"In the wake of the Virginia Tech..."

[PopHistorian]

We'll all have to deal with the fallout of this tragedy, so I thought I'd do a web search on "in the wake of the Virginia Tech" to see early indications of what it might be. 154,000 hits on that phrase already. I didn't include many links because you can find all this easily. Here is the gist of reviewing the top seven pages' worth. Some quite interesting stuff.

-- Gun debate gone wild. Lots of gun owners now worried about gun-control legislation. Lots of gun-control advocates screaming for more gun control. "Texas Gun Laws Could Face Scrutiny in the Wake of the Virginia Tech Shootings." There's a bill about to pass "to dramatically expand employee rights to carry concealed handguns onto their employer's premises." That could receive a boost as easily as a check.

-- Schools re-evaluating security policies all over. Some have enacted new rules already. Aimed directly at schools, "In Tennessee, a House panel voted to repeal a state law forbidding handguns on government-owned property." Republican State Rep. Frank Niceley said that this "has woken up a lot of people to the need for having guns available to law-abiding citizens." "Next time a misanthropic maniac goes on a rampage, it will probably be somewhere other than Tennessee. It’s just not as fun when the victims aren’t victims because they shoot back." The Rep. is called a "voice of sanity" by one right-wing (self-described) site.

-- Fearful students at University of North Carolina at Greensboro are assured that their campus has 140 emergency call boxes, more than 30 police officers, and an "active shooter response team" that is "specially trained to handle situations like the one at Virginia Tech." The school's police major is certain they'll learn even more lessons from VT.

-- "LockdownAlert.com (provides phone text messages to alert parents when schools go on lockdowns) will now extend it's free service to post-secondary schools in response to the killings at Virginia Tech... "Originally we didn't think our service was relevant for Universities, but yesterday's tragedy demonstrated how necessary a rapid alert system is for any campus," remarked Glen Wheeler, President of Xleet, Inc. which runs LockdownAlert.com. "... With a rapid and inclusive lockdown notification system in place, the second set of murders may have been reduced or avoided." (Nothing like cashing in on tragedy, I guess.) Not to be outdone, competitor Mobile Campus has gone free, too. "Mobile Campus allows administrators and other qualified and approved groups on campus to send group SMS (Short Message Service) messages via the one device that students, faculty and employees carry with them at all times, their cell phones."

-- Speaking of cashing in: Speculators snap up VT-related domain names. A wave of new Web domains have registered related to the Virginia Tech killings, including URLs such as vatechshooting.com, and vtmurders.com. Some are for sale for as much as $1 million. Other names include vatechshooting.com, vtmurders.com, vtkillings.com, vatechshooting.net, vtrampage.com and vatechmassacre.com. "According to reports in the Roanoke Times in Virginia, Joseph Parker of Christiansburg, Va., registered vtmurders.com and vtkillings.com, ...placed for sale on his Web site at $250,000. Parker is allegedly offering other domains, including choseng-hui.com, for $1 million." See article at computerworld.com.

-- Self-help being promoted. "In the Wake of The Virginia Tech Massacre, Recovery Expert Brings the Power of Virtual Healing to Students Nationwide... Recovery on Demand is offering "De-Stress" and "Brainiac" two popular downloads for free in the wake of The Virginia Tech Massacre to help students deal with their anxiety and to help them succeed on their upcoming final exams." This is downloadable self-help programming. "...healing modalities including meditation, hypnotherapy, affirmations and yoga are used to help you let go of the behaviors, habits and addictions that keep you from living the life that you deserve."

-- Loads of professional counseling people are offering every recovery remedy under the sun, with most urging the anxious and the disturbed to stay on their medications and run to doctors of all sorts.

-- Among several articles about racism in the wake of the shootings, a questioner at Yahoo Answers asks, "Do you predict that there will be a huge backlash against asians, in the wake of the virginia tech killings?" One answered, "]No we are not like these hysterical Muslims." Another answered, "when you talk about a specific group of people that frequently find themselves on the wrong side of an argument (say, the religion of peace) -- that's when you begin to see backlash." Another: "I think there might be a bigger backlash against those experiencing mental problems."

-- Violent gaming debate goes wild. New York gamers felt threatened enough to rally against violent stereotypes.

-- Here's an article showing stats of big surge in traffic on news web sites after VT. hXXp://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003573873

-- Horror writer Stephen King states that he doesn't think schools should start hauling kids off in straight-jackets if their writing or artwork shows signs of mental illness. Teachers aren't judges, he seems to be saying, and that he certainly would've been "tabbed as mentally ill" back in 1970 if today's sensitizations existed then.

-- Much coverage of many copycat threats to schools across the US. One Boston Univ. student already hauled before a judge: hXXp://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18215149/ for sending a text message.

*** END ***

 

[OCKHAM]

Oh my! I seem to be having a hard time digesting all this. Doesn't this all seem wrong? This event is now a disease and it's spreading. Thanks Adpop for your work. Also, all the channel info work you did, I really appreciate the opportunity to come here and read it. Otherwise, I would spend years figuring out all the disinfo.

More division and more control. It doesn't look good.

 

[Nienna]

I guess that I will never get over my amazement of how quickly the greed gets to people. A tragedy happens and people immediately come out of the woodwork with ways to make money off of it. It's like the scammers who swindle the elderly or those in deep despair. I put them in the same category.

Thanks, Adpop for the info.

 

[sHiZo963]

-- Fearful students at University of North Carolina at Greensboro are assured that their campus has 140 emergency call boxes, more than 30 police officers, and an "active shooter response team" that is "specially trained to handle situations like the one at Virginia Tech." The school's police major is certain they'll learn even more lessons from VT.

Here's a little something that was mass-mailed to every student at UIC, fwiw:

A MESSAGE FROM THE CHIEF OF UIC POLICE

To the Students, Faculty, and Staff of UIC,

In light of the tragic events at Virginia Tech University on Monday, I would like to give everyone on campus an update on the security measures already in place at UIC and review some which are under development.

The UIC Police Department has more than 70 uniformed officers on staff and patrols the campus 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, with the mission of protecting students, faculty, staff, patients, and visitors. Our officers are trained, dedicated, and prepared to respond on a moment’s notice. Rest assured that they are ready when called upon. UIC police work closely with Chicago police and our colleagues at neighboring institutions on the near west side to provide a safe environment for our community.

Several years ago, the UIC Police Department established its "Safe Schools Plan" which outlines the response procedures that the UIC police will take in the event that there is an "active shooter" on the campus. Each newly hired UIC police officer undergoes three days of tactical response training in this plan and receives refresher training once per year thereafter. UIC police officers attend the Chicago Police Academy and are state-certified. Additionally, we have several officers on each shift who are qualified in Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT). These officers train with and can be backed up by units of the Chicago Police Department and US Marshals Service should the need arise. Thus, we are prepared to respond immediately to an incident like the one at Virginia Tech. Also, we have the capability to remotely lock building exterior doors precluding anyone from entering a facility, but allowing occupants to leave. This system is already in place in some buildings, and we will continue to expand this system across the campus.

One aspect of the Virginia Tech tragedy that has been widely commented upon in recent days is that of campus communications in case of an emergency. On our campus, there are more than 1,000 Startel alarm stations (the yellow call boxes with the blue lights) which anyone can use to make an emergency call to the UIC police to report an incident. Your call will be immediately answered from our state-of-the-art telecommunications center. From this center, UIC police can be dispatched to any location. We also have almost 60 real-time surveillance cameras monitoring outdoor areas of the campus and tunnels on the west side of campus.

In case of a major event, the UIC Police Department will activate its Incident Command System, which allows us to track events on the campus by communicating with officers at the incident location and through our extensive network of surveillance cameras. We can also call on assistance from the Chicago and State Police. In addition to our standard communications systems such as URGENT mass e-mails, postings to the UIC Web site, the emergency information telephone line (312-413-9696), and announcements to the public news media, UIC's Academic Computing and Communications Center and Office of Public Affairs are developing a system that will text-message emergency announcements to a database of cell phone numbers almost instantaneously to alert the campus community about a serious incident and transmit instructions. We anticipate that this system will be operational in just a few months.

Finally, I would urge everyone on the campus to visit the UIC Police Department Web site and watch the UIC Police Informational Video which includes vital information on how to contact the Police Department and receive assistance. In the near future, we will be adding to this video instructions on how to report and react to serious incidents.

Please never hesitate to contact us if we can be of service. Our emergency phone line is (312) 996-HELP (4357) and the general number for the police is (312) 996-2830. We are always available to give safety and security briefings to departments and groups on campus.

Sincerely,
Chief of Police

It's truly everywhere. The implications of this event will be huge.

 

[PopHistorian]

Searching on "in light of the Virginia Tech" gets more of the same, especially polarization over the gun issue, some moving to expand gun rights, some to curb them. And a bit more:

-- Controversy over NBC's broadcast of Cho's video, photos, and words rages. This is the topic on today's Reliable Sources show on CNN. Surprisingly, average Joes overwhelming think that the material should have been suppressed, like in this poll from Altoona PA: hXXp://altoonamirror.com/pollmentor/pollmentorres.asp

-- Several "what to do?" polls like this one from Pennsylvania: hXXp://www.lockhaven.com/express/pollmentor/pollmentorres.asp

-- Tons more universities scrambling to address and reassure students and parents and to re-evaluate security procedures. UIowa, Iowa State, and Northern IowaU are re-evaluating their no-guns-for-campus-cops policies. One article states that "professionalization" of campus police agencies has already been accelerating for twenty years. hXXp://chronicle.com/cgi2-bin/mobile.cgi?article=/free/2007/04/2007041905n.htm

-- Fairfield county, Ohio now wants to add bomb and chemical training for local police: "... the director of the county EMA, said a bomb and chemical training exercise involving students ... will give law enforcement agencies an opportunity to look at emergency training tactics in light of the Virginia Tech shootings... planned for June 5 at Fairfield Middle School, also will include participation by Hamilton and maybe Warren County emergency response personnel, Turner said... the training scenario will give law enforcement agencies a chance to evaluate what SWAT teams do and see if their procedures work."

-- Bunch of primary schools recalling every old bomb and shooting threat seemingly as a way to reopen debate over security policies.

Surely every school in the country has had a student assembly to talk about this by now. Kids must be scared. To me, perspective seems to be unbelievably warped, as usual, to suit the fears of the ignorant who don't seem to understand how large the country is, how many students there are, how common such brutal killings are in, for example, Iraq. In such a situation the catering goes to those who want to turn freedoms over to blindly trusted authorities in return for a false feeling of security, while those in favor of preserving freedoms are made to appear heartless or "out of touch."