Do you think there's significance in the fact that the Fort Hood gunman was a Virginia Tech graduate?

Total coincidence.

Life is random. Unless a link can be provided that the two knew each other it is bullshit. Six billion people on our beautiful blue orb. Wacky shit is bound to happen.

i think it ironic that he was a mental health doctor

the universe is just one weird place.

If the shooter was 39 and has been in the Army for many years, the odds that he was at VT in 2007, or even knew anyone who was, are very slim.

Coincidence. But that ain’t what the media is going to be saying.

Yeah, I guess it would be pretty unlikely that there’s anything deeper to it. I was just wondering what you all thought.

I read on another site how people are saying he was a terrorist because of his name sounding like a Muslim name. Ugh

All random.

@casheroo He was apparently a Muslim convert. Expect hell from the pundits.

I think there is far more significance to the fact that he was Islamic than there is to him being a VT grad. So does this mean that I am being racially or ethnically insensitive or merely stating the obvious? To say the fact that he is Muslim is not germane to the issue is just being ridiculous.

Before everyone jumps down my throat for racial profiling, let me clarify.

If this same act had been commited by a white guy who was a devout and strict Fundamentalist Christian, my mind would instantly flash back to Timothy McVeigh. I would then begin to guess a likely connection to or influence by the extremist white power groups that spawn that type of violent thinking patterns.

Would that be considered racial profiling? Hardly, since this is not typical of the majority of white Christians.

Is it profiling? Yes, absolutely and it’s based on common sense and experience. Unless this person just suddenly “lost it” in an act of insanity, chances are that there was influence by these right wing white power nutjobs.

So, in the current situation before us, he is a Muslim and all the PC patrol would like to convince us that anybody who dares to mention this must be ethnically profiling and must be shunned as a racist.

Until he speaks directly or they piece together enough about what has influenced him, we can’t know for sure. But to act as if his religious beliefs have no significance is ludicrous.

It is certainly possible that he just “snapped”. Even Psychiatrists are not immune from going around the bend from the stresses of wartime deployment.

But should there be no considering the possibility of influence from the more RADICAL and EXTREME factions of Islam just for fear of being labeled racist? Come on, can we get real here?

I purposely capitalized the words I did because it is obvious that the teachings of mainstream Islam do not promote violence. Just like the teachings of mainstream Christianity. But McVeigh was influenced by an EXTREMIST group’s viewpoint.

Is it so whacky to wonder if Hasan may have been influenced by the Islamic version of those same types of groups. Obviously there are RADICAL Islamists who do sincerely hold these EXTREMIST violent viewpoints.

Why is it considered to be such an unthinkable possibility that this man was possibly influenced by these points of view?

Personally, I judge people by their actions and words without regard to skin color or ethnicity, but when someone has committed heinous acts, I think that everything is fair grounds for scrutiny regardless of how unpopular it is to say so.

Prejudice is PRE-judging someone. This man has already acted. To say that any part of his background or history is irrelevant or off limits is hopelessly naive.

There are basically two possibilities here.

This was a sudden, unplanned psychotic break or

This was a pre-planned act with some type of reasoning or motive behind it.

Time will continue to reveal the facts and it would be premature of any of us to make assumptions. It would also be foolish to ignore obvious facts which would be correlative.

@Buttonstc if you intend to write an essay do you think you could structure it better. Well is it coincidence? The suicide rate amoung serving and ex service personel has doubled since the conflict in Afganistan and Iraq, 4 would say that is far less coincidental than the Virginia tech connection. Yes an pyschiatrists get mentally ill, frequently, in fact that is beneficial, as it gives them insight into the condition. So long as they have healed, else it’s pretty much the blind leading the blind.

Notably, of course, correlation is not causation. Meaning, his being a Muslim (maybe?), or from VT, may have had nothing to do with the incident. It really sounds to me (from the little I’ve read) like he was really upset about being deployed, and perhaps that stress cracked him.

I guess we’ll find out when they’re done talking to him.