VA Tech: guns on campus, TV producers on Facebook

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Xeni Jardin:
Large-scale incidents of gun violence like yesterday's mass shooting at Virginia Tech University are inevitably followed by gun law debate.

Today, some around the 'net are pointing to relatively relaxed gun laws in Virginia as a contributing factor to the killings. Virginia allows effectively unlimited purchase of assault weapons for anyone over 18 who passes a background check; it's ok to sell rifles and shotguns to children over 12, and a legal loophole makes it okay to buy second-hand guns at gun shows with no waiting period or background check.

But some pro-Second-Amendment folks argue the opposite. University administration and local law enforcement failed to protect VA Tech students from this and previous campus shootings, their logic goes, so there should in fact be more guns on campus -- in the hands of law-abiding students and profs alike, for self-protection.

BB reader Aaron Krowne says,

Virginia had just outlawed Concealed Carry on campus (At Virginia Tech's behest).

I am a VT alum.

The link is a blog writeup of mine pointing out that Virginia Tech had just "outlawed" concealed carry and reiterated its "gun-free campus" policy. In fact, in response to a scare last fall, the school had disciplined a student who was licensed and carrying a concealed weapon, and since then, agitated to defeat a Virginia law that would permit campus concealed carry.

I've quoted VT spokesman Larry Hincker, including an essay of his last year in a local paper. The stance now looks pretty foolish given the tragic result this zero-tolerance "no guns" policy has produced. Will people ever learn that becoming passive and relying fully on the authorities for protection doesn't work?

Those sentiments are echoed in items that appeared in local online press and blogs after an August, 2006 shooting at the university. Snip from "Unarmed and vulnerable," a Roanoke.com op-ed by Virginia Tech grad student Bradford B. Wiles:

On Aug. 21 at about 9:20 a.m., my graduate-level class was evacuated from the Squires Student Center. We were interrupted in class and not informed of anything other than the following words: "You need to get out of the building."

Upon exiting the classroom, we were met at the doors leading outside by two armor-clad policemen with fully automatic weapons, plus their side arms. Once outside, there were several more officers with either fully automatic rifles and pump shotguns, and policemen running down the street, pistols drawn.

It was at this time that I realized that I had no viable means of protecting myself.

Here's another related item at Roanoke.com

Gun bill gets shot down by panel: HB 1572, which would have allowed handguns on college campuses, died in subcommittee.

Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker was happy to hear the bill was defeated. "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."

After Monday's tragedy, it seems unlikely that more permissive policies around guns on campus for self-defense would win much support. And many argue this is not the answer -- metal detectors, tighter on-campus security, or better alert systems are among the alternate remedies proposed.

No matter which side of the gun debate you're on, one thing is obvious: anyone who is capable of and intent on killing 32 innocent fellow human beings will do so regardless of law. Homicidal maniacs can always be counted on to violate the boundaries set forth by others who want to promote a civil, peaceful society.
(thanks, Sean Bonner)

  • BoingBoing reader Katy Pearce says, "There's now a Facebook group from Dateline NBC where they're looking for friends of the accused."

    Snip from that Facebook group description:

    WE UNDERSTAND HOW DIFFICULT THIS IS, AND WANT TO HELP SHARE YOUR STORY.... DATELINE NBC URGENTLY LOOKING FOR ANYONE WHO KNEW SEUNG HUI CHO. WE HAVE PRODUCERS AND CAMERA CREWS NEARBY READY TO TALK TO ANYONE WHO CAN SUPPLY INFORMATION ABOUT HIM AND HIS MOVEMENTS LEADING UP TO THE TRAGEDY. WE ARE ATTEMPTING TO PRODUCE A THOUGHTFUL AND INFORMATIVE REPORT THAT MIGHT SHED SOME LIGHT ON THE TRAGEDY AND POSSIBLY HELP PREVENT SOMETHING LIKE THIS FROM HAPPENING AGAIN.

    And *we* understand how difficult it is to remember to switch off Caps Lock while trolling Facebook for primetime TV sources.

  • Following up on earlier BB posts about the possibility of "copycat effect" events (and Loren Coleman's analysis), BB reader Bryan says,

    St. Edward's University, a small, Catholic, liberal arts college in Austin, TX has closed classes until 5pm today as a result of a bomb threat. Students and faculty were evacuated but as of 11:21am CST no official information has been provided outside of that posted on the website.

    Not surprisingly, there seems to be a strong police showing given the size of the school (about 5,000 students). If there *are* copycat events, hopefully this is evidence that law enforcement and school administrations will be more prepared for them given the heightened alert.

  • Didn't take long for the grief domain profiteers to descend on urls like "vatechbloodbath.com."
    Wired News blog Threat Level has more: link 1, link 2.

    Previously on BB:

  • VA Tech: questions, copycat odds, and 'net nabs wrong man
  • VA Tech massacre: 33+ dead, largest shooting in US history

    Reader comment: Ted Brown says,

    Sadly apropos, I finished watching this documentary--which condemns gun control--only minutes before reading about the VA Tech massacre. Penn & Teller's "Gun Control is Bullshit". It even touches upon theoretical events eerily similar to what happened yesterday. I was on the fence before about gun laws, but this is a one-two punch that's hard to ignore.

    Jon says,

    Here's what happens when there is someone with a gun nearby: Link.

    Gretchen says,

    This article describes the University of Maine's weapons policy. Students are allowedto have them on campus, but they must be registered and stored with Public Safety.

    (Via Boing Boing.)

    • VA Tech: questions, copycat odds, and ‘net nabs wrong man

    in

    Xeni Jardin:


  • Much discussion around the web about whether the manner in which VA Tech administrators warned their students of the first shooting -- by email -- may have contributed to further death. Two hours passed between the first shooting, in which two people were killed, and the second, in which more than 30 died. Snip from NYT story:

    The university did not send a campuswide alert until the second attack had begun, even though the gunman in the first had not been apprehended. [University president Charles W.] Steger defended the decision not to shut down or evacuate the campus after the first shootings, saying officials had believed the first attack was a self-contained event, which the campus police believed was a “domestic” dispute.

    There was much student traffic to and from the Norris Hall area when the school administrators issued that email alert, and few students in transit saw that warning message in time (say, on their handhelds). Many around the 'net are asking if more direct forms of warning -- loudspeakers, a school PA system, telephone -- in addition to the emails could have saved more lives. Why didn't university security just shut the whole campus down after the first shooting?

    Snip from another NYT story:

    One student finished the day’s assignment and tried to leave, but returned to tell the others that the hall was full of smoke and that there were police officers everywhere. The class decided to go into a room with a lock. Dr. Hendricks, an engineering and mechanics professor on the same floor, barricaded himself in his office, pushing a bookcase in front of the door. Some students on campus took refuge in the library, searching the Web to find out what was happening. No one knew.

    “I was crying,” Ms. Otey said. “I was worried that the guy with the gun was going to come upstairs too.”

    The violence began early in the morning in the west wing of Ambler Johnston, the largest dormitory at Virginia Tech, where two people were killed, officials said. But when the first class started two hours later, at 9:05 a.m., many on campus remained unaware of any danger.

    “I woke up and I didn’t know anything was wrong,” said Sarah Ulmer, a freshman who lives in the east wing of the dorm. “I went to my first class and my teacher was talking about how some people weren’t coming because there was a gun threat at West A. J. and they were blocking it off. It was like, ‘Oh.’ ”

    The school did not notify students by e-mail of the first shootings until 9:26 a.m., said Matt Dixon, who lives in the dorm. Mr. Dixon did not receive the e-mail message until he returned from his 9:05 class. When he left for that class, he said, a resident adviser told him not to use the central stairs, so he left another way. On dry erase boards, advisers had written, “Stay in your rooms,” Mr. Dixon said

  • Copycat Effect" author Loren Coleman weighs in with an entry on his blog about speculation that the VA Tech shooting is likely to be followed by "copycat" events:

    Xeni Jardin wonders how I would feel about what I am hearing on the American cable news networks. To listen to CNN and MSNBC is to watch the news people stumble through this story.

    These cable news people certainly should be aware that there is a copycat effect going on here. They have been reporting on this for ten years now, and can't see the legacy between wall-to-wall coverage and what happens when you elevate Columbine the way the media has.

    Specfically today, there is something over-the-top being heard in some of the reports that this shooting today is the "deadliest" in American history. Also, incorrect information is being shared. These newspeople are misreporting on the profiles and the changes in it. Cable news earlier this afternoon misrepresented that this is an American-only problem. During the early evening, I just watched a report on CNN saying that the few historical non-American school shootings have been done by adult non-students.

    Link to full text of post.


  • Blogs and online discussions yesterday misidentified 23-year-old Wayne Chiang (above), a VA Tech student with a penchant for guns, South Park, and bummed-out blog entries, as the shooter responsible for the VA Tech massacre.

    Mr. Chiang's "wanusmaximus" livejournal ("Light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul.") and Facebook profile include many photos of heavy weapons, and vanity shots of him posing with quantities of those weapons.

    His journal contains much morose LJ prose about obsessive love, movie downloads, and oh, the futility of life.


    "i put the cx4 [semiautomatic carbine] on the market cause i got bored with it," he writes in one entry, accompanied by this photo. "personally, i don't find it effective as a efficient manslaughtering tool, which definitely does not fit my needs."

    Mr. Chiang is Asian-American, and early reports indicate the VA Tech shooter was, too -- which added to many internet accusers' certainty that he was the killer, even though investigators still have not disclosed the name of the actual VA Tech murderer.

    Comment fields on Chiang's site soon filled with racist lines like "so u are the asisan that shot up the school. i hate u and your people."

    But, news alert: lots of LJs look like Chiang's. Gloomy web poetry and a gun hobby don't prove a dude is a mass murderer. After dozens of "j'accuse!" blog posts linked to his journal like so many pointed fingers, Chiang finally posted an update late last night:

    Coming out. I am not the shooter. Through this experience, I have received numerous death threats, slanderous accusations, and my phone is out of charge from the barrage of calls. Local police have been notified of the situation.

    My original intention was to wait until I got AdSense on my site and donating all the proceeds to Charity. However, this situation has now spiraled out of control. I am now confirming that I am not the shooter. I will be available for interview by a news agency to clear my name, talk about the experience, and give my opinion on how the situation could have turned out better if other students were allowed to be armed.

    I will speak with individuals who are interested in donating to charities resulting from today's events. Please e-mail all correspondence to null@vt.edu


    (Special thanks to Jake Appelbaum).

    Kevin Poulsen at Wired News has also been covering the misidentification story: Link.

  • Update, 633AM PT: authorities have now identified the shooter as Cho Seung-Hui, age 23.

    Previously on BB:

  • VA Tech massacre: 33+ dead, largest shooting in US history

    Reader comment: John Bartley says,

    May I commend you to a similar episode in 1927, which killed 45, and
    of which I learned when I lived in Toledo, next to Michigan? Wikipedia link, Link 1, Link 2, Link 3

    Andrew Falconer says,


    You wrote:

    "There was much student traffic to and from the Norris Hall area when the school administrators issued that email alert, and few students in transit saw that warning message in time (say, on their handhelds). Many around the 'net are asking if more direct forms of warning -- loudspeakers, a school PA system, telephone -- in addition to the emails could have saved more lives. Why didn't university security just shut the whole campus down after the first shooting?"

    Lots of questions to come on communications and protocols, but it's also important to get the facts right. This morning WGN Radio in Chicago replayed a portion of an interview with a Va. Tech representative who confirmed they DO have a PA system campus-wide, and announcements repeatedly told students to stay in their dorms and/or classrooms after the first shooting occurred. (This system had been implemented after a shooting took place sometime last year, I believe someone mentioned.)

    The other thing people need to understand is the physical size of Va. Tech's campus. "Shutting the whole campus down" would be akin to implementing martial law in a small-to-medium sized town. Is that an appropriate response in any community that size for what authorities legitimately believed was initially a domestic disturbance call?

    Robert Byrd says,

    This site describes a school bombing in 1925 that killed many more than the VA Tech massacre.

    (Via Boing Boing.)

    • VA Tech massacre: 33+ dead, largest shooting in US history

    in

    Xeni Jardin:

    [ Image: via CollegiateTimes.com, a photograph of students taking cover in a French class. ]

    At least 33 people were killed today, including a gunman, and at least 27 were injured, at Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg, VA. It was the deadliest mass civilian shooting in US history (NYT reg-free link). Much of the attack took place inside the school's science and engineering building, Norris Hall. A statement from school administration is here: Link.

    The DC Metblog has two related posts: one, two.

    Many survivors, friends, and relatives are now trying to track down missing VA Tech students via Facebook (Canada.com story link).

    The Wired blog 27b Stroke 6 has posted a cellphone video of the university campus, during the shooting -- you can hear gunshots going off in the background. [Update, 230PM PT: Jamal Albarghouti, the VA Tech student who shot the cellphone video, is on CNN and mentions that he shot the footage on a Nokia N70.]

    27B Stroke 6 has also posted a personal account by the university's webmaster:

    Bruce Harper, the Virginia Tech webmaster, flipped on his Pro-95 scanner during the unfolding shooting tragedy in Blacksburg this morning. A few hours later, he emailed this inside account of how multiple police agencies responded to the crisis to a DC-area scanner enthusiasts group. We're copying it verbatim below (email addresses have been redacted).

    Excerpt:

    At 1:30 PM -0400 4/16/07, XXXXXXXXX wrote:

    >I have nothing to add. I'm watching the coverage on TV. At least one

    >lister at Scan-DC has a vt.edu email address, Bruce Harper

    >. He's a railfan who scans the ATCS information.

    >

    >Harper, are you OK?

    Other than being devastated by all this, yes, thanks. It has been a zoo and
    the Media Building (where I'm located) is across campus from where all this
    took place. But between having a scanner on my desk (and being info central
    for the building) and having to scramble to keep updates on the web site, it
    has been intense. I expect I'll decompress later this evening.

    I have a Pro-95 that has most of the local frequencies plugged into it and
    it definitely has gotten a workout. This was a multiple-agency response and
    there is little interoperability -- but the police still got the job done.
    Virginia Tech Police Department was and is lead agency in the whole event,
    with Blacksburg PD right there with them. The Montgomery County Sheriff's
    Department is also involved and the Virginia State Police. Give all the
    various dispatchers credit for a great job, as they were the linchpins that
    kept all the communications straight between all the agencies. There was a
    massive response from all the local rescue squads, let by the student-run
    Virginia Tech Rescue Squad. A triage area was set up adjacent to Norris Hall
    and ambulances shuttled in and out of the area to transport victims to
    Montgomery Regional Hospital, the Carillion New River Valley Medical Center,
    and to hospitals in the Roanoke Valley. Carillion's helicopters and the
    State Police helicopters were unable to be used for transport due to the
    high winds we are experiencing.

    Full post here: Link. More updates from around the web at 27B Stroke 6, here.

    And anti-electronic-gaming prohibitionist kookwad Jack Thompson wastes no time before thrusting himself in front of television cameras to blame the tragedy on you-know-what: Link.

    Update, 240PM PT: I'm sure "Copycat Effect" author Loren Coleman would have something to say about the following exchange, which occurred just now on CNN's "Situation Room" with Wolf Blitzer:

    [Gregg MCCrary, Former FBI Special Agent, Fredericksburg, VA]: There is a contagion factor. There is an increased likelihood of more incidents like this happening in the coming weeks. The most important take-home message right now is to be sensitive to this issue...

    [Wolf Blitzer] Are you talking about a copycat factor? (...)

    [McCrary] Yes. Because there are people who are already on the edge, and events like this can put them over the edge.

    Update, 253PM PT: Eyewitness reports are beginning to surface on blogs, myspaces and livejournals, and in local Blacksburg, VA newspapers. Snip from a roundup on Planet Blacksburg:

    [ Ruiqi Zhang, a computer engineering major, who was in Norris 205 this morning ]

    "I was sitting in class when we heard loud popping noises a couple rooms down... The teacher and a student went into the hallway and rushed back in and told everybody to get down. We put a table against the door and had a few students holding down the door. The gunman tried to shoulder his way in and when he saw that he couldn't, he put two shots through the door it was the scariest moment of my life..."

    Link to more first-person accounts on Planet Blacksburg.

    Some online journal accounts are gathered at this Washington Post blog entry: Link. (via DC metblogs)

    Photos have been showing up throughout the day on Flickr. Here's a set by user and1headache which shows law enforcement attempting to secure the site: Link. See also the VA Tech Shooting pool. Look also for photos tagged VA Tech, Virginia Tech, or Norris Hall. Collegiate Times has this photo gallery of related images, and this map of the shooting site.

    And an odd footnote: this week (specifically, Friday, April 20) marks the anniversary of the Columbine massacre.

    (Via Boing Boing.)

    New Sony DVDs Not Working In Some Players

    in

    An anonymous reader writes "It seems that the most recent DVDs released by Sony — specifically Stranger Than Fiction, Casino Royale, and The Pursuit of Happyness — have some kind of 'feature' that makes them unplayable on many DVD players. This doesn't appear to be covered by the major media yet, but this link to a discussion over at Amazon gives a flavor of the problems people are experiencing. A blogger called Sony and was told the problem is with the new copy protection scheme, and they do not intend to fix it. Sony says it's up to the manufacturers to update their hardware."

    (Via Slashdot.)

    Oh god. Not this shit again.

    Will Sony never learn???

    Virginia Tech football helmets monitor hits wirelessly

    in

    While the Virginia Tech Hokies tend to rely more on dazzling special teams teams play than sheer defensive prowess, the players take a lickin' regardless. In a presumed extension of Beamer Ball, the sparkly helmets donned by the football squad will sport internal accelerometers and wireless transmitters that beam (ahem) information about the seriou

    read more | digg story

    White House says it will not turn over RNC emails.

    in

    The Politico reports:


    White House Counsel Fred Fielding, in a letter today, told Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chairmen of the House and Senate Judiciary committees, that the White House has not budged in its refusal to allow the panels to question several White House aides, including Karl Rove, about what they know regarding the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys, moving the two sides closer to a constitutional battle over the scandal.


    Fielding also appears to be trying to head off an attempt by Conyers to obtain e-mails and documents from the Republican National Committee regarding the firings. … Fielding also said that “it was and remains our intention to collect e-mails and documents from those [RNC-controlled] accounts as well as the official White House e-mail and document retention systems” as part of a broader deal with the two committees on staffer testimony.


    In a response statement, Conyers was unmoved: “the Judiciary Committee intends to obtain the relevant emails directly from the RNC. The White House position seems to be that executive privilege not only applies in the Oval Office, but to the RNC as well. There is absolutely no basis in law or fact for such a claim.”

    (Via Think Progress.)