hsnv18

Homeschool News & Views
Issue 18
From Homeschool Helpers
In association with Pass It On Ministries

Greetings. This is Dan White with Homeschool News & Views, issue 18, for April 20, 2007.

This was the week that a student killed 32 people and himself in Blacksburg, Virginia on the campus of Virginia Tech. This is all quite depressing, because this type of thing has happened a number of times before, and everybody believes that it is going to happen again and again and again.

Normally, when someone commits a crime, the authorities catch the criminal, he is tried, and if the liberals don’t prevail, he is convicted and sentenced to a punishment. Then society feels as if it has done something to prevent the problem from recurring. That process gives them some assurance and peace of mind. There – we took care of that problem!

But in these suicide massacres, that doesn’t happen. The killers just kill as many people as possible, before giving up and killing themselves. It doesn’t make any sense at all. It doesn’t appear that society can stop people who think like that. That’s very disquieting.

What was also disturbing about the Virginia Tech massacre was the reaction to it across the country. Immediately a bunch of other people threatened to do the same thing.

SPRINGFIELD, MO

A man was arrested for laying out detailed plans to kill 14 people. These people were specifically named, and the plans were detailed and real. His plan was to sexually attack some 9 year old girls, and then kill them and their caretakers. This plan had been in the works for some time, and was not triggered by the Virginia Tech shootings, but was similar in nature.

NORTH CAROLINA

On Wednesday of this week, two days after the Virginia Tech shootings, a sixteen year old boy pointed a gun at two other students in the parking lot of his high school. He then left the school campus. That school was locked down, and four other schools in the area were immediately put in lockdown status to keep anyone from going in or out. The police caught up with the student at a gas station. The student turned the gun on himself, shot himself, and died a little later from his wound.

MINNESOTA

Also on Wednesday, eight buildings at the University of Minnesota were evacuated after a professor found a note that said several buildings were going to be bombed. The buildings were specifically named, and the note said the bombing would occur by ten o’clock Wednesday night. Those buildings, including the campus library, were closed and all the classes in them were canceled. Bomb sniffing dogs did not find anything.

CONNECTICUT

In East Hartford, Conn., on Wednesday a man took a pellet gun to the mayor’s office. Those pellet guns can look very much like a real gun, especially if you looking at the gun from the other end. The man with the pellet gun told the secretary at the mayor’s office, "College campus, here we go," obviously referring to Virginia Tech. The man was arrested. No one was injured.

COLORADO

At the University of Colorado, on Tuesday, the day after the Virginia Tech shootings, a class was having a discussion about the massacre. One student said something to the effect that he understood how someone could kill 32 people. He was sympathizing with the Tech killer. The other students told investigators that the 22 year old student was angry about all kinds of things, from the fluorescent light bulbs to the unpainted walls on the campus, and that made him angry enough to kill people. The others said they were afraid to go to class with him.

That student was then arrested on a misdemeanor charge of interfering with staff, faculty or students of an educational institution.

His father defended his son. He basically said that his son may have been misinterpreted when he said those things made him angry enough to kill people, and that his son had the right of free speech to say those things, anyway.

OREGON

At Oregon's Lewis & Clark College, the students were holding a commemoration for the Virginia Tech victims. One student showed up for the vigil to remember the dead students wearing an ammunition belt. That was not well received. The ammunition belt was composed of already spent ammunition and the man did not have a gun to go with the ammo belt. Police said that the ammo belt was a fashion accessory, but they took it away from him.

So what kind of fashion statement is made when someone is wearing an ammo belt the day after 32 people are gunned down by ammo?

MASSACHUSETTS

In Needham, a male part time Boston University student sent some instant messages to a female student at another college, Wheelock College, late Monday night, threatening to kill the girl and two of her friends. He had dated the girl a few times.

"I'm gonna bring a gun to your school and kill you and (the other female student) and everybody you love. It's gonna be VT, (a reference to the Virginia Tech massacre earlier that day), all over again. Seriously, I'm just that demented," one message said.

Court documents state that the student made references to drinking, being stressed out, being depressed and that "killing people can change people's lives forever and the best is in the end, when I pull the trigger on myself, too." The messages said, "You better be scared because I'm coming for ya. Whatcha gonna do? Call the police on me?" Officials said that the final threat was, "Coming soon to a Wheelock campus near you."

They did call the police on him. Police picked up the man and he was being evaluated at a psychiatric facility before being arraigned on charges.

TEXAS

In Austin, authorities at St. Edward's University found a threatening note and evacuated school buildings. Police secured the campus perimeter and were searching the buildings, without finding anything.

LOUISIANA

In Franklinton, a 53 year old man was arrested. It was said that he gave a note to a student going to a private school there in southeastern Louisiana. The note referred to what had happened at Virginia Tech, and said something like, 'If you think that was bad, then you haven't seen anything yet." In response to that, parents picked up hundreds of their children from schools in nearby Bogalusa. All the schools were locked down.

MONTANA

In Great Falls, on Tuesday a student found a note written on a toilet paper holder in the girls restroom. She found the note at about a quarter after twelve. The note said that "the shooting would start at Great Falls High at 12:30 and it would be worse than Virginia Tech Mont. The school went into lockdown for a while. Nothing further happened.

WASHINGTON

A Washington State University branch campus in Vancouver was scheduled to hold a conference around 8 p.m. on the Patriot Act and the War on Terror. Some writing was discovered in a campus restroom threatening violence like Virginia Tech killings. They postponed their meeting and nothing occurred.

SOUTH DAKOTA

In Rapid City, S.D., schools were locked down after a student said that a man was in the parking lot of Central High School with a gun. The high school students were taken to the nearby Rushmore Plaza Civic Center, where parents were allowed to pick up their children. The student later said that his report was not true.

TENNESSEE

At the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, someone telephoned in a bomb threat. The school closed some buildings while the bomb squad searched them. Nothing was found.

ARIZONA

Classes were canceled at Estrella Mountain Community College near Phoenix after a note threatening a shooting was delivered by intercampus mail. The authorities took the threat seriously and ordered an evacuation. Nothing came of it.

There were also several instances of just nervous reactions.

At the University of Oklahoma in Norman, a man was spotted on campus carrying a suspicious object. It turns out it was just an umbrella. Officials said they wanted to err on the side of caution, and they did.

At North Dakota State University, a duffel bag was found outside a bus shelter in the main part of campus. Seven buildings were evacuated while that was checked out. The university people said that the shootings in Virginia reinforced the need to "err on the side of safety."

In Bloomfield Hills, Mich., school officials called police after parents and students reported
spotting a 6-foot-tall man in a skirt, high heels, lipstick and a blond wig near a school drop-off area. The school went into lockdown. Police were unable to find the six foot man in a skirt, high heels, lipstick and blond wig.

Some of these threats sounded serious. Most were not, but even a hoax over such a matter at such a time is sick and wicked.

And while I was writing this, a story came out about a Missouri State University student near us who sent e-mails where he made threats to "eliminate" minority groups on campus. In one, he allegedly wrote about how minority groups attend classes at Craig Hall. "Today (cuz it is convenient) in Craig I may have the need to eliminate some ...". He was arrested and charged with making a terrorist threat. Making a terrorist threat is a Class C felony punishable by up to seven years in state prison.

So this is the week that 32 people were killed on a college campus. And then all across the country, other people started threatening to do the same thing.

What do we learn from all this?

We are in a sick country. All the TV shows with constant killing and sex, all the video games teaching young people how to do what the Virginia Tech shooter did, all the classes in the schools and universities saying that there is no God and there are no absolute morals – it’s all working.

We all expect the mass shooting scene to be repeated at some time at some place in the not too distant future.

At the Virginia Tech memorial service, first a Muslim spoke. Then a Buddhist. Then a Jew. Then a left wing Christian. That is pluralism. Pluralism is based on the precept that there really is no one God. Therefore all religions are the same. They all have certain good, common principles, it is believed, but other than that there is no real spiritual force behind any of them.

President Bush mentioned God, and he meant the God which the United States of America originally acknowledged.

One Virginia Tech official tried to comfort the assembled students with the rallying cry, ”We are Hokies.” I question how much spiritual comforting value that has.

These manic episodes are extremely sad. They are shocking to all of us, but to a very few people they are unspeakably sad. At the Virginia Tech shooting, all those dead young people have shell shocked parents. Some parents lost their only child there, in the most horrible manner. It will be a long, long time before they will be able to close their eyes peacefully.

Humanism teaches that humans are basically good inside, and when they have problems it’s because of some external factor. They say that crime is caused by poverty, discrimination, deprivation, etc. In other words, your problems are my fault. Of course, the US is about the richest nation in the world, and also about the most criminal.

These suicide murderers always blame someone else. That is to say – they just extend the teaching of humanism. Their problems are someone else’s fault. They blame the people they shoot, who they don’t even know.

Even Christian parents pick up on this garbage, often blaming their kids’ problems on themselves, instead of on the kids' human nature.

As a result of all of this insanity, there will be ever increasing government control of people’s private lives. These problems are created by a Godless, socialist society, and then the socialists step in to control the problems which they themselves create.

What is happening in the United States today shows that there is a spiritual law in effect. The US is a different country today than it has ever been. It used to be an outwardly Christian nation. Not very Christian, to be sure, but at least outwardly Christian. Now the soul of the nation is being recast without Christ. The country is spiritually sick. There is a spiritual law in effect, and the US is breaking it. There is a God who is the force behind that spiritual law. For centuries He obviously blessed this most Christian nation in the world. Now He is obviously cursing it. When the public schools put God out, they became Godless, cursed places. Now as God is put out of the whole country, the whole country is becoming a cursed place.

The educational institutions are the prime means of reshaping the soul of America. Although these shootings happen everywhere, in businesses, malls, and churches, most of these sacrifices to humanism occur at the temples of such, the humanist educational institutions.

A number of people begin to homeschool just because of concern for their children’s safety. Sure, statistically there’s not much of a chance of your kid being the one to get shot. But there is always that constant nagging worry – Will my child be safe at school today? Each institutional student must try to learn while remembering to watch his back.

The peace and security of a Godly, loving home is a wonderful thing. That’s why homeschool students are so much better socialized, as the research has shown. They don’t have the constant fear of being picked on, made fun of, bullied, or shot.

This is Dan White with Homeschool Helpers. God bless the Christian homeschoolers.