April 13, 2008
Remembering Virginia Tech One Year Later
Survivors Of The Tragedy Search For Ways To Prevent Similar Incidents In The Future
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Play CBS Video Video Remembering Virginia Tech The worst civilian mass shooting in U.S. history is approaching its one year mark. A suicidal student gunman killed 32 students and faculty at Virginia Tech on April 16th, 2007. Nancy Cordes reports.
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Video Do Guns Belong On Campus? Massacres at universities have a growing number of students up in arms?literally. Lawmakers in 15 states are debating whether guns belong on college campuses. Mark Strassmann reports.
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Video Increasing Campus Safety Maggie Rodriguez speaks with Virginia Tech student Sara Stevens and Princeton University's Director of Public Safety Stephen Healy about increasing security on college campuses.
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A mourner visits the makeshift memorial on the campus of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va., April 23, 2007. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
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Interactive Virginia Tech Tragedy Deadly shooting rampage on Virginia Tech campus leaves 33 dead.
While there will be commemorations at the campus in Blacksburg, Virginia, CBS News correspondent Nancy Cordes reports that for those closest to the tragedy and those who reacted strongly to it, the past year has been about remembering Virginia Tech every day.
"Every day almost feels like a funeral," Omar Samaha told CBS News. "We never thought we would lose Reema like that."
Samaha's younger sister, Reema, was one of the 32 people killed that awful day. She was just 18, a freshman, who loved to dance.
"She's kind of been this model this past year," he said, "for us to live our lives like she would."
Lily Habtu survived the attack, but carries a piece of it with her.
"I was shot in my jaw," she said, "and the bullet is still there, one millimeter away from my brainstem. They can't take it out."
She was shot in her wrist too and spent a month in the hospital, then graduated.
"We won't heal from this," said Habtu. "We will always think about this. We will always live with this."
Away from campus, Abby Spangler, a concert cellist and a mother of two in northern Virginia watched with horror as America's deadliest school shooting unfolded.
"I could take it no longer, and I thought the time has come to speak out," she told CBS News.
A few days after the shootings, she emailed 31 friends, asking them to dress in black and symbolically lie down with her outside Alexandria's City Hall for three minutes. That's the amount of the time they estimate it took Virginia Tech shooter Seng-Hui Cho to purchase his two semi-automatic handguns. The "lie-ins," as she called them, caught on and she founded a grassroots organization to help others organize their own.
"We can change the gun laws in our country so this kind of tragedy does not continue to happen again and again and again," Spangler said.
Topping their agenda, closing the so-called "gun show loophole." 35 states don't require private sellers at gun shows to conduct the instant background checks that federally-licensed dealers must do.
"A mentally ill person, a gang member can walk in there and get an AK-47," said Habtu. "This is what's happening."
Lilly and Omar participated in a lie-in at the Virginia capitol in Richmond, to pressure state legislators to require background checks at guns shows, something the Virginia Tech review panel had recommended. But the legislators rejected that, noting Cho got his weapons in gun shops.
"Say an individual like the Virginia Tech shooter had walked into that gun store today and tried to buy a gun, and he was denied," said Spangler. "Where would he go to buy his gun that was easy, that was untrackable, that's unregulated? Where would you go? You would go to a gun show."
This week, on the first anniversary of the massacre, there are more than 80 lie-ins planned, in Washington, D.C. and more than 30 states. Many will be led by friends and relatives of the Virginia Tech victims, like Omar Samaha.
"If you're an upright good citizen, and you want to own a gun, go for it," said Samaha. "We're just trying to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people, and everyone should want that."
"We shouldn't be waiting for tragedies to happen," agreed Habtu.
In a new poll this week, 60% of Americans surveyed say they favor stricter gun control measures, with 80% supporting closing the "gun show loophole." Americans also rated "reducing gun violence" as important a national policy goal as extending health care to everyone and ending the war in Iraq.
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Add a Comment See all 22 Comments
- Wouldn''''t just be easier to deny the bad guy the gun in the first place by making it difficult to get one???
Posted by USBrit
Yeah, like more gun control laws will fix all the problems that the 20,000+ gun laws already on the books didn''t fix? - Reply to this comment
- Why aren''t there dead perps littering the streets all over the country if GDU''s are this common?
Posted by USBrit
It''s DGU''s(defensive gun uses) and contrary to ignorant beliefs, not all gun owners are constantly trying to shoot at any criminal they see.
Most gun owners would much rather not shoot at anyone even if they are being attacked and most criminals are actually smart enough to know that an armed victim can be harmful to their health and should be taken very seriously. Most times when a gun is used in self defense, no one is injured and no shots are fired because simply seeing a gun in the hands of an intended victim can often change a criminal''s mind very fast. - Reply to this comment
- Considering that Cho killed himself as armed resistance entered Norris Hall (after consuming approximately half of his available ammunition), I would think that he would have run away even if a defender fired a shot and missed.
Posted by Glock4me
More likely he''d have shot the guy with the gun and carried on. He only shot himself once the Police had him in sight and cornered. - Reply to this comment
- If a responsible adult regardless of being a student or a teacher had a gun, they would have had a chance to stop Cho before he could continue murdering at will.
Not everyone can and should be carrying a gun, but it only takes one to stop a madman.
There is only one way to stop a dangerous suicidal maniac on a shooting spree and that''''s with equal or greater force and sometimes just the threat of force.
Posted by gunownerdan
The timeless argument. OK so if someone in the first room had had a gun and had managed to extricate it from his pocket/holster on time and had managed to get a shot off before he himself (as any self-respecting mass murderer would shoot the guy with the gun first) what are the chances of the gunman being hit fatally? Wouldn''t just be easier to deny the bad guy the gun in the first place by making it difficult to get one??? - Reply to this comment
- Forget the posted by gunownerdan reference on that last post
- Reply to this comment
- Guns Defensively Used (GDU''''s) a highly contraversial statistic. Estimates range from 82,000 to over 1 million per year. Now assuming that gun owners want bad guys off the streets and assuming that all GDU''''s result froman assault where the perp is using a gun, why then does this not mean 82,000 at least dead perps. All these gun owners say they use guns for protection and use the Wild West "Ah''''ll blow the (insert the invective)''''s brains aht," but the numbers show they don''''t. Why not? Hell in FL you just have to FEEL threatened to shoot the bad guy (or a neighbor or the Postman if they''''re having a bad day). Why aren''''t there dead perps littering the streets all over the country if GDU''''s are this common?
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Posted by gunownerdan - Reply to this comment
- "It''''s a nasty truth that those who seek to inflict harm are not phased by gun control laws. I happen to know this from personal experience."
- President Ronald Reagan, 1983
Posted by gunownerdan
Yes and RR was defended by God knows how many well-trained guys with truly automatic weapons who did him a whole lot of good that day. The guy with the gun was not shot - he was tackled. Maybe colleges should only accept 250 lb men who can run a 4.5 50. - Reply to this comment
- Killers prefer defenseless victims.
If a responsible adult regardless of being a student or a teacher had a gun, they would have had a chance to stop Cho before he could continue murdering at will.
Not everyone can or should be carrying a gun, but it only takes one to stop a madman.
There is only one way to stop a dangerous suicidal maniac on a shooting spree and that''s if their intended victims can fight back with equal or greater force and sometimes just the threat of force is enough.
"The peaceable part of mankind will be continually overrun by the vile and abandoned, while they neglect the means of self defense."
-- Thomas Paine
a-human-right.com - Reply to this comment
- If a responsible adult regardless of being a student or a teacher had a gun, they would have had a chance to stop Cho before he could continue murdering at will.
Not everyone can and should be carrying a gun, but it only takes one to stop a madman.
There is only one way to stop a dangerous suicidal maniac on a shooting spree and that''s with equal or greater force and sometimes just the threat of force.
Criminals prefer defenseless victims.
a-human-right.com - Reply to this comment
- By the way, George Mason didn''''t sign the Constitution.
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Posted by dragonwagon5 at 07:20 PM : Apr 14, 2008
Has Hillary claimed to have signed the Consitution yet?!? ...right next to Al Gore, creator of the internet.
Yeah, that''s the ticket!! - Reply to this comment
- Imagine being in one of those classrooms on that day. Those not in the first room Cho entered probably were aware that some serious trouble was brewing, but were disarmed and powerless to do anything. Why would any sane person wish to deny a well-trained and law-abiding citizen from carrying a concealed weapon? Even bed-wetting liberals in those classrooms would have benefited from even a single armed defender.
Considering that Cho killed himself as armed resistance entered Norris Hall (after consuming approximately half of his available ammunition), I would think that he would have run away even if a defender fired a shot and missed.
GO HOKIES!!! - Reply to this comment
- "The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age..." -- Title 10, Section 311 of the U.S. Code.
"I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials."
-- George Mason - Reply to this comment
- Fight Crime!
Create your very own GUN FREE ZONE today!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0vyxgJLJVA - Reply to this comment
- Castle Rock v. Gonzales (SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES CONCLUSION: POLICE DO NOT HAVE TO PROTECT YOU)
".. a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any particular individual citizen..."
Warren v. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1 (D.C.App 1981) (no liability for failure to provide police protection)
Sapp v. Tallahassee, 348 So.2d 363 (Fla. App. 1st Dist.), cert. denied 354 So.2d 985 (Fla. 1977); Ill. Rec. Stat. 4-102 (no liability for failure to provide police protection)
Jamison v. Chicago, 48 Ill. App. 3d 567 (1st Dist. 1977) (no liability for failure to provide police protection)
Simpson''s Food Fair v. Evansville, 272 N.E.2d 871 (Ind. App.) (no liability for failure to provide police protection)
Silver v. Minneapolis, 170 N.W.2d 206 (Minn. 1969) (no liability for failure to provide police protection)
Bowers v. DeVito, 686 F.2d 616 (7th Cir. 1982) (no federal constitutional requirement that police provide protection)
Davidson v. Westminster, 32 Cal.3d 197, 185, Cal. Rep. 252; 649 P.2d 894 (1982) (no liability for failure to provide police protection)
Morgan v. District of Columbia, 468 A.2d 1306 (D.C.App. 1983) (no liability for failure to provide police protection)
a-human-right.com - Reply to this comment
"It''s a nasty truth that those who seek to inflict harm are not phased by gun control laws. I happen to know this from personal experience."
- President Ronald Reagan, 1983- Reply to this comment
- I can''t believe it has been a year since that freakin idiot destroyed so many lives.I hope that the families,and friends have found some peace in their hearts over their loss.I don''t understand the 11 million dollar settlement though.Apparently everyone that was in some way involved is looking at this differently than myself.I guess whatever they wanted,or wish for is all that matters in the long run.
- Reply to this comment
- "GUN FREE ZONE"
Where feeling safe isn''t always being safe.
a-human-right.com - Reply to this comment
- "..the peaceable part of mankind will be continually overrun by the vile and abandoned, while they neglect the means of self defense."
-- Thomas Paine, The Writings of Thomas Paine, Vol. I
"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms . . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes . . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."
-- Thomas Jefferson, quoting criminologist Cesare Beccaria - Reply to this comment
- "Let me make a point here, in case this isn''t becoming extremely clear. My state has gun control laws. It did not keep Hennard from coming in and killing everybody! What it did do, was keep me from protecting my family! That''s the only thing that cotton pickin'' law did! OK! Understand that! That''s ...that''s so important!"
- Dr. Suzanna Gratia Hupp, Killeen Texas Luby''s massacre survivor - Reply to this comment
- I feel very sorry for all the families impacted by this tragedy. I support stricter gun control measures but thats not going to happen with George W Bush in office thank the Lord Jeasus Christ that the clock is ticking and the Bush Administration has less than 10 month left in office. YEAH, YEAH & YEAH. I hope the door hits Georgie real hard on the way out good ridance!
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