Vt Shooter a Chinese National on Student Visa?

[Doug.38PR]

I'm not assuming anything. I am WONDERING if that was the case. They acted like the pictures they showed were actual crime scene photos of THE guns used. Like you say, if they are just prop guns, then maybe it was a glock and they have the wrong pictures. Either way, somebody in the media is doing something out of ignorance of guns.

If the police are actually reporting that it was a Glock used, then it was a glock. (but are we hearing it from the police in a press conference? or is this just Shepherd Smith or Megan Kelly telling us that somebody told them that the police found a glock reciept so it must be a glock handgun, so let's grab a photo of a pictures of what we think a glock looks like and show it to everybody)

[Double Naught Spy]

Since when are crime scene photos of individual guns? What other crime scene photos have you seen on TV? These crime scene-looking photos were with Cho? Maybe they were covered in blood from where he shot himself in the head and blew off part of his face?

Nobody is reporting a Sig was used in the crimes.

[alan]

Seems that I was wrong, for it turns out that while what appears to have been the shooter, was also a troubled young man of Korean birth, he had lived in the U.S. since age 8 and was essentially American raised, though not American born.

[FAL-schutter]

Alan said:

[...] he had lived in the U.S. since age 8 and was essentially American raised, though not American born.

That's actually something I've been wondering about. It's been my experience that people who immigrate to a new country as small children, or who are born shortly after their parents have immigrated, can have a very difficult time because, frequently, their family expects them to conform to their own culture, while outside the house they're under some pressure to be Americans.

I had an co-worker who had come from Yugoslavia in the 1970s, when he was about 5. He told me he essentially developed two distinct personas--Croatian with his family, American with his friends--and he never let the two mix. He had some major issues from those years.

So I'm thinking the deal with the Virginia Tech shooter might have been something similar; he may have felt alienated, had trouble connecting with others, felt an at home and at school. I think it's significant that he'd been a permanent resident for so long and not acquired US citizenship, which made him neither American, nor really Korean.

Not, I hasten to add, that that excuses the murders; my co-worker managed to deal with it, after all (even if it did involve large amounts of therapy). But to prevent atrocities like this one, you need to get a handle on what motivates spree killers, and identify possible warning signs.

[tyme]

Warning signs? You mean like the violent and sex-themed, not-remotely-creative plays he wrote, including overt themes of hatred toward father figures? You mean like being committed in 2005? You mean like several people going to the campus police to complain about him? You mean like a professor willing to quit before she has to continue teaching a class with Cho in it? You mean like allegations that he'd only talk to his roomate via IM? You mean like that he set (partial?) fire to a room? You mean like his fellow students, classmates and professors couldn't really get him to talk at all? You mean like the allegations that he wore sunglasses pretty much all the time, indoors too?

Was it so difficult to identify Cho as a hazard? I don't mean every single one of those elements is a problem -- certainly some people wear sunglasses indoors -- but together there's a clear pattern that hasn't been so evident in most other rampage shooters. The nearly complete refusal to communicate is what really worries me. Even loners don't ignore people who are trying to talk to them. They're just shy, typically, and that's evident to the people trying to talk to them. Everyone who's commented on Cho suggests that he was not shy like that.

The writing and his being committed in 2005 indicates that there was something very wrong with him going back years. There are plenty of people who write violent creative works, but they're nothing like those two plays of Cho's.

There are also plenty of loner introverts, but they still talk to people when addressed, unlike Cho. Those who are so introverted that they don't talk are rare, and don't generally write with anything approaching the violence and obscenity of Cho's works. That seems to be the main theme Cho wrote on. I didn't get anything from either of his plays other than the idea that fathers and teachers are sociopaths and students and children invariably get beaten down when they have any chance of standing up to those authority figures -- and when they do stand up or have a chance on their own, it's through luck or through sociopathic deceit no better than what's alleged on the part of the authority figures.

I don't even want to know what was going on in Cho's household.

There are plenty of people with authority willing to make a citizen's life miserable if there are drugs involved, or if the person illegally carries a weapon, or in a number of other victimless circumstances. Why can't those law-and-order legal and administrative factotums do something in cases like this before there's a horrific problem?

Has liberalism gotten so bad that suggesting there might be a problem with Cho a month and a half ago, based on his behavior, writing, and previous commitment, would be challenged by the ACLU? If so, we have a problem, and we need to roll back liberalism. But we need people in positions of authority who understand the subtle and not-so-subtle distinctions between people like Cho and people who are harmlessly asocial or who express their creativity through violence -- like Stephen King or Quentin Tarantino or Leigh Whannell.

Is that an impossible task? Are people who gravitate toward the bench, and toward administrative posts with control over student discipline, simply not equipped to make such distinctions? Is the ACLU incapable of tempering its cries of discrimination and free speech violations no matter how deranged and antisocial someone is?

[FAL-schutter]

tyme said:

Warning signs? You mean like the violent and sex-themed, not-remotely-creative plays he wrote, including overt themes of hatred toward father figures? You mean like being committed in 2005? You mean like several people going to the campus police to complain about him? You mean like a professor willing to quit before she has to continue teaching a class with Cho in it? You mean like allegations that he'd only talk to his roomate via IM? You mean like that he set (partial?) fire to a room? You mean like his fellow students, classmates and professors couldn't really get him to talk at all? You mean like the allegations that he wore sunglasses pretty much all the time, indoors too?

Yes, that could be what I'm talking about (note Cho wasn't actually committed, though; he was ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation, the result of which concluded that "his insight and judgment are normal." I wonder how the guy who wrote that is feeling now).

Isn't it curious how the initial reaction to spree killings like this one go along the lines of "no-one could have foreseen this, the guy just snapped," and that claim is maintained even as it rapidly emerges there was a host of warning signs going back months, even years, but no one wanted to acknowledge them, much less act on them?

Has liberalism gotten so bad that suggesting there might be a problem with Cho a month and a half ago, based on his behavior, writing, and previous commitment, would be challenged by the ACLU? [...] Is the ACLU incapable of tempering its cries of discrimination and free speech violations no matter how deranged and antisocial someone is?

For the record, I am a (pro-RKBA) liberal, and, as it happens, a card-carrying member of the ACLU, so you'll have to excuse me if take statements like that a little personally. Can you cite any concrete examples of the ACLU taking action that directly hampered any effort which could have been made to stop Cho before he went on the rampage?