This time at my alma mater. Very strange, sinking feeling about it. I'm not sure what to say. When Va Tech happened, I thought it was a million times worse than Katrina, which was a million times worse, to me, than 9-11. Institutions of higher learning falling prey to corrupting modernity. I was angry about it. This time I can't get angry, just sad. Now, I'm watching Headline News, and they're already turning it into a 'gun issue'... The whole thing is tragic.

Know three people that go there. Two of them I know are alright, haven't heard from the third.

Yeah, I've been making a few calls. One friend told me she has classes at Cole Hall every day of the week but Fridays.

Wow I didn't know this happened. I tend to stay away from the media unless I'm bored or something.

Jesus H Walford Pauline Christ... not this shit again. There's always some fuck-up out there going to do stupid things... always!

Great attitude, I'm sure they'd all stop shooting up schools if they only had someone to tell them what "fuck-ups" they are.

The gun issue won't go away until someone has the guts to say enough is enough, stuff the ammendment we are sick of our kids dying in school shootings.

I agree, those shooters are perfectly normal and intelligent people. We shouldn't tell em that they are fucked up.

Banning the action instead of remedying the behavior will not solve anything. We tried this before, ever hear of the 18th amendment? Well, it's okay if you haven't, most Americans probably don't know what it did either. Basically, the trade and manufacture of alcohol was prohibited in the entire United States for a few years. The trafficking and consumption of liquors never stopped, it just went underground (read The Great Gatsby), and prohibition was repealed only 24 years later with the 21st amendment. If we remove the 2nd amendment and declare citizen possession of firearms illegal, it wont solve anything. The solution is catching the kid in their state of depression/anxiety before they go postal and trying to work out their problems. I'm sure it would be more efficient and budget-friendly than squeezing school security systems even tighter.

If you think taking innocent peoples lives at a school is not messed up in the head, I'll link you mapquest to find the nearest hospital.
Also, I'm quite sure there is a positive correlation between a mental disorder and social abstinence and school shootings.

Feel free to show me statistics proving me wrong otherwise.

Seung-Hui Cho, intelligent, don't make me LOL.

heh I think he was being sarcastic

We need to make a bingo scorecard, with items such as "mention of perpetrator's taste in music and subsequent targeting of said music/bands", "media turns it into gun issue" and "Westboro baptist church praises massacre as punishment for America's toleration of homosexuality".

The killer must listen to Bullet For My Valentine. But all lame jokes aside, it's a scary thought that this could happen pretty much anywhere, including my school.

i go to NIU and i was a couple blocks from it when it happened. i had so many friends that through coincidence werent there. my roommate was signed up for that class but switched times, another friend was about to go there to get his test score and got a phone call that held him from going, i know people that were in that very room. i personally had a class there last semester and its just erie to think that it could have happened then. its like this, when its a different college its tragic but when it happens to your college it hits home. it was weird sitting in my dorm room watching the news and seeing the building that i had a class in shot out. we passed it on the way back from a class right after it happened and we saw people on stretchers. it hasnt fully hit me yet but it really sucks

I'm actually happy that I flunked out of there. I think I might have literally dodged a bullet.

This is what happens with guns and mismanaged depression, angst, sadness and so forth. The problem is that management of those issues is not of government nature but of a social, local one. Crap like removing the second amendment will not solve anything - if I nutjob wants a gun he will get one no matter what. Also as I say always - if somebody at hand also has a firearm he can and probably will take the fucker out.

Good article on it, in case anyone needs a read:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/02/14/univer ... index.html

Usually these things just kind of fly over my head, I'm just kind of like "damn, that's not cool at all", but not this time. Maybe it's just because I should've been to bed a few hours ago and I'm possibly really cranky, but reading about this just now really pissed me off. I am sick and tired of seeing these things continue to happen in our deranged world of ours. School shooting after school shooting. Reading about how the gunman just "burst open the door with a shotgun and started firing" makes me almost feel sick to my stomach. I don't know if I can speak for HourOfArioch and possibly others here, but I can't even begin to imagine how much courage one would need to gather to simply step foot back into that school, or any other school where these things have happened. Incredible.

My highest respects to any parties, friends, and family's involved.

What concerns me the most is how people's anger/frustration can well up to the point where they flip out on a shooting. Of course, mental imbalance is not out of the question, but normally in my everyday life, if I got these pent-up feelings, they were always tempered by something good that happens, like genuine, polite exchanges of words with a friend. For people to go that far without something good in their lives to temper their anger, suggests some extreme isolation.

I'm not dodging the fact that some people are simply maniacs but I think there's some importance in reaching out to people, seeing what makes them tick. That simply didn't happen for Klebold, Harris, Seung Hui or Auvinen, though it's harder to place the blame on anyone else but the perpetrator. I do think there's a strong element of school sociology there though.

The number of people who die in mass murders is relatively small. The overwhelming majority of murders with firearms happen due to normal reasons, such as greed and anger directed towards a person the killer knows. School shootings are a weak justification to argue for sweeping anti-gun legislation because they are mere blips on the radar. Because they are sensationalized by the media, though, you hear a lot more about the 5 students killed in a school shooting than the astronomically larger number of people killed in more ordinary circumstances.

As an aside, I would not live without a gun in my house. If an armed robber breaks in while I am sleeping, what am I supposed to do about it if I am not armed? Call the cops and cower in a corner holding my dick, hoping that they arrive before I am shot? I'd rather not. Not only that, the place where I rest is sacred to me. I will not allow myself to be tied up while it is pillaged by some piece of shit. If firearms were illegal, I'd get them anyway, which I could do quite easily. It is a matter of personal preservation. As it is now, I keep a loaded shotgun within arm's length from where I sleep and if the dog alerts me to an invader, I will use it without hesitation. I do not need to rely on the government to keep thieves out of my home.

Man, am I glad that I don't live in the same city as you. Either that or you're way, way too paranoid.

I am not paranoid, nor do I live in a particularly dangerous area. It's not as if I sleep with a gun in my hands or booby trap the place. I keep it under my bed. There are no children in my house, so I don't understand what is exceptional about my precautions. They're just sensible, in my opinion. If I have to defend my property, I don't want to bother fiddling around loading the gun or even walking to the place where I store my other firearms. I want to be ready to do what is necessary as soon as I can. I doubt that I will ever need to kill to defend my house, but if I do, I will give myself every advantage within reason.

Actually Prohibition only lasted 13 years, not 24. It went into effect in 1920 ans was repealed in 1933.

I agree that you should have the right to kill people that break into your home.

I'm also against making guns illegal. If a criminal wants to rob a place, would he care if a gun is illegal? No. Also, if many people have guns, he'd be more reluctant to rob the place. Let's say he wants to rob a bank. If everyone in the bank had a gun, he'd think twice. He'd probably get what he deserves as well (which is death).

What is "messed up in the head"? What one person considers inhumane/insane might be socially acceptable to someone else. Chances are a lot of these kids are just frustrated and angry at society, but haven't been instilled with the same idea of morals and thus resort to extreme measures. As usual, everyone misinterprets the problem by blaming video games/music/mental illness/et al, when the real source is more likely the parents/community. You can't just blame the individual; I personally am somewhat against possession of firearms, but that's only because one of my family members was shot and killed many years ago and that kind of anti-gun mentality has been drilled into my head. Unfortunately, we simply can't rid the entire world of all firearms. Obviously, this doesn't mean I endorse school shootings or that I sincerely believe every single young person who undertakes one is mentally sound. Besides, what would your proposal be, to deal with these so-called "fuck-ups"?




Oopsie, should've Wiki'd that fun fact. Only off by a decade, although if you think about it temperance movements had been banning liquor in many states before a nationwide amendment was adopted.

We accept violence in various forms all the time in our society: we glorify it, we encourage it, we ignore it. These tragedies will continue until we can accept the fact that people, not objects, are the real problem.

Teachers need to be allowed to carry guns in the classroom, at the very least. Either that or armed guards in big lecture halls. Honestly, it's a giant room with hundreds of people inside, one armed guard isn't going to be a distraction to anyone's ability to learn. They can wear civilian clothes if they want.

And of course many areas remained dry even after Prohibition was repealed. Even today, there's quite a few "dry" towns and "dry" counties across America, mostly in the South. In fact my family's reunion last summer was by Grand Rivers, Kentucky, on Lake Barkley- in a "dry" county. Of course we brought PLENTY of booze.

no post

The shooter has been identified as Stephen P. Kazmierczak, a former NIU grad student.

As far as the gun control thing goes, he waited for permits to clear on all of his weapons.

We need to start blaming the people involved, rather than the laws... in fact, just about every shooting in recent history has had some link to mood-altering prescribed drugs... perhaps that's where people should start investigating.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/02/15/univer ... topstories

Just a few examples:


In 1988, 31-year-old Laurie Dann, who had been taking Anafranil and Lithium, walked into a second-grade classroom in Winnetka, Ill., and began shooting. One child was killed and six wounded.

Later that same year, 19-year-old James Wilson went on a shooting rampage at the Greenwood, S.C., Elementary School and killed two 8-year-old girls and wounded seven others. He'd been on Xanax, Valium and five other drugs.

Kip Kinkel, a 15-year-old of Springfield, Ore., in 1998 murdered his parents and proceeded to his high school where he went on a rampage killing two students and wounding 22 others. Kinkel had been prescribed both Prozac and Ritalin.

Patrick Purdy, 25, in 1989 opened fire on a school yard filled with children in Stockton, Calif. Five kids were killed and 30 wounded. He been treated with Thorazine and Amitriptyline.

Steve Lieth of Chelsea, Mich., in 1993 walked into a school meeting and shot and killed the school superintendent, wounding two others, while on Prozac.

10-year-old Tommy Becton in 1996 grabbed his 3-year-old niece as a shield and aimed a shotgun at a sheriff's deputy who accompanied a truant officer to his Florida home. He'd been put on Prozac.

Michael Carneal, 14, opened fire on students at a high school prayer meeting in Heath High in West Paducah, Ky. Three died and one was paralyzed. Carneal reportedly was on Ritalin.

In 1998, 11-year-old Andrew Golden and 14-year-old Mitchell Johnson apparently faked a fire alarm at Westside Middle School in Jonesboro, Ark., and shot at students as they left the building. Four students and a teacher were killed. The boys were believed to be on Ritalin.

In 1999, Shawn Cooper, 15, of Notus, Idaho, took a shotgun to school and injured one student. He had been taking Ritalin.

April 20, 1999, Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, shot and killed 12 classmates and a teacher and wounded 24 others. Harris had been taking Luvox.

Todd Smith walked into as high school in Taber, Alberta, Canada in 1999 with a shotgun and killed one and injured a second student. He has been given a drug after a five-minute phone consultation with a psychiatrist.

Steven Abrams drove his car into a preschool playground in 1999 in Costa Mesa., Calif., killing two. He was on probation with a requirement to take Lithium.

In 2000, T.J. Solomon, 15, opened fire at Heritage High School in Conyers, Ga., while on a mix of antidepressants. Six were wounded.

The same year Seth Trickey of Gibson, Okla., 13, was on a variety of prescriptions when he opened fire on his middle-school class, injuring five.

Elizabeth Bush, 14, was on Prozac. She shot and wounded another student at Bishop Neumann High in Williamsport, Pa.

Jason Hoffman, 18, in 2001 was on Effexor and Celexa, both antidepressants, when he wounded two teachers at California's Granite Hills High School.

In Wahluke, Wash., Cory Baadsgaard, 16, took a rifle to his high schooland held 23 classmates hostage in 2001. He has been taking Paxil and Effexor.

In Tokyo in 2001, Mamoru Takuma, 37, went into a second-grade classroom and started stabbing students. He killed eight. He had taken 10 times his normal dosage of an antidepressant.

Duane Morrison, 53, shot and killed a girl at Platte Canyon High School in Colorado in 2006. Antidepressants later were found in his vehicle.

In 2005, 16-year-old Native American Jeff Weise on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in Minnesota was under the influence of the antidepressant Prozac when he shot and killed nine people and wounding five before committing suicide.
Another case involving a school-age youth ? although not at a school ? happened in 1986, when 14-year-old Rod Mathews of Canton, Mass., beat a classmate to death with a baseball bat while on Ritalin.

And just a few among the dozens of incidents cited, but not apparently related to schools:


William Cruse in 1987 was charged with killing six people in Palm Bay, Fla., after taking psychiatric drugs for "several years."

The same year, Bartley James Dobben killed his two young sons by throwing them into a 1,300-degree foundry ladle. He been on a "regimen" of psychiatric drugs.

Joseph T. WesBecker, 47, just a month after he began taking Prozac, shot 20 workers at Standard Gravure Corp. in Louisville, Ky., killing nine. Eli Lilly, which makes Prozac, later settled a lawsuit brought by survivors.

In 1991, 61-year-old Barbara Mortenson, on Prozac for two weeks, "cannibalized her 87-year-old mother ?"

In 1992, Lynnwood Drake III, shot and killed six in San Luis Obispo and Morro Bay. Prozac and Valium were found in his system.

Sixteen-year-old Victor Brancaccio attacked and killed an 81-year-old woman, covered her corpse with red spray-paint. He was two months into a Zoloft regimen.

While on four medications including Prozac, Dr. Debora Green in 1995 set her Prairie Village, Mo., home on fire, killing her children, ages 6 and 13.

Kurt Danysh, 18, shot and killed his father in 1996, 17 days after his first dose of Prozac. "I didn't realize I did it until after it was done. ? This might sound weird, but it felt like I had no control of what I was doing, like I was left there just holding a gun."

In 1998, GlaxoSmithKline, maker of Paxil, was ordered to pay $6.4 million to surviving family members after Donald Schnell, 60, just 48 hours after taking Paxil, flew into a rage and killed his wife, daughter and granddaughter.

http://www.teenscreentruth.com/psychiat ... icide.html

Are you a Scientologist or something? These people are on medication because they're crazy, not crazy because they're on medication.

No, Im a organic chemist actually. My previous job was drug design.

I believe he's alluding to that instead of treating psychological problems effectively with psychiatry, we're just throwing pills at people.

Overall, were a rather sophisticated citizenry with a fairly high index of suspicion about the products we buy and the corporations that influence our lives.

But something happens to us when we are dealing with companies that make prescription medicines. MAybe its the aura of FDA approval. Perhaps its the passage of these drugs through the trusted hands of our physicians. Perhaps its the cleverness of the ad campaigns. Perhaps we just cant believe that anyone would sell poison as if it were a miracle cure

Please, let's not even get into any conspiracy about prescription anti-depressants or anti-psychotics being the latest phase of MK-ULTRA (or something equally asinine). It's tiring, far-fetched, and unsubstantiated.

Lets stop concealing or minimizing this truth as we do when we call psychiatric drugs "medications" or say they are merely "ineffective" or "harmful" or even "neurotoxic". The evidence is piling up that SSRIs cause permanent brain damage.

Science has not found or synthesized any psychoactive substances that improve normal brain function. Instead, all of them impair brain function. Antidepressants are typically prescribed in doses that cause a wide variety of adverse effects in most patients and significantly harm a great many people. Lithium, for example, is a toxic element that suppresses over-all brain function.

Why, you ask? Prozac generated more than one-quarter of the companys [Eli Lilly & Company's] $10 billion in revenue. Prozac, Zoloft, and Paxil are among the top-selling drugs in the United States, with total sales exceeding $4 billion per year. We apparently cant expect pharmaceutical companies to bypass enormous profits just because the drugs they sell are hurting people.

I recommend some research into the topic before dismissing it as some conspiracy.

Speaking of research, can you post some studies for the claims in your above post, Musick?

What you're proposing is a conspiracy any way you look at it, even if it's true. I'm not dismissing it because it's a conspiracy, I'm dismissing it because it's highly improbable. The public outcry over some of the drugs would be astronomically greater if the drugs are even half as harmful as some people make them out to be---there'd be no way of covering it up. I've never known anyone who suffered adverse effects from anti-depressants, ever, and one such anti-depressant did wonders for me. They either don't work or they work, in my experience.



The chances of a problem arising don't come from the pills themselves, they come from improper diagnosis. Someone who isn't suffering from clinical depression but is given a prescription for Prozac or Lithium as a result of mistaken diagnosis is certainly not going to get helped by the stuff.

There's most certainly a time and a place for many prescription drugs. Personally speaking, my dad would be far worse off if he didn't have whatever it is he's taking for bi-polar disorder. There is an obvious improvement when he takes it and an obvious decrease in mental stability (mania or depression usually) when he doesn't.

He's proposing intentional negligence, not that medical companies are intentionally trying to manipulate people into going batshit.

As far as public outcry, that can only be sparked when studies over long periods of time on things such as long time users suddenly stopping medication, or long term health effects. Some of the drugs haven't been out long enough to do that.