Virginia Tech Massacre

[ITALIANO]

And for every innocent person harmed by the obtaining of an illegal gun (which is indeed horrible and sad)

Yes, but still why should "innocent persons" want to obtain a gun? Just to defend themselves from not so innocent persons who did obtain a gun. But then we are still back to the problem - these should just be prevented from doing so. And, like in any civilized country, even in the US there is, I hope, a good police which takes care of the so-called "bad guys", so that an ordinary citizen doesn't have to take justice in his own hands. This is what happens in lots of perfectly respectable countries, I swear - and it works.

And I want to point out something which Uri has said, and too often is ignored here but it's a very important issue: laws shouldn't necessarily follow the basic - and often wrong - tribal habits of a community (or, better, of the majority of it) - they also contribute to define "the moral and ethical boundaries in which a society functions". It's probably the only way the culture of a society can hope to change - slowly, maybe, but still change. But it takes courage, I know, and from what I've read on this thread - mainly written by "open minded", "educated", "leftist" Americans - there's not much to be optimistic about.

[Uri]

Laws do have their practical, day to day, purposes, but first and foremost legislation is about defining the moral and ethical boundaries in which a society functions. So, a legal restriction on the merchandizing and ownership of guns is not (only) about the actual, physical presence and availability of these weapons. It’s about the notion of what guns should be used for and in what circumstances. The stricter these regulations are the massage that using them is not acceptable is more valid. Simple as that.

Do you remember Harry Limes’ Cuckoo Clock speech in The Third Man? The head of Israel’s public defense department is originally from the US, and he was interviewed this week, following these events in Blacksburg. His take was that violence is an inevitable ingredient of what makes America the phenomenon it is, always was and always will be. You can not have the extreme academic, economic, cultural heights without the lows. It’s all about the manic, eternally juvenile energy that propels this culture – the inventiveness, the constant need to progress, to “get there”, to be “better”, but also the lack of social compassion, the cruelty toward the weaklings whose left behind, the self righteous sense of superiority, the embracement of and infatuation with any manifestation of power and yes, the shear sense of excitement these acts of terror can ignite. It’s a civilization which is constantly adolescent. All you can do it accept it as it is or leave it (which is what this person actually did). What happened now won’t change anything. It will just become part of this ongoing myth of America.

[Big Magilla]

Nothing is as simple as it seems. What we have to do is change the culture to the point where banning hand guns and renewing previous bans on assault weapons become the will of the majority of the people. Legislators simply won't vote for these bans if they think in so doing they jeopardize their own political futures. The most we can hope for at this point is some strenghtening of purchasing restrictions.

The shooter in this case was apparently a paranoid schizophrenic who was bullied in high school and never matured emotionally past the age when that occurred. One of the poses in the pictures he sent NBC News was of him brandishing a knife in the manner of the killer from the Korean film, Old Boy. Given his state of mind, if he weren't able to purchase hand guns he may have gone on a killing spree with knives or bombs. If someone is that far out of his mind and that determined to cause as many deaths as he did, they will find a way. Easy access to guns just makes it easier.

[Okri]

Italiano, thank you for answering.

[Akash]

Even on this board, the perfectly understandable, too-obvious idea of an absolute restriction on weapons is received with mixed, cautious reactions - without any rational, convincing reason, or even without a reason at all: guns must be available because, well, they must. Karl Marx was right - in a capitalistic society the economical powers are subtle enough to convince citizens of the cultural need for what it produces - people truly think that this or that product is "unavoidable", "unmissable", while of course it isn't.

I couldn't agree with you more on this point! And thanks for being the only other person to point out that an absolute restriction on guns isn't a kooky idea or an undoing of any important civilian "right" other than (as you correctly put it) the right for the triumph of capitalism and demand creation.

Sonic and others are right that it may not solve the problem entirely, but there is no way to deny that this ban would greatly reduce the number of violent acts that occur each year. And for every innocent person harmed by the obtaining of an illegal gun (which is indeed horrible and sad) there would be countless other lives spared because a citizenry would not be walking around like they were trying out for The Magnificent Seven.

[ITALIANO]

Rain Bard is - quite simply - right.

My English isn't good enough for me to properly explain what I think about such an important subject - I mean, this is not like talking about Dreamgirls. Or maybe I'm just too tired today. Or I'm just bored at the prospect of people like OscarGuy or - what's his name? - flipp shouting that I am anti American or things like that (ironically, I think I might be more pro-America than both of them, of course - even just because I try to understand it and its contradictions - but that's another story).

But yes, in any other civilized community - or country - this would have been the chance for an important, collective meditation on its own tensions and the way these tensions are often expressed in America: through violence, both towards others (Vietnam, Iraq) and among themselves. (Despite what FilmFan might try to say, these things happen often in the US, more often than in any other country in the world). Believe me, in any other country such a terrible tragedy would have been treated by the media with profound analysises of the socio-cultural context which allowed this to happen.

Not in the United States. You were lucky, of course - the killer turned out to be a foreigner, and crazy - someone "different", and now reassuringly dead. By focusing on the killer and treating him as a monster the American media are obviously avoiding to face the deepest truth of the problem. And, by the way, even dealing with him, they do it in the easiest and most predictable way, completely forgetting about his cultural roots or what he may have gone through to end up doing what he did - his loneliness, and even - and this of course wouldn't have been an excuse for his action - his suffering (my experience on this board is that Americans, though individually very nice, can be senselessy aggressive as a group).

But even if they had done this, still they would have missed the main point. Even on this board, the perfectly understandable, too-obvious idea of an absolute restriction on weapons is received with mixed, cautious reactions - without any rational, convincing reason, or even without a reason at all: guns must be available because, well, they must. Karl Marx was right - in a capitalistic society the economical powers are subtle enough to convince citizens of the cultural need for what it produces - people truly think that this or that product is "unavoidable", "unmissable", while of course it isn't. Only - this being America - the product is a very dangerous one, and the economical power is that of the big firms which make these weapons, and have to profit by selling them.

Yet even this wouldn't be enough. Guns or not guns, it is, of course, a much deeper problem - something which has to do with some profound cultural aspects of your country, aspects which will have to be faced (but by whom?), otherwise will never be resolved. This tight connection between American society and the violence it produces has its reasons - so many and so complex that I can't go into them now. But Americans should. They can't go on looking elsewhere - otherwise there will be more Iraqs and (and, as rain bard correctly pointed out, this unfortunately seems to be much more tragic in their eyes) more Blacksburgs.

[rain Bard]

I know how I for one wish the American media was dealing with the event.

First and foremost, by acknowledging the context in which this tragedy occurred. By which I emphatically don't mean the shooter's background, or the movies he may have watched, or the state of security on college campuses, or even the gun availability issue (an important issue but one that needs to be worked on constantly, not just in the week following an event like this).

What happened in Blacksburg was absolutely awful, but the victims were no more innocent and their lives no more precious than those of the Iraqi civilians who are killed in greater numbers every single day, thanks to the war of "liberation" being carried out in each American's name. But these casualties are almost never discussed anywhere and are rarely even mentioned in very brief passing. Somehow we let ourselves be shielded from the responsibility for these daily massacres, either by excuses like "I didn't vote for Bush in the first place," or by justifications like "the survivors should just be thankful we got Saddam out."

Yet I suspect there is a piece in each of us that, no matter how much we try to suppress it, does understand how we are contributing to these massive acts of violence around the world (in Iraq and elsewhere). It's the same piece that understands how we each in some small or large way contribute to the sickness in our society that allowed the Blacksburg tragedy to occur.

And though it may be more difficult to suppress that piece in this instance because the event is closer to home, the media is performing its function, with our complicity, of trying its hardest to help us reassure our more conscious selves that we are not in any way to blame, by emphasizing Cho's foreigner status --though he lived here for two-thirds of his life--, by emphasizing that his gun purchases were within the boundaries of the law --which doesn't trump the argument that those boundaries are still far too loose--, and writing him off as simply "deranged" --as if there was some definable, clear marker that separates "crazy people" from the rest of us, who are completely and utterly "sane" despite the psychological contradictions we create in ourselves.

[Eric]

At any rate, Italiano, you didn't answer my (serious) question as to how you would rather the American media dealt with this event.

[kaytodd]

Sure, Filmfan - you feel better now, don't you? But I didn't say that it's an exclusively American problem - I just said that the Americans' way of (not) dealing with it IS unique. And you just proved I'm right. Thank you.

Italiano my friend, how do you think the other countries that have had such gun-related tragedies are dealing with it? Maybe we Americans could learn something (I know you are skeptical that this would happen, but think positive!).

[Okri]

Can you please articulate your complaints more deeply than that? I'm serious and curious.

[ITALIANO]

Sure, Filmfan - you feel better now, don't you? But I didn't say that it's an exclusively American problem - I just said that the Americans' way of (not) dealing with it IS unique. And you just proved I'm right. Thank you.

[Akash]

Sigh. Nice to see I can still enter a thread and cause a ruckus without even intending to. I guess there's something comforting in consistency.

[Leeder]

April 28, 1999
Taber, Alberta, Canada One student killed, one wounded at W. R. Myers High School in first fatal high school shooting in Canada in 20 years. The suspect, a 14-year-old boy, had dropped out of school after he was severely ostracized by his classmates.

One of the victims was a kid named Jason Lang. A scholarship trust was set up in his name in Alberta; it was fairly easy to get, and I received it all through undergrad at the University of Calgary.

[FilmFan720]

ITALIANO, just a few...

A Time Line of Recent Worldwide School Shootings
March 13, 1996
Dunblane, Scotland 16 children and one teacher killed at Dunblane Primary School by Thomas Hamilton, who then killed himself. 10 others wounded in attack.

March 1997
Sanaa, Yemen Eight people (six students and two others) at two schools killed by Mohammad Ahman al-Naziri.

April 28, 1999
Taber, Alberta, Canada One student killed, one wounded at W. R. Myers High School in first fatal high school shooting in Canada in 20 years. The suspect, a 14-year-old boy, had dropped out of school after he was severely ostracized by his classmates.

Dec. 7, 1999
Veghel, Netherlands One teacher and three students wounded by a 17-year-old student.

March 2000
Branneburg, Germany One teacher killed by a 15-year-old student, who then shot himself. The shooter has been in a coma ever since.

Jan. 18, 2001
Jan, Sweden One student killed by two boys, ages 17 and 19.

Feb. 19, 2002
Freising, Germany Two killed in Eching by a man at the factory from which he had been fired; he then traveled to Freising and killed the headmaster of the technical school from which he had been expelled. He also wounded another teacher before killing himself.

April 26, 2002
Erfurt, Germany 13 teachers, two students, and one policeman killed, ten wounded by Robert Steinhaeuser, 19, at the Johann Gutenberg secondary school. Steinhaeuser then killed himself

April 29, 2002
Vlasenica, Bosnia-Herzegovina One teacher killed, one wounded by Dragoslav Petkovic, 17, who then killed himself.

Sept. 28, 2004
Carmen de Patagones, Argentina Three students killed and 6 wounded by a 15-year-old Argentininan student in a town 620 miles south of Buenos Aires.

Sept. 13, 2006
Montreal, Canada Kimveer Gill, 25, opened fire with a semiautomatic weapon at Dawson College. Anastasia De Sousa, 18, died and more than a dozen students and faculty were wounded before Gill killed himself.

[Greg]

Hee's the most idiotic response on this whole affair I've found, from one Neil Boortz:

Boortz, others blame VA Tech victims for not fighting back
In the April 18 edition of his daily program notes, called Nealz Nuze and posted on his website, nationally syndicated radio host Neal Boortz asked: "How far have we advanced in the wussification of America?" Boortz was responding to criticism of comments he made on the April 17 broadcast of his radio show regarding the mass shooting at Virginia Tech. During that broadcast, Boortz asked: "How the hell do 25 students allow themselves to be lined up against the wall in a classroom and picked off one by one? How does that happen, when they could have rushed the gunman, the shooter, and most of them would have survived?" In his April 18 program notes, Boortz added: "It seems that standing in terror waiting for your turn to be executed was the right thing to do, and any questions as to why 25 students didn't try to rush and overpower Cho Seung-Hui are just examples of right wing maniacal bias. Surrender -- comply -- adjust. The doctrine of the left. ... Even the suggestion that young adults should actually engage in an act of self defense brings howls of protest."

http://mediamatters.org/items/200704180007