Virginia Gun Massacre

[zhao]

the motivation to do something like this is maybe a lot more understandable than people like to admit.

well, as a four-eyed asian kid who went through highschool in America, i can say without blinking, without a trace of a doubt, that i completely, COMPLETELY understand how someone can be driven to such extreme violence. someone with a good heart, even. someone sensitive who feels a lot.

i myself have wanted to do that 1000 times or more between the ages of 16 and 19. persecuted by Baptist fundamentalist art teachers, made fun of by jocks, ignored by rich and popular kids. i was lucky that i found solace in a group of druggy, artsy, goth-punk outsider friends. but if i didn't... i myself could have done what this guy did.

If you look at the small exerpts of his note, his descriptions of American university life are pretty bang-on. "rich kids," "debauchery" and "deceitful charlatans" on campus. Sound familiar? Sounds a lot like a big crappy book written by Tom Wolfe that the NYT etc. praised for yet again capturing the elusive spirit of the times. It's hardly a marxist stance. American universities are festering shitholes of privilege and corruption. Without denying that this guy had mental problems and that there is no justification for what he did, I think the scary part of this thing is that there is a grain of truth to his grievances. Nobody wants to accept it, hence the "search for a motive", despite the fact that he left an 8 page note detailing his motives.

well put.


i think more or less this book about Columbine is along the lines of what we are saying, recommended by a friend:

Amazon product ASIN 1590560310

 

[crackerjack]

You haven't exactly blown his whole argument out of the water here...

Sure. I wasn't playing gotcha, just pointing out these rage killings aren't exclusive to schools & colleges.

These kind of feelings of repression inside these institutions is the common factor in these kind of situations is it not? The only way to get remembered is as the guy who turned them for the day maybe.

Exactly! These are fucked up inadequate people who aren't as popular or as socially successful as they feel, with their intelligence, they should be.

True, but being a loner is perhaps more the end result of the situation that they're in, the situation that would eventually lead them down the path they end up taking. I would imagine that what lead these people to become loners in the first place is probably what eventually pushed them over the edge. So being a loner is maybe a precursor to committing these kind of crimes, but I don't think it's necessarily one of the causes of these kind of crimes.

I don't doubt American colleges are bastions of privilege and the arrogance of the rich (I've no experience of them, I'm only guessing), but I reckon if you can't find a soulmate or two on a campus of 25,000 people then that is down to you, not the institution.

 

[crackerjack]

Zhao
I didn't make that quote you've attributed to me, nor do I endorse it.

I don't know which thread I find more depressing - the one here, where people are bending over backwards to find some measure of empathy with a sociopath, or this one
http://hurryupharry.bloghouse.net/cgi-bin/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=6858

where a good number of commenters (though not the site owners themselves) are suggesting this is the result of too much rather than too little gun control while others still are hoping - like REALLY hoping - the killer could turn out to be Muslim.

 

[zhao]

no crackerjack,

"these people" are not freaks of nature. they are just like you and me.

period.

anything else is a lie and a fantasy.

 

[zhao]

another play by this dude found here in addition to "Mr. Brownstone"

http://newsbloggers.aol.com/2007/04/17/cho-seung-huis-plays/

 

[Guybrush]

another play by this dude found here in addition to "Mr. Brownstone"

http://newsbloggers.aol.com/2007/04/17/cho-seung-huis-plays/

Both of these are amongst the most chilling stuff I have read for a long time. The violence is presented in exactly the kind of numb, deadpan way you would expect an unhinged person to realise it.

I don't know which thread I find more depressing - the one here, where people are bending over backwards to find some measure of empathy with a sociopath...

Cheer up! Every killer has been a lovable toddler.

This is so OTM it hurts:

Yes, the events on the Virginia Tech campus are tragic and landmark, so it would be unseemly to focus on other news events (if there were any other events out there being covered) or to turn the incident into some kind of political take. Still, while admittedly a worthier topic for wall-to-wall coverage than Anna Nicole or the Imus controversy. (Guess all it took was a lone gunman to end that "national conversation on race." I think Harry Shearer had the best line about that, asking if the national conversation was the one we started after Hurricane Katrina or the one we started after the O.J. Simpson verdict.) Yes, I am a cynic, so even though the scope of this tragedy is mindboggling, the hyperbole of the media always gets to me. Every time one of these mass killings occur, they express shock at what has occurred. How many times do these sort of things have to happen for people to stop acting as if they've never seen it before? I'm such a cynic, I'm only shocked that with the repressed anger in this country and the availability of weaponry that it doesn't happen more frequently. Still, as awful as yesterday's events were, do they really merit nonstop blather? I heard an anchor on one of the cable news channels ask some insta-expert wheeled out for the occasion what it meant that the shooting happened early in the day when most tend to happen in late afternoon. Gee, I don't know – does it mean the killer was an early riser? Then I heard another talking head saying that this will be one of those days where people will always remember where they were when they heard. Really? Pop quiz – how many out there can tell me where they were when the previous recordholder for massacres (The Luby restaurant slayings in Killeen, Texas) happened? Can you even guess at what month or year that happened, let alone the date? Tragic as this event is, it's not 9/11 or JFK's assassination. (As if to prove the point about not remembering dates, David Gregory kept saying that today was the anniversary of the Columbine massace until someone finally corrected him that it happened on April 20, not April 17.)

Of course, now we will enter the next phase of coverage. I've already heard people blaming video games when there has been no evidence yet that the shooter even played video games. I guess guns don't kill people (or eliminating seven-day waiting periods and limits on the numbers of rounds that can be placed in a magazine), playing Grand Theft Auto or Doom does. I've never played either game, but they are huge sellers and these massacres are not everyday occurrences, but never let a tragedy stop people from pursuing their own agendas. I wish I could find it but I read a great mock piece about people in Verona seeking to ban "Romeo and Juliet" when two star-crossed teen lovers committed suicide. People always want to blame something outside instead of looking at the fact that some people are just not right. Video games, Shakespeare, movies, Judas Priest or anything else do not cause these things. Mark David Chapman sat down and read "Catcher in the Rye" after killing John Lennon. Should we ban it? Whether it's bigotry or violence, people would rather try to solve a problem through bans and banishment than by actively tackling the root causes. Back when Dennis Miller was funny, he used to have a great routine about how if anything Judas Priest has to say is going to set your kid off, something was going to get them eventually, ending with the sentiment, "You can't save everyone — just try not to be living next door to them when they go off."

We also will now have to endure the endless parade of talking heads and people seeking to be professional victims, looking to find 15 minutes of fame within the pool of blood. MSNBC spoke to the stepfather of one of the Columbine victims who said he didn't realize his stepson was one of the dead until the following morning when he read it in the paper. Really? I find that hard to believe unless he lived in another town and the boy's mother had also not been notified for some reason, but let's trot him out anyway just like Elizabeth Smart's creepy father comes out every time a little girl is abducted. I've already seen about three separate interviews with two students who were in the German classroom but survived, though one was slightly wounded in the arm. Yet, the young man who was wounded was still appearing on every interview in a suit and a tie, even with his arm in a sling. Call me crazy, but if I've been shot, I'm not dressing up to talk about it.

I hope no one finds this post too coldhearted or harsh. I do genuinely feel for the friends and families of those unfortunate souls caught in the madman's line of fire, but the media's insistence on turning into a national circus (and a formulaic one at that) cheapens the entire horrific event.

 

[zhao]

"some people are just not right"

I'm sure some serial killers are "just not right". but the rest of them, and the rage-killers and petty criminals, are just like you and me - normal people with a threshold for pain that find themselves in circumstances from which they don't see a way out.

 

[Freakaholic]

as more and more information comes out about the killer, it becomes clearer to me that he was simply a maladjusted person. these people exist everywhere, in every society. and, sometimes they snap. i think this is just statistics. at some level, we all cant cope with society. and, as the bell curve would have it, there are people that can cope with it less and less, until someone crosses the threshhold.

will controlling, getting rid of guns change this? no. will it stop the few who do snap from taking others with them? i dont know. should we focus on ways to aid those who cannot adjust rather than taking away the tools of destruction? again, i dont know if that will work.

this is a tragedy, yes. but in the broad scheme of things, or merely in the "iraq point of view," this is just another 33 lives out of billions. innocent lives, maybe, but can anything really be "done"?

 

[mms]

Sure. I wasn't playing gotcha, just pointing out these rage killings aren't exclusive to schools & colleges.

which is not something i ever said in the first place.

Exactly! These are fucked up inadequate people who aren't as popular or as socially successful as they feel, with their intelligence, they should be.

well you can isolate a few words from what ive been saying and try and turn them round like this but that would be silly wouldn't it ?

yes they are clearly full of problems but what conditions lead to these events, what other instances in US society do these issues and mentalities arise.

I don't know which thread I find more depressing - the one here, where people are bending over backwards to find some measure of empathy with a sociopath...

You repeat this again and still we all know he's a sociopath, this is completley obvious, and at the same time we can't empathise with this really, but it is important to think about the conditions that set this situation up in the first place.
As for other people having guns being a deterrent, rah rah rah the guy shot himself ffs, what the hell would he care about other people carrying guns, it might have been less or more deaths but it certainly would not have deterred a guy on a mission to kill lots of people he absolutley despised, in a place he despised.

 

[petergunn]

But I blame it all on that git Bob Geldof's 1979 "I Don't Like Mondays" ...

when i lived in San Diego, I lived right across the street from the school district buildings and would walk by the memorial for that particular mass murder incident every day...

http://www.gun-control-network.org/GF02.htm

26 Apr 2002 Erfurt, Germany 16 + 1 Legal guns, pistol club member
27 Sep 2001 Zug, Switzerland 14 + 1 Legal guns, licensed pistol owner
29 Jul 1999 Atlanta, GA, USA 12 + 1 Legal guns, no licence required
20 Apr 1999 Littleton, CO, USA 13 + 2 Not legal guns
28 Apr 1996 Port Arthur, Australia 35 Not legal guns
13 Mar 1996 Dunblane, Scotland 17 + 1 Legal guns, pistol club member
16 Oct 1991 Killeen, TX, USA 23 + 1 Legal guns, no licence required
13 Nov 1990 Aramoana, New Zealand 13 + 1 Legal guns, licensed gun owner
18 Jun 1990 Jacksonville, FL, USA 9 + 1 Legal guns, no licence required
06 Dec 1989 Montreal, Canada 14 + 1 Legal guns, no licence required
19 Aug 1987 Hungerford, England 16 + 1 Legal guns, pistol club member
20 Aug 1986 Edmond, OK, USA 14 + 1 Legal guns, no licence required
18 Jul 1984 San Ysidro, CA, USA 21 + 1 Legal guns, no licence required
01 Aug 1966 Austin, TX, USA 16 + 1 Legal guns, no licence required

I'm really interested to know why these things keep happening, seemingly with greater regularity and ferocity. Why do they invariably seem to be middle-class losers/loners?

it might make fucked up, but i can look at that chart and recall the details on half those incindents... like the guy in San Ysidro in 1984 took out a McDonalds, the Montreal one was a school incident...

but, i would say they are all middle class to lower middle class. like google the Killeen, TX incident from 91. that guy was a straight up redneck.

anyways, like ALOT of antisocial teenagers, i was obsessed with this stuff, probably unhealthily so. w/ Columbine, i was pretty obsessed as well. with this one, i haven't been following it too much. it's a story we've all heard before and will hear again and again.

at this point, there is nothing more to say.

modern society makes people crack up. the iraq war is part of modern society. drugs. social pressures. violent culture. lying oppresive governments. vapid celebrity worshipping media. honestly, if you think how difficult modern life is (and the how intense, pressure driven, and hostile), it's suprising this does not happen more often.

there is a certain type of person who doesn't want to take a pill overdose, they want to take a busload of people with them. it doesn't take a psych professor to guess the traits. someone who is very angry, but can't deal with it. somone who does not fit in with society (you need to see people as a "them" and not an "us"). someone who has trouble with girls (say what you will, but nothing makes the base adolescent hateful anger do away like getting laid), someone who has feelings of powerlessness (that is what is so dangerous about guns. they can empower people )

anyone who glorifies people like this probably has similar feelings of powerness or is still at an age (mentally or physically) where they lack a social conscience, say under 21.

 

[bunchoffives]

Well exactly.
The main result of this is inevitably going to be discussion of gun-control laws, probably some stuff about immigration (given that he was Korean) and woe-betide any band or computer games that he was into.

I get a little tired of people immediately jumping to the defense of video games in situations like this. How is not relevant if someone who commits something like this spent their free time immersed in ultra-violent video games? I know that the details haven't come out about the VA Tech shooting specifically, but it's something that needs to be discussed.

It seems like people are afraid to analyze the impulses behind games like Grand Theft Auto, etc and the recent trend (~last three years) in Hollywood to release movies that are basically glorified/fictionalized snuff films (Hostel, The Hills Have Eyes, ad nauseum.) Are we really so jaded as to think that these DON'T affect people?

I'm in the target age/social group here (middle class, 20 something white males) and watching friends/acquaintances interact with things like Grand Theft Auto is really eye opening. I rarely see people actually play the strategic game, most sessions devolve into random violence/who can kill the most people/seniors/prostitutes fastest and to be perfectly frank it's disgusting and a frame of mind that I think is completely capable of translating into real life, especially for someone who's already a social pariah.

 

[Freakaholic]

there is a certain type of person who doesn't want to take a pill overdose, they want to take a busload of people with them.

what do you suppose seperates the OD, wrist slash, bridge jumping quitters from the packing heavy heat and take as many people with me killers?


Edit:

Meanwhile.....

Nearly 200 people have been killed in a string of attacks in Iraq's capital, Baghdad - the worst day of violence since a US security operation began.

 

[crackerjack]

no crackerjack,

"these people" are not freaks of nature. they are just like you and me.

period.

anything else is a lie and a fantasy.

Not freaks of nature, just sad inadequate individuals. If you feel that describes you, fine - but you're speaking for yourself.

As for other people having guns being a deterrent, rah rah rah the guy shot himself ffs, what the hell would he care about other people carrying guns, it might have been less or more deaths but it certainly would not have deterred a guy on a mission to kill lots of people he absolutley despised, in a place he despised.

Why are you quoting this back at me as if I agree with it? I made it very clear that I don't.

 

[crackerjack]

there is a certain type of person who doesn't want to take a pill overdose, they want to take a busload of people with them. it doesn't take a psych professor to guess the traits. someone who is very angry, but can't deal with it. somone who does not fit in with society (you need to see people as a "them" and not an "us"). someone who has trouble with girls (say what you will, but nothing makes the base adolescent hateful anger do away like getting laid), someone who has feelings of powerlessness (that is what is so dangerous about guns. they can empower people )

anyone who glorifies people like this probably has similar feelings of powerness or is still at an age (mentally or physically) where they lack a social conscience, say under 21.

On the money.

 

[zhao]

it doesn't take a psych professor to guess the traits. someone who is very angry, but can't deal with it. somone who does not fit in with society (you need to see people as a "them" and not an "us"). someone who has trouble with girls (say what you will, but nothing makes the base adolescent hateful anger do away like getting laid), someone who has feelings of powerlessness

this also describes the people who makes most of the pop music we love - or atleast the image they sport. New-Order? The Smiths? The Cure? (just 3 similar examples from one scene, don't have time to list the countless ones from other scenes and time periods) how ubiquitous is the lonely ostracised figure in pop idolatry?

anyone who glorifies people like this probably has similar feelings of powerness or is still at an age (mentally or physically) where they lack a social conscience, say under 21.

and this would be anyone who listens to music written about alienation, anger, and troubles with girls.

Not freaks of nature, just sad inadequate individuals. If you feel that describes you, fine - but you're speaking for yourself.

ah ok. crackjack is so well adjusted to this society that he never feels sad or inadequate. he is free from neurosis, is never lonely, and is happy all the time. and I'm sure he doesn't listen to angry or sad music either.

 

[Mr. Tea]

should we focus on ways to aid those who cannot adjust rather than taking away the tools of destruction? again, i dont know if that will work.

Why "or"? Why not "both"?

I agree that simply trying to reduce the number of guns in circulation is, to an extent, a treatment of the symptoms and not the cause, but we need to remember that treating the symtoms is generally a hell of a lot better than not doing anything at all. But to what extent is this 'cause' the fault of anyone but the gunman?

Of course it'd be great if more help was available to people who, for whatever reason, cannot 'adjust' to normal social living, but before this becomes one huge indictment of everything that's wrong with American society, let's not lose sight of the fact that some people are simply fucked up. I mean, millions of Americans go to work, college or school every day without killing dozens of their colleagues - if some sort of moral malaise was bubbling away just beneath the surface of a large proportion of the population, wouldn't you expect things like this to happen every day?

 

[zhao]

surprised no one has yet brought up japan. a hyper capitalist society, intense competition... astonishing teen suicide rates...

 

[Mr. Tea]

surprised no one has yet brought up japan. a hyper capitalist society, intense competition... astonishing teen suicide rates...

Don't forget the schoolgirls'-underwear machines and the 'tentacle rape' porn!

 

[Gavin]

if some sort of moral malaise was bubbling away just beneath the surface of a large proportion of the population, wouldn't you expect things like this to happen every day?

It doesn't start happening all the time overnight. These types of incidents will become much more common as more people realize that they've been lied to their whole lives about how much freedom, social mobility, and happiness this society will provide for them. This is just the beginning, and I won't be as shocked as perhaps I would like to be when these incidents occur almost as frequent as car bombs in Iraq.

 

[zhao]

It doesn't start happening all the time overnight. These types of incidents will become much more common as more people realize that they've been lied to their whole lives about how much freedom, social mobility, and happiness this society will provide for them. This is just the beginning, and I won't be as shocked as perhaps I would like to be when these incidents occur almost as frequent as car bombs in Iraq.

and according to that wiki school shooting list, it does happen with increased rapidity after 1980.

an office buddy pointed out this dude used small hand guns and still managed to mow down more people than the 2 guys with automatics at Columbine. next one might try to out do the last...