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Conversely, Satan, if just one person among the beseiged had been armed, much of this tragedy may well have been averted.

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Can just see all these students carrying their books, pens, pads, student cards and guns to class every day. It may well have stopped a few people getting murdered this day but there would be so many one-offs at other times when someone was slightly miffed.

Just don't understand why so many people think they need a gun (or what have you) or that arming more people would solve problems.

Please move the gun control debate part of this topic to the Funtrivia Debate Society Forum.

Thank you.

~LadyM, moderator

Do you want me to move the entire topic over? If so, I can. But I figured the information on the 'current event' aspect could stay here.

Let me know!

My thoughts and prayers to all the families that lost loved ones. my heart goes out to them.
My son is in his first year at college and i cant imagine how they are feeling.

sunday

As a person from NoVa not a day goes by that you don't see a half dozen or more vehicles with VT stickers on them. Everyone knows someone who goes there, went there, or whose child plans on attending and we live within thirty miles of at least seven of the victims. Everyone now seems to know someone personally or knows someone who knows one of the victims. In 39 years I never thought something this tragic could happen right here, and my heart goes out to all those families affected by this horrible tragedy.

I'm so sorry for you and your community..Please know that I'm thinking and praying for you all.........

God Bless

Just like everyone else my thoughts are with the families of all those killed in this awful, terrible incident. So senseless and so very sad.

Like some other contributors I am worried that some members of the press and public seem to expect college, civil and police authorities to have ready-made answers and strategies to anicipate and / or deal with very largely unpredictable scenarios like this one.

I have read that the perpetrator was a 'loner', that he had started to rise an hour earlier in the morning, that he had become preoccupied with physical excercise and spoke to no-one at the gym he attended, that he wrote some disturbing 'literary' pieces. I read also that some teachers did not like and felt intimidated by him, that he had been referred for counselling and that he had been short-term ( I don't know the accuracy of this last point) in a mental institution. So far, this is a summary of the main points I have read and heard about the person who killed the students / staff.

There are at least two ways to look at this material. Yes, there are signs there of instability and some severe personality disorder. However, do we have any idea of just how many young people in the age-group of the killer have all of these signs and more? My experience as former teacher, counsellor and head teacher would suggest that even among the relatively small number with whom I have been acquainted such characteristics, whilst not common, are far from being very rare in the relevant age-group. The vast majority do not act as or become mass-killers. Whilst some exhibit temporary or some long-term problems in life, work, relationships etc they are not and do not become excessively violent, aggressive or even very overtly anti-social.

There is much more to be said about this but I suppose I am taking up and developing some points made by Gatsby722 who points, correctly and rationally, to some of the media and others who are ready to blame any authority, pigeon-hole neat and tidy retrospective solutions and go for despicable and sensationalist headlines. I would make exception here for those many sections of the media which have been balanced, as objective as possible in the tragic circumstances and sensitive to the people whose lives / community have been shattered.

Generally inclined to be sceptical and even anti-authority (or more properly anti-establishment in view) I find myself in sympathy with the main authorities here. I do not know what else police could have done on the basis of the first crime scene 'evidence', follow-up work and time span. If anything, they were relatively prompt in most contexts. Whilst colleges do have repsonsibility for student welfare etc, they are primarily places of learning. They may try to counsel, advise, diagnose and act upon what they know. However, they are not social work centres, psychiatric and psychotherapy institutions, police agencies, detective agencies and / or legislators / courts of law.

In fact, data protection laws, confidentiality law / practice and other constraints in relation to counselling probably defeat and certainly inhibit their dealing with some issues like those affecting this poor, deranged young man. I am not arguing the merits / demerits of confidentiality etc - merely pointing out that the college could probably not have done much more than it did.

I have been trying hard to avoid posting until my thoughts formed as the events occured, but I have to agree that one of my thoughts was how as a teacher, you can only do what you can under the law and the professors I heard speak had gone above and beyond that. If the one professor found that the student was disturbing and in fact, scaring other students from her class, she informed her head faculty member who even met with Cho personally and tried to reach him. Privacy laws are very strict in the States and you cannot imagine how many laws restrict you from doing things to help kids. I think the teachers I read about did a lot under the circumstances.

Another thing that impeded things is the privacy laws for counseling and the fact that the guy's file wasn't preventing him from buying a gun. I'm going to leave that for the other thread on guns though as I don't think I can go much longer without commenting on that aspect.

When I first read his name it gave me the chills, as I'd had a charming young seven year old student from Korea with that name, Seung, and he went by Sean at school. I think it reminded me of the sacrifices the Korean families I knew went through for their children and how hard they worked to give them more opportunities than they would have in Korea. Sometimes the parents end up working so hard and such long hours that they don't see their children as much and pretty much assume they'll study hard and do as much to integrate themselves as they are doing.
I've known several families where I tutored the children, who lived this sort of life.

This guy's family however hadn't been in terribly good circumstances in Korea from what I'm hearing. He may have had communication problems in his native language as his grandfather even said this in some reports. As someone who has seen immigrant families from all over the world and how they manage to assimilate American life, a really shy withdrawn kid who doesn't speak in his own language, put into one of the most affluent communities in the entire United States, Chantilly VA, teased at his reticence to speak, and even threatened with Fs publicly by teachers for not speaking out (as one former classmate related) which in many Asian cultures is not the done thing, it must have made things much worse.
If his parents were working night and day at the dry cleaners, he would have been on his own quite a bit.
His sister apparently did very well, attending Princeton and working for a contractor for the US govt upon graduation. Even this boy did very well for the son of immigrants, getting into a good state university and majoring in English. I often wonder how on earth he managed to get that far if his speech was impeded by whatever personality disorder he had. It may have been the only area he could possibly express himself and even there he failed.

His parents undoubtedly knew he wasn't as at ease with the transition as his sister, but, there may not have been much they could do. There is a Korean community in that area, but, there are sometimes class lines amongst the Koreans too. Who knows how they managed in that community?

I'm just trying to find out how a kid could have transgressed the line between good and evil. The poet professor who spoke about him and who had tried to reach him said that, he was just mean. Here's a woman who's been through lots of experiences and who wants others to know not to feel guilty because they didn't save him, there might not have been any saving to be done by that time!

Another thing that was striking is the complex about rich spoiled kids. I'm pretty sure that plunging that sort of child into one of the richest communities in the States exacerbated the problem. He probably would have had problems in South Korea much less integrating the 'American Way of Life' in a wealthy community where your folks are the local dry cleaners. When he talks about BMWS and all that, he is probably feeling the differences keenly.

Despite all the problems inherent with immigrating, many immigrants do actually have a chance as the daughter entered one of the most prestigious schools in the country and the son, well, he was in college and had completed almost all of his coursework from what we're told. It was ironic that though he reproached the rich kids, he still was able to compete on a relatively equal basis, and had in fact, entered a good school. However, with his past weighing on him, and probably his mental health problems that some speculate were already with him, he couldn't accept this world.

There's no answer here. I think that the only hope I see in this story is the way that people survived the experience. I am like Ianfranco and thinking how I would react as I've been in front of enormous classes and smaller ones and when disasters strike, small or large, I would hope I could react like some of these people would.
I know my instincts would be to find solutions together with the people I'm with. From time to time, I've dealt with lesser crisis this way and found the strengths of people around me and hopefully myself in the process.
Everyday people can react in extraordinary ways as we see in the aftermath of a tragedy.
My best friend once stopped at an accident to help many years ago, and stayed with a man while he died. I would hope I'd find the courage to do that and I think I could.
I also know I've deflected potentially violent incidents in my teaching career by calming people down. But would I be able to help when the person attacking me or my students was totally in another world and there was no speaking to him? I don't know. No one knows this type of thing.


I'm going to post a few things in the gun section now because just as I thought, the gun folks have their own answers and it makes me very sad that I predicted their answer to the problem of deranged shooters would be the old fight fire with fire.

What a couple of my coworkers have said is that his family owned a townhouse in Centreville, VA. Now, it's not the most expensive area in Northern Virginia, but those townhouses still go for around $400,000 to $700,000 or so, I believe, depending upon location. So his family wasn't exactly poor.

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I'm going to post a few things in the gun section now because just as I thought, the gun folks have their own answers and it makes me very sad that I predicted their answer to the problem of deranged shooters would be the old fight fire with fire.

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That's not exactly what all of we 'gun familiar' posters have said, Bruyere.

I was taken aback by the airing of "the video". Yes, people have a right to know. At the same time we need to recognize that craving attention is part of the pathology. I would have much preferred a discussion of factors that contributed to this terrible tragedy instead of giving a disturbed person the recognition he desired. I am afraid it might spark copycat killers. Wouldn't it be better if anybody who contemplates an awful crime like this one would understand that nobody cares about him and his sick fantasies?

I am sorry if I implied anyone on here would say anything to that effect. We used to have a few posters here who would have. I meant that on the net and on the street, there are lots of gun proponents who do advocate arming people and the immediate answer was that if people in the class had been allowed to carry weapons on campus it would not have happened. I don't know if they said this for the Amish school shooting, but throughout the internet, you see these comments.
The links I found were from the NRA, which chose not to comment yet, the Gun Owners' group and another group that was primarily women gun owners.
But the websites where people make comments, rants and raves and so on clearly show a strong feeling amongst people posting that more guns are the solution, not the problem. Every time there is a shooting incident you immediately see this statement crop up.

I did not mean to say that all gun owners hold this opinion as they don't. Until recently, I lived on a street with probably 75 percent of the population with guns as there were several law enforcement officials.

About the only thing that makes this shooting any different than any of the other school/college/workplace shootings, that occur with distressing regularity in this country, is the number of victims. This one set a new record.

And let's not forget the mass shootings that have happened in at least one church and on a commuter train. We are probably due to have a biggie in a shopping mall one of these days.

It is ridiculous to say that the easy availability of guns--particularly automatic weapons, which fire rounds rapidly, enabling mass murder--have nothing to do with such tragedies. These are weapons of mass destruction which even the police cannot adequately control (as evidenced by more than one case in NYC), and it is very difficult to justify why anyone should be allowed to purchase one. These are not weapons legitimately needed for self defense, or any type of recreational pursuit, and I cannot see why anyone would need to obtain one, except with the purpose of destroying human life. Why are they sold?

In this latest case at Virginia Tech, a severely mentally disturbed man was able to legally purchase such a weapon with murder clearly on his mind. And knowing he could easily obtain such a high power weapon might have added to his conviction that he could carry out such an act and empowered him to proceed. He also purchased bullets that would be more lethal. Police estimated that he may have fired as many as 200 bullets from his two guns during his relatively brief shooting spree.

The guns are not to blame for the crime, but they certainly made it possible. And this particular crime made it evident that we cannot keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill. They can be purchased almost as easily as picking up a six pack from the local 7/11.

We will probably never know exactly why this shooting occurred. The shooter appears to have had severe life-long psychiatric problems which significantly affected his capacity for interpersonal relationships. According to some of his relatives in Korea, he was diagnosed with Autism in childhood, and he never displayed normal emotional reactions or social verbal abilities. This was a detached, extremely isolated individual without strong ties or bonds with anyone. He did live in his own little world, and within the confines of his own perceptions and interpretations of events. He could function, however marginally, within a structured academic setting, attending classes and doing his assignments.

Because he never conversed with anyone, his fantasies and thoughts remained hidden. Only in creative writing classes in college did others finally become aware of the contents of his thought processes, and it apparently scared the hell out of both his professors and fellow students. You can read two of his plays on-line at the AOL Web site. They are startling--and quite infantile in concept for a college student.

This was a very disturbed man, and those at Virginia Tech who became aware of his problems went out of their way to get him some help. There was really nothing more they could have done. We have no idea what treatment his family might have gotten (or not gotten) for him earlier in his life. As he became less able to cope academically, and as his "creative writings" were met with less than praise, he may have plunged into a depression which also fueled his rage. He may have had a pervasive developmental disorder, such as Autism, perhaps not, although he certainly displayed many behaviors consistent with such a diagnosis.


It is striking that this man who never spoke to anyone, and who often hid behind sunglasses and a baseball cap pulled down over his face, chose to fully "reveal" himself and speak at length in that rambling, largely incoherent video and manifesto he sent to NBC as his final statement and suicide note. He apparently wanted to be known in the end, although I doubt we will ever understand him or what he was so angry about. His final ramblings were as senseless as the murders that he went on to commit.

With tragedies such as this we often look to ascribe easy blame. I'm not sure that anyone or any thing is to blame in this situation, although those two legally obtained guns made this crime possible. Without them this would never have happened. As long as we have guns easily available, particularly automatic weapons, crimes like this will continue to happen.

Why was it not possible to have this guy committed at some time in the past? Even if you're over 21, you're still subject to the Baker Act, right?

Well, just a thought.

When his roommates feared he might be suicidal they called the police who took him to a mental health center. A judge then ruled that he might be an imminent danger to himself or others, which is standard legal terminology to justify an emergency involuntary admission to a psychiatric hospital. However, he signed himself into the hospital voluntarily and, three days later he was found not to be an immediate danger to himself, and he was released. It is not known whether he continued with any outpatient treatment after that, but some media reports say that some psychiatric medication was found in his dorm room.

As weird as he was, and as obsessed with rage filled, violent fantasies as he was, he never actually threatened anyone or did anything violent to anyone before the shootings. His behavior simply made others feel creepy and uncomfortable.

You really can't force psychiatric treatment on anyone. Even if someone is involuntarily hospitalized such stays are generally brief, and mainly for the purpose of stabilizing the person. Long term hospital stays, for years at a stretch, were abolished 30-40 years ago in favor of treating people within the community. But a person can refuse outpatient treatment and can refuse to take medication. You really have to wait until someone actually commits an action to break a law before you can "put them away", and often they wind up in jail and not in a hospital. The civil rights of the mentally ill are well protected.

Because of tighter confidentiality laws, the University, or the mental health center, couldn't even notify his family regarding his condition. In addition, he was legally an adult.

This man clearly needed psychiatric treatment,or some type of intervention, from early childhood onward. From everything I've read, his family failed to get him such treatment. Because he could function academically, he just got pushed along in school, but was totally unable to achieve any sort of adequate social adjustment or have any real relationships with anyone. It is very possible that psychiatry would realistically have been of little benefit to him at this point in his life. He was already too walled-off, too filled with hatred, and too paranoid to be reachable any more, in addition to having decidely autistic characteristics.

As a senior in college he faced the prospect of going out into the real world and getting a job, demands this individual was no way prepared to deal with, and he probably knew that. Nor could he compete with his very successful older sister. Suicide was apparently his solution to that pressure, but he was so filled with a paranoid rage by that point, he was determined to die as a powerful "martyr" (to some aberrant cause), and going on a killing spree gave him that power and certainly got him recognized. This was his way of finally achieving something.

The shooting also occurred close to the anniversaries of both the Columbine killings and the Oklahoma City bombing, which may also have played some part in the timing of this event. He may have figured that his murders would be remembered on a yearly basis too. That's why the media has to be careful about how it covers events such as this. It might inspire others who also crave some type of notoriety or "fame".

Not only was it very easy for him to obtain his guns and ammo, he even bought some of the stuff on E-Bay.

A funtrivia member, team leader DrBob, has been involved in what could be a copycat attempt of the Virginia Tec. massacre. The incident occurred at Washington Veterans Home in Retsil, Kitsap County, where a disgruntled employee has now been arrested. Police have decided to post guards at the home for at least 30 days!
you can read and see more of this at Kitsap County
There is an advert just before the broadcast, and you may have to click the article title, then 'Watch the Story' to see the it. DrBob is the first of the two bearded interviewees. Apart from the obvious trauma of this incident, it's interesting to actually see and hear one of our members.

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The shooting also occurred close to the anniversaries of both the Columbine killings and the Oklahoma City bombing, which may also have played some part in the timing of this event. He may have figured that his murders would be remembered on a yearly basis too.

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That's one of the first things I thought of too, intially. But then dismissed it, as I assumed someone that intense would have tried to commit the crime on the exact day - or at least a couple of days closer.

my thanks aramis for posting this
it is surprising how many vets have come up to me after this tv newscast was shown and told me how pleased they were that i had represented them fairly well.

today i went up to the seattle va and i have some good news about my need for a wheelchair, if i do a number of things i may one day be able to get up out of my chair and walk again.

since i had just brought into possible awareness a need for wheelchair actitivities (such as possibly serving on an honor guard, playing wheelchair baseball/basketball/bocce ball/tai chi and had been immediately selected to serve as chair for this, i decided to let someone else take this task over since i might not be in a wheelchair by the time we needed an honor guard.

as you see i have had a couple of interesting days. i made a remark to the newscaster asking me questions that we were mostly all vets here so i doubt many of us were too worried.