(no subject)

[vicarz]

I was voicing how frustrating I find true blood - everyone is always on the verge of overcoming something, yet if nothing goes wrong they manage to screw it up themselves...and hearing my words I realized I had been sucked into a soap opera. Hot people having sex, drama and insantiy, with vampires. A vampire soap, and I fell for it.

NOTE - when our dumb bro is dancing with a mask on - the song in the background is Jonny McGovern's "Soccer Practice"

Another mass shooting: George Sodini http://abovethelaw.com/2009/08/kl_gates_shooter_george_sodini.php#more
Decent looking guy who quite openly went on a rampage because he couldn't get a date. It's getting curious that we live in a world where any lone disenfranchised actor can take out their wrath on dozens to thousands. This one with two guns and 9 months of planning only took 3 lives and then his own - it must be harder than it looks. He seems unusually frustrated with only one thing - he felt like a loser and I can understand the mentality "If I can't have it, at least I can take it away." Lonesome guy, terrorist, with technology it's past the point where you can prevent someone from killing a bunch if they're willing to sacrifice their life in turn. Of course the wingers are out saying if it was easier to get guns then this sort of thing wouldn't happen...as if the girls in the latin aerobics class were all strapped and loaded when he walked in with a gym bag.

If everyone who gives up hope, who is frustrated, who directs their frustration as anger towards others, can kill...do we just accept that mass shootings are a fact of life? How can they be prevented? Even if you take guns away people can make their own bombs (some already do this). What's the solution?

Comments

[kattrags.livejournal.com]

They didn't post this bit on the Legal blog: He was apparently feeling discriminated against for being white.

" November 5, 2008.
Planned to do this in the summer but figure to stick around to see the election outcome. This particular one got so much attention and I was just curious. Not like I give a flying fcuk who won, since this exit plan was already planned. Good luck to Obama! He will be successful. The liberal media LOVES him. Amerika has chosen The Black Man. Good! In light of this I got ideas outside of Obama's plans for the economy and such. Here it is: Every black man should get a young white girl hoe to hone up on. Kinda a reverse indentured servitude thing. Long ago, many a older white male landowner had a young Negro wench girl for his desires. Bout' time tables are turned on that shit. Besides, dem young white hoez dig da bruthrs! LOL. More so than they dig the white dudes! Every daddy know when he sends his little girl to college, she be bangin a bruthr real good. I saw it. "Not my little girl", daddy says! (Yeah right!!) Black dudes have thier choice of best white hoez. You do the math, there are enough young white so all the brothers can each have one for 3 or 6 months or so."

[vicar.livejournal.com]

Wow - I think he had all sorts of attributional errors. I guess when you're angry you spend all your energy ... well at what point do they stop trying to actually change their situation and just seek some sort of affirmation or lick their perceived wounds?

Racism always is a nice touch - seems a very common thread with shooters.

[blindtillnow.livejournal.com]

i miss Kindred: the Embraced. sure Aaron Spelling turned it into Vampire-0210 - but still....

-s

[american-arcane.livejournal.com]

That was a good show. Ahead of its time, just like a handful of the other sci-fi/horror flavored shows that came out in the years around it (Prey in 1998, VR5 in 1996). Probably mis-managed a bit by the network, too.

True Blood is a fantastic "vampire soap"--mainly because everyons is so good at self-sabotage. Infinitely better than the last couple of vampire shows we've gotten on TV (Moonlight just sucked and there was one on Lifetime... we can all guess how that was).

[kelowna.livejournal.com]

This one with two guns and 9 months of planning only took 3 lives and then his own - it must be harder than it looks.

I think he'd have had more success if he didn't turn the lights off. Strange decision. Perhaps he didn't want to be seen, or he didn't want to look the people he was killing in the eyes... Either way, not the best circumstance for accurate shooting.

--k

[vicar.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking the lights off to make it more terrifying, to prevent escape, cause confusion, and result in more carnage. If so, totally didn't work.

[kelowna.livejournal.com]

Cause being hunted by a man shooting a gun isn't terrifying enough?

Could go either way. As a potential victim it improves me odds if he can't see me. Given that he was shooting in the dark and only shot 31 times his hit/miss ratio wasn't bad. Tho I don't know the size of the room or if any light streamed in from the windows. Normally aerobic gyms have those glass windows so people can watch...

I do agree with you in the sense that it is surprising that these gunmen don't kill more people and chose to kill themselves rather than keep shooting until they are taken down.

--k

[desiringmachine.livejournal.com]

i don't consider myself anti-gun and i disagree with a lot of gun control laws we have here but it seriously makes me afraid that so many pro-gun people seem to think that more guns = utopia. if somebody was planning on killing themselves at the end anyway the fact that everybody in the room is armed isn't going to stop them. if you are armed with a gun but it's in a holster and secured and a guy in an alley leaps in front of you with his already drawn you will probably not have time to get it out, unless you are a damn ninja.

i remember the talk about how students at VA tech should have been allowed to be armed & then Cho wouldn't have shot as many people. but if there had been a proper system in place to prevent a clearly disturbed person from buying a gun he wouldn't have shot anybody. besides that, i would be very uncomfortable walking around all day on a campus where everybody was armed. how would shoving a gun into the hands of a few thousand 18-19 year olds away from their parents for the first time make us safer? college kids aren't all brilliant well balanced little boyscouts. i just do not get it.

[vicar.livejournal.com]

You don't understand - guns aren't the cause of the fact that people can murder dozens of people every time they get a distressing pimple on their nose. It's the lack of guns for people being shot at that cause the problem. You totally have the wrong focus. Guns good, 4 legs baaaad.

[panthergirl.livejournal.com]

Lurker's response= Work just put me through a class for concealed carry. Va laws state that anyone who has ever been involuntarily committed is not legally allowed to own a gun. So, if you want to grow up to shoot lots of people in a gym in VA, and you know you are crazy, don't go to a shrink.

The most dangerous kind

[american-arcane.livejournal.com]

A person who thinks he or she has nothing to lose--and has already accepted that they will not leave a situation alive--is the most dangerous kind of perpetrator of violence against others.

I think everyone's lucky he went with guns and not explosives.

And everyone would have been better off if he had either just offed himself in private or, preferably, sought some serious professional help somewhere along the way.

Re: The most dangerous kind

[vicar.livejournal.com]

Agreed - though I wonder how he stayed so very alone that he didn't have some sort of support network. He didn't get laid? Well, a lot of ugly people get laid, a lot of dumb people get laid, and some really shitty assholes get laid. Whatever was wrong with this guy, somehow he went off on the tangent of "revenge" when potentially the same amount of energy into effort to grow in some way would have resulted in some measure of success as he measured it.

Heck he had a real job and everything. If it weren't for the hatred of women and minorities he could have made something of himself.

Re: The most dangerous kind

[american-arcane.livejournal.com]

Oh, indeed!

I'm pretty sure he created a self-fulfilling prophecy of incompetence when it came to relationships. It made him something special... the one guy in the whole wide world who couldn't get a good woman. And, by his own description of his family life, he was never anyone special there.

He very easily blew off any attempts anyone else seem to have made to reach out to him--he did have some dates, got invited to parties, was commended on good work he did at the office. His isolation was self-propagated.

He wanted so desperately to be special. Sadly, he chose to do it in the most self-destructive way possible.

The real telling sign, for me at least, is how it all ended. When the real gung-ho kill'emall bombastic mass killers would be blazenly taking their shots at the surprised crowds and staring stoically for the cameras, he turned off the lights. What some would consider his most glorious moment--the culmination of many months of planning and much hard work--was obscured not just from those present, but from himself as well... in the dark.

[unapologetic.wordpress.com (from livejournal.com)]

f course the wingers are out saying if it was easier to get guns then this sort of thing wouldn't happen

Not that I think they aren't saying this, but I was just talking to Higgins about this yesterday (in re VT shooting) and I'd love to back it up with an example. Do you happen to have a good link to people saying this?

[vicar.livejournal.com]

I did but I tossed the printed article in teh recycle bin at work (after scolding the person for printing it to show me instead of just forwarding the link). What I saw was a mainstream media site with the comments beneath it showing a liberal vs. gun-happy war in comments. I'd wager if you checked out 3-4 sites and included fox news - scanning comments would get more of the same.

Edit - check out the comments on USAToday: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-08-04-healthclub-shooting_N.htm