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Mellanox Technologies, Ltd. today announced that its 40Gb/s InfiniBand technology interconnects the new 29TFlops computer systems research cluster at the Center for High-End Computing Systems (CHECS) within the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. 40Gb/s InfiniBand was introduced in June 2008 and this compute cluster showcases the quick industry acceptance and adoption compared to other high speed interconnect technologies. Mellanox 40Gb/s InfiniBand technology provides the necessary scalability and performance for the CHECS research activities and will be the foundation for the development of next generation, power-aware high-end computing resources. “Mellanox continues to lead the high-performance computing and enterprise data center...

This past Tuesday a University student, Cassie LeBlanc, was robbed while getting into her car after leaving the library around 9:30 p.m. The robber forced her against her car and asked for her wallet, then he discovered there was no cash. He decided he didn't want it, but after seeing text books on the front seat, the thief decided to take those instead. I was very glad to hear LeBlanc was alright, but a very important question came to mind: What if she had a firearm to defend herself? Would this incident have happened? My answer is probably not. The...

READING, WRITING, WEAPONS Texas students join a nationwide movement for the right to bear arms while at college BLANCO — Cameron Schober, a 22-year-old Texas State University student, aimed his semi-automatic pistol at the outline of a man's torso just as a gust of wind blew down the target. "Everybody hold up!" hollered instructor Mike Cox. As six other shooters lowered their weapons, Schober scrambled to brace the cardboard target at a makeshift range on a deserted Hill Country ranch. Schober and fellow student Bill Downs were among 13 people who recently completed Cox's shooting proficiency and eight-hour classroom course,...

On Evil Bethany Stotts, June 23, 2008 Is evil the result of human choice or manufactured by social circumstances? Professor Philip Zimbardo, known for his infamous Stanford Prison Experiment of 1971, opted for the latter explanation at a recent CATO book forum. Zimbardo told the audience that he believes Lucifer was expelled from heaven not for sinning, but for disobeying an authority figure. “It’s really a story about what happens when you challenge authority—you go to hell,” said the Stanford University professor. The author of The Lucifer Effect, Zimbardo believes that any person has the capacity for terrible deeds, torture,...

U.S. District Judge F. Bradford Stillman this morning ruled that the College must turn over the names of 20 students suspected of downloading music illegally to the Recording Industry Association of America. The RIAA plans to sue the students for copyright infringement after they allegedly downloaded music on peer-to-peer music sharing programs such as Limewire. 7 students have already settled independently, paying between $3,000 and $5,000 each. The suit had previously been denied by U.S. District Judge Walter D. Kelley Jr. Kelley recently retired, and the RIAA asked Stillman to overturn his ruling. According to RIAA lawyer Katheryn Coggon, the...

While waiting for the Supreme Court's decision in the Heller case to come down, check out this article by a gun control lawyer, who used to work for Brady Center against Handguns, saying "gun free" zones like in D.C. or at Virginia Tech aren't successful.

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Before April 16, 2007, Marian Hammaren of Westtown, N.Y., thought she knew what she'd been put on the earth to do: to be Caitlin's mother, to guide and protect her. But 19-year-old Caitlin Hammaren, a sophomore at Virginia Tech majoring in French and international relations and an only child, did not survive the tragedy on campus that day and Marian Hammaren was left wondering: "What's my job now?" In a May 30 telephone interview with Catholic News Service, Hammaren described the dark times that followed the campus massacre that left her daughter and 32 other students and...

The UNM Police Department arrested student Kevin Boyar on Tuesday on charges of unlawfully carrying a gun onto a University establishment. Police said four guns were recovered from Boyar's parents' house, including an AK-47 assault-style rifle, and there is evidence he brought the weapons to his room in the Student Residence Center. Police Chief Kathy Guimond said the department received an anonymous tip at 11 a.m. that Boyar, 19, had guns in his room at the SRC. The informant said Boyar had made threats referring to the shootings at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois, she said. Police obtained a search...

A year has passed since the tragic events at Virginia Tech, and there are some assumptions upon which gun control is based that require investigation. Chief among them is the misplaced feeling that banning firearms somehow eradicates them. When examining this notion, we can look for another example of a ban to give us a sense of the difference between banning and eradication. There are people in America known as illegal immigrants who are banned from being here. If the state cannot keep a person from coming into the country illegally, what possible hope does it have in banning a...

BATON ROUGE -- All college students 21 or older who have qualified for concealed handgun permits would be able to carry firearms to class and other parts of campus under a bill approved 11-3 by a House committee Thursday. The Committee on the Administration of Criminal Justice sent to the House floor House Bill 199 by Rep. Ernest Wooton, R-Belle Chasse, its chairman. Wooton said he expects lengthy debate on the bill's merits when it hits the floor. The bill drew support from college students who say they feel unsafe and inadequately protected when leaving campus late at night. Student...

A representative from Students for Concealed Carry on Campus argued for a more sensible policy for carrying concealed handguns on college and university campuses at Walter Hall last night. “It’s hypocritical to say you can bring a gun into a 300-person movie theatre but not a 300-person lecture hall,” said Stephen Feltoon, Midwest regional director of SCCC. Feltoon, a 2007 graduate of Miami University of Ohio, spoke for a 40-person group as part of the SCCC’s weeklong protest of concealed carry laws across the nation that forbid concealed handguns on college campuses. The OU Second Amendment club — comprising about...

The owner of the Green Bay-based web site that sold guns a gun to the Virginia Tech shooter and gun accessories to the Northern Illinois University gunman plans to visit Virginia Tech on Thursday. Eric Thompson owns TGSCOM, the company that sold a gun to Seung-Hui Cho last year. Cho killed 32 students and staff at Virginia Tech's campus. Thompson announced Wednesday students invited him to campus to talk about concealed-carry laws. "What I'm really hoping to do is just lend a voice. Unfortunately, a set of coincidences and circumstances, I've been in the media, and I think with that...

The owner of an Internet-based firearms store that sold a gun to Virginia Tech shooter Seung-Hui Cho says he is now offering a discount for students who want to carry guns on campus to protect themselves. The company, TGSCOM Inc., also sold two 9mm Glock magazines to Steven Kazmierczak, who killed five people at Northern Illinois University earlier this year. The owner of TGSCOM, Eric Thompson, announced today that for the next two weeks he will sell firearms at cost in the hopes of targeting students who may be on a tight budget. Customers will have over 5,400 different kinds...

Ohio State University's ROTC cadets have ended the decades-long practice of combat training with mock rifles on the main campus because of public edginess in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings, officials said. Since the decision was made a couple of weeks ago, tactical training with rubber replicas of an M-16 rifle has been moved indoors, or cadets have trained without rifles, said Navy Capt. Steven Noce, who heads the university's ROTC program. The tactical training, typically conducted around the ROTC building near Ohio Stadium, has generated a few calls to police from concerned people in the past year,...

The state has agreed to give 21 families of the Virginia Tech massacre $11 million in blood money to avoid lawsuits that would attempt to assign responsibility to anyone other than the lone nut job. This reflects the grievance-minded culture of the day and unscrupulous lawyers ever willing to sue businesses, institutions and private citizens over the flimsiest reasons. People are killed each day, each loss of life as painful as the next, none more financially worthy than the next, unless apparently you are related to one of the 32 dead and 24 wounded on the Blacksburg, Va., campus. Then...

NARROWS, Va. (AP) -- Allen Neely eases his Chrysler Pacifica onto the bridge named in honor of Jarrett Lane, who grew up in this tiny town near the West Virginia state line. Mr. Lane, Mr. Neely says quietly, always wanted to build a bridge. Under the back seat are two pistols. Mr. Neely keeps them close these days. He and his construction crew were in Virginia Tech's Norris Hall a year ago this week when a mentally ill student went on a rampage, killing Jarrett Lane and 31 others. Since then, Mr. Neely feels safer if his guns are within...

On the first anniversary of the Virginia Tech shooting rampage, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence says it's still too easy for criminals to get guns. Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign, says not enough has changed since the worst campus shootings in the nation's history when 32 people, including the gunman died. ``Much more needs to be done. The bottom line is we make it too easy for dangerous people to get guns in this country. There really aren't very many restrictions on people's ability to get guns," Helmke said. ``A lot of times, folks think that...

On the anniversary of the Virginia Tech University shootings, Twin Cities citizens are joining more than 70 cities across the nation in events to remember the tragedy and to call on legislators to strengthen the Brady background check system. The demonstration will be a "lie-in" in front of the Capitol, where citizens will lie down in a group of 32 to commemorate the Virginia Tech victims and the 32 Americans murdered by gun every day. "Gun violence is devastating – and it is preventable," said Mary Lewis Grow, Vice President of Citizens for a Safer Minnesota and local event organizer....

Va. Tech families reach $11M settlement By SUE LINDSEY, Associated Press Writer 44 minutes ago ROANOKE, Va. - Families of the victims in the Virginia Tech shootings have reached a tentative $11 million settlement with the state, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine said Thursday. The deal is designed to prevent future lawsuits. Kaine said a "substantial majority" of families of victims of the Virginia Tech shootings agreed to the settlement. Peter Grenier and Douglas Fierberg, who represent 21 families, also confirmed the settlement but would not discuss its terms until final papers are drawn in a few days. Kaine spokesman Gordon...

The student government at Virginia Tech asked protesters to demonstrate on a day besides April 16. BLACKSBURG -- Gun-control advocates planning to protest April 16 on Virginia Tech's Drillfield said Tuesday that they hope to reach a compromise with the university that will allow them to protest without interfering with remembrance events. Peter Hamm, spokesman for the Brady Campaign to Stop Gun Violence, said the group has been working with Tech students on the protest. It would involve a 32-person "lie-in" at noon April 16, the one-year anniversary of campus shootings that left 32 people dead plus the shooter. The...

Brady Campaign won't get permit for event on April 16 Virginia Tech said yesterday that it will not allow a national gun-control advocacy group to hold a campus demonstration on April 16 while the school commemorates last year's massacre. Tech spokesman Larry Hincker said neither the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence nor the co-sponsor of the planned demonstration, ProtestEasyGuns.com, had applied for an assembly permit, and even if they had, Tech only issues permits to student groups. Tech's position threw the Brady Campaign's plans into disarray yesterday: The noon demonstration at Tech was supposed to be the centerpiece of...

Barack Obama is embracing anti-gun policies in the run-up to a Democratic presidential debate scheduled on the one-year anniversary of the Virginia Tech shootings. “I am not in favor of concealed weapons,” Obama told the Pittsburgh Tribune. “I think that creates a potential atmosphere where more innocent people could (get shot during) altercations.” These remarks break from Obama’s previous moderate rhetoric on gun control. While campaigning in Idaho in February, Obama promised, “I have no intention of taking away folks’ guns.” Obama elaborated later that month in a political forum sponsored by ABC News and the Politico. He said: “I...

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They are crimes some say are becoming all too common: shootings on college campuses. Just Thursday in Texas police say a gunman shot 2 students near an off–campus dorm. Now, a new group popping up at schools across the country says it wants to take action and prevent these tragedies. The group is called "Students for Concealed Carry on Campus" or SCCC. You can find members at over 200 colleges, including the University of Nebraska and Hastings College. As their numbers continue to grow, they hope to convince state lawmakers that change is needed and that concealed weapons should be...

State reportedly offers $100,000 to forestall lawsuits over massacre RICHMOND, Va. - Families of those killed in the Virginia Tech massacre would receive $100,000 each under a settlement the state is proposing to prevent lawsuits, according to a victim's relative who received a copy of the proposal. Medical and counseling expenses would be provided to the families of the 32 killed and dozens of surviving victims, said the person, who asked Monday to remain anonymous because those involved were told not to discuss the settlement. Families would also have the opportunity to question the governor and university officials about the...

RICHMOND, Va. - A relative of a Virginia Tech shooting victim says the families of those killed would receive $100,000 each under a settlement designed to prevent lawsuits. ...

The Smithsonian Institution, beleaguered by questions over how much it pays its executives and how they spend the organization's money, said Saturday it has picked Georgia Tech President G. Wayne Clough as its new leader. Clough will become the 12th secretary of the world's largest museum and research complex on July 1, assuming control of an institution that has been in turmoil in the past year. Clough will usher in a new era, "bringing a unique combination of academic achievement, talent, leadership skills and experience in public service, science, management and development," Smithsonian board Chairman Roger Sant said in a...

Steve Barber knew his fictional essay about a suicidal student bent on murder would generate quite a buzz within his creative-writing class at the University of Virginia’s College at Wise. It was the expulsion from school and the weekend spent locked up in a mental health ward for observation that caught the 23-year-old freshman and former U.S. Navy sailor off guard. The three guns that campus police later report finding in his car while parked in a school lot Feb. 29 didn’t help his cause either. “I never intended for him [the creative-writing professor] to feel threatened by it. I...

State Bill Would Allow Guns on Campus By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD, The New York Times PHOENIX (March 5) - Horrified by recent campus shootings, a state lawmaker here has come up with a proposal in keeping with the Taurus .22-caliber pistol tucked in her purse: Get more guns on campus. The lawmaker, State Senator Karen S. Johnson, has sponsored a bill, which the Senate Judiciary Committee approved last week, that would allow people with a concealed weapons permit — limited to those 21 and older here — to carry their firearms at public colleges and universities. Concealed weapons are generally...

The Virginia General Assembly voted Tuesday for the first major overhaul of the state's mental health system in three decades, largely in response to the mass shooting at Virginia Tech. The House and Senate passed a package of bills designed to give families and courts greater flexibility in having people who are mentally ill involuntarily committed, among other changes.

This is not a good idea. My friends know that I possess a concealed-carry permit and own guns, and that I am a staunch defender of every law-abiding American’s 2nd Amendment rights, but the people who want permit-holders to carry guns on campus are not thinking clearly. First, let me say that both extremes are wrong: designating gun-free zones in areas like a college campus obviously does not work and invites disaster.

As Northern Illinois University restarts classes this week, one thing is clear: Six minutes proved too long. It took six minutes before the police were able to enter the classroom that horrible Thursday, and in that short time five people were murdered, 16 wounded. Six minutes is actually record-breaking speed for the police arriving at such an attack, but it was simply not fast enough. Still, the police were much faster than at the Virginia Tech attack last year. The previous Thursday, five people were killed in the city council chambers in Kirkwood, Mo. There was even a police officer...

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (CNN) -- The senior at the University of Utah gets dressed and then decides which gun is easiest to conceal under his clothes. If he's wearing a T-shirt, he'll take a smaller, low-profile gun to class. If he's wearing a coat, he may carry a different weapon, he said. He started carrying a gun to class after the massacre at Virginia Tech, but the student says he's not part of the problem of campus shootings and could instead be part of a solution. Nick, who asked not to be fully identified so his fellow students wouldn't...

Four months after Peter Hamm, spokesperson for The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, verbally attacked the college-based, grassroots organization Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, telling a Fox News reporter, "You don't like the fact that you can't have a gun on your college campus? Drop out of school," he is stepping up the rhetoric. Not content with encouraging college students to forgo their educations rather than fight for a cause in which they believe, Mr. Hamm has resorted to baseless conspiracy theories and slander. In a February 19, 2008, interview with Anna Hipsley of Australia’s ABC News radio,...

Web Exclusive It was a sickeningly familiar scene. A student-gunman opened fire Thursday during a lecture at Northern Illinois University, killing five and wounding 15 before turning the gun on himself. The deadly spree was the fifth school shooting this week—and a traumatic reminder that for all the efforts to improve campus security nationwide since the massacre at Virginia Tech last year, students and faculty remain disturbingly vulnerable. A nonprofit organization called Students for Concealed Carry on Campus would like to change that. The group, whose 12,000 members nationwide include college students, faculty and parents, champions legislation that would allow...

In recent years, Americans have been forced to deal with a rash of senseless, inexplicable school shootings such as that which occurred at Northern Illinois University last week leaving five innocents dead. Part of the unhappy search for explanations in the wake of these gruesome events has invariably included inane pronouncements from the media. After Virginia Tech, Lisa Ling used her platform on the Oprah Winfrey Show to openly worry about a backlash against "anyone who looked Asian". Of course, this did not happen. Ling, you see, was unable to wrap her mind around the concept that the rest of...

On the morning following the shootings at Virginia Tech last April, several Korean students missed class here at Arizona State University. We were up together until early morning going over statistical regression, so there had to be another reason that they were missing out on finals review. It turned out that they were afraid to come to class fearing retaliation from students stricken with grief and anger. While we assured our friends there was absolutely nothing to worry about, today – with two university shootings and 12 states considering allowing concealed weapons on school campuses, that may no longer be...

Or so it seems, now that our state Legislature considered the issue of allowing firearms on college campuses in South Dakota. Earlier this week, at least six people died at Northern Illinois University when a gunman opened fire in a classroom. Add that to a handful of other recent college shootings, plus the horrific loss of life at Virginia Tech last year, and the idea of letting students defend themselves against deranged gunmen by carrying weapons on campus seems to almost make sense. Almost, but not quite.

“Fear no man of any size, call on me and I’ll equalize.” —Common engraving on Frontier firearms “Call me simple. Call me a redneck. Call me whatever the heck you wanna call me—but until we allow credible and licensed, proven and protective professors and students to carry a weapon (gun) on campus, we will see this murderous madness occur again and again and again.” That paragraph was lifted from my April 21st, 2007 column from Townhall.com right after Cho Seung-Hui (or Seung-Hui Cho, however the heck you arrange his name) killed 32 students on Virginia Tech’s campus. Remember that? As...

Wis.-Based Internet Gun Dealer Sold Weapons, Accessories To NIU And Va. Tech Shooters MADISON, Wis (AP) ― A Green Bay-based Internet gun dealer who sold a weapon to the Virginia Tech shooter last year sold handgun accessories to the man who killed five at Northern Illinois University on Thursday. Eric Thompson said Friday that his Web site, www.topglock.com, sold two empty 9 mm Glock magazines and a Glock holster to Stephen Kazmierczak on Feb. 4, just 10 days before the 27-year-old opened fire in a classroom and killed five before committing suicide. The order was shipped on Monday and...

DEKALB, Ill. (CBS) ― Bloody students fleeing in terror. Bodies carried out on stretchers. Candlelight vigils and makeshift shrines. Another campus, another deadly attack with a sickening senselessness that now borders on routine. Despite a national push to secure schools after the Virginia Tech shootings, the rampage at Northern Illinois University this week proves a gut-wrenching reality: Unless colleges are willing to turn themselves into armed camps, they're helpless against these kinds of attacks. As word of the shootings rippled throughout the country, students and authorities alike reacted with frustration and - tellingly - resignation. "I don't think there's anything...

Thursday's massacre on the campus of Northern Illinois University was the seventh mass shooting in the U.S. in the past month. In the almost-10 months since the nation's worst school shooting killed 33 people at Virginia Tech, debate has grown over campus security and gun laws. Thought the majority of students and universities are pushing for tighter regulation, a vocal minority rejects the idea that tougher gun laws will make schools safer. Michael Guzeman, the leader of the Texas chapter of Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, joined "Good Morning America Weekend" Saturday to make the case for his organization....

Sometimes I think my teenage neice is a better researcher, journalist, and patriot than even...gasp...fox news commentators. I just heard Neil Cavuto "confirm" that new updates were coming in that the NIU gunman had "legally bought his weapons and accessories from the internet". In addition , Cavuto specifically mentioned high-capacity "clips" (NOTE: THEY ARE CALLED MAGAZINES) and a "glock holster" from the same online retail gun dealer that the nut at V Tech used. However, with 5 minutes of searching on the internet, or even a phone call to a local gunstore (with an FFL) any "journalist" can find that:...

Campuses like ASU may no longer be gun-free zones if a bill proposed in the state legislature is passed into law this session. Senate Bill 1214, currently being debated in the Judiciary and Rules Committees, would allow anyone with a concealed weapons permit to carry a firearm on the campus of any state school, college or university. The bill was introduced to the Arizona Legislature on Friday. Currently, criminal charges could not be filed against someone who brought a gun to the ASU campus — but there would be other ramifications, such as suspension or expulsion for students, ASU Police...

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Families of those killed and wounded during a deranged gunman's rampage at Virginia Tech implored a legislative panel to close the loophole in state law that allows criminals and the mentally ill to buy firearms at gun shows. The Republican-dominated committee ignored them, voting 13-9 along party lines Friday to kill legislation to require unlicensed sellers at gun shows to run criminal background checks on buyers. Such checks now are required only of federally licensed gun dealers. Only a few relatives of those slain and wounded during the April 16 shootings at Virginia Tech were able...

Before President Bush left Washington for the Mideast, he signed into law the first major federal gun control measure in more than 13 years. If the new law had been in effect last April, it might have prevented the Virginia Tech shooter, Seung-Hui Cho, from buying a weapon at a gun store.

GREENSBORO — Don't be alarmed if you see sharpshooters poised on rooftops at UNCG on Monday. In the shadow of last April's attack at Virginia Tech, UNCG will host an exercise that will simulate a gunman attacking the campus. Hundreds of local law enforcement and public safety officials, university employees and volunteers from the community will participate in the training, which will test the university's ability to respond to this type of emergency. "There are a lot of systems that we want to practice so we know how to do the right things," said Bruce Griffin, assistant vice chancellor for...

Hampton Sen. Mamie Locke is at the forefront now of an expected wave of legislation aimed at firearms. Expect grieving parents to talk about their slain children as they plead for stricter gun controls. Expect passionate Second Amendment loyalists to argue that a legally armed professor could have halted the Virginia Tech massacre. In all, expect heated discussions and passionate debates about firearms when state lawmakers return to Richmond next week. "We could see a record number of gun bills," said Philip Van Cleave, president of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, a gun-rights group. "There should be a lot more...

Sen. Charles Schumer and Rep. Carolyn McCarthy's previously stalled bill toughening the national gun background check system in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings sailed through both chambers of Congress within hours yesterday after a flurry of legislative activity. "I don't know whether to laugh or to cry," said McCarthy (D-Mineola), who saw her legislation pass the House in June only to have it blocked in the Senate. "You don't know how many times it's come to this point." In a statement, Schumer (D-N.Y.) said, "This simple but very important bill has been a long time coming. It will...

BLACKSBURG, Va. - The Virginia Tech classroom wing where a student gunman killed 30 people and himself and wounded two dozen others last spring will be turned into a place to study peace, the school announced Thursday. Having vowed never again to use Norris Hall for general classes, school officials said the rooms will house the new Center for Peace Studies and Violence Prevention.