Ceremony of Reflection and Respect for the Monash shooting victims [monash.edu.au]
Venue: Robert Blackwood Concert Hall (Building 2 on the Clayton campus)
Time: 11am on Friday 25 October, 2002.
Hmm...the gunman is being charged in court and the 5 wounded are well on their way to recovery so I guess it's back to life as usual. It's sad to think that two innocent students died though. I actually saw the parents and sister (?) of one of the deceased today. They looked very sad, but I didn't know what I could say that would make them feel better so I just nodded at them. On the other side of the coin, the gunman's story seems unfortunate as well. He has an old mother to support, and now that he's in prison, what's going to happen to her? And why didn't he think of that before he started shooting? The mind boggles. I heard stories that he's under a lot of pressure to do well in his presentation, and it's quite a challenge considering he doesn't know English that well. I guess that can be pretty stressful, but hell, if every student started shooting every time they're stressed, I guess there won't be any Monash students left, would there? What he did was wrong, and yet, inexplicably sad.
You have received a message!
Pls forward:
For your safety dun go to crown these days
terrorist attack: a friend's friend had found a wallet somewhere and he rang the owner and gave it
back to him, the owner of the wallet is from pakistan, then he thanked my friend's friend and then
told them not to go to crown or any places which are these days as there will be something terrible
going to happen"
"Ths was written by a HK friend from eng. Just on the safe side dun go"
This is an ICQ message that's been circling around lately. I got two of these from two totally unrelated people (except they're both Monash University students) within a 15 minute period. I suspect it's a hoax, but one can never be too careful these days. Just FYI.
Link: 7 deadly weapons [heraldsun.news.com.au] (He even had a 9mm Luger)
Link: Professor sings praises of murdered uni duo [theage.com.au]
Link: Kung-fu instincts kick in as shots fly [theage.com.au]
Link: Modest hero's instinct takes over [heraldsun.news.com.au]
...and the knee-jerk response:
Link: Howard to push for limited ban on handguns [theage.com.au]
Link: National push to restrict pistols [heraldsun.news.com.au]
It's interesting to see that the gunman is said to be a member of the Melbourne Indoor Pistol Club [mipc.com.au]. I went there earlier this year (read about it here [sixthseal.com] - 1/4 down the page) and it's a pretty fun place where you can shoot with real handguns and live ammo. They're also an authorized Heckler and Kosh [hecklerkoch-usa.com] dealer. Check it out if you're interested.
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