The murders at Virginia Tech are horrible and tragic, but they have also spawned a lot of hysterical claims. I think that is why I haven't talked about them. I have no desire to get swept up in that hysteria.
Last night on NPR, they interviewed Dr. Russ Federman, director of counseling at the University of Virginia, about what universities can do to prevent such incidents in the future. (Listen to the whole thing. It is short and worth it.)
I am paraphrasing here, but he basically said: When horrible things like this happen, we like to believe that we can make them never happen again. This allows us to regain some sense of safety and control. However, events such as this are not predictable and probably not entirely preventable.
Universities are aggressively attending to their students mental health, however, there is only so much legally and ethically that you can do. You cannot rob a student of their rights just because they are unhappy or mentally ill.
The last part really struck me. Every time someone mentally ill does something horrible, we ask: why wasn't this person put in an institution? Aside from the obvious difficulty of identifying the truly sick, would you want to live in a society where other people get to decide whether you are happy enough to walk around, to attend school, or to exercise personal liberty? I suspect not.
What happened at Virginia Tech was horrible, but ineffective and reflexive gestures in terms of policies will not make it less horrible. As we search for a solution, it is good for us to remember that some things can't be fixed.
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Cho's case in 2005 showed exactly what a college should do: people suspected he was suicidal, the college intervened, he was hospitalized, counseled and offered further treatment. That's about all anyone could do: not even parents can force a 21-year old to continue treatment once a life-threatening crisis has past.
Cho did not kill himself in 2005. The supreme irony is, if Va. Tech hadn't so successfully intervened then, 32 people would be alive today.
bravo. good post. good NPR interview.
What happened in Virginia Tech School was a sad tragedy.
Cho was a frustrated young man who was emotionally disturbed but got little or no attention from his family or friends.
Instead his so called friends worked hard to make him feel that he never belonged and that he was weirdo.
If they had helped introduced him to a few girls, perhaps, instead of alienating him as they did, this sad tragedy might have been avoided and the 32 students he killed would still be alive.
And it is disturbing how some of the mass media are always in a rush to stereotype a whole continent of people.
What is the point in stressing that he was Asian?
Do some of these journalists know anything about geography?
There are many countries in Asia.
Asia is not a country but a continent.
And what is the point in stressing his race?
No matter his race, he lived and committed the crime in America and not in his native country. May be his problem was his life in America!
Most Journalists are always in the habit of chasing after and focusing upon the fruits of the problems of society instead of the root causes.
Most Journalists seem to always be part of the problem instead of the solution: twisting stories, stoking and fanning racial emotions in order to generate publicity and make money peddling stories of human tragedies.
Ikey Benney
I can't get over you guys. You don't think this had anything to do with the gun culture promulgated by the United States? You don't think it has anything to do with your culture at all?
I can't get over you guys. You don't think this had anything to do with the gun culture promulgated by the United States? You don't think it has anything to do with your culture at all?
Nope...at least not the gun part. Coulda taken a car and drove into a crowd of students. Coulda brewed up home made bombs. All sorts of ways (quite simple ways) to get an equivalent body count.
Other parts of US culture may be up for debate, though...
You don't think this had anything to do with the gun culture promulgated by the United States?
I think it has less to do with gun culture than a lot of popular media would have you believe.
This Wikipedia list has 16 school shootings in the U.S. over the past ten years. Sounds like a lot, doesn't it? But what country would you offer as a comparison to the U.S. that has less of a "gun culture?" Australia? Only one school shooting in the past ten years--but that's in a country with a population of about 1/15 that of the U.S. Canada? Two in the past ten years, in a country with a population about 1/9 of the U.S. On a per capita basis, we're doing no worse than Canada or Australia - do those countries have as much of a "gun culture" as the U.S.?
Yes, they do, but Australia has done something about it in reponse to their latest tragedy. Look it up. We should consider their example.
The least we can do is to require background checks for gun purchases. Cho was able to purchase two handguns in Virginia in spite of the fact that he had been involuntarily committed, because all he had to do was sign a form "attesting" that he had never been involuntarily committed. If the consequences of this idiocy weren't so tragic it would really be laughable. Do they really think an insane, homicidal maniac would have any compunction against lying on a form to buy a handgun? Really?
It almost makes me wish Cho had lived so we could see what kind of fine he would have to pay for lying on the form.
we do. it's called the National Instant Check System, and is a requirement for everyone who tries to purchase a firearm from a dealer. Cho passed it twice.
that's all Cho had to do, yes. following that, the dealer then called in a NICS check on Cho's attestations, giving the BATFE an opportunity to find any errors or false statements in the list of checkboxes Cho had attested to ("are you a criminal? are you insane? are you buying this gun for somebody who's criminal or insane? are you lying on this form?") and deny the purchase. they didn't find his mental history in their files.
there's a legitimate, and ethically thorny, debate over whether they should have found his mental health history on their files. (ironically, the state of Virginia is one of the few that do report mental health records to the NICS with any regularity.)
there's also a real issue over whether or not Cho's problems, on the whole, were really severe enough that he ought to have been denied gun ownership. not everyone with troubles of the kind and severity he had will necessarily, or even likely, become homicidal or violent.
there's a further issue over whether someone who has once been denied weapons ownership on mental health grounds should ever be allowed it again; currently there exists no legal method for getting such records back out of the system. convicted felons can have their records expunged, with enough time and good behaviour, but someone once crazy is always and forever crazy in the eyes of the law; is that just?
but it's hard to see how we could realistically have asked Cho to do anything more before buying a gun. should he have been forced to prove the absence of insanity in his mind? how? should he have been made to wait to take possession of his firearms? longer than the month or two he already waited between taking possession of them and criminally abusing them? should he have had to wait for his second gun, too, even though he still (and already) had the first one he bought?
i'm not a lawyer, but as far as i understand lying on a BATFE form 4473 is a felony-level crime. he might have got away with only a fine on that particular indictment, but unless i've been misinformed he could also have been sent to jail for that detail alone. (and wouldn't that have improved his mental health enormously...?)
(in general, the BATFE takes paperwork errors very seriously indeed, although they mostly tend to punish weapons dealers for such. gun shops have been shut down for incorrect data on form 4473's --- which, bear in mind, are filled out by their customers, not by the dealer.)
Cho's behaviour in this type of situation is obsolutely rediculous. Students also makes mistakes in teasing co students. These teasing and stress would made Cho to do that. Institution must also take the responsibility to avoid such practices in the campus. If this had happened we could have not seen a horible seen in Virginia Tech
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Rosesmith
Virginia Drug Treatment