Who did you think the gunman would turn out to be?

[jollyreaper2112]

Given how many people he killed, it seemed a bit improbable that this would just be an enthusiastic amateur. Given what we knew yesterday, "male, young, possibly asian," I was wondering if this was a vet going to school on the GI Bill. Visions of McVeigh and Malvo were running through my head. Turns out I was wrong. But would you have honestly thought an amateur could kill that many people in one go?

I guess this really goes to show that we're lucky the incidence of crazy, motivated people isn't higher. When you look at something like the Bath School Massacre, there was a guy planning his deed for over a year. I can understand spur of the moment crazy, like someone impulsively reaching for a gun in the heat of passion. That's why I say guns are so dangerous in the first place, people can be out of their right frame of mind for a moment and that's all it takes to pull the trigger. But the Bath guy, he wasn't caught up in a moment of passion. He planned that thing out for months and months and months, slowly bringing the plan together, rigging the bombs. It's a special kind of crazy where you've got complete, rational control over your actions and are bringing the full force of your intellect to bear on accomplishing something monstrous. I feel much more comfortable with the idea of a random nut who shoots up a McDonalds on the spur of the moment, that's just crazy. But the long planning? That goes into a serious kind of evil. The Bath guy also was present when his stepmom burned to death in a stove accident. In retrospct, given that he was a tinkerer and watched her for several minutes before tossing water on her, it makes you wonder if he was responsible. And it shows his wrongness went back decades.

McVeigh and Malvo are the scary types, the slow burns. It takes effort and dedication to put together plans like they did. Plenty of people out there are smart enough to do it but are too sane to even want to try. There are plenty of people crazy enough to do it but lack the ability. But at that intersection of crazy and capable...people die.

[slackmaster]

1. My only preconceived notion was that the killer was probably male

Any other assumptions have historically proved to be much less reliable.

[BuyingThyme]

2. Me too.

[nitpicker]

4. agree

Women may kill themselves, may even "take that b**tard who messed up my life with me", but how many people have heard of massacres committed by American women?

[Warpy]

7. I thought he was male and a nutcase

and had to have some sort of firearms training, military or firing range.

I was right about the first two. Time will tell if I was right about the third.

[jollyreaper2112]

9. well, it wasn't like I was telling people it was so

I wasn't posting on here "betcha it's a vet." I'm only bringing it up after the fact. I agree, the only thing likely is that he'd be a guy, probably white, but nothing is certain until the cops have a body.

[electron_blue]

3. I figured it was a male student, maybe a graduate student (does VT have grad students?)

It didn't even occur to me to wonder whether he was an "amateur".

[Igel]

8. I assumed male.

I also assumed grad student, from a culture in which group honor is important ... note that while this applies nicely to E. Asians, it also applies to SW Asians, and to a lesser extent, the American South. Then I heard "dorm", and changed my mind--most grad students don't live in dorms.

That left undergrad and possibly staffer as options.


Never stopped assuming male, though.

[jollyreaper2112]

12. by amatuer I mean...

As in, someone who either just picked up a gun in preparation for the crime or who is an enthusiast but never had professional training. It's sort of the same questions brought to mind by 9-11, could any Joe terrorist have flown the planes like that, could they have with just a smidge of flight training, or would they have to be professional pilots with some experience to pull it off? Some people swear they had to be professionals, others said what they did isn't has hard as you've been told. Me, I still say the whole thing sounds like a Tom Clancy plot that never could have happened in real life. Shows how accurate common sense is in uncommon times.

You've got the same quesitons with the JFK hit. Could Oswald have done it and done it alone? Could the world's best marksman have pulled it off? Both sides can argue you into a corner on this one and you don't know who to believe.

[LiberalFighter]

20. Yes they do... local paper had interview from local grad student

[MADem]

5. I thought it would be an impassive - looking Korean kid who liked to stalk women and light his dorm

room on fire and call in bomb threats....

No, not really. I had no preconceived notions. Truly. There simply was insufficient information to make any kind of conclusion.

[jollyreaper2112]

16. it's not really so much about the shooting itself

People have been making posts here since the war started wondering what we were going to be in for "when johnny comes marching home." We had McVeigh and Malvo from a 100 hour ground war. Who knows what else is cooking in the minds of those broken by the war and unable to cope?

The high bodycount and age bracket had me wondering about this, that's all I'm saying.

[MADem]

19. Malvo was a Jamaican CHILD, who was molded and bullied by a batshit crazy older guy.

It was John Allen Muhamad (nee Williams) who was the Gulf War vet and in his forties when that rampage started--I remember it well, I was down that way then. But I think his troubles started way before that little set-n-wait in the sand. Same with McVeigh. There was a drawdown going on, and a shitload of force-shaping. A lot of people got tossed during that timeframe, and some of them didn't take it too well.

The architect of that drawdown, fwiw? Dick Cheney.

[LiberalFighter]

21. Apparently this guy stalked intimidated a few other women

[Raven]

6. I really had no idea who it would turn out to be.

I assumed it was probably a student because of the reports of a fight with a girlfriend. I am not surprised to see him described as a loner or that he had written some distrubing stuff. We have seen all this before in any number of people who have committed murder. I did expect him to be American born and bred.

[kerry-is-my-prez]

10. I figured it was a white male student who was flunking out....

n/t

[whistle]

11. When I first heard about the earlier shootings on campus it was about

....8:30am and the news was already talking about a jilted boyfriend and possible revenge killing of the girlfriend and that the killer was thought to be Asian, possibly Chinese. So, without any hard facts to report, the news sources were already creating a visual in the minds of their listeners. I had to go about other business at that point and only returned to listen to news radio reports at 1:00 pm and of course by then the rest of the event had unfolded, but reports remained vague and sketchy with a lot of speculation and even that there might be two or more shooters involved.

[kwolf68]

13. What I thought?

Male
White
"Good" with guns
Pissed off at someone or something at Va Tech

[gaspee]

14. My assumption

And my only assumption about the shooter was that it was a "him."

I can't think of one mass shooting that was committed by a woman. Anyone?

[BrokenBeyondRepair]

15. i dunno.. crazy ppl come in all shapes and colors

[BuyingThyme]

17. What if one was to post this question at Free Pukelick?

[Mandate My Ass]

18. Also the guy who shot all the Amish girls last fall

When they reported all the sexual paraphernalia he had on him, it seemed he had been planning a few rapes before he went postal. However, he got caught faster than he thought. The sickness in some people is truly frightening. :scared:

[madrchsod]

22. pissed off student who was american white guy

but it turned out a pissed off asian guy