Va. Tech shooting...

[hippietim]

this is not a time to blame anyone or anything other than the murderer.

Right. I said that.

everyone gets teased. many people who do get teased a lot, bring it upon themselves. some don't, but many do. this lunatic obviously had a defective brain, and his taking pride in projecting the sullen menacing loser psyche in class and to strange girls led to ostracism. that's just the way things are with people.

plenty people get teased in school. it's part of growing up and dealing with it is part of maturing as a person. people with defective brains are just that. the teasing is NOT what created this monster, he was created the day he was born.

I'm not talking about teasing here.

[skorb]

I'm not talking about teasing here.

there is no evidence that anything worse than teasing occurred with this VT asshole. and the only mention of that was from high school.

most of the "persecution" these goofballs suffer is imagined and in their own defective minds.

so I didn't see how your point related to this situation at VT.

[hippietim]

there is no evidence that anything worse than teasing occurred with this VT asshole. and the only mention of that was from high school.

This story is far from being told.

most of the "persecution" these goofballs suffer is imagined and in their own defective minds.

I would have to disagree with you completely there. If you have never witnessed this then you have lived a very sheltered life. Either that or where I grew up was completely atypical. What I saw some kids go through was horrible and most definitely not imagined.

so I didn't see how your point related to this situation at VT.

My point was simple. People need to not treat each other like shit.

[xenophobe]

GUN FREE ZONE = Protection for mass murderers from getting stopped prematurely

And all this BS about how someone would react in this situation is comical at best, and a pathetic attempt to judge someone that you do not even know.

Any trained firearms enthusiast, when confronted with this situation will act differently, in stressful times, all the fancy thinking, all the fancy gear and guns don't mean anything... you instinctively revert to your level of training proficiency. Some people may indeed freeze, some people might hesitate, and others would not. Not giving people the ability to stop a situation like this only invites it to continue unstopped.

It's funny when you say that you don't think someone else is capable of defending themselves realistically, when you're really only speaking for yourself.

I might as well say that any of you as musicians who gets thrown onto a stage with a live audience will choke and not be able to play guitar either.... who cares if you've done it before, but if your life depended on it, you couldn't hang as a real musician.

[skorb]

I would have to disagree with you completely there. If you have never witnessed this then you have lived a very sheltered life. Either that or where I grew up was completely atypical. What I saw some kids go through was horrible and most definitely not imagined.

what reform school did you attend?

of course I saw kids get picked on in elementary school and jr high and hs. hell, I got picked on for a couple years until I learned to hit back. and that's where it usually ends. I know the area this loon went to school in and it's not a bad area by any stretch. it's upper middle class mixed ethnicities and generally hard workers who've done well.

reading/hearing this nut's diatribes it's clear he's manufactured 95% of his persecution in his own head. I think that's obvious from the evidence including his own words. he was totally off the deep end, making up all kinds of imagined persecutions. defective brains do this.

My point was simple. People need to not treat each other like shit.

well that's nice to say.

[guitarsjb]

No kidding. Probably the most real (and surreal) thing I've experienced in my life was staring at a machine gun pointed at me just a few inches away from my chest. I am proud that I did not shit myself Fortunately no bullets flew that day.

Glad you are still here bro!! Scary shit!!
I had a rifle rested on the bridge of my nose once..I was 14 or so...thought I was history. I try to forget that day.

[Evol]

what reform school did you attend?

of course I saw kids get picked on in elementary school and jr high and hs. hell, I got picked on for a couple years until I learned to hit back. and that's where it usually ends. I know the area this loon went to school in and it's not a bad area by any stretch. it's upper middle class mixed ethnicities and generally hard workers who've done well.

Some people aren't equipped to "hit back". At least not without getting flattened. And in this guys case it sounds like entire classes were laughing and making fun of him,should he have "hit back" any of the girls in class who were guilty?

I was extremely skinny in school and got my ass repeatedly kicked by a few wonderful lovely kids until I hit the end of Jr.High. That summer I had a growth spurt in height and weight that the next year put me bigger than most of the kids that had been giving me so much crap. I went back and kicked all their asses within the first week of school (one the very first morning),breaking one kids nose and getting into quite a bit of trouble.It wasn't the smartest thing to do,but I felt they deserved it.

My point is not all kids have the ability to do that,or are scared shitless to try.And they really shouldn't have to,since this sort of mental and/or physical abuse should NOT be happening in the first place.

reading/hearing this nut's diatribes it's clear he's manufactured 95% of his persecution in his own head. I think that's obvious from the evidence including his own words. he was totally off the deep end, making up all kinds of imagined persecutions. defective brains do this.

Severe mental abuse and cruelty can cause emotional problems,this has been well documented through the years.Especially to someone who isn't mentally strong enough to deal with it in the first place.

This kid was made fun of so bad in school that he was afraid to look at people and talk to them.Sounds serious enough to me to believe that at least some of the persecutions were very real to him,and that's coming from statements that other kids have made about how he was treated.

Some people are more mentally tough and thick skinned than others.And perhaps you're right ,maybe he did have a defective brain,but what if the abuse only served to worsen the problem?

I'm not excusing the behaviour that may have been a result of that abuse,but geez,couldn't the teachers at least have got the kid some counseling,or find SOMETHING that works.They knew he wouldn't talk,and they knew their class would laugh at him when he did,I'm sorry but at that point it becomes the teachers responsibility to put an end to it right then and there.

[hippietim]

what reform school did you attend?

Just a public school outside of the nation's capital.

well that's nice to say.

Yes. It was. It was easy and simple. Just like your assertion that this guy was born defective.

[lerxstcat]

The environment can break a person. What this guy did he was responsible for, but I doubt he just made it all up in his head.

He came here at 8 years old, probably didn't know English. He probably WAS ostracized and bullied at that early age, which would set the tone.

Now I can sympathize with that, but it wouldn't stop me one second from putting a couple rounds into his head to stop him from killing everybody in the room.

The copycats of Columbine, of which this guy was one, won't be chilled until one of them goes onto a campus, starts his shit, and a teacher or student blows his brains out after he gets off a couple of shots.

The thought of humiliation - of getting taken out before they can make their big statement - will probably do more to curb these people than anything else. They would be embarrassed to be a "dud" mass killer. Sick, but I believe, true. And if not, who cares? If these guys can be shot down before wiping out a classroom, by armed teachers or students at the college level, that would be very helpful.

Of course, as Tim says, cutting the abuse in school would also help greatly. Our grade through high schools seem to think that bullying is just "kids being kids". Oddly enough, it seems that when kids could paddle our asses in schools, this kind of thing was much less common. Just the one guy in Austin that I recall from my generation.

Bring back the 2x4 paddles, made by the shop teachers and issued to all teachers. 18" length is optimum as it can double as a billy club!

[danastas]

The environment can break a person. What this guy did he was responsible for, but I doubt he just made it all up in his head.

He came here at 8 years old, probably didn't know English. He probably WAS ostracized and bullied at that early age, which would set the tone.

Now I can sympathize with that, but it wouldn't stop me one second from putting a couple rounds into his head to stop him from killing everybody in the room.

The copycats of Columbine, of which this guy was one, won't be chilled until one of them goes onto a campus, starts his shit, and a teacher or student blows his brains out after he gets off a couple of shots.

The thought of humiliation - of getting taken out before they can make their big statement - will probably do more to curb these people than anything else. They would be embarrassed to be a "dud" mass killer. Sick, but I believe, true. And if not, who cares? If these guys can be shot down before wiping out a classroom, by armed teachers or students at the college level, that would be very helpful.

Of course, as Tim says, cutting the abuse in school would also help greatly. Our grade through high schools seem to think that bullying is just "kids being kids". Oddly enough, it seems that when kids could paddle our asses in schools, this kind of thing was much less common. Just the one guy in Austin that I recall from my generation.

Bring back the 2x4 paddles, made by the shop teachers and issued to all teachers. 18" length is optimum as it can double as a billy club!

I have permanent hearing loss in my left ear from a teacher lifting me by the ear off the ground, which detached a ligament, and eventually lead to a hole in my ear drum (long story). All I did was laugh when the teacher said the word "hole." I was 8 ears old.

She's lucky she was a woman because my father was steaming mad and I'm afraid he would have hit her/him if it had been a male teacher.

Needless to say, Im not in favor of sadistic teachers. And I can tell you that I definitely do not want a culture of concealed weapons in the classroom. There are lots of depressed and even suicidal students on campus, and sometimes I've had kids get angry at me for grades. No thanks to guns in the classroom. I'm already experiencing the fallout from this, since I teach creative writing, and right now I have a lot of students who are self-censoring themselves.

[Cleveland Metal]

What the hell are people thinking??



Mother Shoots Toy Gun at Kindergarten Class

Thursday, April 19, 2007

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CHURCH HILL, Tenn. — A mother of a kindergarten student was charged with assault Thursday and banned from a school after officials said she walked into a classroom, pointed a toy gun at students and pulled the trigger several times.
The incident happened Tuesday, a day after the shootings at Virginia Tech, and scared teachers and students.
Church Hill police and Hawkins County school officials met with Heather Nicole Berg, 26, earlier Thursday before charging her with misdemeanor assault. She was already banned from Church Hill Elementary School for one year.

Berg had a "silver toy cap gun," police said.
"A staff member and several children initially thought the gun was real and were fearful," police chief Mark Johnson and detective Dustin Dean said in a press release.

Police said they could not release details of Berg's statement about why she had the gun at the school.
"Nevertheless, Berg's actions constituted a monumental lapse in judgment," the release said. "After completing the interview and consulting with the DA's office, we have charged Berg with assault. It is our contention that her actions caused others to 'reasonably fear imminent bodily injury."'

School officials said the woman and another small child went to her student's classroom to pay for an upcoming field trip, and the incident happened when the teacher turned around to log in the payment. "The mom walked in toward the middle of the classroom, and the teacher heard this click, click, click, click -- like four to six times," school principal Jean Heise said. "A teacher's assistant witnessed her take a gun and point it directly toward four to five kids. With everything that's happened the last couple of days, she (the assistant) was just in shock." She then left with the small child and took the gun with her. Heise immediately called the police. Later, she apologized to the principal and said, "I didn't mean any harm," Heise said.

Berg was set to appear in Hawkins County General Sessions Court in Rogersville on April 30. If convicted, she could face up to a year in prison and a maximum fine of $2,500. Church Hill is about nine miles west of Kingsport, along the Virginia border.

[rjohnstone]

^ Now that's just fucked up.

[lerxstcat]

I have permanent hearing loss in my left ear from a teacher lifting me by the ear off the ground, which detached a ligament, and eventually lead to a hole in my ear drum (long story). All I did was laugh when the teacher said the word "hole." I was 8 ears old.

She's lucky she was a woman because my father was steaming mad and I'm afraid he would have hit her/him if it had been a male teacher.

Needless to say, Im not in favor of sadistic teachers. And I can tell you that I definitely do not want a culture of concealed weapons in the classroom. There are lots of depressed and even suicidal students on campus, and sometimes I've had kids get angry at me for grades. No thanks to guns in the classroom. I'm already experiencing the fallout from this, since I teach creative writing, and right now I have a lot of students who are self-censoring themselves.

Sorry that happened to you, but that was not the typical corporal pun ishment scenario I remember in school. Your ass is pretty well-padded and the teachers didn't hit that hard anyway. It was more of an embarrassment for being an asshole in class. I did get one unjust paddling for talking in class. It wasn't even me but I wouldn't say who it was. It was unfair, but no big deal to me.

Any college student that's going to shoot you over grades could stab you over grades, or hit you with a baseball bat - or a pair of Channellock 440 pliers. The abscence of guns gives you a FALSE sense of security. I'd say the students who were mad about grades expressed themselves verbally and would've done the same regardless.

[charvelguy]

On one hand, I agree that CCW would control a situation like with the kindergarden situation, but then it would be probably unjustified or creating major legal ramifications for state and school. That was done to make a point however harmless and fucked up in method it was.

It just seems if you arm professors or teachers, and or both facilty and students.. then it becomes a free for all. If a person like Cho is going to premeditate and plan, and he's going to kill himself anyways, then who is goin to be the first person to become a target.. the other person who is most likely to stop him. So.. now if legislation passes for a CCW, it'll tip off as to who should be taken out first whether they are packing or not.


and Danastas, I'm very sorry to hear you lost your hearing in one ear because of a teacher who thought a kid was like an animal. There are some employers who exhibit the same attitude and lawsuits are not always the best deterent. Many individuals I think don't want to stand up and get involved in a lawsuit. There are are lot of lawbreakers out there on the victimizing end of things as well who will never curb abusive attitudes or behavior.

[Cleveland Metal]

Now some guy is barracaded in the Johnson Space Center in Texas with a gun...

Unbelievable... Ya know, if these people do actually get out alive when the do this shit, they need some major charges on them. This is just insane....