Counterterrorism Blog

Final update, 5:45 pm ET: School and law enforcement officials announced that the shooter killed 32 in the Virginia Tech shootings, with at least 15 more wounded (CNN reports 29 wounded), before killing himself. The shooter entered and shot inside West Ambler Johnston Hall, a residence hall that houses almost 900 people, then continued two hours later at Norris Hall, an engineering building. That time gap without a significant law enforcement response is mystifying. You can identify those buildings by clicking on the map below and navigating within it. The VT student newspaper has posted a detailed timeline of the shooting on the website of its parent company and another map of the area. So far, there is no indication of a political or religious motive for the shootings; networks are reporting recent bomb threats and a possible personal motive.

This could not only the worst school or campus shooting ever in the U.S., but the worst mass killing by one shooter in a single day. By comparison, the shootings at Columbine High School in Littleton, CO in 1999 took 12 lives. In 1966, sniper Charles Whitman shot 13 people from the University of Texas clock tower before lawmen shot him. MSNBC has a list of campus shootings in the U.S. (it reports that Whitman killed 15 before being killed).

NBC News reports that the shooter was a young American male who used two 9mm handguns, and that he shot himself. The FBI and ATF are investigating the shootings, as has been standard procedure for any such shooting since the 9-11 attacks.

Last year, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross posted on the phenomenon of the "lone-wolf terrorist":
Can Mohammed Taheri-Azar Be Prosecuted for a Terrorist Offense?
The Problem of the Lone-Wolf Terrorist