General Chat / Student Goes Apeshit At Virginia Tech

@Lazyboy: the norm is people making up drug charges to kill old ladies? Links, please. I understand where you're going with this, man, and I agree that drugs aren't all bad, but freeing the chains on that shit would be as complicated as taking away all the guns.

Grand Jury Probes Neal St. Shooting. These raids have become a means to simply make the police look good.

Okay, how about the dozens/hundreds/thousands (I really have no concrete statistic on this, but I would say hundreds at least) of lives that can be saved by people who are deterred from killing due to the absence of a gun? What about road rage gun deaths? What about domestic abuse? What about school shootings? What about accidental shootings? What about the petty thieves who rob or mug people with guns they acquire legally--people who aren't murderers, but commit crime with guns because they are empowered by firearms?

The number one fear amongst criminals in an armed victim. Accidents do tend to go down, but they may be slight and the only positive.

However, again, controlling the supply of "legal" guns improves the general situation. Murderers and thugs ("evil people") aren't the only people who commit crimes. "Normal" people can commit murder too. People who do not spend a career in crime also kill people. Gun control would at least stem that side of the equation.

In many cases that "normal person" side decreasing is met with an increase in the career criminal side.

A lot of people will say that's too extreme, or totally undemocratic, or even totalitarian. I say that if you are extreme enough with your punishment, it WILL be an effective deterrent with most of the population. And you might bring up how harsh penalties are flawed (i.e. Three Strikes Law sending a petty thief to a life sentence even though a rapist might get less time), but here's my counter. If you're waving a gun around, you SHOULD possess the responsibility and maturity to make good decisions with that gun. And obviously, committing a crime with it is not a smart decision. But if a person knows that there'll be a really stiff penalty for the simple use of a gun in a crime, even if no one gets hurt, it at least forces that person to stop and ponder whether the crime is really worth it. And if it is, then there's no argument over the [over]harshness of the penalty if/when that person gets caught.
Will this eliminate all crime? NO. But will it reduce it? I believe so.

This sounds a lot like the death penalty as deterent concept. I believe in strict, just punishment. But harsh punishment as a crime deterent is not solidly backed. Otherwise, the muder rate in Texas would be muh lower.

This will not make crime nonexistent. I know this. But it will put a nice dent in violent crime.

Solid evidence does not exist that such a reduction will take place. Japan has incredibly low gun crime and strict gun control. Gun crime in the UK has doubled since 1998. One of the biggest problems with gun control is borders. Somebody outside the jurisdiction will be an enabler.

Okay, let's take it easy on the armchair psychiatry, here. I don't think anyone will truly know what drove that dude to whatever.

^^ Facts, please. For example, my knowledge is that gun crime in the UK has gone down.

The border issue is probably your only valid point. Everything else you said is an assumption. Is a criminal's greatest "fear" an armed citizen? Would a criminal actually fear that? Obviously, if the other person has a gun, the criminal is more likely to flee, but if you argue deterrents, that scenario can also end up with the criminal shooting the victim anyway.

I'd say, however that we can't really argue accurately unless we have some cold, hard statistics.

Bullshit on the "driven" part. He wasn't driven. That suggests that someone else did this to him. He drove HIMSELF to insanity. He never learned to socialize with new schoolmates, allowed himself to become super introverted, fed himself the belief that everyone was against him, and effectively isolated HIMSELF. In college, he refused social contact. He convinced himself that he was some woefully pathetic victim no one wanted, and hence, he wanted no part of the outside world.

You're right in assuming this happened before VT. I believe that too. But to say he was driven implies that he was a victim.

The only fault you can place on others is not reaching out and forcing him out of his funk. But that's a minority blame. Ultimately, Mr. Cho was an emo kid to the extreme--a murderous extreme--who did this himself.
Here's the thing.. people assume that "oh, even if there are laws, a serial killer will get a gun anyway."

1: "Driven" implies that someone or something did this to him. I was pointing the finger at his isolation, nothing else.

2: Saying Cho "Did this to himself" is, frankly, pretty ignorant. People do not isolate themselves entirely on their own. It takes an outside force, either intentional or not. And isolation maintains itself quite well -- as soon as you start seeing strangers as potential enemies rather than simply neutral, it takes some effort to get past it. Usually it takes someone else to pull them out of it.

-ACE

I'm more with ACE here. It's easy--and favorable--to just say that this man was pure evil but it's not as black and white as that. It is unfortunate that the gunman ended up in the state he did, and worth feeling bad for that.

For lazyboy: I found a Supreme Court case on the forced commiment of the mentally ill. O'Conner vs. Donaldson, 1975. It basically stated that the precense of mental illness in a patient is not sufficent reason for confinement to a mental hospital.

Edited by Midnight Aurora, 26 April 2007 - 03:37 PM.

1: "Driven" implies that someone or something did this to him. I was pointing the finger at his isolation, nothing else.

2: Saying Cho "Did this to himself" is, frankly, pretty ignorant. People do not isolate themselves entirely on their own. It takes an outside force, either intentional or not. And isolation maintains itself quite well -- as soon as you start seeing strangers as potential enemies rather than simply neutral, it takes some effort to get past it. Usually it takes someone else to pull them out of it.

-ACE

Meh... lemme just post my actual "psychological treatise" so you realize I'm basically saying the same thing. Only since I was paraphrasing myself, it's easy to pick apart details.

NOTE: The following is speculation, done purely out of my own amateur interest in psychiatry/psychology. I am not asserting any or all of this is true. On the other hand, I wouldn't be surprised if aspects of the following mind study turn out to be true. In any case, I hope it's an interesting read.

News reports have described this guy as a loner whose creative writings were so disturbing that administrators were actually concerned. He's also a resident alien from Korea, having moved to the US 15 years ago.

My guess is this kid has always been socially challenged, and over time, it's twisted him into a dark, methodically murderous individual filled with jealousy and rage. But at the same time, he kept quiet, kept to himself, and never really could vent. Or knew how to vent. Or had anyone he could vent to.

Imagine this possible scenario: you're eight years old and you arrive in the United States, fresh from South Korea. Perhaps your English isn't that good, or you don't speak English at all. In American school culture, that almost automatically qualifies you for targeting. Kids can be cruel, so they probably make fun of you. Tease you for your accent, or your inability to speak English. Bully you because you can't fight back or don't. Perhaps you're not so well off, so they harass you about that. You don't know how to handle this. You're a quiet kid by nature. You don't know how to react.

Or maybe you're just ostracized. There doesn't even have to be any physical abuse. Just isolation. No one cares to be your friend. You never develop any deep friendships. You're just a kid in a new land without any friends.

It's not hard to start developing bitterness--towards the world, towards your schoolmates, towards your parents for doing this to you.

You pass through elementary school, junior high, and high school. You continue to be mostly a loner. Perhaps you hang out with other school outcasts, and though you may have acquaintances, you never really have what most people would term as friends.

Maybe you question yourself. Maybe you question the world. Or God. You're not a violent person... at least not yet... but you're bitter about being alone. Being different. You want to fit in, but you can't. Nobody wants you.

It's not hard to see how, over time, what started out as frustration, bitterness, and jealousy can intensify and evolve into something that eventually provokes physical action. Left to simmer and fester long enough, any feeling can turn extreme and fanatical. And this guy had years to brew.

By college, you may have given up hope of ever having real friends or being loved and accepted. Even little things remind you of your outsider status. You apply to college; you have to input your green card number. You remember you're not even an American citizen. You are intrinsically different.

Where else is there to go but inward? So you lose yourself in your mind, your fantasies, your musings. You envy everyone around you--everyone who seems so happy, so cared for. They have friends. You don't. They have people who they can depend on. People would care for them. Who would be concerned. You feel that you do not. You retreat to your mind.

You craft imaginaries worlds that suit your desires. You write about situations you'd like to see. By now, your bitterness may have evolved into full-fledged hate. If you cannot have happiness, why should others?

Your writings adopt this tone. They speak of violence and retribution. They target those who have been harsh to you in the past. They exact vengeance on those who have wronged you.

Eventually, the category of those who have wronged you includes not only those who have actually picked on you before, but anyone who has what you don't. Jealousy and bitterness has spiraled out of control, beyond rationality, and you believe that THEY must pay. THEM. Everyone who is not you. Everyone who does not share your pain. Which, in your mind, is everyone. Period.

Who knows what might have sparked the first idea to finally take action. Perhaps you simply decided you had taken enough. Perhaps it was a movie. Or a TV show. Or a video game. Or a conversation overheard. Or a book. Or a play. Or something else you read. In any case, you decide that people must feel the pain that you have felt. The agony and despair, that feeling of empty loss that you have endured over the past decade and a half in this country. You must show them that.

Remember, you reason, everyone else is so happy and free. No one knows how you feel. Not even your parents, those wretched parents who brought you here in the first place.

So you plan an attack. Purchase the weapons. Decide upon a location. And when the morning rises, you carry out your attack. You go to another dorm and shoot two people. Maybe one of them was that girl you were interested in but never knew you existed... and had offended you by that very inaction. Maybe not. Maybe you shoot random people, because inflicting pain on others--that "same" pain you've felt... it feels good.

Maybe you waver midway... or maybe you run out of ammo. In any case, you return to your dorm after the first incident and ponder for a time. Is there regret? Maybe. But sooner or later, your feelings of hate overpower any regret you may have had. You've passed the point of no return, and you know it. Nothing can ever be the same again. What you've done cannot be taken back, regardless of whether or not you would have wanted to.

Now you make the decision to end your life, but not before you take as many lives of others as you can. That will be your message to the world... that will be your legacy: to deliver the bitter torture you experienced to the world.

You reload. You exit your dorm. You go to an engineering building. You barricade the doors so any fleeing students will be trapped--trapped like you have felt trapped within your isolation for so many years. (This may not be a conscious thought, but it certainly manifests somewhere in your mind.)

You go from classroom to classroom with the same objective: kill as many students as you can. You don't know them. They dont' know you. But it doesn't matter, because for as long as you can really remember, no one has really known you.

You say nothing as you shoot, reload, and shoot again. Some of the students resist and barricade doors. You try to shoot through, but no luck. A setback, but no time to dwell. Move on to the next scene.

By the time you are done, you have shot dozens and killed 32. And maybe at that moment, the gravity of your actions finally hits you viscerally and makes you stop. Or maybe you just got tired. But with nothing else to do... with nothing else to live for after this... it's time to take your own life.

A shot to the head, and finally, after all these years, the pain is over.

Basically, my point includes your point. The "other people doing this" part is basically the social outcasting of his friends to him. However, the part he did to himself was the extremity to which he withdrew from society after deciding that no one would ever want to be a companion. So yes, there was a start, and it wasn't brought upon all by himself, but to withdraw responsibility from Cho is also foolish. I'm not saying Cho was pure evil either, but neither am I saying he's without blame.

If you're the type of person to play ratios, then I'd say this was the fault 30% others 70% Cho.

Very well put, Corkscrewed.

I guess we do share the same views.

-ACE