News like this bring out my worst fears

[JerseyWendy]

I'm sure by now everyone has heard what happened at VT (Virginia Tech University) this morning.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070416/ap_on_re_us/virginia_tech_shooting

Having my boys go through Elementary school was a breeze. Middle School became a bit scary, there were occasional bomb threats. HS is a different story altogether. They have bomb threats at least every other month, and during the last one some items were recovered that could have been used as explosives.

Mike (my oldest, a senior) has a couple of former teammates that go to VT - and thank God they are all right. But in a few months he'll be going off to college himself, and I'm already a mess about him leaving home.

What in the world is wrong with young people these days?

/End rant...sorry about that.

---
Wendy

 

[Candi]

OMG.. that was the first I heard about it. I am just beside myself with all of these types of horrible crimes taking places in schools, the world is already such a scary dangerous place these days and as parents we like to think that our children are at least safe when at school but the sad truth is that terrible people come in all ages and truely safe places are far and few in between. My little girl is only 3yrs old but we've already made the decision to home school her, no we can't keep her locked in the house and "safe" forever but as a parent I feel like it's oen of the only things I can do to keep her at least a little bit safer (concerns over safety aren't the only reasons we're going to homeschool, but do play a large part).

My prayers to the students/facility/families.

 

[JerseyWendy]

Both my boys came home early because of this. All after school activities were canceled. Our HS has numerous former students that attend VT.

The first thing they did was turn on CNN. The minute they replayed what a studend recorded I completely lost it. How can this happen? How can we let this happen? Where are the safe places for our children these days?

Whatever happened to using your fists if someone ticked you off badly enough? Where were the warning signals/signs? Why did an entire 2 hours go by and he started shooting again?

My little brain just can't comprehend this for some reason. My emotions are certainly in an uproar.

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Wendy

 

[Candi]

That 2 hour gap is certaining extremely disturbing, given there was a shooting and no shooter captured why wasn't the student body notified and the school put on lockdown immediately? So sad

 

[malulu]

i agree with you all... this is crazy!!!

why an individual have so much hatred that need to harm other innocence peoples? if some one really really piss you off, the most, you get back to that one person, but not the whole group!!


who's fault is this? the "failure of the education"? i don't have the right word for it...
???

feel real sorry for those victims and their families...
:'(

 

[fishyman]

wendy what highschool your kids go to? I've only heard of a few highschools known for bomb threats (luckily not mine). Its amazing how most of the student body had no idea what was even going on, and its even more amazing that a 23 year old could have that many guns. I for one think the gun laws need to be re thought.

 

[mfisher2112]

This is a truly horrible situation, and I won't begin to diminish the gravity of it by opening a gun law debate, but keep this in mind.

If laws kept criminals and unstable people from acting outside the social norm simply by exsiting, we wouldn't need police, prisons, or more laws. Very few firearms related crimes are committed with registered weapons by the owner of the weapon.

At any rate, the truly disturbing bit of information here is why nothing was done about this young man's troubles earlier on? His creative writing was so disturbing to a college professor that it was referred to the counciling center, and debated between the head of the english department and the professors involved. Why didn't someone try to help this individual when he was recognized as potentially being extremely unstable?

Thoughts and prayers to the family and friends of people close to this horrible act. I can't even begin to imagine what this must be like to endure. My daughter is 16, and my son 15. My daugher goes to college in another 2 years or so. Truly frightening...

 

[JerseyWendy]

wendy what highschool your kids go to? I've only heard of a few highschools known for bomb threats (luckily not mine). Its amazing how most of the student body had no idea what was even going on, and its even more amazing that a 23 year old could have that many guns. I for one think the gun laws need to be re thought.

Both of my boys go to Colts Neck HS. The last bomb threat was between 4-6 weeks ago, and during that one "something" was actually located. And it wasn't the first bomb threat either. But it was the second one that was serious enough where students were sent home early.

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Wendy

 

[JerseyWendy]

... His creative writing was so disturbing to a college professor that it was referred to the counciling center, and debated between the head of the english department and the professors involved. Why didn't someone try to help this individual when he was recognized as potentially being extremely unstable?

DITTO!

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Wendy

 

[fishyman]

I'm only a highschool student BUT i do know how hard it is to tell who has mental problems and who does not. Kids can very easily hide it. The thing is though, the professor did what he was suppose to do he alerted the "authorities" about the kids writings they probably analyzed it and did not look much into it. Its very hard to be able to know what people are thinking especially a college student. He could of easily been a nice social every day type of guy, he just happened to be a "loner" (as called so by the college). A lot went wrong because of a little preperation for a sitaution like this.