VaTech and Columbine should not be compared to 9/11

[Rocknrule]

The 2 shootings were tragic and shocking in their own right because no one's life should be cut short at such a young age. Still, nothing in our nation's history can compare to the apocalyptic horror our nation saw on September 11 (I hate to sound like one of those "remember 9/11" pro-war idiots, but it's true). Also, VaTech should not be compared to Iraq because they have seen the equivilent of a million such events on a day-to-day basis for the last four years. If anything, this tragedy should open our eyes to what much of the rest of the world has sadly accepted as a way of life.

[liberal N proud]

1. The only place they could be compared is how they will be used to enable the regime

to take away more rights from US Citizens. They will find a way to use this against the people to further remove civil liberties. Watch and see.

There is the only thing Columbine, 9/11 and the tragedy this week will have in common.

[Rocknrule]

2. Agreed

When school shootings happen, people have often tried to breach Constitutional rights to censor music and games as well as take away guns. Those who trade liberty for security deserve neither.

[Ignacio Upton]

3. Al Qaida wants to BECOME the bully (ie. support for Taliban-like governments)

Whereas Cho, Harris and Klebold simply went nuts because they were bullied too much.

[Ignacio Upton]

4. BTW, Dylan Klebold was born 20 YEARS TO THE DAY before 9/11

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

[Rocknrule]

6. I thought his birthday was 9/8

[jgraz]

5. You're right. Guns don't kill nearly as many people as 9/11 did

Oh wait... :freak:

[Rocknrule]

8. Well, yes over time they can

[AZBlue]

7. I don't think that Columbine and VA Tech should even be compared too much.

Yes, they are both mass shootings at school that were results in part due to bullying and hateful attitudes of students towards other students.

However, Cho was mentally ill. He had other problems as well, that are coming out now (speech impediment, etc). I've never seen evidence that the Columbine murderers were anything but evil. They were bullies themselves - and that is often the result of bullying. Just like a good percentage of abused men and women become abusers themselves, many bullied turn out to be bullies later on.

[jgraz]

9. "evil" is just too easy an out for the rest of us

If only it were that simple. We can argue about who is a fault all day, but there's no question as to responsibility.

As a society, what did we do following the Columbine massacre? Increase access to mental health care? Bring more counselors into schools? Finally deal with our INSANE gun policies? If we did any of that, I missed it.

Our lack of response to Columbine is one big reason why the VATech shooting happened. Our lack of response to earlier shootings is one big reason why Columbine happened. Not because of evil, but because we as a society aren't willing to do what it takes to reduce these kinds of incidents.

[AZBlue]

10. You're right and I couldn't come up with a better term.

I totally agree that our lack of response to Columbine helped lead to VA Tech. There are three issues at play in the VA Tech horror: guns, our cruel society and mental illness. I feel the first two were in play at Columbine, but not the third - at least not that I've seen.

I've said it before but I'm going to say it again: let's not let this drop, like we did after Columbine, and let's keep this issue current, let's demand action from our legislators and let's keep this in mind when we're choosing candidates next year!

[jgraz]

11. I get it.

"Evil" just raises my hackles cuz it's such a buzzword for *. He uses it both as a way to avoid his own culpability and as "code" to wink at his nutball christian base. He's almost removed all sensible meaning from the word.

Luckily he's given lots of words to replace it with. Like "Cheney", "Rove", "Wolfowitz", "Feith", "Rice", etc, etc, etc. (and "Bush," of course)

[AZBlue]

13. You're right - I try to block him out of my memory so much I didn't make the connection.

But, you're absolutely right. Let me go find that thesaurus....
:D

[jgraz]

15. You'll have to tell me how to do that ;)

It would be nice to never have to see his chimp-ugly face in my memory.

[sandnsea]

12. Harris was on medication too

Kip Kinkle was medicated. The Paducah school shooter suffered from severe paranoid delusions and requires medication. People who do this stuff are mentally ill, not evil.

[AZBlue]

14. I didn't know that.

I had heard just the opposite - that neither one was ever suspected of or diagnosed with any mental illness. If that's the case, then I apologize - it is a different situation given that! Thanks for the info!!

[Rocknrule]

16. Right

9/11, on the other hand, was evil because the hijackers knew what they were doing and truly believed it was the right thing to do.