I just wanted to express how my heart aches for the staff, students and community of Virginia Tech. The recent events were horrific and unimaginable. Please know that our thoughts and prayers are with you.

RickJ

Indeed so tragic. I sure hope this does not bring the bigots out of the woodwork. I was impressed to learn that the S.Korean President had memorial activities in his country for the students.

ScottGem

I'd be more impressed if the North Korean president had held a memorial.

But frankly, the major emotion I feel is ANGER. From everything I've read, this was a TOTALLY preventable incident. Instructors and fellow students had recognized the potential for violence in the shooter. Yet he was able to just walk into a store and walk out with a gun! TWICE! And the response of the anti-gun control idiots was to say the problem was too few guns.

And before anyone jumps over me, I am not anti gun ownership. But there needs to be reasonable (and Virginia's lax laws are NOT reasonable) controls put on who can obtain one. Flags should have been raised when a college kid applied to buy 2 hand guns in consecutive months.

Lets hope this finally spurs Virginia and other states to enact reasonable gun control laws.

Tuscany

I agree Scott. I am not anti gun ownership either, but I do feel that there needs to be more controls placed on who can own guns, how they are bought, and what they are used for.

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Allheart

Heart is heavy, with yours Tuscany. May peace somehow find its way to all of those tragically touched by this.

magprob

I think we should suspend our political views for the moment and just say our prayers are with the victims of this horrible and sensless act. Mine are.

MilitaryMan19D30

You can't stop random violence.

Skell

Well said Tuscany! Sad day not only for the US but everyone around the world too!

chuff

I went to school with a guy that did the exact same thing. He just snapped one day and killed 5 people in Spokane Washington, one of whom was a 4 year old girl, before being shot and killed himself. Much like Cho he was a loner, talked and mumbled to himself, was an outcast, and was sent to a doctor at least once that I'm aware of, and was picked on A LOT. To this day, I am so grateful I was not of the people that picked on him.

After his incident happened it made national news but was forgotten about with in a few days, probably because it happened on a military base not at a university. As strange as this sounds I am "fascinated" (I know that's a poor choice of words) by what is happening in their brains as they begin to formulate these ideas.

The reality is they've probably carried around the ideas for years, fantasizing and playing the events over and over in there brains to the people that emotionally tortured them. Unfortunately, innocent people who had nothing to do with paid the ultimate price for something they had nothing to do with.

The human brain is an incredible machine but it can also be it’s own worst enemy and turn the body on it’s self. I’ve been wondering for the last few days if his brain was diseased or if his actions were a result of years of abuse by others. Perhaps it was both but it’s amazing to think that that 3 lbs of matter between your ears is capable of dreaming and building skyscrapers, planes, and computers is also capable of causing such massive pain and destruction.