Virginia Tech shooting

[xiphias]

When I first saw this, it said, "21 dead." I went to find the link to post it, and the link text was "25 dead." The headline now says "29 dead."

God grant that the number is no higher when you read the article.

It is the deadliest school shooting in United States history.

Comments

[mattblum.livejournal.com]

Alas, the Wikipedia page on the massacre is reporting that officials have now confirmed 32 dead. That makes it far and away the worst school shooting in U.S. history (the previous worst having been 15 killed at UT-Austin in 1966), but, alas, not the worst school massacre ever, as 45 people were killed in a bombing in Michigan in 1927.

[mattblum.livejournal.com]

And now the numbers have changed again, thankfully downward. We probably won't know the full story for a while. I'm just over 200 miles from Blacksburg right now. Literally hundreds of people from my high school class went to Tech. A friend of mine at work went there. And, worst of all, I know some people in Northern Va. whose kids are at Tech right now. I'm desperately hoping they're safe.

[brooksmoses]

And the professors there I know, too.

Including the one who gets to teach the spring-quarter engineering weedout class in Norris hall. He's one of my very favorite professors, and if there's one class that becomes the symbol of everything that's frustrating in the freshman engineering curriculum, that's it....

(At least my brother-in-law is safe, but I suspect that's not going to exactly equate to "okay".)

[beardedone.livejournal.com]

The headline just appeared on the TV screen here in the hostel, but it's one of those ticker tape type of headline displays that doesn't tell you where, when, who or how many.

This is indeed a dark day in the annals of American history.

[ron_newman]

The first thing that came to my mind was the Montreal massacre in 1989 -- but this sounds even worse.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

In pure numbers, yes, this is more. But I don't think you can really quantify and rank massacres.

Is Columbine worse because it was high school? Is the Polytechnique worse because women engineers were specifically targeted? Is the 1966 Univeristy of Texas worse because Charles Whitman knew he was insane and was doing it anyway? Was Kent State worse because it was done by officials of the United States Government? Or the Enoch Brown massacre in 1764, because it was Indian warriors deliberately killing and scalping children? Or the 1927 Bath School massacre, because 45 people were killed in an attack which included one of the first suicide car bombings in US history?

I don't think we can, or should, rank them.

[ron_newman]

by "worse" I was indeed referring strictly to numbers.

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

This is terrible. I don't know why these things happen. My mind just can't grasp it at all. I see people trying to compare one horror with another, as if that makes all of them more comprehensible, brings them into the range of ordinary human behavior. I understand the desire.

There's a craft of responding to this kind of horror. Treating the severely injured. Gathering the survivors -- comforting the shocked and frightened, bringing family members together, making the transition from terror to grief. I don't know if the responders are really *better* now than they were after Montreal or Columbine but they have a standard practice. They drill. There is enough expectation of these things that they have drills for it. Such a world we live in.

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

I did not know about this until I phoned home on something else.

I am watching and listening to streaming video.

Baruch atah, Adonai elohenu, melech ha-olam, ha-dayan ha-emet. Holy One of blessing, Your Presence fills creation; You are the true judge.