I've been saying for a long time that Ian is a Dipshit though I enjoy his posts as they often get me thinking and quite often a bit worked up.

Seriously though, on all the posts I read relating to the shooting at VT, I find it quite amazing how people run with information they get from the media:

It appears I read that someone felt the police chained the doors....not accurate, nutbag did so, he was well prepared and had his I's dotted and T's crossed.

The campus should have been locked down.... You can't keep nutbag from doing what nutbag wants to do. It appears he was missing for about an hour and a half before going to the post office. Had the entire campus been locked down( the area in and around the first crime scene was locked down immediately) and he had been in his dormitory, you have now created a killing field for him greater than a classroom, potentially much greater than 32 victims as the occupants of the dorm could be locked in with him. Also things can not occur instantly and without cause, the first shooting appeared to be domestic in nature and based on statistics it would be an accurate analysis or starting point for a double homicide of this nature and the police took the appropriate steps tracking down a potential suspect in a short time. There is no blue print for investigating this type of incident and sorry to say, any situation like this is a learning experience to prepare for the next nutbag.

The police show up just after he killed himself....This is typical as nutbags go. There movements are calculated and timed. They are aware of the time it takes for emergency responders to get to them and often take the cowardly way out when they feel they have run out of time based on their calculations or when they see the responders and know they are on the verge of being stopped.

Terrorism....Yes this by definition does qualify as domestic terrorism. Anytime there is a political or social target that is defined, as there is in this case, it qualifies as domestic terrorism;

terrorism :

noun the calculated use of violence (or the threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature; this is done through intimidation or coercion or instilling fear

Gun control....While I suprisingly have read little on this site about this topic(thought it would be much more), I have to say this incident has nothing to do with gun control. The system is not perfect and never will be, however it provides information and statistics of those applying for gun purchases. It also declined 126,000 applications in 2003(last year I could find accurate statistics). The system in place works and provides an avenue for learning who is applying to purchase guns. With a gun ban there would obviously be no system in place and no potential to learn of threats. banning guns also has no potential to stop people from purchasing firearms as they would have no system to circumvent. It has the potential to actually increase crime as the price of black market weapons would sky rocket potentially causing an increase in thefts, burglaries, robberies and other crimes to create an avenue of obtaining money.

Common Sense has to be the driving force when discussing these situations and common sense, to me, states that you can't stop a nutbag from doing a heinous act. We can prepare for them every day but you can never prepare for the second guessing and abuse of the situation to further agendas. I believe every person involved in the decision making put forth their best effort and made the decisions they felt would preserve lives and assist in maintaining a safe environment for all the students as the situation unfolded. Furthermore, until someone is put in a situation where they have to make determinations for preserving the lives of others, I would hope that the people judging from the outside would take into consideration that the freedoms we live by everyday have the potential to harm us when misused and the people we rely on everyday for protection have of the best training in the world to make sure we can utilize those freedoms and due to their dedication we do not face these kind of incidents on a daily, weekly, monthly or even yearly basis.

This is a tragic situation and my heart goes out to the slain, injured, families, community, emergency responders and all else effected by this nutbags actions, however second guessing does not bring closure or acceptance for any of the victims listed above.

Just my two cents

Jason