Gunman kills 30 at US University

[Guchi_Jnr]

lol internets.   I love how something like this can turn into gun control policy dick-waving contest. I think instead of criticizing another country's policies, or wondering what gun control laws could of prevented this incident, we should be asking why someone would do this in the first place.  I think it's more important to try to understand what could bring a person to do something so horrible, stop dwelling on the "how" and start looking for the "why". I doesn't matter how hard it becomes to get a hold of a firearm, murderous intent is not proportional to accessibility weapons.

 (and Guchi_Jnr, seeing as you're so curious: yes, I am an American, and I think you should think about what you say before you say it.)

No one is ever going to be 100% certain as to "why" he went on a murderous rampage, because he is the only person who knows, and like so many before him, he took himself out at the end. So unless he left a detailed note as to "why", all you're going to get is speculation. And even if people do know why, can't see that stopping the next guy from doing the same again, since what makes one guy snap might be completely different for the next. But if things stay as they are, one thing you can count on, is the next homicidal maniac (whether it's due to being depressed, bullied, dumped, movies, video games, whatever) that attacks an American school will be guns blazing.

John Velleco from the group Gun Owners of America says if there were more guns on the campus, students might have stopped the gunman sooner.

"It's tragic to mandatorily disarm the citizenry and create these gun-free zones which in a sense give these deranged madmen easy targets," he said.

With logic like that, there's just no hope!!

[thatguy]

i don't think har meant "why" with regard to "if we could ask him why he did it". i think har is talking about a more subtle and complex "why", as in "what were the things that caused him to develop an unstable personality". there are plenty of things you can observe in any society that cause anomalies within individuals: parents who mistreat their children, teenagers who feel peer pressure, unwarranted prejudice, etc. of course there's never an easy answer, and for every individual there's a unique set of factors. but this guy did not grow up isolated from the world--he was part of the world; and as unstable as his mind may have become, part of the world had its share in making it that way.

there's some validity behind suggesting disarmament, insofar as understanding that guns are a technological means (not a cause) to a particular end. but even if we got rid of guns, that doesn't guarantee that an individual won't be treated poorly to such an extent that they become unstable--and that is really the problem that needs to be addressed (in ANY society, not just america).

and this is really the heart of the matter: what is being expressed here is a psychological inability to cope with various problems that are present in society, and a buildup and eventual release of that pressure through physical means (guns). a lot of people ask how this guy could possibly be so cold-hearted and not value human life: the problem is that you're assessing him through your way of seeing the world, and since for most of us we've never had traumatic experiences that shatter our personalities, it's impossible to conceive such an unstable mind. but you need to put yourself in his shoes and ask yourself: what did the world look like through his eyes?

there are plenty of independant films that attempt to capture a psychological dystopia; soundtracks of dissonant chords and screeching sounds, violent flashes of horrific images, etc. we understand these to be artistic films, but is it so far-fetched to think that a human being may actually live their life constantly seeing the world in such a way? there are plenty of disorders that can attribute to such a viewpoint, particularly post-traumatic syndrome amongst war veterans. if the world that existed in your mind was one of unending agony, it's feasible to locate guns, violence, and death within it.

i'm sure everyone has their take on "what went wrong with this guy", or simple one-liners about what's wrong with america, or any number of generalized opinions. but i believe more will eventually come to light, and largely due in part to sociologists that will attempt to reconstruct his psyche. most people will treat this as either the tragedy that it is or another example in what's wrong with america and/or its constitution. but true progress will be made if we can all understand that this guy (as well as others before him) was not simply a murderer, but in many ways a victim of harsh social conditions.

[ew0923]

I agree that only him who know why he did such a thing, even if he did leave a note explaining why he did so, it would probably only be the reason that he wants other people to believe, and not necessarily be the real reason. Obviously, he's a minority and he's bound to get some from of rejection/racism through his life, he may or may not have been bullied during his schooling life and let's be honest here, there can be a lot of assholes that can make your dorm life miserable.

In my view, humans are not perfect, in fact history shows us that we are anything but. I think everyone, at some stage in their lives, even for a short moment, thinks about killing, or at the very least 'getting rid' of someone that you either hate or had wronged you. But how many of us actually go through with it? Most of us are bounded by commonsense that you simply have no right to end someone else' existence, some of us fear the consequences, a few of us that just 'nice' people that wouldn't hurt an ant. For someone to explode like that, there must be a trigger - and we might and might not find out.

I think it's absolutely ridiculous when they dig up his creative writing stuff and start saying that because he wrote such thing, he's a violent person and all these class mates saying he's dangerous...it's all hindsight crap the way I see it.

No, I don't think relaxed gun laws created the shooting, but it sure made the process a lot easier. A pull of a trigger and a life is gone, if he was just wielding a knife or an axe, would he have been able to kill so many? I agree that guns are not the cause of the event, but I failed to see how having relaxed gun laws didn't help made this event possible.

[trueinnuendo]

This tragedy will happen again unless US gun laws would be radically overhauled.

[maliciel]

I agree that guns are not the cause of the event, but I failed to see how having relaxed gun laws didn't help made this event possible.

I dunno. While tougher gun laws may have prevented this, I doubt one would have too much trouble getting a gun on the black market if he so wishes, especially in the US.

[thatguy]

This tragedy will happen again unless US gun laws would be radically overhauled.

just because a killer uses a gun doesn't make this any more tragic. sure, if he had used a knife, he may not have killed as many people. and the media likes to overplay these statistics. if he had only killed 10 people, it may not be anything more than local news. but would killing only 10 people be any less tragic than killing 32? taking 1 human life or taking 100, or even just taking your own is tragic enough.

sure, at the end of the day, with stricter gun control, he may not have been able to kill so many people. but you're fooling yourself, and allowing yourself to fall into the media's statistics hype if you are only paying attention to this incident because of its facts (ie: easily acquired guns and 32 victims). in reality, there are murders everyday throughout the whole world, and many under motives similar to what this guy seems to have gone through. and i sure hope that you aren't going to compare this as being more tragic than others "because of guns".

--edit--
as an addendum, i have a bit to say about various agendas people are pushing. people are looking for answers by blaming gun control, and others are blaming video games. i have this to say:

if seung-hui cho played video games, then video games are partially responsible
seung-hui cho was able to get a gun, so relaxed gun control is partially responsible
in fact, everything that made seung-hui cho into the person he was two days ago is partially responsible

once you step back and realize this, you'll see that guns and games are only two details in a much larger picture. surely gun control is a step in the right direction. but it's only one step in a very long path.

[Guchi_Jnr]

He did one better than a detailed note, and sent a rambling video to NBC between the 1st 2 victims and the classroom massacres.

mms://media4.abc.net.au/winlibrary/news/200704/20070419-cho-1_16_9_bband.wmv

[tempethegreat]

i know which county that have no serious killing cases....
Malaysia.....hehehhe

[ctz]

but would killing only 10 people be any less tragic than killing 32? taking 1 human life or taking 100, or even just taking your own is tragic enough.

Of course killing 10 people is less tragic than killing 32? According to your logic taking your own life is tragic enough to take 30 or 50 with you... because it can't be more tragic because one life itself hits the top of the tragicmeter.

[thatguy]

so if he was only able to kill 10 people, it wouldn't be such a big deal, and we could all go on with our lives and not stop to think about this?

the value of 1 human life is immeasurable. the value of 10 or 100 is equally immeasurable, because there's no way you can compare something that can't be quantified. if you do try to quantify 10 victims as being less tragic than 32 victims, then you (perhaps inadvertantly) imply that 10 people's lives are somehow not as valuable as the other 22 that may have survived.

is it any more okay to kill 10 people than it is to kill 32? no, and therein lies the truth that taking ANY number of lives is immesurably tragic.

---

if you think ahead to the future, and speculate if another incident happened: if another killer goes out and murders people, but this time only kills 10 people, what are people going to say? "oh, it wasn't as bad as the v-tech massacre". is it okay to just leave it at that? what if they only killed one person? it's still a tragedy, and they're all equally tragic.

[Daisuki Daiiyo]

After watching CNN for the past however many days, I must say that I don't see where all of this 'pressure' on him came from.

People in school don't even remember him, they don't remember him being bullied or anything, or don't remember bullying him themselves. All they remember is that he was a loner, that didn't really seem to want to have human contact. One girl said that in High School, she'd see him walking down the hallway, and would make eye contact or try to say hi, but he wouldn't respond or he would just stare at her like he didn't want anything to do with her. I'm beginning to believe that maybe it wasn't the stresses of life itself that got to this guy, but maybe just the plain fact that he was off his rocker.

I mean, what'd he say, something like he's the new Jesus Christ or something? A savior for the overlooked or whatever? What BS. I can't feel sorry for him at all, because he seemed to have alienated himself. Imaginary girlfriends, stalking, disturbed literature and etc. He didn't even talk much to his 2 roommates that he'd been with. I could understand if he tried to reach out for help, and was denied, but his teacher reached out to him, and got him councelling, but he either didn't give 2 shits about recovery, or was beyond repair.

Anyway, as for the other stuff: Yes, I am American. But am I pro-guns? No. I'd rather not have people running around with them, because people are destructive. Even shit that people try to do right sometimes end up worse than it started out as. I was just saying that even if we did make stricter gun laws, that it might not necessarily work. So the gun laws become stricter, who's to say that he couldn't have gotten them off of some street vendor that sells them illegally? Or that he couldn't have made a bomb with the readily available Anarchists Cookbook instead and took the school building down with him instead of just students and teachers? If someone as crazy as him was really bent on sending out his message, if he couldn't have guns he'd find some other way. People always do.

And there would be so many things to overcome before anti-gun laws could come into place. There's the fact that our president & v.p are Red Necks and would be so opposed to stricter gun laws, or getting rid of guns. Even after Cheney shot that man in the face, and this. And then the Constitution itself.

I'd like a little more peace & safety yes, but I'm not too optimistic about it happening so soon.

[arun.yothin]

It's very possible not everyone was telling the truth. There were probably people who made fun of him to his face and behind his back. I doubt anyone would get on TV now and talk about how he/she used to make fun of him. Pressure could also have come from him to do well in school. Being a loner, he may have decided that no one likes him or cares about him. I've known a lot of people like this. They're convinced that everyone else is stupid or a "conformist" because they may not like them. Even when you try to reach out to some of these people, they don't reach back. One of his teachers said she tried to talk with him, but he never really cared to talk with her.

[Daisuki Daiiyo]

Well naturally if you were one of the ones who bullied him, you wouldn't have aired yourself out on TV. Someone else who was a bystander might've though, and out of all of the people who've been on the Tube so far, none of them have reported such things. I get where you coming from though, and this doesn't mean that bullying couldn't have existed. It's just that you'd think someone that knew him would recall him being teased.

And I think I remember that teacher. She had an accent, and took him out of the main English class to teach him one on one. He didn't respond at first, or something like that, but eventually opened up and agreed to counseling, but only went for a little bit.

[StreakInTheSky]

He was a very disturbed and depressed person. He had to deal with pressures in life as well as all the stuff that was going on in his head. You don't have to have had a shitty life to have shitty thoughts. I have no pity for him, but I can see how he could've possibly thought this was something he wanted to do. One thing I know is that he wanted to be known and shake the world. And he accomplished that. Why else would he make that video tape. He wanted massive media coverage.

There are way too many factors in this that the blame can't be pin pointed in any real direction.

I have say, being "American" has little to do with my viewpoints on gun laws. I talk shit and critisize American policy and the status quo all the time. I just know that making new gun laws won't necessarily make anything better in the US when it comes to guns. Not living in the US some of you probably might not see where I'm coming from though. I live here, I know what's going on in my neighborhood. I can see how new federal laws could effect the place where I live. You can't change what happened in the past and a sudden change in policy is not going to fix things.

And about someone else in the building having a gun. If someone else in the building was to have a gun and stopped Cho, I'm almost certain he wouldn't have been able to kill as many people as he did. If everyone in the building were to have a gun I doubt Cho would have been able to kill more than one person. But he still would've done something anyway and lives would be lost.

[ew0923]

Sorry, but I really don't buy that everyone carrying a gun is safer than everyone without one thoery.

Just say everyone carries a gun. Some loner dude looking really angry barges into the room. He's reaching into his pocket in his trench coat. Do you shoot him? He could be reaching into a gun, he could be reaching for a pack of cigarettes, he could be reaching for his ipod. And the next thing he knows, 20 people might have had drawn their guns and fired and he's very dead.

It's true guns don't kill, humans do. But humans also makes a lot and I mean a lot of judgement errors.

[StreakInTheSky]

lol I never said it was safer than everyone without one. They're two extremes. Both is a bad idea.

But do you really think someone would go into a room to shoot someone if he knew many of them had guns. It's like trying to kill a man in an IRA meeting.

Atleast one person in that building should've had a gun or some sort of weapon. And that person should have been a security or police officer.

One thing that bothers me is that nobody is mentioning how the security was. This guy has the time to chain the doors, kill 30 people from different rooms, and then himself with two handguns. I'd understand if he was using a semi-automatic weapon. But he even had the chance to reload new clips, so he actually let go of his guns at some point. Yet nobody was able to stop the guy.

[Daisuki Daiiyo]

^ Thats where most of the speculation is. Why didn't police or whoever else, cancel classes that day after the first two killings where there was a 2hr gap in which he was able to mail the packages. That made no sense to me. They had 2 victims around 7am and a vague email about it didn't get sent out until 9am, when he was already headed for the next building.

Oh and on the reloading thing, they said that he was well-trained in it, like how you see in the movies. Where they drop the clips really quick and get new ones in so that they don't have to stop for prolonged periods of time or whatever.

[Cookie]

I was watching this news coverage on the event and it's seriously very depressing. My condolences to all their families.

There's this article that says he was indeed picked on. Not sure whether it's 100% true or not.

In high school, Cho Seung-Hui almost never opened his mouth. When he finally did, his classmates laughed, pointed at him and said: "Go back to China."

Classmates in Virginia, where Cho grew up, said he was teased and picked on, apparently because of shyness and his strange, mumbly way of speaking.

Once, in English class at Westfield High School in Chantilly, Va., when the teacher had the students read aloud, Cho looked down when it was his turn, said Chris Davids, a Virginia Tech senior and high school classmate. After the teacher threatened him with an F for participation, Cho began reading in a strange, deep voice that sounded "like he had something in his mouth," Davids said.

"The whole class started laughing and pointing and saying, `Go back to China,'" Davids said.

"There were just some people who were really mean to him and they would push him down and laugh at him," Roberts said. "He didn't speak English really well and they would really make fun of him."

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/V/VIRGINIA_TECH_SHOOTING?SITE=NYROR&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

I read this other article saying that his poems led them to believe he was sexually abused as a child.

[Rei-chan]

^ Thats where most of the speculation is. Why didn't police or whoever else, cancel classes that day after the first two killings where there was a 2hr gap in which he was able to mail the packages. That made no sense to me. They had 2 victims around 7am and a vague email about it didn't get sent out until 9am, when he was already headed for the next building.

Yeah, that's simply ridiculous. It's freaking ridiculous how the biggest part of this tragedy could've been avoided or minimized if the university and the police had been more responsible with the students. They claim that they did not do anything at first cause they thought the 2 killings were just an isolated incident. WTF. As long as they had a freaking killing on campus, and a killer on the loose, even if they "thought" he might have left the campus already WTF! Their job is not to assume that the killer maybe left. Their job was to protect the students of any potential danger. How the hell could they just go with assuming and not evacuated the university knowing a killer might be inside it. Even if it was an isolated event. Who cares? They knew there was an armed killer around and they did nothing to prevent the tragedy that ensued. A stupid email 2 hrs later? How many people would even read that email instantly? Seriously, WTF.

[Tuffty]

Yes I read in the paper that he was teased and insulted during his time at school. I also read that the photos he sent to NBC drew parallel with the final scenes of Old-Boy, and that he may have been posessed by the devil. I agree with an earlier post saying that everything in life affects us in some way, but I don't think a cult movie or 'demonic posession' had a greater influence on him than racial abuse by his peers.