Excuse? I don't think we'll see an excuse. Reasons, yes, hopefully we'll know why this happened. But that's not an excuse.

The victim society here is made up of around 30 people..

Of course he had issues, hence the shooting. Are you saying we shouldnt try to find out what went wrong? I'm confused

It's a dead end street, analysing depression/suicide using the logic of a level-headed mind

Ofcourse the reason might be researched, but dont the mental state of the shooter in such details ''that he might be abused by his parents at age 5, and that the first symptons of his violent nature is killing the neighbours cat at age 9'' and that it MIGHT! be the cause of todays action . and MIGHT this and MIGHT that or IT COULD be that and the amount of the word ''IF'' in such research is a whole lotta BS.

or just to make it short ''we cannot read minds''
we can guess, it but we never get 100% the background story of it.

also where has the ''he snapped/he just lost it'' term gone, its obvious he was looking for his GF , what did she do? well if she left him, you could already guess his state in those cases.

ofcourse the REASON why he has been shooting around has be researched indeed , but dont go dig in his mental state make a nice story of it.

Very sad that this, increasingly common, tragedy has happened to American students again.

It cannot be excused, but surely it can be explained.

If the consequences of such explanations are welcomed, is something different.

In spite of what the media is saying the VT killings are not the biggest school massacre in US history:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_School_disaster

From what I've been hearing the media is saying that this is deadliest mass SHOOTING in US History.

Then that would be wrong as well:

Schools these days are just crap imho, if you aren't in the "Popular" croud your pretty much F#$Ked, glad I got out of there and went into "Online Highschool" or whatever... One time some A-hole tripped me and I landed straight on my front teeth, broke them both... we tried to go after the kids parents for money but it was more trouble then it was worth, the kids parents didn't do ****. Between these half-arsed kids and "In-croud" mentality, coupled with stress I'm actually surprised there aren't more shootings. But this is all in my experiances, you have no idea how much crap I got for not being a Christian.

How exactly are you "F#$Ked"? Are you prevented from attending school or getting good grades? Seriously, is being part of a clique all that important?

Interesting you mention that, August. I just read about this in a book I'm reading. I guess if you really want to be correct you'd have to say the Virgina Tech shooting is the worst attack by a single gun man in US history?

PD

Assuming it was indeed a single gunman then yes.

Totally agree. I dont think this can be classed as a clique motivated attack. If so, I'm pretty "F#$Ked" as you put it, when I go study at Gordon College in Barnesville.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/04172007...ionalnews_.htm

Well, apparently, according to the New York Post he had written in red ink on one of his arms, the words “Ismail Ax” But what does this mean? The New York Post explores the question:

The reference may be to the Islamic account of the Biblical sacrifice of Abraham, where God commands the patriarch to sacrifice his own son. Abraham begins to comply, but God intervenes at the last moment to save the boy. In the Jewish and Christian traditions, the son is Isaac, father of the Jewish people; in Islam, it is his brother, Ismail (Ishmael in Hebrew). Abraham uses a knife in most versions of the story, but some accounts have him wielding an ax. A more obscure reference may be to a passage in the Koran referring to Abraham’s destruction of pagan idols; in some accounts, he uses an ax to do so.

First, as stated above, Muslims believe that they are the spiritual descendants of Abraham’s son Ishmael (or Ismail in Arabic) and not Issac. Issac is the father of, eh emm… the Jews. Muslims believe that it was Ishmael that Abraham was going to sacrifice and not Issac. So Muslims believe that they adhere to the faith of Abraham through Ishmael. And second, according to Islamic tradition, Abraham (Ibrahim in Arabic) in his early days of rejecting idolatry and paganism literally smashed the idols of his people with an ax. This was the definitive bridge burning event of Abraham’s early life. From that day forward, he was, according to Muslim belief, a Hanif - a worshipper of the One God. The story of Abraham’s smashing the idols with an ax may be read for instance at Islamicity here.

Ibrahim confronts his people and rejects their idols

He left his father after he lost hope to convert him to the right path, and directed his efforts towards the people of the town, but they rejected his call and threatened him. By Allah, he said, I shall plot a plan to destroy their idols. He knew that a big celebration was coming soon, where everybody would leave town for a big feast on the riverbank. After making sure that nobody was left in town, Ibrahim went towards the temple armed with an ax. Statues of all shapes and sizes were sitting there adorned with decorations. Plates of food were offered to them, but the food was untouched. “Well, why don’t you eat? The food is getting cold.” He said to the statues, joking; then with his ax he destroyed all the statues except one, the biggest of them. He hung the ax around its neck and left.

Or perhaps we are just jumping to conclusions here. Maybe Cho simply was trying to remind himself to buy an ax for his friend Ismail. So the killer had a clearly Islamic reference on his arm at the time of the murders. Is this enough to draw any conclusions? I would say not quite. But it needs to be discussed. There is no question that it strongly suggests that Cho had come under some Muslim influence. Did Cho Seung-Hui see himself as the ax of Ishmael? Something like this must be the case, otherwise he simply wouldn’t have written it on his arm before his rampage.

The New York Post article also provides us with evidence that Cho lived in a Muslim neighborhood:

Cho’s family lived in a two-story townhouse in Centreville, where neighbor Abdul Shash said the gunman played basketball and wouldn’t respond if someone greeted him. He was “very quiet, always by himself,” said Shash.

For now, we’ll just have to wait and see what else comes out.

Link? here's a boing Boing post on the phrase http://www.boingboing.net/2007/04/17...s_shootin.html


Under****ingstatement of the year.
Basketball and a quiet kid. Yep, wahhabi all over the place.

More news articles on the subject:

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8OICT580&show_article=1

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/17/vtech.shooting/index.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=449073&in_page_id=181 1&ct=5

http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2007Apr...eapons,00.html

And might I point out that the firearm is Austrian made.....(hint hint).

I'm really finding the news coverage of this to be annoying. All day long its one interview after another with a "witness" thats almost in tears, or its another maudlin reporter sounding somber but not really exploring anything other than "its a tragedy".

I'd like to hear some talk of why the cops didn't respond without having to sit there for 45 minutes while they go through their sensation spiel. I know its traumatic but aside from my human compassion I want to know why the cops haven't learned how to react to this after so many other events and so on...etc...

I don't mean to offend anyone but I want some meat. Something thats more than just emotional sensation.

I'm finding the news reports more depressing than anything. I just flat out stopped watching the news yesterday cause I was always in a bad mood.

A truly sad and horrific tragedy..
My thoughts and condolances are with the families and friends of those killed...R.I.P..

http://www.debbieschlussel.com/archi...is_ismail.html

eugh

At first it was shocking news and they didn't even have advertising on ABC, but now it's a way to gratify the senses of people that need this kind of high, plus it helps pay the bills ... I'm sorry it happened and even more sorry that the warning of his own teacher (who saw it coming) couldn't prevent this horrible crime.

Click!