4:42 PM 16-Feb-08

Entrance to Cole Hall, morning after the shooting

Northern Illinois University shooting

Recent days have witnessed another eruption of shootings at high schools in the US. The latest deadly rampage took place in lecture hall at Northern Illinois University, wounding 15, kills himself.February 14, 2008,afternoon's shooting is the latest in a spate of gun-related killings in the US. A BLACK-CLAD white male, a former graduate student, Stephen Kazmierczak, 27 with no previous police record,turned the Illinois university lecture hall into a Valentine's Day massacre Thursday, killing five people and injuring 16 others before turning a gun on himself in the fifth United States school shooting in a week, authorities said."He just fired directly into the audience," said John Giovanni, a student in the class. "He didn't say a word. It didn't look like he was aiming directly at someone. I think he was trying to hit as many people as he could." Officials and witnesses said that Kazmierczak, armed with a shotgun and three handguns, calmly stepped out from behind a curtain at the front of the auditorium just minutes before the end of a geology class.
Wikipedia on Northern Illinois University

Early morning killings at the Louisiana Technical College in the state capital.

NEW ORLEANS (Louisiana), Feb 8: A female nursing student,Latina Williams shot dead two other women before turning the gun on herself in a vocational technical college in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on Friday, in the 2nd latest deadly episode in a week of shootings. Preliminary investigation showed that the 23-year-old gunwoman shot the two fellow students,Karsheika Graves 21 and Taneisha Butler 26, in their seats with around 20 people in the classroom at the time.Karsheika Graves' family of one of the victims forgives Latina Williams for killing their loved one.

Mass shootings are not particularly rare in the United States, where the gun-ownership lobby is politically influential and gun control is far less strict than in many countries.

In the worst shooting rampage in modern U.S. history, a student with a history of mental illness killed 32 people at Virginia Tech university in April 2007 before turning one of his guns on himself.

Seung-Hui Cho,(a South Korean citizen with U.S. permanent resident status living in Virginia) a South Korean who had moved to the United States at age eight, was a senior English major at Virginia Tech. Cho had been diagnosed with and was treated for a severe anxiety disorder in middle school, and he continued receiving therapy and special education support until his junior year of high school.
CHO SEUNG-HUI LAST WORDS Video

Planet Blacksburg on CBS Evening News on VIRGINIA TECH MASSACRE

Cho used two firearms during the attacks: a .22-caliber Walther P22 semi-automatic handgun and a 9 mm semi-automatic Glock 19 handgun.[8] The shootings occurred in separate incidents, with the first at West Ambler Johnston Hall and the second at Norris Hall.During the two attacks, the shooter killed five faculty members and 27 students and wounded many more. Almost two hours after the first killings, Cho appeared at the nearby post office and mailed a package of writings and video recordings to NBC News; the package was postmarked 9:01 a.m. He then walked to the site of the second set of murders. In a backpack, he carried several chains, locks, a hammer, a knife, two guns, nineteen 10- and 15-round magazines, and almost 400 rounds of ammunition.Several people will killed in trying to help others during the attack, including:
1) Professor Liviu Librescu held the door of his classroom, Room 204, shut while Cho attempted to enter it. Librescu was able to prevent the shooter from entering the classroom until most of his students escaped through the windows, but he died after being shot multiple times through the door. One student in his classroom died.
2) Student Henry Lee was also killed while trying to help Professor Couture-Nowak in making a fatal attempt to barricade the door.
3) Professor Kevin Granata brought 20 students from a nearby classroom into an office, where the door could be locked, on the third floor of Norris Hall. He then went downstairs to investigate and was shot by Cho. Granata died from his injuries. None of the students locked in Granata's office were injured

The Shooting Victims

The Shooting Victims

A look at the university
students and staff killed
in the worst mass
shooting in U.S. history

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The sale of firearms to permanent residents in Virginia is legal as long as the buyer shows proof of residency.Additionally, though, Virginia has a law that limits purchases of handguns to one every 30 days.Proponents of gun rights argued that Virginia Tech's gun-free "safe zone" policy ensured that none of the students or faculty would be armed and therefore were unable to stop Cho's rampage

Wikipedia Virginia Tech massacre

A new round of school shootings in the US By Kate Randall and Barry Grey 15 March2001

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