Acting out to violent levels...

The most heinous example of acting out has once again occurred. This time by a gun-wielding young killer, Seung-Hui Cho. A very troubled and violent young person as we’ve also come to learn, who was acting out in the most criminal of ways. This time, though, the aberration cost thirty-three people their lives, thirty two of which were innocent victims doubling the loss of life of one previous episode.

To further the hurt, he chose to send his message just four days before the eighth anniversary of that other disaster; the Columbine High School bloodbath. That ‘acting out’ episode resulted in the massacre of thirteen kids in Jefferson County, Colorado back in April 20, 1999.

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold decided they too, needed to make a voilent statement to the world. And like Seung-Hui Cho, they were willing to give their lives to make it.

Now I realize the obvious blame will fall to gun control, or lack of gun control in this country and I am certainly not going to minimize that fault here. The US is looked on globally as getting it so terribly wrong when it comes to that issue and we deserve every criticism that falls upon us for that. But that’s another topic for another time perhaps.

Too long have we heard the slogan “Guns don't kill people, people kill people.” My answer to that is ‘yes, people with guns'. One of the biggest supporters of guns and the NRA slogan was one Dimebag Darrell, the guitarist for Damageplan and Pantera. Ironically, he was killed during a 2004 shooting spree at a Columbus, Ohio, nightclub. With him went five other people including the gunman. He was 38.
I have a slogan for you NRA; ‘live by the gun, die by the gun.’ Unfortunately, those that don’t live by the gun are all too frequently killed too.

I’m sorry NRA, but it’s all too damn easy for crazies to get their hands on guns in this country, in spite of your ridiculous argument in support of firearms. Log on and surf to Top 100 Gun Sites. Candystores for killers. You're saying there is no reason to 'control' this? Or at the very least make honest attempts to? How far could Cho have gotten if he’d had to strangle those thirty-two people? Or stabbed them? Or put poisonous gas in the air system? Or whatever other methods of murder he’d had to resort to?

My grievance here goes beyond that, however. One picture of an angry twenty-three year old with guns in both hands should be message enough, to the NRA, to the legislators as well as to families and friends alike who see the signs of rage and distress in these individuals and do nothing. In almost every instance, when a situation such as this occurs, we get a history of the person. And in almost every case, the person was or still is being treated for emotional issues. Psychiatrists have perhaps examined these people and agreed that there is a violence problem but done nothing beyond ‘writing them up’.
Letting them walk out of a doctors office or a guidence counselors office to go and purchase a gun…or guns, and go on murderous rampages.

Could the killings at Virginia Tech been prevented if more teachers and students complained about Seung-Hui Cho’s bizarre behavior and his violent writings?

Lucinda Roy, a co-director of the school’s creative writing program at Virginia Tech, taught Cho in 2005. She was concerned about his behavior even back then. He wore sunglasses to class and a cap pulled low over his eyes and she was very concerned over the violent themes in his writings. She also was worried for her own safety because Cho took cellphone pictures of her in class.

When she notified authorities about these things however, she was told there would be too many legal hurdles. Police told her they couldn’t act since the writing wasn’t explicit enough and he didn’t threaten a specific person. Maybe their hands were legally tired, but couldn’t campus administration have intervened somehow, for example asking for a psych evaluation because he was a threat to himself and others.

Another of Cho’s writing professors brought his work to Roy’s attention. In one play, a teen character accused his stepfather of molesting him. The same character killed his father. In another play, the teens talked about stalking and killing a math teacher who sexually molested them.
Click on the links below the read the plays. WARNING: the plays contain profanity and scenes with disturbing content.

- Read Play #1: 'Richard McBeef'

- Read Play #2: 'Mr. Brownstone'

Are you telling me that the person or persons who read these two plays wasn't responsible in any way for the events that unfolded on April 16th?

Or did the law drop the ball? Under federal law, Cho should have been prohibited from buying a gun after a Virginia court declared him to be a danger to himself in late 2005 and sent him for psychiatric treatment, a state official and several legal experts said Friday. Federal law prohibits anyone who has been "adjudicated as a mental defective," as well as those who have been involuntarily committed to a mental health facility, from purchasing a gun. Cho's ability to buy two guns despite his history has cast new attention on the adequacy of background checks that scrutinize potential gun purchasers.
If you say they are faultless, then explain to me why all of these killing rampages past and present have happened in gun-free zones? Good question, no?

So who is at fault exactly? Well, we all are. The families who don’t acknowledge there is a problem; the friends who don’t want to ‘snitch’ and may well pay with their own lives for their honor among friends, the school system who doesn’t follow up on kids with known issues, and the gun culture who misuses excerpts of the second amendment to justify arming themselves.

The Second Amendment is among the most misunderstood provisions of the U.S. Constitution.

“That the people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves and their own State, or the United States, or for the purpose of killing game; and no law shall be passed for disarming the people or any of them, unless for crimes committed, or real danger of public injury from individuals; and as standing armies in the time of peace are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; and that the military shall be kept under strict subordination to and be governed by the civil power.”

The legal precedents are far from clear in that amendment. They are also pathetically sparse, at best. There was an article in the Yale Law Journal a few years ago entitled "The Embarrassing Second Amendment." suggesting a reluctance on the part of the courts and the legal community generally to deal with our issues today. In almost every other aspect of law the Bill of Rights has been broadly construed to restrain the states as well as the federal government. Few today would argue that states should abolish the right to free speech guaranteed by the First Amendment. Yet many are prepared to do nothing on the second, on the grounds that the framers were sage and knowledgeable men. Perhaps they were, I’ve no doubt this is true.

But let’s not forget that those same men penned that slavery was fine too, even owning some themselves. Yet today we are appalled at the very thought of someone being held in bondage. Slavery was bad, and the constitution as written permitted it, and a duly ratified amendment was required to put the matter right. These men who are responsible for the Bill of Rights were living in a different time. And their rulings and implemented amendments back then have brought us to today. No, they could not have foreseen the urban violence on the scale we have today. But if they’d had a crystal ball to gaze into, do you think they would have written those murky words back then? Or at least quite as obscurely? Since you don't hunt elk with a hand gun, or quail with an assault rifle, I think they could have done a much better job of passing this into one of the laws of the land.

Dragging out that old chestnut “Two wrongs don’t make a right.” You don’t arm yourself against an armed person; you implement stronger laws that make it much harder for criminals to arm themselves, thereby making the world a safer place for all. Gun supporters have suggested that the students should have all had guns to protect themselves. With other armed & frightened students at the scene, that opens the potential for three times the carnage! With early unsubstantiated reports that morning that the shooter was a middle-eastern Islamic student, there is every possibility that an innocent person could have been shot in the atmosphere of hysteria. Even if other armed students on campus had correctly identified the shooter, there is no guarantee that they might not have shot one another or killed many innocent others by frightened accidental firing.

I go back to my initial point in saying many there were to blame for what happened that day. Cho was for the most part ignored. He made people uncomfortable or in the case of his roommate, found him mildly amusing; but that was it!
And don't you find something terribly wrong with the fact that all of these mass shootings have occurred in gun-free zones? I know the gun supporters will wag their finger & say "SEE? Controlling guns doesn't work."
That’s not control; that’s sheer wisdom.

Which is why I don't blame that one thing for what happened at Virginia Tech.
This kid, with smoldering hatred & violent thoughts, was let go on about his life there & it eventually led to this. No-one really got to *know* what was going on in this persons head. It's one thing for the prof to say she saw something wrong & suggest counsellings; it's totally another to follow up & make sure he got it!