Another US school shooting: Pennsylvania

[editor]

BBC front page is reporting that "a number of people" have been shot dead at an Amish school in Pennsylvania.

No article yet.

 

[editor]

Police surrounded a one-room schoolhouse Monday in response to reports of multiple shooting victims, a television station reported.
WGAL-TV said the incident occurred in southeastern Lancaster County.
About three dozen Amish people were standing behind a police line, and at least two ambulances had left the scene, the station said around noon. Television news helicopters showed a person being taken away on a stretcher to a waiting medical helicopter.
The Lancaster County 911 Web site reported that dozens of emergency units were dispatched to a "medical emergency" at 10:45 a.m. Monday.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=2517183

Look at the size of the school!

http://www.wsoctv.com/news/9982165/detail.html#

 

[Loki]

Amish of all people!? I thought they were god-fearing law abiding luddite types

 

[nino_savatte]

It doesn't make sense. I always thought the Amish were pacifists.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

No word on the shooter yet. It could be one of "the English", as the Amish refer to them.

 

[nino_savatte]

No word on the shooter yet. It could be one of "the English", as the Amish refer to them.

I was thinking that too.

 

[phildwyer]

Amish of all people!? I thought they were god-fearing law abiding luddite types

There've been a few Amish kids convicted of coke dealing in Philly recently. They have a sort of "gap year" at 18 when they go into the real world, and unsurprisingly often go a bit mental.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

It would be a sad 'ol world if even the Amish are going postal.

 

[ska invita]

Can someone explain why the US keeps having school shootings? whats the trend here...?

 

[Stanley Edwards]

Can someone explain why the US keeps having school shootings? whats the trend here...?

Not a clue other than a trend of guns.

Aaron Meyer, who owns a local buggy company said that the shooter lined all the girls at the school up and shot them all.

Fuck knows what this suggests? Not really a trend beyond a copycat school shooting thing.

Anyone know where to find current stats on the number of people killed by guns each year in the US?


--/ Apparently it's over 30,000 each year! About the same number as 20 years ago.

Thirty fucking thousand KILLED each year by guns in a 'peaceful' country.

 

[editor]

The BBC news said that one of the dead was a six year old girl.

 

[kakuma]

i saw a program and the amish kids are more fucked up than normal kids cos they live in these wierd places where everything is the 16th century, then they go to the city and they got guns and crack

 

[editor]

How awful is this?

A gunman has shot dead three children and injured seven before killing himself in an attack on an Amish school the US state of Pennsylvania.

The gunman entered the mixed class and ordered all male pupils and some adults to leave. He then tied up the girls and began shooting them in the head.
Police say the killer was a local truck driver named Charles Carl Roberts IV.

John Lines, a spokesman from Lancaster Hospital, said three of the injured people were girls aged between six and 11, all of whom had been shot in the head.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/5400570.stm

 

[kakuma]

fuckin hell man

why?

 

[nino_savatte]

The killer is obviously an "English". Still, the question remains "why"? Fucking sick shit.

 

[Dandred]

fuckin hell man

why?

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

i saw a program and the amish kids are more fucked up than normal kids cos they live in these wierd places where everything is the 16th century, then they go to the city and they got guns and crack

It's more late 18th century actually.

Whats the weirder place to live.... a late 18th century village or a place where kids get can ahold of guns and crack? I'm not sure.

 

[Bigdavalad]

Think the answer 'there's a lot of guns' is a bit too easy - there's a lot of guns in Canada and school shootings (and all shootings in general) are much rarer.

Those poor girls though

 

[kakuma]

It's more late 18th century actually.

Whats the weirder place to live.... a late 18th century village or a place where kids get can ahold of guns and crack? I'm not sure.

i'd say the real world rather than the religious community that is deliberately frozen in time

 

[Stanley Edwards]

30,000+ people are KILLED every year by guns in the US.

This particular news is so fucking sad but, I doubt it would have happend if the US had the same gun laws as Europe.

Madness is everywhere. The easy availablilty of guns is not.

Fuck the religious conotations. It's very simple really; guns kill people.

 

[Nixon]

Very sad news Guns and America make me very sad.I wouldn't feel safe living over there knowing that a good chunk of my neighbours would have firearms.The fact that shootings are becoming more frequent in schools too is even more terrible.

 

[Louloubelle]

The killer is obviously an "English". Still, the question remains "why"? Fucking sick shit.

apparently he was seeking revenge for something that happened 20 years ago (so when he was 12), according to the rambling suicide notes he left for his wife and 3 kids.

Rejected by an Amish girl perhaps? Linked with some kind of mental health problem? Whatever, it's a terrible thing.

Of course there's a possibility that he was one of the minority of Amish who leave and live as an English and are shunned by the Amish.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Latest news says the 'amish' connection doesn't weigh in; he chose the school because he knew there'd be no security.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

There are things that make you despair about society sometimes, and a rash of shootings where adults deliberately kill innocent children, is definitely one of those things.

 

[treefrog]

The more details I hear, the worse I feel. Those poor, poor kids

 

[TAE]

 

[Doctor Carrot]

Unbelievable isn't it? the amish just keep themselves to themselves and some fuck comes and does this to their community

 

[ska invita]

150 people died in Iraq today, hundreds more injured and scarred for life, and a further 16 kidnapped.
http://www.antiwar.com/news/?articleid=9780

didnt make it to the news at all today.

 

[Loki]

Watching US news now. He had three guns with 600 rounds of ammo, stun guns etc. apparantly he'd left behind "rambling suicide notes". He told his wife that he was exacting revenge for something that happened 20 years ago. He had three kids.

Since August there have been 25 shooting incidents in US schools

 

[TeeJay]

Since August there have been 25 shooting incidents in US schools

Anyone good at maths?

If Brixton (Lambeth) had the same murder/shooting rate as the US how many shootings would it have per year?

I'll start things off:

Gun deaths (homocide only - excluding suicide and accidents) in the USA in 1999 = 4.08 per 100,000

Population of Lambeth: c. 267,000

Therefore => 10.89 fatal shootings per year

+++++++++++++++++++

In the 12 months to August 2006 lambeth had 11 homicides although I can't tell how many of these were shootings as opposed to being stabbed with a knives or by other means.

(the "gun enabled crime" figure was 252 "Includes all offences involving a firearm. This will include offences where a firearm has been seen, or discharged/used. Both real, and fake firearms, and air weapons are counted within this category. Theft and handling offences are no longer included in the gun crime definition." link: http://www.met.police.uk/crimefigures/index.php )