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HAS ANYONE HEARD OF THE SHOOTING AT THE PITTSBURGH LA FITNESS?
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Feldschlacht IV
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CloseAs a resident and native of Pittsburgh, well, this really hit close to home, and it's really making waves everywhere. Maybe you've already heard of it. To summarize, a 48 year old man went into a shooting spree at a gym in the Pittsburgh area, killing 3 people, injuring ten others, and then killing himself.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_world/2009/08/04/2009-08-04_pittsburgh_shooting.html
What really makes this whole thing a big event (and even more tragic) is the blog he left behind. What's making waves is the stuff we know about this guy's head through this blog; one of the biggest things is how he had a LOT of resentment stewing in himself over his horrific luck with women, he was 48 years old, and most of his blogs were just stuff on how depressed, lonely, and resentful he was. It seems like regular old psychopath stuff, but read through his stuff. It's really causing discussion and people to think about what actually breeds behavior and people like this. Crazy.
Thoughts?
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_world/2009/08/04/2009-08-04_pittsburgh_shooting.html
A madman with two guns opened fire in an all-female dance class at a Pennsylvania fitness center Tuesday night, killing three women and injuring as many as 10 others, police said. Investigators said the gunman - described as a middle-aged white man - was among the dead, apparently a suicide. Witnesses said he strode into the LA Fitness center in Bridgeville, a suburb of Pittsburgh, through a back door about 8:15 p.m., carrying a duffel bag, and went straight to the Latin dance class on the first floor.
"He did not say anything," Allegheny County police Superintendent Charles Moffatt said. "He walked right into the room where the shootings occurred as if he knew exactly where he was going." About 30 women were in the class when a witness identified only as Nicole said the killer turned off the lights, pulled two guns from the bag and started blasting. "He got off a lot of shots," she said. "People everywhere were screaming. It was horrible."
Lauren Dooley, 26, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette she was on a treadmill listening to her iPod when the shooting started. "I saw people flying off the treadmills, hitting the ground" for cover, Dooley said. "We crawled through the fire escape, and I sprinted out the back." She said she heard 12 to 15 shots.
A man who was playing racquetball said the scene was total chaos. "It was panic," said Perry Calabro, 53, "when we realized it was gunfire. Once the shooting started, everybody started running." The shooting brought ambulances and police cars flooding into the crime scene area, which is part of the Great Southern Shopping Center strip mall.
What really makes this whole thing a big event (and even more tragic) is the blog he left behind. What's making waves is the stuff we know about this guy's head through this blog; one of the biggest things is how he had a LOT of resentment stewing in himself over his horrific luck with women, he was 48 years old, and most of his blogs were just stuff on how depressed, lonely, and resentful he was. It seems like regular old psychopath stuff, but read through his stuff. It's really causing discussion and people to think about what actually breeds behavior and people like this. Crazy.
Thoughts?
I already seen the news about this.
Normally I would insert a rant about gun control laws, but it's late and I really need to get some sleep.
Normally I would insert a rant about gun control laws, but it's late and I really need to get some sleep.
Silviera
2891
Just read the whole blog here. Very depressing stuff. Red flags all over the place of course, but I guess if he was as unpopular as he claimed there just weren't enough people reading it to notice what was going on.
More than anything else to me it sounded like the guy seriously needed a hobby. Seemed like at some point in his life he became obsessed with the fact that if he didn't have a girlfriend he was worthless (which is something a lot of people can probably relate to), and let it eat away at him for 30 years until he finally snapped.
I hate hearing about stuff like this.
More than anything else to me it sounded like the guy seriously needed a hobby. Seemed like at some point in his life he became obsessed with the fact that if he didn't have a girlfriend he was worthless (which is something a lot of people can probably relate to), and let it eat away at him for 30 years until he finally snapped.
I hate hearing about stuff like this.
post=91019
More than anything else to me it sounded like the guy seriously needed a hobby. Seemed like at some point in his life he became obsessed with the fact that if he didn't have a girlfriend he was worthless (which is something a lot of people can probably relate to), and let it eat away at him for 30 years until he finally snapped.
From what I am to understand, he had some hobbies. What he needed was someone. Preferably a woman. He wasn't really OBSESSED with the fact that he had no girlfriend, it was just really THAT significant. Going decades without any sort of female contact or sex is not good for you at all. Not to say it's an excuse to do what he did or hurt anyone at all, but it'll mess you up.
I just chalked it up to another conservative nutjob shooting people at first, but the more I read about it the more it appears it was all about women.
Silviera
2891
I guess I'm too young to understand that, especially since I grew up in an age where keeping in contact with friends has become ridiculously easy.
Really reading blogs will never be anything more than skimming the surface of what he was actually thinking. The part I don't get is why he insisted on taking out his frustration on a random group of strangers rather than quietly withdrawing from the world. Not that I condone the latter option, but at the very least it would be more understandable.
Then again he might have just done this for attention. After all, most of his blog seems to be pointing people towards what lead him to that point. Not sure what the point of that is after you're already dead, especially since he seemed to be convinced he was on his way to heaven no matter what he did.
The more I type the more confused I become about the whole thing.
Really reading blogs will never be anything more than skimming the surface of what he was actually thinking. The part I don't get is why he insisted on taking out his frustration on a random group of strangers rather than quietly withdrawing from the world. Not that I condone the latter option, but at the very least it would be more understandable.
Then again he might have just done this for attention. After all, most of his blog seems to be pointing people towards what lead him to that point. Not sure what the point of that is after you're already dead, especially since he seemed to be convinced he was on his way to heaven no matter what he did.
The more I type the more confused I become about the whole thing.
post=91025
I just chalked it up to another conservative nutjob shooting people at first, but the more I read about it the more it appears it was all about women.
Yeah, it was definitely a big part of it. But it seems like his luck with women (while like I said, a big part of it) was just the general surface of his life long loneliness.
post=91026
I guess I'm too young to understand that, especially since I grew up in an age where keeping in contact with friends has become ridiculously easy.
Hmm? I'm not sure what you mean (its late and I'm tired, forgive me), but you sort of need friends in the first place regardless of how easy it may be to keep in contact with them. He had none.
post=91026
Really reading blogs will never be anything more than skimming the surface of what he was actually thinking.
It's definitely better than nothing. None of us are mind readers, but from what we have read, a lot has been revealed. Someone's writings are often one of, if not, the best way to get inside someone's head.
Silviera
2891
I guess I was just assuming over 48 years of life there had to be at least some point where he had made friends. In my case most of those people have come from High School. He said something along the lines of 100 women have told him he was a "nice guy" at some point or another, so to me it sounded like if he worked at it he could have built a friendship with any number of people.
Though maybe friendship with a woman was not enough for him.
Though maybe friendship with a woman was not enough for him.
Neophyte
155
This is terrible.
What he need was a friend, somebody to talk to. Obviously this blog is his attempt to reach out, but the internet is no good for this!
This and a combination of self pity will do this. Being a middle aged man was also a huge factor as well, just read how many times he mentions his age.
What he need was a friend, somebody to talk to. Obviously this blog is his attempt to reach out, but the internet is no good for this!
This and a combination of self pity will do this. Being a middle aged man was also a huge factor as well, just read how many times he mentions his age.
DrZoidberg
54
You guys are feeling sorry for a murderer? What if one of those people had been your mother? Would you still feel sorry? Do you have any idea what that does to families? You people are sick!
Though maybe friendship with a woman was not enough for him.
Not for 20 years, no. Granted though, that would have done him SOME good.
post=91040
You guys are feeling sorry for a murderer? What if one of those people had been your mother? Would you still feel sorry? Do you have any idea what that does to families? You people are sick!
I'm not feeling sorry for him as much as I am saying there is a reason for everything and perhaps this could have been prevented. Something like this could reexamine how depression and isolation affects individuals and how we can work towards prevention of things like this in the future to any degree. Perhaps you should calm yourself down a bit?
I know somebody is going to get pissed at me, but deal with it.
He's pretty much just a giant self-loathing pussy. Sure he sat there and said how much his life sucks, boo hoo, let's all feel sorry for him, but he also mentioned multiple times about how he was invited to stuff. Parties, a picnic, went on dates, etc. If he was soooo isolated, then nobody would've invited him to events such as those. He also mentioned how he liked 'her' parties which also means that he's been to them before. One point on May 18, 2009 he said he had a date, but the last time he had one was May 1, 2009. That's really not a bad time difference. The way I see it is that all he wanted was sex more than the girl herself. It definitely became apparent on the last days when he claimed how much he masturbated and how he was jealous over a 16 year old girl supposedly having sex three times a day for a month, then how his happy neighbor was nailing the college girls. He also mentioned how he never had a close friend he wanted OR people never wanted to be close friends with him. People weren't rejecting him moreso, he was rejecting them. Again, he was going to social events, it's not like people we're just throwing him out of the equation. They acknowledged him, and he refused to accept that his life really wasn't that bad. I refuse to feel sorry for this guy.
You have a point about some of these things (namely how he could have tried harder himself to change his circumstances, which is true, we all have a choice), it is not that simple. Yeah, he had a date at the first of May, but this guy did not have any meaningful female contact or sex in about 20 years. You say 'All he wanted was sex', which, even if he did, twenty fucking years with no sex is a long ass time, no shit, he wanted some sex.
Not only that, but sexual repression/lack of it is not something to trivialize. Him jealous of that college girl or how many times he masturbates and whatnot isn't just an example of his horniness or whatever, it's an indication of his serious lack of, and the effects, of any meaningful relationships with ANYONE.
It's a lot deeper than what you're saying. You're trivializing it big time.
Just read over his blog a second time and I'm beginning to question why some people are sympathizing over him. Yes, I can understand that his job wasn't going so well, he was apparently lonely, and he needed someone to talk to, but that doesn't excuse the fact that he killed three women and injured more. Just reading some parts of his blog makes me question why we should be relating to this guy. I mean, judging from the first article alone, he was apparently a bit of a racist, especially with his commentary on Obama and on how black dudes are apparently getting all the white chicks. Not to mention the fact that he believed that "over 30 million" women have rejected him, despite the fact that he's apparently been going out on dates and going to social events with his coworkers. And judging from his constant talk of masturbating to the college girls and needing to look for someone pretty justifies the fact that he was never interested in a friendly relationship. I also noticed a peculiar line in one of the miscellaneous lines:
"Lee Ann Valdiserri had my baby in early 1991. Haven't seen her since she was about four months into it. I knew her sister, Chris, from high school."
It's obvious that this guy had a child at one point, but did he seem to care about that? You be the judge, not me. From what I can conclude from everything that I just read, this guy was nothing more than an average loser. If he didn't murder those women and opted to either go into counseling or get a better social life instead, I probably would have more respect for him. Unfortunately, he took the wrong route for all the wrong reasons. If he just killed himself, it probably would have had more meaning and a greater impact. But no, he just had to bring a few innocents with him.
EDIT: I can also understand how him not having sex for over twenty years is a pain in the ass. I admit that I've never had any real dates, but you can only jerk off for so long before you begin to long for the real thing. I have the occasional moment where I wish I could hold a girl's hand as we take a nice long walk, wrap my arm around her shoulders, or give her a gentle back rub, but by now, I've gotten used to the fact that it's not going to happen yet, but if I keep trying, that day will come eventually. I mean, I'm still nineteen and if I have to live another twenty years without any sign of physical attraction, without anyone's hand to comfort me, to give me warmth, to nurture me...ugh, now I understand how he feels. What he did because of those feelings, however, was still unacceptable. If he really needed someone that badly, he could have just continued dating, but hey, I'm not a psychologist.
"Lee Ann Valdiserri had my baby in early 1991. Haven't seen her since she was about four months into it. I knew her sister, Chris, from high school."
It's obvious that this guy had a child at one point, but did he seem to care about that? You be the judge, not me. From what I can conclude from everything that I just read, this guy was nothing more than an average loser. If he didn't murder those women and opted to either go into counseling or get a better social life instead, I probably would have more respect for him. Unfortunately, he took the wrong route for all the wrong reasons. If he just killed himself, it probably would have had more meaning and a greater impact. But no, he just had to bring a few innocents with him.
EDIT: I can also understand how him not having sex for over twenty years is a pain in the ass. I admit that I've never had any real dates, but you can only jerk off for so long before you begin to long for the real thing. I have the occasional moment where I wish I could hold a girl's hand as we take a nice long walk, wrap my arm around her shoulders, or give her a gentle back rub, but by now, I've gotten used to the fact that it's not going to happen yet, but if I keep trying, that day will come eventually. I mean, I'm still nineteen and if I have to live another twenty years without any sign of physical attraction, without anyone's hand to comfort me, to give me warmth, to nurture me...ugh, now I understand how he feels. What he did because of those feelings, however, was still unacceptable. If he really needed someone that badly, he could have just continued dating, but hey, I'm not a psychologist.
post=91059Because that's the reason y'all don't have a certain set of colonies anymore. :)
Why do Americans feel the need to shoot stuff whenever they have a problem with something..?
post=91059
Why do Americans feel the need to shoot stuff whenever they have a problem with something..?
You mean like the suspect in London who shot at police the other day? We learned from the best.
Apparently you missed the part where the UK has one of the worst crime rates in western civilization, surpassing the U.S. and even South Africa.
I heard about this on TV. In short, he was a disturbed man who, I simply like to put, could not handle all the problems he gave himself.
I may emotionally disturbed once in a while, but I would never take the life of another INNOCENT human being; I, or no one for that matter, has THAT right.
EDIT: I'd rather just take my own life, but again, I'm not weak enough to do that. You heard me right, the weak commit suicide.
I may emotionally disturbed once in a while, but I would never take the life of another INNOCENT human being; I, or no one for that matter, has THAT right.
EDIT: I'd rather just take my own life, but again, I'm not weak enough to do that. You heard me right, the weak commit suicide.
Canuck
0
If we're going to blame things that aren't the guy himself, we can look at the inflated importance of sex in society. There's many 48 year olds who have never had sex, and they're doing just fine. Why did he think sex is so important? Maybe because every media outlet inflates its importance?
Also, hatred of women. Being angry for not having sex with girls so shooting them? That's basic misogyny. Does he feel that women are fuck machines (thanks Vonnegut), and if they don't fulfill his desires then he gets angry at them? What perpetuated such sexist demeaning attitudes?
It is interesting. What makes these losers who are sexist assholes obsessed with sex? He must've been one alienated sad little boy getting further and further away from reality only having the internet or some form of media to create his norms and values on what's important.
(I didn't read his blog, only basing on what's posted here. Link to the blog?)
Also, hatred of women. Being angry for not having sex with girls so shooting them? That's basic misogyny. Does he feel that women are fuck machines (thanks Vonnegut), and if they don't fulfill his desires then he gets angry at them? What perpetuated such sexist demeaning attitudes?
It is interesting. What makes these losers who are sexist assholes obsessed with sex? He must've been one alienated sad little boy getting further and further away from reality only having the internet or some form of media to create his norms and values on what's important.
(I didn't read his blog, only basing on what's posted here. Link to the blog?)
