OT: Two students injured in shooting near MSU campus

Submitted by ca_prophet on

http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/01/justice/michigan-state-university-shooting/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

Gunman appears to still be at large, but no fatalities have been reported; one student is in critical condition.  

I hope the gunman is apprehended with no more injuries and that the student recovers promptly.

MOD EDIT - forgot to do this earlier. This happened in Cedar Village, so near campus but not on it. - LSA

 

 

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DingoBlue

February 1st, 2014 at 4:25 AM ^

Absolutely horrible.  Thoughts go out to the victims, their families, and their MSU friends who are all affected by this.

EDIT: Any upvotes I give are for awareness and nothing else.

Joined: 02/21/2012

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slimj091

February 1st, 2014 at 4:38 AM ^

anything else and i would have made a one off reply questioning why Dantonio can't keep his school in line like we have been hearing all week from spartyville over keith "touch my" stones.

but school shootings suck, even at universities who have sports fan's that drive me batty.

Joined: 01/04/2014

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Awkward_Amalgamation

February 1st, 2014 at 5:02 AM ^

OP, not that it changes the severity of the event, however, the shooting took place OFF-CAMPUS not ON. It was in the (in)famous Cedar Village. Needless to say, it's basically as close to campus as you can get without being officially connected. 

Thoughts/prayers to all those affected. Must have been a frightening text message to receive for the students and faculty.

Joined: 11/19/2012

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LSAClassOf2000

February 1st, 2014 at 6:02 AM ^

Very sad news indeed. Thoughts and good vibes to the families of the victims and the community at large. Hopefully, they find the person that did this - the local stories said that it looked like it was not random, per the ELPD. 

As someone sort of mentioned, it seems like there has been a tragic spike in such incidents either on or near campuses around the nation lately, but then even one such incident is really one too many. 

Joined: 01/07/2011

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TheSacko221

February 1st, 2014 at 6:51 AM ^

For the upswing in such incidents is the glorification of them by the media. If someone has a need to be noticed and watches the news they see these types of acts get attention for weeks. They will stop once the media stops putting them on a pedestal.

Joined: 10/12/2013

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turd ferguson

February 1st, 2014 at 9:45 AM ^

It'd be interesting to see numbers related to campus gun crimes and how the trends compare to gun crimes more broadly in the US. I think you might be right that the increased attention is mostly about a changes in reporting/notification standards.
One thing that I don't find helpful - and find really disgusting - is the way that every mass shooter seems to earn himself a week of national media profiles on what he cares about and how he got here. I think that does glamorize the endeavor in an awful way.

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Njia

February 1st, 2014 at 9:56 AM ^

And it works. Mass media is as powerful a motivator and tool for those who seek violence as those who seek to end it. I read an article written by a journalist who had spent time with Somali pirates. Not only were they aware of their reputation in social media including Facebook (which amazed me considering how isolated we assume them to be) they actually played to it.

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xxxxNateDaGreat

February 1st, 2014 at 11:18 AM ^

The media does it because they want to be the ones to figure out the motivations and reasoning of an insane person. That's why every debate that isn't about guns is usually about violent TV shows or video games. The sad truth is that there are almost no definitive links between the people who shoot up schools and crowds, other than they are almost always males.

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turd ferguson

February 1st, 2014 at 2:20 PM ^

They do it because people want to hear about it, so they make money.  Unfortunately, I think that also means that they don't have any incentive to take steps to prevent these incidents (e.g., by not covering the shooters so thoroughly), since these things make for big ratings.  

And yes, I think that TV and radio types are self-interested enough to respond to those incentives.

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GoWings2008

February 1st, 2014 at 7:15 AM ^

that the victims are okay and that they get the jackass who did this.  All rivalries aside, this sucks and I hope that everyone stays safe.  My little sister is an MSU grad and I'd be beside myself if she was still a student right now.

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Zoltanrules

February 1st, 2014 at 7:55 AM ^

There is nothing preventative law enforcement can do if someone is out to get someone with a gun ANYWHERE in the USA. College campuses are generally safer than cities but the same awful crimes that plague our cities can be found on every campus, UM included. Hope the MSU students make a full recovery and they prosecute the shooter.

Joined: 08/23/2009

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Njia

February 1st, 2014 at 10:16 AM ^

Do you mean all intentional, gun-related deaths, or homicide? According to the CDC National Vital Statistics report (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr60/nvsr60_03.pdf) of the roughly 31,000 annual gun-related deaths in 2009, more than half are suicides (18,700). Homicide accounted for only 1/3 of firearm-related deaths. The report also states that between 2008 and 2009, firearm homicides decreased 5.0%, which is consistent with a general, downward trend over the last few decades.

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Njia

February 1st, 2014 at 12:41 PM ^

So, I went over the statistics provided in the table to which you linked. Some interesting insights available for those who actually care to separate emotion and hyperbole from facts (which you seem to do). 

  • Firearms are, by far, the most often used means of committing a homicide ("murder" is the term used by the FBI in its statistics)
  • Overall annual firearm homicides dramatically declined between 2007, the first year of data available in the table, to 2011 (10,129 to 8,583; or about 15%)
  • The decline in the total annual homicides over that period (2,252) are substantially due to the decline in the use of firearms
  • All other means of committing homicide also showed significant declines

From the FBI site, I also looked at gun-related homicide statistics by state to see if there was a correlation to population. Answer: there appears to be. Among the 10 most populous states, there are a few outliers (California somewhat higher, Michigan and Georgia somewhat lower) but overall, the number of homicides is very population-driven.

Anecdotally - and this surprised me greatly - I couldn't find much of a correlation to the strength of so-called "gun control" laws in those states. I could just as well have found equally compelling correlation to the mean average temperature/climate in those states as a predictor of gun-related homicides. Prior to looking at the data, I would have agreed with people who said states with concealed carry laws have lower gun-related homicide rates, but that assumption didn't match what I found. For that matter, the data also didn't support the reverse argument. In other words, it doesn't appear that you are more or less likely to be killed by someone with a gun in a state with strong gun control legislation than you are in a state without it. 

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Shmallhorse

February 1st, 2014 at 10:22 AM ^

to commit 69% of murders in the US, murders only account for 1.2% of all violent crime in this Country.  You are far more likely to assaulted/robbed/raped with hands/feet/clubs/bricks than a gun.  We have a violence problem in this Country, plain and simple.

Either way, thoughts and prayers go out to the MSU community.

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blue in dc

February 1st, 2014 at 10:52 AM ^

And you seem to agree on the stats with that. If in another context (say workplace accidents), there was a factor that contributed to only 1.2 percent of injuries, but it contributed to 69 percent of deaths, would you think that the cause of 69 percent of deaths might be worth a bit more attention?

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TIMMMAAY

February 1st, 2014 at 10:32 AM ^

It's not that it's happening everywhere "these days", it's that we now have ubiquitous media that saturates everything around us. This is a recent developement. I don't understand why it is so hard for people to grasp that. This is not something that has become an issue recently, in fact, I would wager that humans in general have become overall less violent over the past several hundred years. 

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MGoBlue24

February 1st, 2014 at 8:47 AM ^

This isn't a blog about social issues, and the named incident is not a school shooting per se, but the guns-as-murder-weapons phenomenon isn't going away any time soon. If this post in some small way causes even one of us to figure out how to prevent this sort of tragedy, or better prepare for an occurrence, particularly at Michigan, all to the good. Hope those who were shot recover and trust we will catch the assailant.

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