR pistol?  He had to reload *sometime* during all that.  I listened to a girl describing baring the door, they heard him run out of ammo and the clip drop to the ground outside.  That's when someone should've charged him. 

 It's also too bad universities bar students who are licensed CCW holders from carrying on campus, that might've made a difference too.   It's against university regulations to keep any guns on campus...I guess they can expel the shooter posthumously, since he ignored that rule.

by John (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 16 comments) on Wednesday, April 18, 2007 at 8:17:17 AM
 

I was...

at IBM when Leonard Avery came through shooting. Unopposed, he pistol whipped a company nurse then walked calmly to our gang box and began shooting. His gun jammed and a brave individual from one of the other contractors grabbed a fire extinguisher and tried to sneak up on him from behind...if he had only got a couple of steps closer...when Avery cleared his weapon and resumed shooting ...unaware of the individual behind him who, incidentally, never got close enough to stop Avery and wisely backed back around a corner out of danger. He was a brave dude, hats off to you, bro.

Avery KNEW that IBM security carries NO WEAPONS.

AVERY KNEW THAT WEAPONS WERE PROHIBITED ON THE PROPERTY.

We were working in a valve pit just outside the corridor where this took place, we saw it all. If I had had a weapon, I might have been able to at least change Avery's train of thought, to pop his bubble of being unopposed, and perhaps prevented the killing of the brave, unarmed, individual who tried to talk Avery into putting down his weapon.

For many years, after the incident above, I carried a small pistol in my lunch box in violation of the law...

Better to be judged by twelve than to be carried by six.

Finally I removed the pistol from my lunch box and put it away, knowing that it would probably just get me in trouble. However, when I'm out on a job or away from home, I become keenly aware of who is around me, and what is their intent... I've practiced throwing welding rods,files etc. until I can stick one right through a piece of 1/2" plywood... and keep some in my rule pocket of my overalls (I'm an ironworker/welder)...and if I sense something wrong I instantly think of the nearest weapon at hand and move in that direction...sleever bar, spud wrench, level, framing square, file, hammer, welding rods...anything.

YOU MAY GET ME, BUT IT WILL NOT BE FREE.

People are conditioned to 'hit the deck' when faced with danger. From my own personal experience it is better to stay on your feet so that you can move... When Avery was shooting, I got out of the valve pit and watched him to see where he was going as I didn't want him circling around and catching me unawares, trapped in a valve pit with nowhere to go.

Like they say, hindsight is 20/20. Today I wish I had thrown all our tools through the window at Avery, perhaps I could have altered his perception of being totally unopposed.

My deepest sympathy to the families of those who were murdered by this madman.

May we all one day find Peace.

Peace to ALL (enjoy it while U got it)

Thank you.

by Thaddam Rawke (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 8 comments) on Wednesday, April 18, 2007 at 10:00:16 AM
 

Self-Defense

Here in Australia every day you drive around you pass white crosses at the roadside designating where someone has died from a car accident.

Some of these locations are on dead straight roads where one would think how in hell could someone loose control of their cars in such a location to have an accident to loose ones life in.

However, closer observation of many young people today,(and some elderly who should know better) leaves me coming away with the firm belief that people today have to self preservation skills whatever. This can be readily seen in many different ways of behaviour.

It's a contradiction really, specially in America, the country which churns out hero movies and blood/gore/maniacle/murderous movies one after another, in real life it invades other countries and murders their citizens as qick as wink, and if caught out, offers the relatives a measly $500 compensation, so to a populace schooled from the cradle on this machosim and blood lust, surely some of their youth would have some self preservations skilles honed from the hours they spend in front of their PC's blowin away them thar rag heads in their games.

Or, are society basicaly cowards and the odd one out turns out the hero.

As has been demonstarted here in another post, this guy had hand guns that needed reloading, whilst doing so, his victims were busily hugging the floor and praying for deliverance, instead of surrounding him and over powereing him at this vulnerable stage.

Sure, someone is going to lay into me for supposedly denigrating the dead or some such bullshit, but hey folks, they're dead, just like the 650,000 in Iraq which no one is loosing too much sleep over in the U.S. right now or ever.

And YES ! I have been in firefights, scared shitless for my life, maybe that's why my self preservation skills are so finely honed, during my tour of SVN. I still believe someone should've taken the opportunity to take him out in that vulnerble period, at least if your gonna die, you go out havin a go at the SOB and go down fightin, not pissin yourself on the floor beggin for your life and prayin to some diety to take care of you.

I also think, this demonstrates very lucidly, how Americans have lost the will to direct and control their own lives, instead willingly, allowing someone else to do it for them.

by Eddy Schmid (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 197 comments) on Wednesday, April 18, 2007 at 9:51:44 AM
 

Revised article has now been posted above.

As promised, I have revised the offending article, and the revised version is now the one shown on OpEdNews.com.

If anyone wants to see the unrevised, offending, rough version it is located at click here

by Rev. Bill McGinnis (87 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 19 comments) on Wednesday, April 18, 2007 at 10:30:10 AM
 

Organized Response!

I must say that I agree with what you have proposed! For many years now I have said that the only way to stop this kind of violence is to respond quickly and decisively. Were it not for armed ranchers in Austin, when Whitman climbed that tower and started shooting in '66 (an event I wittnessed as a child), more people would have been killed.If the people at that Lubys Cafeteria had attacked the gumman instead of running I believe fewer people would have been hurt. In so many of these instinces if an organanized or concerted effort had been made to stop the violence quickly, it would have saved many lives. Thank you sir for seeing that.

by epaul48 (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 5 comments) on Wednesday, April 18, 2007 at 12:12:25 PM
 

First of all...

...thanks for at least rethinking what you had written. If my initial response seemed harsh, I just can't abide this draped-in-the-flag-and-bursting-with-testosterone ideal that somehow it's the victims' responsibility to stop their attackers.

I find it amazing that all the people who so lovingly cupped their balls and showed their huge, manly crotches to all of us here seem to forget about the so-called element of surprise. Obviously, that's what happened here.

Further, I find it abhorrent that those who commented in support of your initial theory forget the fact that there were, in fact, armed people there on campus; you know, the Kampus Keystone Kops who called the senseless deaths of a white woman and a black man nothing more than a "domestic dispute". Therefore, they hardly even thought those murders worthy of finding a perpetrator. Oh no, no need to find the murderer of a white woman and a black man in the heart of macacca land.

Hindsight is 20/20, and reading the responses of some of the arm-chair Rambos here makes me want to puke! It's so easy to put forth your testosterone soaked theories on what you'd have done better.

You know what I would have done? I'd have either taken a bullet trying to run the fuck out of there, or I'd have died from a heart attack. In either case, I'd have wound up with piss all down the front of myself.

It's so easy to play the hero when you were sitting wherever you were sitting as the madman was blowing holes in doors, desks, and humans. Oh sure, he took time to reload. So the fuck what? I'd have taken that opportunity to get the fuck out of Dodge, if I wasn't already dead.

Fight or flight. It's a normal reaction. Taken out of context, in a safe environment, well away from the reality the victims of this rampage faced, it's incredibly easy to say what you would have done. There, in the heat of it, not a one of you brave-heart folks knows exactly what you would have done! Not a one of you!

When my friend died in the fire I mentioned in my other comment, I couldn't remember how to do CPR. I took first aid classes. I took CPR classes. Then twenty years passed, and when it came time to use this knowledge, it failed me. Oh sure, I may have thought myself infallible when it comes to retaining such important information. However, in the heat of battle, I lost it. I didn't know up from down, back from front, or whatnot. There's a big difference between thinking you know something when that knowledge isn't important, and knowing that same knowledge in the heat of the moment.

So just leave those poor people to rest, can we please? My goddess, have they not suffered enough indignity? Do we have to put more derision on their heads, instead of placing it where it belongs, on the head of the murderer and those who allowed his rampage to become a record breaker? Have you people no sense of decency?

Jesus fucking Christ!

Pappy

by Pappy (61 articles, 0 quicklinks, 11 diaries, 863 comments) on Wednesday, April 18, 2007 at 1:03:34 PM
 

Take, for example,

what Pappy has so honestly admitted...  Then consider how, repeatedly, we are shown that when push comes to shove in traumatic situations, a majority of us wind up completely shutting down, forgetting what you've practiced or learned, or going full throttle with our basic instinct of self-preservation without even engaging in any internal debate about how to counteract any of the madness we are finding ourselves suddenly confronted with...  Myself, like countless others (I imagine), found myself unable to save a close friend during the moments that mattered because of my own fear and shock at what was happening at the time!  My complete inability to resuscitate my friend from an overdose of heroin on my bathroom floor left me under suspicion of murder and with a heavy burden of guilt to lug around the rest of my life (even though I'd immediately called 911 as soon as I realized that something wasn't right and had kicked in the door to my bathroom).  I had wound up on the floor beside him, trying to rouse him while I held him close as he groaned until his heart stopped...  I don't know that any attempts to revive him would have worked and I had no real idea, outside of television programs, of the kind of thing I'd have needed to do to even attempt that sort of thing -none-the-less, it still makes me sick to think about what could have happened differently had I reacted differently!

Heroics, as far as I have seen, are generally attributed to a singular person's selfless acts rather than an organized effort by many...  Do you recall the many instances of people standing by while terrible acts have been visited upon others and even caught by cameras?  What about cameramen who keep filming while witnessing such things?  Everyone seemed so appalled to see the recent broadcast footage of a female bartender getting the shit stomped out of her by an off-duty cop... but what the fuck was up with the people who were standing by and watching?  Heroes don't just call 911... they act.  Is a lack of heroes representative of fear or the absence of concern?  It's arguable either way.  But to believe in the macho-insecurity bluff of 'what I'd do' is laughable...  rarely have I seen it in action.  Rarely.  And certainly not in unity as you are proposing...

It's nice thinking, but sorry.  I don't exactly buy the whole 'heroism of Flight 93' thing either...  Remember the initial reports about Jessica Lynch's 'fire-fight' against her captors?

I also don't think that the big bad boogey man, known as Satan, had a fucking thing to do with it... -as the preacher just interviewed by Wolf Blitzer has claimed.  Jesus hasn't got a thing to do with it either, contrary to the preacher's further injection of Christ being the 'only' way...

I'll quote Clint Eastwood and Gene Hackman's brief exchange during the final minutes of 'Unforgiven' in hopes that its relevancy is realized...

Gene: (lying bloody on the barroom floor)  I don't deserve this.

Eastwood: (carefully taking his time to place the business end of his shotgun in the center of Gene's head)  Deserve's got nothing to do with it... 

Respectfully,

-Bid 

by C.Bid (0 articles, 7 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 606 comments) on Wednesday, April 18, 2007 at 5:32:56 PM
 

P.S.

Bill,

I hope that you won't take my comments personally -nor see my remarks as bashing your system of beliefs.  I'm merely spitting venom at those who would use this tragedy to further their own religious causes by foolishly interjecting unnecessary polarizing statements into the situation... 

We all know it's white, christian, pure-bred, baptized Americans (who believe in Jesus as the Christ) who'll fill in the front pews of heaven to the surprise of all the others that G*d has revealed Himself to...  and that's why these things happen!

Sorry, couldn't help it.

Peace be with you,

-Bid

by C.Bid (0 articles, 7 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 606 comments) on Wednesday, April 18, 2007 at 5:48:51 PM
 

No problem.

No problem for me with what you said. This is Competition Of Ideas, and its purpose is to discover Truth. (Pilate said to him, "What is truth?"  - John 18:38 RSV) Whenever any of us states his beliefs clearly -- so that others can understand what he thinks -- that contributes to finding Truth.

by Rev. Bill McGinnis (87 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 19 comments) on Wednesday, April 18, 2007 at 8:23:27 PM