BLACKSBURG, Va. - A gunman killed 30 people in two shooting incidents Monday at a college in Virginia in the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. The gunman also was killed, and at least 22 other people were injured.

“Today the university was struck with a tragedy that we consider of monumental proportions,” said Charles Steger, president of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, in southwest Virginia. “The university is shocked and indeed horrified.”

President Bush said in a brief televised statement: “Schools should be places of sanctuary and safety and learning. ... Today, our nation grieves with those who have lost loved ones at Virginia Tech.”

The shootings spread panic and confusion at the college. Witnesses reporting students jumping out the windows of a classroom building to escape the gunfire, which rang out just four days before the eighth anniversary of the Columbine High School bloodbath near Littleton, Colo., when two teenagers killed 12 fellow students and a teacher before taking their own lives.

Federal law enforcement officials told NBC News that the gunman was dead after he shot more than 50 people at two locations on campus. Thirty-one, including the gunman, were confirmed dead.

At least 22 others were being treated at Montgomery Regional Hospital in Blacksburg and Lewis-Gale Medical Center in Salem, the hospitals said. Six of the victims were in surgery, and five were reported in stable condition. The conditions of the 17 others were not immediately reported.

The name of the gunman was not released. Witnesses described him as a man in his 20s, wearing a maroon cap and a black leather jacket. A spokesman for the FBI in Washington said there was no immediate evidence to suggest it was a terrorist attack, “but all avenues will be explored.”

Silent gunman ‘just started shooting’
The man did not appear to be shooting at random, NBC News’ Pete Williams reported, quoting federal law enforcement officials. He seemed to have specifically targeted the two locations, a coeducational dormitory and an engineering classroom across campus.

Law enforcement officials said the gunman carried two weapons, a 9-mm pistol and a 22-caliber handgun, Williams reported. They said gunman chained the doors of the classroom building so his potential victims could not escape and police could not enter.

A student in the engineering class describe an “unreal” scene with “blood pretty much everywhere.”

“None of us thought it could have been gunshots,” the student, who identified himself as Trey Perkins, told MSNBC’s Chris Jansing in a telephone interview. “... I’m not sure how long it lasted. It seemed like a really long time.”

Perkins said the gunman never said a word. “He didn’t say, ‘Get down.’ He didn’t say anything.” He just started shooting.”

The gunman left the classroom and then tried to return, but students kept him out by bracing the door closed with their feet. “He started to try to come in again and started shooting through the door,” Perkins said, but hit no one.

“I got on the ground and I was just thinking, like, there’s no way I’m going to survive this,” Perkins said. “All I could keep thinking of was my mom.”

“I got on the ground and I was just thinking, like, there’s no way I’m going to survive this,” Perkins said. “All I could keep thinking of was my mom.”

Am I the only one that laughed really hard at this?

As well as the gunman. Kid didn't know any better

Anyway, I hate how people automatically think that the "bad guy" is just an evil thing from hell and deserves to be killed at once. Do people ever even THINK about that person? What if they were mentally ill? What if they were drunk? What if they just couldn't help it? What if they were forced to do it? Did they have an unruly past? Is there really a reason they did that?

"It sounded like really loud hammering."
"What did you and your instructor do after you realized they were gunshots?" (the kid was with his instructor)
"We just..."
"How far was the building from the one you and your instructor were in?"
"I don't know, maybe 200 feet?"
"Wow, 200 feet."
"Yeah, there was a lot of construction going on between that building and the one I was in before the shooting, so a lot of people just figured it was construction."
"Is your instructor safe?"
"Yeah."

Alec Calhoun, a 20-year-old junior, said he was in a 9:05 a.m. mechanics class when he and classmates heard a thunderous sound from the classroom next door — “what sounded like an enormous hammer.”

Screams followed an instant later, and the banging continued. When students realized the sounds were gunshots, Calhoun said, he started flipping over desks for hiding places. Others dashed to the windows of the second-floor classroom, kicking out the screens and jumping from the ledge of Room 204, he said.

“I must’ve been the eighth or ninth person who jumped, and I think I was the last,” said Calhoun, of Waynesboro, Va. He landed in a bush and ran.

Calhoun said that the two students behind him were shot, but that he believed they survived. Just before he climbed out the window, Calhoun said, he turned to look at the professor, who had stayed behind, perhaps to block the door.

The instructor was killed, he said.