Quote Originally Posted by hempplaya
so it's all right to kill someone if they're racist? is it ok then to kill someone because they don't agree with my views or vica versa? did you even watch the news when they were interviewing students who were in the rooms he went into and shot people. he had absolutely no expression on his face and his eyes showed no expression. he just lost it. he didn't shoot people because they were racist towards him, he was mentally unstable. get your facts straight and please watch the news to get information on what happend/why it happend before making such immature accusations. there are people here who may be directly affected by this and to read such a rude remark like that. honestly, why are you so sure it has to do with racism when the stuff he wrote proves he was mentally unstable, he had been strongly urged to get counseling from teachers/concerned people. he didn't even want to associate with his roommates who were trying to get him to do stuff with them. i'm guessing you've never experienced the college lifestyle or are a freshman or sophomore in high school. trust me when i say this as i am in college, people don't go out of their way to make fun of someone else because of their race. in college for the most part, everyone is mature and knows right from wrong and couldn't care less about some random person they see while on their way to/from class.
Haha, sorry. I was trolling. But anyhow...

What I really think of this is that showing the video isn't going to cause any more harm than has already been done.

Second of all, I have been out of high school for quite some time now. So making this assumption based on my post is pretty ignorant.

The real problem is that they say VA Tech knew that he was potentially dangerous, but did nothing about it. So the question is, could this all have been avoided?

Please don't go making assumptions that racism could not have been a factor because of the fact that the university you attend does not have racism. Racism is everywhere, and in some places more prevalent. I still think it's very possible that racism COULD have been a factor, but then again, who really knows other than the victims? If any of these victims were a part of any sort of racism towards this man, then I think it's not very probable that they would admit to such things considering the fact that they are now victims, and don't want to look like they caused any trouble (human psychology).

None of us know any of the real answers here, all we can do is answer from speculation. Like I said, the only people who really know what is up are the people who were involved.

While you may be correct for the most part about college students being more mature and not caring about some random individual, you cannot speak for the VA Tech campus. Unless, of course, you are part of VA Tech. But to me it looks like you're not. You could cross the border of your state and notice a huge difference in attitudes versus race, gender, financial status, etc.

But back on topic, I think that showing these videos is fine. Sure it may have some disturbing aspects to it, but what the media should do is disseminate the information given to them on a case such as this. These videos could be very important to some, and to say that the media should not disseminate this footage, in my opinion, is ludicrous. If I were involved in any way, such as knowing a victim, or perhaps being a victim myself, I would definitely want to see what this guy's motives were. Why did he commit such a crime? In his life, what was so bad about it that caused him to shoot so many people and then commit suicide?

And about copy-cats:
Showing the videos would not cause anybody to commit copy-cat crimes, because even without it there would be copy-cats planning their moves the minute that they simply heard about the shooting.