# Virginia Tech shootings



## OGIGA (Apr 18, 2007)

I think everyone should have heard about what happened on Monday morning. What are your reactions?


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## Fisherman_Brazil (Apr 18, 2007)

That is not a news to me while I was in the States 20 years ago except the scale like this is terible. Very sorry to learn this sad news indeed!

The deep_rooted problem is the way orientals value the degree, and that is the torsioned value system originated from the thought of the Confucious. Nobody will augure about the big difference between east and west, and denying the history happenduring the past few decades. What I try to say is strickly limited to the oriental overlooking at the degree, not the other aspects of human life.

In Taiwan, we have college vacumcy more than the birth rate, meaning everybody is born to become an engineer or scientist. You know that is rediculus if you further investigating our entrance examniation system.

Tmedias and particularly, the politicians always over-emphsize their higher degree worsening the problem to the society. Yet, to my surprise, " high education meaning good income, good position, and merry beautiful woman" as rule of thomb still widely spreyed and accepted by defaulted as main stream thinking among the general publics.

The only thing, I beleive is to get rid of the misunderstanding to the purposes of the education. Such that when young people may find his/her talent not becoming a resercher or having differcult to achieve the studying goal, they may have another alternative without doing thing stupid and certainly horrible like this sadness.

Luke


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## hibiscusmile (Apr 18, 2007)

the poor guy must of had a lot of abuse in his past, the night light and stories he wrote and aloneness suggest that. Also if u are able to read about antidepressents a lot of the original ones that showed up in the 90s seem to cause a lot of erratic behavior. mainly the people who do mass shootings seem to have in their systems the anti... prozac. My father was on it and I heard about this when he was on it. He was ok on it but it seems a lot of people younger (under 50) have problems with it. At least this is what I have heard.


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## OGIGA (Apr 18, 2007)

I'm disturbed that it's an Asian guy this time. This guy is the same age as I am. His parents must be having a really hard time, maybe harder than the victims' parents.


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## hibiscusmile (Apr 18, 2007)

Do not let it get you down if u can help it. The world is a place where evil lives. There is probably a lot of people of all nationallies that this happens too in their own countries, this one just happens to be here. As of yet we do not know anything really of his past, he could of been deeply abused as a child or maybe his genes were defective somewhere. We know the only real truth is that God knows and will judge when He is ready. All you can do is pray for those that are left behind that the Almighty will supply them with what they need. You just take care of yourself and that will spread to someone else. ps I just wanted to add I am not giving him an excuse, for evil and doublemindedness has no reason, it just is. Not everyone is strong willed. A lot of people are weak and some are just raised to believe that killing will be rewarded. And then there are some that are not right in their minds.


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## OGIGA (Apr 20, 2007)

Okay, I just spend the last few hours watching MSNBC's coverage of the video, document, and photographs that Cho mailed to them. If you haven't seen it already, it's really interesting. MSNBC released a few clips from Cho's video that sheds some light on why he did his deed. I also looked at a couple of websites where visitors post comments on videos and noticed people's rage and insults, so I just ask that nobody post anything like that here. However, I do want to hear your guys' thoughtful opinions and insights.


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## hibiscusmile (Apr 20, 2007)

As I wrote earlier it is one of the above or all combined.


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## Horatio (Apr 21, 2007)

I am married and have two children going to an elementary school just down my street. When I saw the news, my first thought after "MY GOD!" was to get my kids together and explain things to them. I have to always find a balance between telling them which facts they need to know (before playground talk) and which facts I should keep quiet (as those facts could make my children really scared to go to school). That balance sometimes can be really hard. I do lots of reassuring, but in the back of my mind, I know that it could happen anywhere at anytime. 9-11 took away my safety net...

I am so concerned for all of the students that even after the grief councelling, they could aways have the scars of this horrible event. I just have to pray to the Lord that He is there for them (and of course He is) so He can carry their hurting. The hardest part for those grieving is to hand their burdens over to Him...I pray for healing for all those devastated by this tragedy. In Christ, Horatio. p.s. Thanks for this forum, Ogiga.


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## Way.Of.The.Mantis (Apr 21, 2007)

woah, I dont know what to say - should I say anything at all? I mostly agree with all of the above, although im not sure about how much the actions of various political factions affected the shooters mind..considering he had been in the USA since he was eight, and presumably might not have had the advantage of a, not exactly a loving..but rather a supportative pair of parents on hand...

But still, I guess (even though im not an American citizen) it must be a hard time both for the parents, friends and relatives of the victims and survivors, but of course also for Cho's parents..they've been forced to disown him, _"he is better off dead"_. Thats got to be pretty hard for any parent to say.

I think the main thing that surprised me was that how easy it was for Cho to get hold of the weapons (one of which is strictly for police issue) he used for his 'spree', im not against the amendment, the right to bear arms..even if it was written at a time when the US had no standing army, but its the sort of thing that doesn't really happen over here in the UK, at least not on that scale..maybe it reflects the different cultural values we have between us? :?

So maybe Cho's rampage was provoked by a girlfriends lack of loyalty (or maybe the problem was with him), but still, I think there were other mitigating factors which meant that (in his eyes) other people had to be killed. Well, he's only got one guy to answer to now...

Ive learnt somethings from reading this topic, thanks.

Feel free to dispute/question what ive said.

Jonny.

By the way..when the press say 'survivors' do they mean the other 25,968 students who were not killed? Or just the ones who were wounded?


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## hibiscusmile (Apr 21, 2007)

I cannot see that politics had much to do with this either, it would appear that he had a speech impairment that made him hard to understand and it seemed maybe it had to do with his jawline, it seemed to set back a little. When you grow up with what some people seem to have no difficulty pointing out a defect it affects them more than most people know. As in any defect some people never move past the barbs and the pain they received as a result. The room mates he had thought he could not speak good enough english, and figured that was why he did not communicate. They were partly right, even though he knew english, his speech defect held him back. Even it showed in high school when made to read aloud, he was poked fun of. That is one thing I cannot abide by is for someone to make fun of another persons inperfections. I like to use the phrase " BUT FOR THE GRACE OF GOD THERE GOES I".

I am sure he had family problems also, as his family seemed to indicate by his moodiness. But you can never blame just one person or one thing. There are probably many underlying factors that contribute to his makeup.


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## OGIGA (Apr 21, 2007)

I think a major factor that affected his life was that he had autism (according to family members). My girl friend has an interest in studying autism so I learned a bit about it too. Basically, people with autism have social and relationship impairments, but they are very talented and smart in some areas. Autistic people are especially good with numbers, patterns, and devices. They have a profound interest in specific things (like how we're into mantises). If you want to know more about it, do a search for "autism" or "autistic" on YouTube.

Anyway, since Cho was not able to perform as well as most people in certain aspects, people made fun of him, even the teachers. I recall reading an article where a classmate of his in high school said that a teacher called on him to read something and he didn't respond, so the teacher threated to fail him. Being Asian, that was not an option (I can testify to that). Like that's not bad enough, as soon as he opened his mouth to read, the class bursted out in laughter. Some people shouted to him, "Go back to China!" By the way, he's from South Korea. Anyway, do we all see a problem yet?

In my late elementary school years, people made fun of me a lot. I had a glimpse of what it must have been like to be Cho. Thank God that people stopped making fun of me during high school because who knows what I could have ended up becoming.

Cho ended up doing the wrong thing. When an individual is attacked by so many people, they're going to want revenge. The people who persecuted him also certainly did the wrong thing. People with autism have trouble expressing themselves and Cho decided to express himself with violence (and a package to MSNBC).

Instead of pointing fingers and calling Cho a monster, why don't we learn a valuable lesson instead? I don't think Cho's actions came out of nowhere. We know that we should not make fun of people due to their disabilities. Maybe we should teach our (future) children to respect their neighbors. I'm sure we can learn a lot more if we don't continue doing what kids have been doing to him in primary and secondary school.


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