The Institute (協会)

I just heard about this. Unbelievable. This tops columbine as the most horrific school shooting in U.S. History.

I'd bring up the usual causal arguments like bad parenting, culture of violence, etc.... but it doesn't seem to cut it yet and its too early to say for sure anyway.

I've been locked to the news. This is absolutely insane!

it's so tragic, i can't even imagine what it must be like, to lose a student, a friend, a boy friend or a girl friend, a son or daughter...i totally want to disconnect from what has happened, i don't want to feel it, but I must. To be human is to feel, and we must feel this deeply.

My brother is a Ph.D. student at VTech. I thank the Lord he was nowhere near the campus when the shootings took place. He is in mathematical physics, and goes to those halls often.

They say the shooter was looking for his girlfriend; maybe someone will catch on to the fact that sex is for keeps, not just a game or a biological function.

And we should keep in mind what a pressure cooker campuses are to begin with. I remember hearing a guy take his life on one campus about 15 years back. Dunno what his story was, but we shouldn't undestimate what goes on there.

This is sick and sad! At the same time I sit in awe and wonder at how we (the world) are shocked by this to some degree. We are all shocked because this is a moral outrage, and something that should never happen, and yet we should not be surprised by it either because it is merely the fruit of the World View institutions such as this are teaching. If we live in a values free and amoral society where the individual determines moral truth, then we have no right to shock over this event, because we have no right to claim it to be wrong. It may be wrong for us, but not for everyone. What a sad picture of the fruit of a philosophy which when put to the test we all know can't possibly be right because we all know this is so wrong, universally and unequivocally!

Very sad, very, very sad. My guts churn when I hear of this kind of tragedy. Evil makes me so angry. God be with the families and friends of all of those who were killed and injured. I don't know what to do with this kind of event?

Very sad. Everyone is looking for an explanation, but all I've seen on the news reports are stories about guns and campus security. Seems to shift the focus to important but peripheral issues. Why can't America have a conversation about its own depravity?

My guess on the motive (we'll have to wait to see what the police unravel) is that the guy's girlfriend broke up with him and he was flunking out of his engineering classes. He shot her and then went to find his professor. Everyone else was collateral damage to his anger.

Archie, you stated you didn't know what to do with this kind of event. I think those of us who know God, take this burden and lay it at His feet, pray for those involved, serve some way if there's an opportunity, and ask the Lord how we can redeem this in the conversations we have with people. These times are yet another opportunity to show the world something different than what they're seeing on tv.

No answers. Only questions.

Anthony, I look forward to your thoughts and comments on this in the comming days. Very sad, and once again the implications for a crisis of Masculinity are astounding. Apparently the shooter wrote a one-act play last year about a son who hates his step-dad and has father issues etc. An Elon Student killed himself last week by standing in front of a frieght train. His father killed himself we he was in sixth grade. (you can read my thoughts on it at my blog). I wonder what wounds yesterday's shooter carried.

Apparently his writings indicate he hated rich kids. However, if he was a foreign student from Korea the strong likelihood is that he himself was a rich kid. Sounds like a powerful case of self-loathing that had been building for some time.

"Why can't America have a conversation about its own depravity?"

America? The news is saying that a gook did it.

Stuart, please....would this guy do this in Korea? We don't know, what we do know is that the US (America, is a continent not a single nation), provides an environment that at the very least opens up the possibility to imagine a mass murder on a college campus out of hate. How? The media, how killers and victims of similar situations seem to be glorified in the news, etc., etc., etc.

"The media, how killers and victims of similar situations seem to be glorified in the news, etc., etc., etc."

Juan, one of the crime experts that was interviewed made a very interesting comment about how the nature of reporting has changed in reference to these events. He was particularly bothered by the immediate rush to note that this was a "record." He rightly noted that a "record" becomes a challenge for someone to break.

I saw that last night. Also saw how the conservative guy from CNN approached the subject. Interesting takes.