Deadliest school shooting in U.S. History has just occured.

[Joel Fagin]

I meant emotionally.

So did I. No particular reason why there should be any serious trauma. It might be nothing more to them than a bad car accident. It's still a near death experience but you shake it off after a week or two.

Still... Two of them. Maybe not trauma but I wouldn't be surprised if she was a bit freaked.

- Joel Fagin

[Killbert-Robby]

The article :

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18173672/?duck=true

I dunno Noise Monkey... even if she was in the line of fire, I'd rather live through two tragedies than NOT live through them.

[Rkolter]

Certainly, it's not lucky to find yourself in the danger zone of two tragedies. But lucky to survive. So maybe she's very lucky to have survived both, but cursed to find herself in dangerous situations not of her own making.

[McDuffies]

At least probability for the next one is drastically small.

[Mr.Bob]

Unless of course she's cursed.

[TRI]

If she is, lets just hope she's not trying for a PHD.

[Nyke]

On a lighter note : Did you know that a person who was in the "danger zone" during the Columbine shootings was also in the same position for this shooting, and survived both? Makes you wonder why more people couldn't be as lucky.

Sort of like seeing Haley's Comet twice, 'cept Haley's Comet doesn't kill people.

[The Neko]

I meant emotionally.

So did I. No particular reason why there should be any serious trauma. It might be nothing more to them than a bad car accident. It's still a near death experience but you shake it off after a week or two.

Still... Two of them. Maybe not trauma but I wouldn't be surprised if she was a bit freaked.

- Joel Fagin

You... don't shake those off after a week or two. It affects your personality and subconscious permanently whether you choose to remember the event itself or not.

The reason some people want to shut down the school even though it's quite possible not everyone knew a victim personally is that people can still be traumatized by the invasion of their sense of security. I mean, when a girl committed suicide on my campus, even though I didn't know her personally, it still really affected me and made it difficult to work. It makes you think and ruminate, etc.

As for me, I think the stuff that really hit me the hardest was reading about the people who had to play dead amongst their classmates, the teacher who saved his students by blocking the door in sacrifice, and the messages that people left, hoping to hear good news but never hearing anything back again. I mean, when they were removing the wounded, the police could hear dead students' cell phones going off.

The information about the killer is far less interesting than the VT student's reactions, but because one is more of a spectacle than the other, it gets more attention. Really, you're better off just saying he was a mental nut who fell through the system and had too much easy access to weaponry, utilizing loopholes.

[Mr.Bob]

On a lighter note : Did you know that a person who was in the "danger zone" during the Columbine shootings was also in the same position for this shooting, and survived both? Makes you wonder why more people couldn't be as lucky.

Sort of like seeing Haley's Comet twice, 'cept Haley's Comet doesn't kill people.

Just you wait.
One of these days she's going to snap and Bruce Willis won't be around to protect us forever.

The information about the killer is far less interesting than the VT student's reactions, but because one is more of a spectacle than the other, it gets more attention. Really, you're better off just saying he was a mental nut who fell through the system and had too much easy access to weaponry, utilizing loopholes.

This Sunday on a CNN special report Soledad O'Brien goes through THE MIND OF A KILLER

[McDuffies]

I meant emotionally.

So did I. No particular reason why there should be any serious trauma. It might be nothing more to them than a bad car accident. It's still a near death experience but you shake it off after a week or two.

Still... Two of them. Maybe not trauma but I wouldn't be surprised if she was a bit freaked.

- Joel Fagin

You... don't shake those off after a week or two. It affects your personality and subconscious permanently whether you choose to remember the event itself or not.

The reason some people want to shut down the school even though it's quite possible not everyone knew a victim personally is that people can still be traumatized by the invasion of their sense of security. I mean, when a girl committed suicide on my campus, even though I didn't know her personally, it still really affected me and made it difficult to work. It makes you think and ruminate, etc.

I agree. While I was living in dorm, several tragedies occured (like the guy who killed his ex girlfriend and her roomate with a knife) and it's simply not the same as when you read of this in newspaper - even if I never knew those people. With tragedy this big and senceless, I'm assuming that emotional reaction is much, much stronger.

[TheSuburbanLetdown]

I know that I wouldn't be comfortable having class in a room in which several people were massacred in.

[Joel Fagin]

I know that I wouldn't be comfortable having class in a room in which several people were massacred in.

Next time you're in hospital, don't think too hard about the bed you're in.

- Joel Fagin

[TheSuburbanLetdown]

Sick people dying in a hosptal bed and innocent people getting murdered in a classroom are not the same thing.

[Joel Fagin]

Sick people dying in a hosptal bed and innocent people getting murdered in a classroom are not the same thing.

They each have their own unique horribleness. Being in a bed where someone died is so much more personal and close, especially since you probably have no idea what they died of. If they think about it carefully for a minute and most people will start getting a bit OCDish and wash the sheets in bleach. It's unpleasant enough thinking about the fact that the cat used the bath as a toilet last week when you're having a soak.

It's just that hospital beds is one of those things you have to live with* so people just don't tend to think about it much.

- Joel Fagin

* Pardon the pun.

[Rkolter]

So did I. No particular reason why there should be any serious trauma. It might be nothing more to them than a bad car accident. It's still a near death experience but you shake it off after a week or two.

Still... Two of them. Maybe not trauma but I wouldn't be surprised if she was a bit freaked.

- Joel Fagin

You... don't shake those off after a week or two. It affects your personality and subconscious permanently whether you choose to remember the event itself or not.

The reason some people want to shut down the school even though it's quite possible not everyone knew a victim personally is that people can still be traumatized by the invasion of their sense of security. I mean, when a girl committed suicide on my campus, even though I didn't know her personally, it still really affected me and made it difficult to work. It makes you think and ruminate, etc.

I agree. While I was living in dorm, several tragedies occured (like the guy who killed his ex girlfriend and her roomate with a knife) and it's simply not the same as when you read of this in newspaper - even if I never knew those people. With tragedy this big and senceless, I'm assuming that emotional reaction is much, much stronger.

Just to give a different opinion, there was a double-suicide on my high school campus. It didn't particularly affect me because I didn't know the two people. It was sad, but live moved on.

I think we're really growing a generation of kids who don't know how to handle tragedy, or worse, who see tragedy as a windfall.

[McDuffies]

Why? When a tragedy occurs in your near surrounding, it's perfectly normal that you start thinking about issues such as fragility of life and coincidental nature of tragedies. It's not the same like when you read about anonimous people in news papers, here tragedy gets the face, if not of someone you knew, then of someone who you might have known if the circumstances were different, someone whom you might've seen in the hallways every day.
What I am afraid of is emotional detachment, generations of kids who react to tragedies too cool.

[Leperdoctor]

Just to give a different opinion, there was a double-suicide on my high school campus. It didn't particularly affect me because I didn't know the two people. It was sad, but live moved on.

I think we're really growing a generation of kids who don't know how to handle tragedy, or worse, who see tragedy as a windfall.

In my campus residence, a girl was speaking with her current boyfriend over the phone when someone knocked. It was her ex, who came all the way to the big city from whatever rock he crawled out from under in order to stab her to death. Her current boyfriend had the misfortune of not being hung up on when she opened the door; he could hear her dying screams.

An email was sent out, explaining about the tragedy and expressing the unversities' condolences. I lived in rez, same as the victim, and I felt bad that such a thing could happen, but the tragedy didn't effect me really at all.

I'm emotionally detached to people I've never met or seen. I didn't know this girl; I've never even seen her before. I lived in rez, same as her, and I didn't fear for my life. Maybe I'm pragmatic, but what happens if you question the fragility of human existance every time a tragedy occurs? A prostitute was picked up a block away from where I live now, taken downtown and sexually assaulted. Four people were stabbed on the streets outside a shopping mall I take shortcuts through, all on different days across a span of two months. Crimes happen all over my area, from B&E to muggings to traffic accidents to old people getting lost and wandering around.

Yes, it is important to think about these things and change our own life styles to try our best to prevent them from happening to us. But why get worked up over every incident that occurs? Bad things happen in life, and if you spend all your time fussing about the bad things, the good things will pass you by.

And McDuffies, I just reread your post and I totally get that. I wouldn't want to be surrounded by a generation of people who thought nothing at all of the things that happen to people. I think there's a happy medium somewhere, between the freak-out-OMG-it-could-have-been-me and the who-cares?