Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : Investment Chat Board Lawsuits -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jeffrey S. Mitchell who wrote (2681)	4/4/2002 7:53:36 PM
From: Richnorth	Respond to of 12465

The trouble is that the world has been following fads/fashions which change with time. Also the pendulum swings to one extreme end before reversing course to go to the other end and so on. Seldom do people practice what one believes to be best for them. And so it has to be to each his/her own way. Regards, Rich

To: Jeffrey S. Mitchell who wrote (2681)	4/27/2002 3:05:13 AM
From: Richnorth	Respond to of 12465

Teachers massacred A voice said: "But Germany is America now." · 18 dead after former pupil goes on rampage in school · Gunman shoots himself John Hooper in Erfurt Saturday April 27, 2002 The Guardian Eighteen people were dead last night in an east German secondary school after a 19-year-old former pupil rampaged through classrooms carrying a handgun and a pump-action shotgun in an apparent act of revenge, having been expelled from the school two weeks ago. The dead included 13 teachers, two girl students, a school secretary, a police officer and the gunman himself, who appeared to have taken his own life as police closed in. The head of the German teachers' union called it "Germany's saddest school day since 1945". Local media reports last night said the police had not ruled out the possibility of a second gunman who may have slipped away during the chaos of the evacuation. Horrifying eyewitness accounts emerged of the events at the Johann Gutenberg school in the city of Erfurt. A student who identified himself only as Felix said he first heard a commotion just before the end of the fourth lesson of the day. Some of his fellow pupils left the classroom to see what was happening and returned speechless and pale-faced. He ran outside and found one of his teachers lying on the ground. "Blood was trickling out of his mouth, like on the television. But it was real," he said. Another teacher was stretched out on the floor nearby in convulsions, Felix added. At that point he saw other students running out of the building and heard voices shout "get out, get out". "I picked up my bag and ran," he said. "The guy was dressed all in black - gloves, cap, everything black," said Juliane Blank, 13. A girl attending the school, who declined to give her name, said: "I saw one of my own teachers lying in a pool of her own blood. Then I realised that this wasn't a joke." Some reports suggested that the bloodbath began when the gunman, who has not been named, returned to sit a mathematics exam. Just after 11am, in the middle of the test period, he stood up, said there was no point in his writing and opened fire. He continued on a shooting spree for about half an hour until police commandos entered the building and forced him to retreat to a classroom, where he later shot himself. In the middle of the drama, a handwritten sign reading "Hilfe" (Help) was pasted to a fourth-floor window. "We were sitting in class doing our work and we heard a shooting sound," said Filip Niemann. "We joked about it and the teacher smiled. "The teacher let us go out and see what was happening and when we left the classroom, 3-4 metres in front of us, there was a masked person in black holding his gun from his shoulder." The gunman "stretched out his gun and shot. We saw a teacher fall to the ground. We just turned and ran. I heard from other kids that the gunmen opened classroom doors and aimed at teachers". The killing spree looked certain to put law and order on the agenda for this year's general election in Germany. It took place on the day that the lower house of the German parliament passed a new gun law, which failed to meet the demands of police representatives. A spokesman for the police trade union demanded full registration of all weapons and much stiffer penalties for illegal possession of arms. Unofficial estimates put the number of lethal weapons in Germany as high as 20m. Vast numbers entered the country illegally during the wars in the Balkans. Germany's chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, said that his reaction was one of "boundless horror. This is so unique that it exceeds one's powers of imagination," he said. At 9pm last night the churches in Erfurt - Catholic and Protestant alike - rang their bells in unison, pulling together a city numbed by grief and shock. At the neo-gothic town hall, the queue of people waiting to sign a book of condolences stretched into the square outside. Wreaths had been strewn at the entrance. One young man was sobbing. Friends hugged him. Others were busy arranging red and white candles on the paving stones next to the wreaths. A voice said: "But Germany is America now." A woman in her late thirties or early forties carried a spray of flowers. Tears pouring down her cheeks, she said: "It could have been my daughter. This came out of the blue. I grew up here in Erfurt. I work with young people here. Nobody expected anything like this." Not even the digital traffic indicators on roads leading into the city were left unaffected by the day's events. They carried the message: "Erfurt mourns its victims." Last night six victims of the shooting were reported to be in critical condition in hospital, with several more pupils being treated for shock.