TV news reporter and cameraman killed on live TV

[+ FreshFluff]

The shooter had been fired by the station a couple of years earlier. He had submitted a claim to the EEOC claiming that his coworkers were racist, but after an investigation, the EEOC dismissed his claim.

 

The shots were captured both by the cameraman and the shooter himself.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/26/us/virginia-shooting-wdbj/index.html

 

The shooter Tweeted about the attack and then posted his own videos, taken with his phone.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/27/technology/personaltech/violence-gone-viral-in-a-well-planned-rollout-on-social-media.html?_r=0

 

RIP to the two victims, talented young people who had their own lives in front of them.

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03419/virginia_shooting__3419685b.jpg

[+ Gar1eth]

How absolutely horrible. Two young people cut down in the prime of their life for nothing.

 

Gman

[+ purplekow]

Disturbing

[tyro]

Disturbing

Very.

T

[+ dutchmuch]

We have had workplace killings before, but never on live TV.

 

What could be next?

[+ deej]

The GM of a San Diego TV station was on local news today, having fired the shooter many years ago for being disagreeable and difficult to work with. I wouldn't be surprised to see other similar stories come forward.

[Tonyko]

AND of course the RightWing R's will once again say it WASN'T the gun it was the PERSON. (because as we all know had he been carrying an eggbeater these innocent people would still be dead, right??)

[+ Gar1eth]

I just read an article on the ABC news site. This guy claimed to be an escort in the past that made $1000's.

 

Gman

[BigK]

I just read an article on the ABC news site. This guy claimed to be an escort in the past that made $1000's.

 

Gman

 

If he was a escort I wonder if he ever posted here??

[+ Gar1eth]

I just read an article on the ABC news site. This guy claimed to be an escort in the past that made $1000's.

 

Gman

 

If he was a escort I wonder if he ever posted here??

 

This will be judgmental. But I doubt assuming he was an actual escort that he was a very successful one.

 

Gman

[Guest]

I just read an article on the ABC news site. This guy claimed to be an escort in the past that made $1000's.

 

Unfortunately, that is the job of last resort for some people. Many escorts are very nice people. But if you're an ass, all you need do is put up an ad. No boss to have to answer to. No co-workers or anyone else you have to get along with. Of course, if you can't even pretend to be nice for an hour or two, you won't have a lot of business. But in my years, I've definitely come across escorts who were in the business because I can't imagine they could function in a normal work environment.

Here's a picture of one of his escort pictures:

[Guest]

Vester Flanagan, 41, committed the killings near Roanoke while thousands of viewers were watching station WDBJ’s news at 6:45 a.m. EDT, authorities said. He had worked as a reporter at several stations around the country under the on-air name Bryce Williams. But Flanagan never lasted more than a couple of years at any job and had a history of conflicts with employers.

 

It's interesting that he was able to get "several" jobs even with his checkered past. You'd think that employers would check references. If a guy like that can get a job, I wonder why there are so many unemployed....

[BSR]

AND of course the RightWing R's will once again say it WASN'T the gun it was the PERSON. (because as we all know had he been carrying an eggbeater these innocent people would still be dead, right??)

Tonkyo, it's called personal responsibility. Conservatives believe in personal responsibility and see it as the foundation of any civil society whereas liberals want to purge it from our society. When a drunk driver kills someone else on the road, we don't set out to eliminate cars. We hold the drunk driver responsible for his/her actions. You don't solve the problem of drunk driving by making it more difficult for sober drivers to get behind the wheel.

 

For every story like this, I could post a dozen cases of gun owners who have saved their lives and the lives of others because they were able to fight back. You don't ever hear about these stories because the leftist pom-pom girls who call themselves journalists *eyeroll* never report them. I wish the reporter and the camera man who were the victims of this horrible crime had been armed. At least then they might be alive today.

[+ Gar1eth]

Just some questions:

 

Tonkyo, it's called personal responsibility. Conservatives believe in personal responsibility and see it as the foundation of any civil society whereas liberals want to purge it from our society.

 

1. How did working to deny us marriage and in some cases continuing to try and deny it correlate with the doctrine of personal responsibility?

 

2. Also how does 4 Republican presidential candidates signing a pledge to sponsor a traditional marriage amendment which would rollback our marriage rights coincide with personal responsibility?

 

Shouldn't I and my hypothetical boyfriend be able to decide due to personal responsibility whether we want to be married?

 

Gman

[Tonyko]

Tonkyo, it's called personal responsibility. Conservatives believe in personal responsibility and see it as the foundation of any civil society whereas liberals want to purge it from our society. When a drunk driver kills someone else on the road, we don't set out to eliminate cars. We hold the drunk driver responsible for his/her actions. You don't solve the problem of drunk driving by making it more difficult for sober drivers to get behind the wheel.

 

For every story like this, I could post a dozen cases of gun owners who have saved their lives and the lives of others because they were able to fight back. You don't ever hear about these stories because the leftist pom-pom girls who call themselves journalists *eyeroll* never report them. I wish the reporter and the camera man who were the victims of this horrible crime had been armed. At least then they might be alive today.

NO they would not, they were ambushed it took 9 seconds and to think a woman holding a mic mid interview and a man holding a shoulder cam could whip out their 45's to defend themselves in ludicrous they would STILL be dead, and I am TRULY sick of hearing this drunk driver/car ref motor vehicles are a neccessary part of life in this second decade of the 21st Century, GUNS are NOT. And as far as gun owners who have saved their lives and the lives of others because they were able to fight back, the REASON you never hear about that is because they'd be cancelled out TEN FOLD by the number of times gun owners DIED because their own weapon was used against them or MANY PEOPLE DIED because the gun owners weapon was accesable to someone it shouldn't have been. NO ONE outside of law enforcement or some penal or guard related field NEEDS a gun. You WANT a gun. I want to burn my trash on my lawn and smoke in the office and leave my dogs poop on the sidewalk and society has dictated that in the world we now live in those things are no longer good for the greater good of man. I don't NEED to do those things. And NO ONE NEEDS A GUN. And THAT is why despite being an affluent socially progressive militarily powerful nation we are the laughing stock of the civilized world.

58 Murders a Year by Firearms in Britain, 8,775 in US.

[+ purplekow]

I know facts do not impresss gun rights supporters, but it is a fact that the person most likely to be killed by a gun is the gun owner. That does not include suicides which would obviously inflate that number. So clearly, many gun owners do not take personal responsibility. How many people are killed or maimed when clearing their gun, When their children kill themselves with a parent's gun which was left out, the parent is not usually charged. Shouldn't personal responsibility extend to care and maintenance of the gun and protecting society from the misuse of the gun?

The fact is, we do not need guns. I have mentioned this elsewhere but again, I will state, that in the US about 40 children a week are killed by people using guns. This is not an issue of personal responsibility this is an issue of societal responsibility.

By the way, you can be against drunk drivers AND against guns.

Cars are not designed specifically to kill with no other purpose. So the whole car gun comparison, not really feeling it.

[mike carey]

I had seen this video before, but I saw it posted again after the TV shooting in Roanoke. Many Americans will not agree with the sentiments but they summarise much that perplexes foreigners about US gun laws.

[+ purplekow]

A few laughs on a very serious subject He did a nice job walking that line

[Epigonos]

As a Republican I find myself in conflict with many of my fellow Republicans regarding this issue:

 

1. I am totally opposed to the private ownership of handguns. If a gun owner has a handgun for protection he’s more likely to shoot himself than a threatening intruder. If home protection is the main reason for gun ownership then a shotgun is a far better answer. With a handgun the homeowner may very likely miss the intruder; with a shotgun he won’t. I have friends who insist that society shouldn’t have the right to deny them the pleasure of going to a shooting range to play with their handgun – bullshit. It is a fact that the majority of people killed by handguns are killed accidently by a family member. BAN THE DAMN THINGS.

 

2. I am totally opposed to banning shotguns and long guns. That DOES NOT, however, include multiple rounds long guns. My father was a hunter. He had a shotgun for bird hunting and a rifle for deer hunting. His shotgun was a double barrel and his long gun was a single shot. Although I don’t hunt I have no problem with individuals who do. Yet I see no reason what-so-ever for the private ownership of AK47’s, Uzi’s and similar types of long guns. BAN THE DAMN THINGS.

[+ purplekow]

A

As a Republican I find myself in conflict with many of my fellow Republicans regarding this issue:

 

1. I am totally opposed to the private ownership of handguns. If a gun owner has a handgun for protection he’s more likely to shoot himself than a threatening intruder. If home protection is the main reason for gun ownership then a shotgun is a far better answer. With a handgun the homeowner may very likely miss the intruder; with a shotgun he won’t. I have friends who insist that society shouldn’t have the right to deny them the pleasure of going to a shooting range to play with their handgun – bullshit. It is a fact that the majority of people killed by handguns are killed accidently by a family member. BAN THE DAMN THINGS.

 

2. I am totally opposed to banning shotguns and long guns. That DOES NOT, however, include multiple rounds long guns. My father was a hunter. He had a shotgun for bird hunting and a rifle for deer hunting. His shotgun was a double barrel and his long gun was a single shot. Although I don’t hunt I have no problem with individuals who do. Yet I see no reason what-so-ever for the private ownership of AK47’s, Uzi’s and similar types of long guns. BAN THE DAMN THINGS.

A considered and thoughtful compromise position which makes sense but will never be a compromise position supported by the NRA I notice the name keeps the term Rifle it is not the National Assault Weapon Association. Would draw a Lot less members in that i would reckon.

[Frequentflier]

I had seen this video before, but I saw it posted again after the TV shooting in Roanoke. Many Americans will not agree with the sentiments but they summarise much that perplexes foreigners about US gun laws.

 

This guy is great and has a far more compelling argument against gun access in the US than those who support that fetish. The 2nd amendment was not written in support of the NRA's position. There are no facts that support gun access in the US (whether handguns or assault weapons) or use for defensive purposes. Maybe it has, but does the NRA publish statistics showing how many injuries or deaths have been avoided by people who aren't in law enforcement and pulled a gun on a would be criminal? As the horrible case of the reporter and cameraman showed, even if they had guns attached to their hips the outcome would have been the same. And had the killer carried an assault weapon he wouldn't have gotten as close and their handguns wouldn't have been helpful.

 

Its all about politicians keeping their jobs, the NRA and gun manufacturer lobbyists. None of those groups really care about the fact on average a gun death in the US occurs every 16 minutes. If drug dealers funded lobbyists like the NRA and gun makers it would be legal to snort cocaine everywhere including while driving if that group so wanted. The NRA, in my opinion, is a terrorist organization. It, and its members, care not about the deaths of babies nor tens of thousands of innocent victims every year. There was an interview of a murderer doing life a few weeks ago on TV who described the emotional feeling and rush he got the first time he held a gun. And while this truth is harsh, most of Americans don't care enough about gun violence to do what is necessary. We have a horrendous act of gun violence against innocents every week. Instead of calling our elected representatives every day, stoping our donations to the Democratic or Republican party and instead sending those to victims groups promoting gun laws, marching on Washington with pitch forks, etc. we say there is nothing that can be done and accept the results. There are more registered voters than members of the NRA. So my view is most Americans are just fine with what happens because we do nothing about it. We pay more attention to our IRA and 401 K balances.

 

I suspect Americans will for the foreseeable future (as they have in the past) see new tragedies on the news, comment for a nano second how horrible it is, probably not even listen to the full interview with victims families and then continue to do absolutely nothing to demand/encourage a change in laws. Hypocrisy.

 

Republicans pass laws restricting the ability of Americans to vote when the amount of voter fraud is such a small fraction of votes cast that most people don't have the ability to speak about numbers to describe it, BUT will do nothing to make the country safer for everyone. In fact, Republicans (with the terrorist NRA organization pushing them) pass laws making it legal to walk down the street or into a store/restaurant and in some states schools with an assault weapon or openly carrying a handgun.

 

During the recent street protests in Ferguson we saw white trash walking with guns slung over their shoulders (the police department said it preferred they didn't but by law couldn't do anything about them). Imagine if a black person had been carrying like those people.

 

After murders in a church to people attending bible study its nice the confederate flag came down in SC and similar changes but nothing is even being talked about as regards banning any type of gun, restricting a sale until clearance from the FBI (versus no answer in 3 days - ok to sell) or reducing the number of guns on the street, etc.. Its true that restricting future sales while doing nothing to reduce the quantity of weapons out there already really accomplishes nothing.

[BSR]

I am so fed up with this topic. Thank God for the 2nd Amendment. Thank God for the Heller decision. Thank God for the NRA & all pro-2nd Amendment groups. Thanks to all of the above, liberals will never realize their fantasy of eliminating individual gun ownership. See, when liars, oops, I means liberals say "reasonable gun control," what they really mean or at least secretly want is to confiscate all guns in private possession and ban all future gun sales. Tonkyo, God bless you for your honesty.

 

There are a lot of arguments that a number of you anti-gunners have brought up. If I don't address specific ones, it means I thought the argument was so ridiculous and pathetic that it was unworthy of my time and attention. Let's start with the most egregious lie that anti-gunners love to bring up: that the person most likely to be killed by a gun is the gun owner. Purplekow insists that this figure does not include suicides, yet provides no substantiation. Now, I don't know why I bother posting links because you liberals never bother to read them, or in the rare occasion you do bother to read them you dismiss whatever evidence is presented if you feel it's not true (and the only truth to a liberal is what he feels), but here's a link from PolitiFact that proves quite the opposite, that most suicides are committed using the person's own gun or a family member's gun whereas most homicides deaths are the result of somebody else's gun: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/apr/16/joe-biden/biden-says-most-shootings-happen-victims-own-gun/. Overall, because for the given year studied (yes, it varies from year to year, but not enough to change the fundamental results) there were more suicides than homicides, the steaming-pile-of-cow-plop that you're more likely to get shot with your own gun runs rampant in Leftist Fantasyland.

 

As for the argument (that isn't an argument, but I'll address it anyway) that you don't need a gun ... *sigh* ... If liberals like something, they decide that society needs it (like free contraception for Sandra Fluke), but if liberals don't like something, they decide you don't need it. It would be a lot more honest if liberals just went around with their personal lists of "Turn Ons" and "Turn Offs." Senator Dianne Feinstein also thinks individual citizens don't need a gun, which is why she's supported numerous gun control measures over her career. Yet the Senator managed to get, no doubt via her powerful connections, a permit for the concealed carry of a weapon (CCW) and admits to carrying a weapon on her person back when it was almost impossible for a law-abiding Californian to get a CCW. Straight out of Animal Farm: "Some animals are more equal than others." Something I know as surely as the sun rises in the east: if an anti-gunner were ever in a situation where his life were in danger and God offered to put a loaded gun in his hand, Mr. Anti-Gun would be screaming his brains out begging for that gun.

 

If gun control is such a great idea, then why is the gun murder rate in Chicago, which has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation, so sky-high? And why did the gun murder rate go down in Chicago and Washington DC after Heller (the SCOTUS decision that ruled that the 2nd Amendment does protect individual gun ownership)? http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/09/30/media-silence-is-deafening-about-important-gun-news.html

And before any of you anti-gun harpies start dismissing this finding just because it's on the Fox News website (the other places it was cited were similar outlets like Breitbart or pro-2nd Amendment websites), the awful truth never saw the light of day on any of the leftist pom-pom girl websites (CNN, ABC, NBC, NYT, etc.). Do you think Bob Costas will ever talk about something like this? Well, according to Costas (here we go again), "you don't need a gun!" Never mind that Costas has his own personal armed security.

 

The anti-gun fanaticism boils down to two things:

1) As much as liberals claim to care about personal safety, violence in society, and human life, this profound "concern" is a crock of shit. The only thing liberals care about is the Single Liberal Principle: "how does this benefit ME?" When this concern about violence benefits liberals, the issue is all-important, like when millions of liberals across the country tried to destroy Sarah Palin because her use of the word "target" when discussing Democrat incumbents somehow caused Jared Loughner to go on a mass shooting spree. According to liberals, guns don't kill people, metaphors kill people! Yet not a single one of these ever-so-concerned-about-violence liberals uttered a peep of protest about the Obama DOJ's Fast & Furious Operation, which put thousands of high-powered firearms in the hands of some of the most dangerous and violent people on the planet - Mexican drug cartels. One of the weapons given to the drug cartels was used to kill U.S. Border Patrol Officer Brian Terry. Many others were most likely used in murders committed on Mexican soil (difficult to access that forensic evidence). See, if you can use your concern about violence to destroy a powerful conservative, you go nuts. But if your concern about violence would damage your beloved leftist President, in the immortal words of Church Lady, "never mind."

2) Liberals' obsession with gun control is really just an obsession about control. An unarmed citizenry is defenseless (funny how criminals, whether street thugs or powerful drug cartels, never seem to have much of a problem getting a gun or two, or in the Fast & Furious Operation, a few thousand), and a defenseless citizen is far more dependent on the Almighty State. There is nothing more a liberal hates than a strong, independent, self-sufficient citizen because that guy just might vote Republican. But make that same citizen weak, dependent, and defenseless, and good golly! you almost surely have a citizen who will vote for the most liberal candidate in the Dem primary and the Dem in the general.

 

PS: It's late & I don't have the energy right now, but Frequentflier, one of these days, please bring up the issue of voter fraud in another thread. I can't wait to scorch you on this issue.