[Ben6789 (OP)]

Hey, thought I'd make this page for everyone to pay their respects to the lives lost at the Virginia Tech Massacre. [] [:-'(]

.....I still can't beileve it... []

[Seany]

Yes.. I am gutted too!

One confession.. I'm South Korean! []

Yes, fear me all.. []

NB: Not all South Koreans are like that! []
    Being a loyal, faithful, South Korean, I feel that I should apologize []

[Ben6789 (OP)]

apologize for what Seany? [] you didn't shoot anyone..i hope. []

[Seany]

Na. Just for the fact that the gunman who killed 31 people was a South Korean. And being an extra loyal South Korean, I feel that I should apologize the country!

From S Korea.

[Ben6789 (OP)]

Well, thanks for the apology Seany. You really are extra loyal! [] Kudos to you!

[Ben6789 (OP)]

I, as an AAAA, award you the ELSK Award! Congrats!

(darn AAAAAA)

[Seany]

Heehee. Well, I'm not sure who will compensate for the deaths and injuries. The bloke killed himself after.

*Sighs*. Hope all goes well, with lots of prayers, flowers, respect, duty, tears, but eventual happiness.-- Never will be fixed, but I hope the pain relieve soon - Especially for families.

[Seany]

I, as an AAAA, award you the ELSK Award! Congrats!

(darn AAAAAA)

What is an AAAA or a ELSK? []

[Ben6789 (OP)]

rofl. Acronym Abusing Adolescants of America. Extremly Loyal South Korean. Even though below your posts it says, England.

(darn AAAAAA!)

[Seany]

Lol why the "Darn AAAAAA!" at the end? []

[neilep]

Seany, no need to apologise.....after all as Ben says...ewe didn't do anything.....

...and we'd all have to apologise to everybody if we all felt we were responsible (even a little) for cripes knows how many atrocities throughout mankind !


I was thinking about starting a thread about the American right to bear arms etc ..but it has been done here before and is always contentious !!...however, if someone wants to start a new one please do so !

I am just sickened by the whole thing.

[another_someone]

Many countries have a wide spread of freedoms to bear arms - it does not of itself lead to this outcome.

I was talking to Carolyn offline about this, and mentioned that gun crime has increased in the UK since the removal of the right to own handguns in this country.

The question is not why did this guy take a gun and kill people, but why did this guy feel he needed to do this - why was there nobody who could help him find another way to deal with whatever was troubling him?

[neilep]

There has clearly been a serious lack of assistance to this person else it would have not got this far...but the signs may or may not have been obvious.
If they were obvious then gawwd help us  !!

It's a sad state of affairs  but a ' state ' can not be expected to police/anyalyse/diagnose every person.

I personally have not read any news articles so I have no idea if there is a history of mental illness or any kind of ' condition' that this person had that may have warranted further investigation.......though...to go and shoot 30+ people just like that indicates some kind of severe mental trauma !

From what I understand the first shooting was at 7:15am ...and then another..and then a whole period of time went by before the massacre began...This was most certainly a definite dereliction of duty by somebody !!

[Seany]

Yes... Well.. Apparently he was a "loner".

[another_someone]

No-one is totally a loner.  He had a family, he attended classes - people saw him, and interacted with him - why did someone not enquire?

No, not the State, but maybe the college authorities?

I am not saying that anybody can be omniscient, but it is not the first such incident, and still people are left to brood on their problems without anybody asking about things.

There are no doubt differences, but in some ways, also some (at least superficial) similarities with the 7th July London bombers - people who were willing to take 50+ lives, and then their own lives as well.  It did not need guns for that.  And what is our response to that - we justify the shooting of of innocent Brazilian electricians as part of the escalation of violence we use to match violence to violence.

What happened in Virginia Tech was not about guns, it was about violence - the gun was merely an incidental tool.  It is about an increasing culture of violence; a culture that is fed by the media, and by politics; and culture that responds to violence with fear and panic rather than with solutions, and that fear merely isolates people more, and with that isolation, breeds more violence.

The standard response the State has to any problem is simply to increase prison sentences, but how do you imprison a person who has taken their own life?

[Seany]

Yes.. People saw him. They asked him what his name was, and he wrote on a piece of paper "?". Everyone regarded him as the question mark boy.

Their parents tried to commit suicide - too shocked to live any more

Dad died. Mother in hospital - injured.

You said that he interacted, but apparently he seldom spoke, and sat at the back of the classes. When 30 people or so discussed and described themselves, this boy did not respond when it came to his turn in the circle.

[another_someone]

So, why?  What was troubling him?  Did he have home problems?  Was there some part of his past life he was running away from?  Was he just finding life in a strange land too difficult (although he apparently had been in the country since an early age)?

[Seany]

I am curious of that too. He was about 8 when he came to America. I'm not making excuses, but I think he developed his problem in USA, and not in Korea, so maybe something was troubling him there. I believe he would have been a good American speaker, having lived there for about 15 years, but still he did not speak a lot. He hard hardly any friends, well as the news say he was a "loner". But then again, who would want to say that they were a friend of him, even if they were? The video clip of their interview would be broadcasted all over the world.

I don't think that he would have had home problems - most likely to have been a school one. Maybe bullying.

Before he died, he wrote on his arm with a felt tip pen, "Ismail Ax", but no one seems to understand it. As a Korean, and a bilingual, it isn't Korean, so I do not understand it neither. He also wrote a note before he died, but this has been kept confidential before further is known.

[another_someone]

Looking at some of the blogs on the matter, there is quite a lot of information.

It seems that he had written some quite violent and troubling plays (http://news.aol.com/virginia-tech-shootings/cho-seung-hui/_a/richard-mcbeef-cover-page/20070417134109990001), and some people were ringing alarm bells about his psychological state, but simply things moved too slowly.

There had also been some recent bomb hoaxes, and it seems this has no been linked to him.

One comment about the Ismail Ax seems to infer an Islamic reference - although there are no direct indications of Muslim sympathies.

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/04/cho_seunghui_le.html

    The Prophet Ibrahim destroyed the villagers false idols to wealth and sex with an Ax in order to please Allah. Allah then saves him from the fury of the Babylonians for this act. He grants Ibrahim a gift, a prophet child. Ibrahim names this prophet child "Ismail." Ismail, the Islamic prophet, comes from Ibrahim's act with the Ax. The link I supplied goes into a little detail on the story, but there's more detailed accounts of the event all across the internet.

    As well, the story you linked to from the Smoking Gun also has significance. Reading it, there's a few lines that support the idea that Ismail Ax references the founding of Islam and that Cho is a Muslim.

    The boy calls his "father" a "Fat piece of pork."
    Cho writes later: "No wonder your name is McPork--I mean, McBeef"
    When Cho describes how the mother strikes, he describes her with the
    line: "Takes off her shoes to strike him"

    Pork is of course considered a sin to eat by Muslims, and it is a Islamic insult to beat someone with your shoes.

[Seany]

Hi. Yes I've heard about the disturbing stories, throwing hammers or something at each other.

I've got to go now. 1:18am here and school tomorrow. I won't be on alot for the next 2 weeks. Have fun []