Back-to-School Bomb Threats

Bomb threats are apparently all the rage as the nation's colleges and universities start a new academic year, ABC News reports: At least 13 U.S. universities, including Princeton, MIT and Carnegie Mellon, have been targeted for anonymous e-mail bomb threats as students return to classes, federal law enforcement authorities tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com. One of the schools, Clemson University, in Clemson, ...

Virginia Tech Shootings Panel Seeks Reforms

Forbes' headline, "Va. Tech Shootings Panel Seeks Reforms to an AP report jumped out at me. Not because I much cared about the recommendations that the panel issued to ward off a more-or-less unpreventable, one-off tragedy but because of the sheer foregone conclusion that it represents. Has ever a panel been assembled to investigate anything that didn't recommend reforms? ...

Teachers Stage Fake Attack on 6th Graders

The news that broke over the weekend that teachers from Murphreesboro, Tennessee's Scales Elementary School "staged a fictitious gun attack on students during a class trip, telling them it was not a drill as the children cried and hid under tables" in order to impart lessons about what to do in the event of a Virginia Tech-style rampage has bloggers ...

Neal Boortz May Be Pulled from Virginia Radio Station

David Grant reports for the Collegiate Times that nationally syndicated talk show host Neal Boortz' show may be pulled from Pulaski, Virginia's WFNR AM for some controversial remarks he made in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings. Boortz echoed a theme expressed by many that the victims were “standing in terror waiting for (their) turn to be executed.” ...

Professor Fired Over Va. Tech Discussion/Demonstration

Cross-posted from PoliBlog: The AP reports: Professor fired over Va. Tech discussion An adjunct professor was fired after leading a classroom discussion about the Virginia Tech shootings in which he pointed a marker at some students and said "pow." The five-minute demonstration at Emmanuel College on Wednesday, two days after a student killed 32 people on the Virginia Tech campus, ...

Virginia Tech and What the Blogosphere is Doing

There is a move afoot in the blogosphere that declares April 30th a One Day of Silence. The move, as much as it is linkbait (the badges they give you link back to the One Day site), is a move that is not without controversy. It is a call for the blogosphere to remember the victims of the Virginia Tech ...

Should NBC Have Aired the Va Tech Killer’s Video?

Hugh Hewitt strenuously objects to NBC's decision to air the video made by Virginia Tech mass murderer Cho Seung-Hi, implying in his title that it may have been "The Single Worst Editorial Decision In The History Of Broadcast News." Soon after the press conference at which it was disclosed that NBC had received a package of print, photos and video materials ...

More Asininity (This Time from Malkin)

While James travels, I agreed to do some posting at OTB. The following is cross-posted from PoliBlog: Writes Michelle Malkin at RCP: Wanted: A Culture of Self-DefenseThere's no polite way or time to say it: American colleges and universities have become coddle industries. Big Nanny administrators oversee speech codes, segregated dorms, politically correct academic departments and designated "safe spaces" ...

Virginia Tech Gunman Sent Material to NBC

Cho Seung-Hi, the perpetrator of the Virginia Tech massacres, sent a press packet to NBC in between shooting sprees. The Virginia Tech gunman mailed a package of photographs, video and writings to NBC News in New York before he killed himself in the massacre that left 33 people dead, authorities said Wednesday. NBC said that a time stamp on the package ...

PSA: School Shootings Are Very Rare Events

I just thought that after reading this story, the above needed to be said. Another Scare Rattles Va. Tech Campus BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) - Virginia Tech students still on edge after the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history got another scare Wednesday morning as police in SWAT gear with weapons drawn swarmed Burruss Hall, which houses the president's office. The threat of suspicious ...

Washington Nationals Wear Virginia Tech Baseball Caps

The Washington Nationals wore Virginia Tech baseball caps last night in a show of support for the nearby university. The Washington Nationals fell behind against a pitcher bound for the Hall of Fame and predictably ended up losing to the Atlanta Braves last night, 6-4. But what otherwise would have gone down as a routine April defeat by a young ...

Would Armed Campuses Be Safer?

Glenn Reynolds argues in a column in today's NY Daily News that we'd be safer if only more of us carried guns. In fact, some mass shootings have been stopped by armed citizens. Though press accounts downplayed it, the 2002 shooting at Appalachian Law School was stopped when a student retrieved a gun from his car and confronted the shooter. Likewise, ...

Virginia Tech Shootings and Hindsight Bias

Megan McArdle, guesting at Andrew Sullivan's place, argues that the initial reaction to yesterday's Virginia Tech massacre may be clouded by hindsight bias. [E]ven if all mass-murderers did write scary prose, or make sweeping apocalyptic statements, or otherwise give some signal of their impending meltdown, the signal wouldn't do us any good, because mass murderers are really, really rare. ...

Virginia Tech School Shooting Video

Via Jeff Jarvis, I see that the video Jamal Albaughouti captured with his cell phone of yesterday's shooting spree at Virginia Tech has made it to YouTube. Thankfully, this just captures the surreal nature of the event unfolding rather than the gore. CNN's Sandy Malcolm claims this video has set a record for the network, with more than 2 million views.

Wondering About the Virginia Tech Killings

Scarcely a day has passed since the murders at Virginia Tech and already all sorts of people are drawing all sorts of conclusions. I've placed my own thoughts here.