Six dead in California college shooting, police say / School Shootings

[PointOfViewGun]

Six dead in California college shooting, police say

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(CNN) -- Six people were killed and at least three others were wounded in a shooting at a California religious college Monday, Oakland police said.

"We believe the suspect is in custody," Oakland Police Sgt. Christoper Bolton said. "He was arrested in a nearby city."

Highland Hospital spokeswoman Jerri Applegate told KGO-TV that five shooting victims were being treated there. She gave no information on their conditions, saying that was a police matter.

A SWAT team entered Oikos University in East Oakland to make sure no other shooters or wounded people were on the campus building, police spokeswoman Johnna Watson said.

Gunfire erupted inside the single-story building that houses the private Christian college at about 10:30 a.m. (1:30 p.m. ET), according to Lucas Garcia, who was teaching an English class when it began.

Garcia told CNN affiliate KGO-TV that he counted about six gunshots from a nearby nursing classroom when he heard someone yell, "He's got a gun."

Garcia evacuated his students from the building while the gunfire continued, he said.

The college offers degrees in theology, music, nursing and Asian medicine, according to its website.

Fatalities in California university shooting

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A number of people have been killed and several injured in a shooting at a university in California, police say.

TV footage showed wounded people emerging from buildings at Oikos University in the city of Oakland.
Police and armed response teams have surrounded the buildings, and a suspect has been detained. A nearby hospital said it was treating four victims.

Oikos University is a private religious institution offering courses in theology, music and nursing.

US media are quoting law enforcement sources as saying five people are dead.

Meanwhile, what appeared to be four bodies were seen outside a university building covered with tarpaulin, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Johnna Watson, of Oakland Police, said: "We know this to be a Korean college. A gunman came in to the college and fired multiple shots.

"We do have fatalities, I cannot confirm the number of fatalities we have at this time. We additionally have victims who have suffered from gunshot wounds."

Ms Watson added that medical services as well as police were at the scene.

The Oakland Fire Department says it was first notified of the shooting at about 10:50 local time (18:50 GMT).

Pastor Jong Kim, who founded the school about 10 years ago, told the Oakland Tribune that he heard about 30 gunshots in the building.

"I stayed in my office," he said.

A witness, Brian Snow, told local news station KGO-TV: "One of the people who was inside the building, she was saying there is a crazy guy inside.

"She did say someone got shot in the chest right next to her before she got taken off in an ambulance."
A woman who was doing errands nearby, Angie Johnson, told the San Francisco Chronicle she helped a woman with a gunshot wound in her arm.

The woman "had a hole in her right arm the size of a silver dollar with blood coming down", Ms Johnson told the newspaper.

Ms Johnson also said that, according to the woman, the gunman had stood up during a nursing class, shot one student in the chest at point blank range and then began firing at the rest of the room.

A police officer at the scene told reporters the gunman had not been identified.

Reports described the suspect as a Korean man in his 40s, with heavy build and wearing khaki clothes.

This is a fairly new incident and the details are still not known. 9 people were shot with 6 of them pronounced dead and the suspect is in custody. Whether the attack is connected to the university is not known.

According to this link, the number of shootings starting from 1996, U.S.A. is simply the undisputed winner. I started counting but then stopped realizing how futile it was.

Now, cases from U.S.A. may be simply more known due to being reported more widely but as far as I know such incidets in U.S.A. shadows any other nation. The simple question I wanna ask is: Why? Why does it happen mostly in U.S.A.?

[Dr Zoidberg]

At the risk of being yelled at (and I know I will be), I would wager it has something to do with guns being readily available to the average citizen.

[Gaidin]

At the risk of being yelled at (and I know I will be), I would wager it has something to do with guns being readily available to the average citizen.

The guns. They speak to me!

[Exarch]

At the risk of being yelled at (and I know I will be), I would wager it has something to do with guns being readily available to the average citizen.

they can't be that readily available if the victims didn't have guns to defend themselves.

all in all, what sort of tard brings a gun to school? why did it all start in the 90s, with students thinking they can shoot all their problems away?
.

[YukonTrooper]

why did it all start in the 90s, with students thinking they can shoot all their problems away?

DOS only Doom.

[PointOfViewGun]

At the risk of being yelled at (and I know I will be), I would wager it has something to do with guns being readily available to the average citizen.

I think you just set this thread on fire!

[stoogeofstooges]

I think you just set this thread on fire!

Yeah, this thread might top the Travyon Martin thread now. Wait till some people on this forum discover a debate about gun laws in the U.S.

[Vanoi]

At the risk of being yelled at (and I know I will be), I would wager it has something to do with guns being readily available to the average citizen.

Doesn't Switzerland also have some pretty liberal gun laws like the US?

[hellheaven1987]

Doesn't Switzerland also have some pretty liberal gun laws like the US?

At least in Switzerland they don't let boy scouts hold the guns.

[chamaeleo]

Doesn't Switzerland also have some pretty liberal gun laws like the US?

Yeah.

They've also got a great standard of living, so when someone says they're about to make you some Swiss cheese...you don't need to duck & cover.

[Heathen Hammer]

At the risk of being yelled at (and I know I will be), I would wager it has something to do with guns being readily available to the average citizen.

No, its obviously video games and metal music.

[AqD]

At the risk of being yelled at (and I know I will be), I would wager it has something to do with guns being readily available to the average citizen.

Average citizens can always get guns if they want to, legally or not. They can also use axes, knifves, or hand-made bombs (read the chinese news - they've been proved effective for killing gov officials).


In fact, the news just told us how important it is to carry a gun with you for self-defense, even in university. Had everyone armed with guns under that situation, the killer would have his body full of bullet holes before he could actually kill anyone.

[Oswald von Wolkenstein]

was.

Now, cases from U.S.A. may be simply more known due to being reported more widely but as far as I know such incidets in U.S.A. shadows any other nation. The simple question I wanna ask is: Why? Why does it happen mostly in U.S.A.?

Guns have been widely available for quite a long time. Crazy people have been around for a long time. Colleges have been around for a long time. But these kinds of mass (school) shootings have been a phenomenon -- that apart from a few previous incidents -- have been a product of the last two decades. Why?

All of the gunmen involved in school shootings have been on some kind of SSRI (Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil), or methylphenidate (Ritalin). -- Doctors tend to hand these out like candy and they are designed to reduce emotions -- things like empathy.

These drugs have been widely available for the past two decades.

It's a least worth a study.

Just some food for thought: Guns don't kill people, people high on prescription psycho-actives kill people.

_______________

[Garbarsardar]

Guns have been widely available for quite a long time. Crazy people have been around for a long time. Colleges have been around for a long time. But these kinds of mass (school) shootings have been a phenomenon -- that apart from a few previous incidents -- have been a product of the last two decades. Why?

All of the gunmen involved in school shootings have been on some kind of SSRI (Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil), or methylphenidate (Ritalin). -- Doctors tend to hand these out like candy and they are designed to reduce emotions -- things like empathy.

These drugs have been widely available for the past two decades.

It's a least worth a study.

Just some food for thought: Guns don't kill people, people high on prescription psycho-actives kill people.

_______________

Do we have any study that shows that the perpetrators were actually taking the drugs that were prescribed to them? Were there brain autopsies that found the synapses awash with serotonine?

While I agree that American doctors overprescribe SSRIs it is necessary to understand that:

1. If all SSRI users were turning violent, the US (and parts of the UK) would be barren wastelands
   
2. Correlation is not causation
   
3. The so called "evidence" about SSRIs and violent behaviour come mainly from animal paradigms. Just look at the last sentence in the following paragraph to understand the depths of idiotic conjecture that pesters lay scintists:

A study out of the University of Southern California in 1996 looked at a group of mutant mice in
an experiment that had gone terribly wrong. These genetically engineered mice were the most
violent creatures they had ever witnessed. They were born lacking the MAO-A enzyme, which
metabolizes serotonin. As a result their brains were awash in serotonin. This excess serotonin
is what the researchers determined was the cause for this extreme violence. Antidepressants
produce the same end result as they inhibit the metabolism of serotonin.http://www.hacres.com/pdf/documents/TheHallelujahHealthTip531.pdf

So temporal inhibition of momoamine equals permanent absence of monoamine. Nice. (BTW this one of the sources for the wiki article that makes the link to violence)
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Anyone interested need to read this study, undertaken by the US secret service. I post here the key points:

• Incidents of targeted violence at school rarely were sudden, impulsive acts.
• Prior to most incidents, other people knew about the attacker’s idea and/or
plan to attack.
• Most attackers did not threaten their targets directly prior to advancing the
attack.
• There is no accurate or useful "profile" of students who engaged in targeted
school violence.13
• Most attackers engaged in some behavior prior to the incident that caused
others concern or indicated a need for help.
• Most attackers had difficulty coping with significant losses or personal
failures. Moreover, many had considered or attempted suicide.
• Many attackers felt bullied, persecuted, or injured by others prior to the
attack.
• Most attackers had access to and had used weapons prior to the attack.
• In many cases, other students were involved in some capacity.
• Despite prompt law enforcement responses, most shooting incidents were
stopped by means other than law enforcement intervention.

[Condottiere 40K]

The Swiss have an actual militia system in place, combined with a very low crime rate, so that it's citizens have an inherent respect for guns, and aren't paranoid enough to produce them at the slightest provocation.

[Copperknickers II]

Gun laws are not the sole reason, but the fact is a college student can get a pistol in the US very easily. You can't compare Switzerland to the USA, completely different demographics. And as for the drugs, you can't blame it all on them either: the UK, Germany, Italy, Denmark, and the Netherlands all have high rates of antidepressants etc as well, but not nearly as many college shootings even allowing for their sizes.

[Vanoi]

Gun laws are not the sole reason, but the fact is a college student can get a pistol in the US very easily.

Define easy. Some states have some strict gun laws, while others do not. My state recently passed a law that allows 18 years old to buy handguns. I would rather the age be 21. I do think there needs to be a more stricter regulation on guns overall. However you cannot soley blame gun ownership for mass shootings such as this.

[Exarch]

so why not just make guns illegal?
it's a ticking timebomb, esp with so many crazies/conspiracy nuts/survivalists who 'prepare' for the day when they might have to fight a second civil war

[hellheaven1987]

so why not just make guns illegal?

It would not change anything; someone would just use grenade arrow anyway.

[Border Patrol]

so why not just make guns illegal?
it's a ticking timebomb, esp with so many crazies/conspiracy nuts/survivalists who 'prepare' for the day when they might have to fight a second civil war

Because this isn't Australia. Guns are legal and books aren't banned.