http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22116784/

He killed eight people, wounded five others, then killed himself. Apparently he left a suicide note at home saying he was going 'out in style'.

A Map of the Westroads Area

My office is the "A".

So I guess we will see the pro-gun lobby trot out the old maxim, "Guns do not kill people, people do." The President will express his sympathy to the families- there is probably a set script by now!- and nothing will result.

The same thing will happen in a couple of months time, and we will endure the same circus act again. The answer is so bloody obvious, that I am surprised that no-one in authority in the USA has twigged yet. Ban guns, or at least severely restrict their ownership! Show some ticker, and realise that the NRA and their ilk do NOT run the country.


EDIT- Moving reply to the correct thread.

Stu, I just popped in here to see if you'd posted so I'd know you were OK. I hope none of your family or friends were involved.

No doubt they will be calling for stricter laws against malls now.

Once again, I ask myself: WHY do I watch the "Today" show after horrific events like this? While I'm generally sure (aside from the details regarding victims, etc.) there is no real "news" to be had, I tune in anyway --- in hopes for something illuminating. Some glimmer of anything revelatory that might make such a ghastly mess partly understandable or even a little positive. The way a community jumps to the care and support of each other is always good, I know (but I wish we'd see more of it without bloodshed happening to spark it). But, all I got was - when interviewing the woman with whom this gunman had been living, briefly - "Do you think there is anything you could have done to help this young man any more than what you did?" -or- "Did you see any evidence in him that he was capable of such an act?" Now, really, what is she supposed to say? She was a middle-aged woman trying to help a homeless teenager get his life together. I don't think she would have bothered doing that had she suspected he might unload a few cartridges of ammo into a crowd of Christmas shoppers, for Heaven's sakes?! But, darn it, let's semi-blame the poor woman, anyway. Devoting five minutes to that sort of 'coverage' serves NO purpose at all. It solves nothing, it helps no one. Then, of course, the next fellow (a sociologist or psychologist, I think) offers his expert opinion on the matter. His brilliant summation? "Clearly, this was a very troubled young man...". Well, golly and gee whiz! So glad he said so ... as no one else would have ever thought of that observation, now, would they?

Sorry. This is just a rant (and purposeless, I know) but we have a community here that is curretly been ravaged and ripped apart, no matter how closely this tragedy landed upon them individually. They're connected. They're wounded. This lunatic gunman wanted to be famous? The Today show team are making sure he's getting his vile wish. Matt Lauer has added a few digits to his millions. The NBC peacock gets a few more vibrantly colored tail feathers (or something). Yippee. But where is the news? Where is the priority that the first and foremost public reaction to this should be support to/for that beseiged community? It just makes me nuts...

Sorry. Just my opinion there (and all my thoughts and positive energies go to those affected by this senseless crime, too, I hasten to add)...

Good to see that you are ok, Stu. Your office is a bit too close!

I echo that sentiment dave, - good to know you are OK Stu, as this terrible event happened on your doorstep!

Best wishes mate, to you, and your family and friends, in this difficult time.

Thanks, mates. Much appreciated.

They have released names now. I didn't know anyone on the list, but I'm sure this will reverberate through our community for a long time.

Glad to know you and yours were not involved, Stu.

Odd note: I did meet the Chief of Police at Westroads two months ago. We were buying the same suit; I almost grabbed his by mistake.

His son is cute one, BTW. About the most outgoing toddler I've ever met.

I read the list of names with a bit of dread too, since many of my friends live in Omaha, and one of the victims was from Lincoln. My boss's wife was Christmas shopping at Westroads when it happened.

The media reaction has been.. I don't know. Hour long interviews with psychologists on how to deal with the grief in which the expert and the news people spend 20 minutes discussing the merits of removing one's self from the media coverage in order to better deal with it, and somehow this doesn't strike anyone as ironic. That sort of thing. Omaha reals, Lincoln staggers. The two cities are so close, and so many people commute daily and have friends and family in both locations. This is Nebraska's deadliest shooting spree since Charles Starkweather, and I'm seeing headlines like "Witnesses Traumatized" and think, "uh, ya think?" I know I'm cynical, but I can't help wonder exactly what is gained by the quantity and relative quality of the media coverage.

I tend to agree. Now that the list of the victims has been published, I'm pretty well done with the coverage.

Like many of you, I too thought of logging on here to see if Stu was ok. Little did I know that your office was so close!

In any case, I am so weary of hearing these tales of troubled people taking their own lives and innocent people's lives with them then the endless discussions.

Here is my immediate reaction however. I hate malls, although I was brought up in a culture that reveres them and I'd wager to say that more Americans hang out in malls on Sunday, before after or instead of churches, than a lot of activities. I accept this fact and yet, I don't feel compelled to spend time in them for Christmas, New Year's or any other time of the year. I don't feel comfortable in them anymore. Not because of the threat of someone wacko targeting them as the place for his last demise or a gang territory battle place as happened in a mall I frequented with my kids here in CA, but, because I just don't enjoy that atmosphere much any more. I used to take my kids there when I lived in bad climates and eat at McDonalds for a treat or look at the merry go round. I didn't do much shopping ever though. I accept this as a way of life and it does not bother me much.

However here is what I would do now...to show support for those employees and people making an honest living and who faced this tragedy head on...I would go there and shop and help them go on with their lives. All the people who work there need our support now and if I lived there, I'd go against the grain and at least shop for a few simple items and smile and act normal. This is my knee jerk reaction to this horrible event. At first I thought, "Oh, I hate malls and this goes to show how horrible they are.' but then, I reasoned that most people are working there and it's honest work and why should they suffer for the actions of a sick individual? Why should their families suffer further than they have already?
This may sound odd, but, it would be an honest way of dealing with it.

The mall employees don't make much money and I guess I'd like to show them my support.

As to the shoppers, there isn't much of a way of showing them how much we feel for them. I remember the days when I did go to malls with my kids, and show them the Santa animations and try to find something I could afford to buy to make the trip worthwhile. It isn't fair that their lives are curtailed for someone's sickness. It could virtually be any of us.

I won't bother with the old gun debate as most people know where I stand! But, I'll say this, I'm sure the gun rattling crowd is going to say that if all those moms shopping with their strollers had been armed, or if the employees of each shop the guy hit had had weapons, this would not have happened! I hear this every time there's a tragedy instead of addressing the ease with which the sick person got a weapon, we hear that if everyone in the mall had been armed they could have quickly defended themselves!

oh well, I just wish I lived closer to carry this out but I'm sure I'm not alone in this wish.

Until such time as USA (and several other countries) change their gun laws, this kind of tradgedy will continue. Thank GOD that at least in the UK we have STRICT gun laws - but it took two similar tradgedies before we did!

Glad you are alive and well, Stu.

Thanks, Bru and Bloo

Please keep the gun control debates in the "Not the 9 O'Clock News" forum.

Thanks.

Since we were discussing this a bit earlier, I just had to pop on and mention something I saw last night on the news here. Most media outlets here have spent the majority of their time talking about the shooting. I suppose that's to be expected. But last night, after TWO different individual stories about shooting-related subjects, the anchors announced that their station had received hundreds and hundreds of emails, letters, faxes and phone calls telling them that the overwhelming amount of coverage was a miscarriage of justice, it glorified the shooter just like he wanted, and that they should just stop. They responded to this with a sensitive story about media responsibility during a situation like this, focused again on the shooting and how the media responded to it, and then followed that up with ANOTHER story about the shooting. Irony much?

I can't even begin to express how this has effected everyone in this part of Nebraska and Iowa. Because our communities are close-knit, regardless of size really, nearly everyone I know knows someone who was involved somehow, if not at Von Maur when it happened, then at the mall or working close by, etc. So it isn't detachment that makes me side with those who think the media has gone overboard here. It's insanity. Robert Hawkins is famous just like he wanted, and despite a public outcry, the media affects sympathy and then keeps on making him more famous. Infamous, perhaps, but famous. It seems that every word that was spoken by anyone via 911 calls, or witnesses, or cell phones, all the personal horror, all the intimate details between people who had loved ones inside, every scrap of trauma has been tarted up and paraded for us all to see, as if just imagining it couldn't choke a person up and cause the heart to flutter, the hands to shake... What is it for, exactly? Obviously the media is catering to someone. Is it just that the majority of people are the accident-watching type? Do we thrive so much on other peoples' misery these days? I don't get it anymore. Morbid curiosity has taken a strange turn, as far as I'm concerned. Everything in moderation, people! I don't think I can bear another account of the whispered words between wife and husband while she hid in a dressing room. I just can't.

You might have a point there. My coworker and I were discussing this today - would it behoove the media outlets to not even mention the shooter's name in cases like this, leaving the details for outlets like thesmokinggun.com? Interesting thought; the major outlets are already holding back portions of the killer's suicide notes out of taste and leaving that to thesmokinggun - why not just take the fame motivation out of the equation altogether?

This happened just a day before the anniversary of the Montreal Massacre - who remembers the names of the girls who were killed that day? Yet we all know the name of the madman who shot them.

I've been noticing, in anniversary coverage here in Canada, that they are not giving his name, just saying things like "crazed gunman" - and the memorials all read out the girls' names. A small step toward sanity, but a step.

There is no one to blame but the guy who did the shooting. Sometimes, people just lose it with no one to blame but themselves. Gun access and parenting can't be blamed for everything.

It has just come to my attention that the Westboro Baptist Church plans to picket the victims' funerals Monday and Tuesday.

If they don't want a bloodbath, the police had better turn out in force.