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A reporter and cameraman have been shot to death live on air in Virginia
Desktop Hippie
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
They were with WDBJ7 News and were doing some fairly standard fluff piece when a man walked up and shot them.
I... really can't imagine what everyone at that news station is going through right now.
I... really can't imagine what everyone at that news station is going through right now.
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pleasepaypreacher.net
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
It's not even a "too soon" issue, its a "what the fuck just happened" issue right now.
And this is coming from me, who is probably one of the more vocal supporters of a national database/registration, liability insurance, etc.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
I couldn't imagine being in the WDBJ7 newsroom, knowing what happened and still having to go on air because that's what newspeople do no matter what.
There's video of the shooting out there. Watch it if you want. I've seen it twice and I wish to never see it again.
Steam ID XBL: JohnnyChopsocky PSN:Stud_Beefpile WiiU:JohnnyChopsocky
Yeah because of course a reporter and her cameraman could have been killed by anything by someone walking by, they could have been cheese grated to death...
pleasepaypreacher.net
please stop. Whether you know it or not, this reaction is one of the reasons we don't have better gun control laws in this country.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
No actually the reason is because of people like you saying it's always too soon to talk about it. You stop. It's fucking time to talk about it.
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
"Damn it I was this close to signing a bill for better background checks but than this asshole made a post on the internet and now nope not going to do it."
pleasepaypreacher.net
If Sandy Hook didn't change anything, this sure as hell isn't either.
We always talk about it. We utilize the tragedy of people dying as leverage to try and get laws through. People on the other side call it callous and double down, gun sales go up (often the very gun used in the tragedy and is brought up in the news as something that should be banned), and nothing changes.
We have this talk every. single. time.
I want change as much as you do. Possibly more so. But this is insanity. It never works. We had a school full of kids shot up and this strategy did not work.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
Sadly accurate.
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
I'm a former print journalist, and I'm already getting copied on emails from former journalists I haven't talked with in a decade over this. This is going to clarify a lot of minds in the industry.
If every dollar spent on trying to pass gun laws through our congress (that wont pass even on 80-90% popular approval) was spent on campaigns further down ticket to put state and federal congress critters in office who are not beholden to the NRA vote scoring machinery, a lot more could be done.
Attacking this is attacking the symptom, not the root issue, and trying to push legislation through an uncooperative congress who CANNOT be cooperative without risking their all-too-important grade is pissing in the wind.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
This wasnt just members of the general public being gunned down, it was members of the press. Media is going to see this as being about them. That might give it some staying power.
I hope the survivor pulls through, and my thoughts are definitely with the families of the victims.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Yeah, I clicked on a link that I figured was safe to watch since it said the video cuts away. It was the original broadcast. They obviously meant it cuts to the studio right after they were shot.
The expression on the anchor's face is going to stay with me for a long time.
What the hell happened?! I mean they're just doing some random broadcast and he just walked right up to them and shot them. Did he know they were going to be there? Did he want the "glory" of shooting people live on TV? The whole thing just looks so utterly motiveless.
Its impacted me way, way more than I ever would have thought, and I've been out of the business for 2 years.
It's worth reminding people that one of those pro-gun politicians whom the NRA helped get into office is the current progressive man of the hour.
It was also her last day at the station. They had just finished celebrating at the station that morning and she had gone out to do that interview before leaving.
And she had just moved in with the station's 6 o'clock anchor
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
I can't fathom the idea of having to continue calling or punching after something like that. I... I just can't.
Steam ID XBL: JohnnyChopsocky PSN:Stud_Beefpile WiiU:JohnnyChopsocky
And the female was living with another anchor moving towards marriage....
Stuff sucks all around.
Gun control will never happen. You will never get rid of guns in America. It's a pipe dream. People can argue interpretations of the Second Amendment all they like, but you will never make guns go away. Even if the NRA boogeyman or the gun lobby in general disappeared overnight you still have the collective gun nut population who won't give up the guns they have and will vote against any law that restricts their ability to get more.
Alcohol kills three times as many people per year in this country as guns do, tobacco over ten times as many, if you're looking for controlling something to curtail preventable deaths there are better options out there.
pleasepaypreacher.net
It won't happen because of defeatist attitudes like this.
Law and Order ≠ Justice
The onion has a poignant not very satirical piece about americans wondering why we're the only country that has incidents like this on a regular basis. Also this guy isn't even done, he's still out there, god knows what he wants to do as an encore.
pleasepaypreacher.net
If true, he probably knew it was her last day, knew when she was going to be on air, and specifically did this where and when for maximum coverage.
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
Sounds correct. how else would he know where they would be?
It's not a defeatist attitude, it's reality. Regardless of how you or I feel on the subject of guns, trying to create a gun free America is like throwing ice cubes at the sun.
And how many of those deaths included someone other than the user?
The problem here is that we cannot simply use the outside view because even if the laws changed overnight, we have almost as many guns as people here right now (over 90 guns to every 100 americans).
This is going to require a shift in culture, a shift in laws, a shift in mental health services... there are hundreds of things we can be doing.
But we can't just go "look at the low rate of gun violence in the UK! Why can't America do that?" Because we really really can't just do that. We have to walk back a couple hundred years of tradition and hundreds of billions of dollars of sunk costs by the citizens.
I want to get there though. I want to get there real bad. But step one is getting a legislative body willing to make the changes needed, not demanding the changes right now from what we have. Because what we have has clearly and conclusively shown that the demands of the people mean fuckall to them when it comes to this issue.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
Are you serious? This guy might have worked with them? He might have known that cameraman's fiance would see the murder as it happened?
That's probably exactly what he wanted.
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
I have no goddamn words. Besides RIP.
Steam | XBL
Because we can't get the perfect result we shouldn't try? Nah.
I figured I'd check and see how many people are killed by drunk drivers every year, but I don't think they separate the driver and the people they kill in the statistics, instead they just label them all "alcohol related", so I couldn't tell you.
I think I just gave up on humanity.
Step one is to stop selling guns. You have to start somewhere and hearing the "it's too late argument" pisses me off to no end.