It's not surprising to me the number of people that immediately make assumptions about the killer when they know little to nothing about him. The more I read about it all the more I sympathize with him. I'm not defending what he did in any way. What he did was of course sick and I really feel for everyone involved. But there's so much people don't understand about the killer himself (I don't claim to know for sure either, but I think I have a pretty good idea). I don't believe he was "evil" or a terrible person. By the time he decided to do what he did he would have been beyond reason. I can't explain how he would have been feeling. You'd have to know for yourself. But teasing and bullying can lead you to lose your sense of reality. He'd developed a hatred for the world and he needed help to bring him back to reality.
I read in the paper today (among other such things) that once when Cho was asked to read aloud to the class he initially said nothing. The teacher threatened to give him a failing grade for participation. So eventually Cho starts to speak in an odd deep voice. His classmates start to laugh and point and say "Go back to China"! That totally disgusts me. It's sick. People can be horrible. That's life you say? You need to understand that some people take such things harder than others. He must have been in an absolutely terrible mental and emotional state for a big part of his life if this sort of treatment continued. You'd be surprised at how large an effect such small things (in this case though I don't believe it was small), can have on a persons mental state. People don't just decide one day "oh I think I'll go and shoot all my classmates and commit suicide!". Whoever it was that said he did it all simply because of his girlfriend - you're an idiot. I seriously, seriously doubt that. I find that utterly ridiculous.
It's hard to put this into words so I guess I'll just stop. I just think some people are being very narrow minded and biased. It's easy to point at the killer in hatred, but I believe it's only fair as none of us knew him in person, to hate what he did, rather than to hate who he was.
Are gun laws to blame? is the mental health system to blame? You can't just lay all the blame on one thing. However I believe each of these things played a part. I think the whole guns for security thing in America is a big joke. Totally stupid... What does that say for America? If your average everyday American needs a
gun to defend his family? And I've always thought that way. And of course people will bring it up now, why shouldn't they?
There are, as someone said, many things that should be learnt from this. But they never are. In time this will be all but forgotten by most of the population. I like what an Italian Newspaper apparently said - "School shootings are as American as apple pie", sadly it is so true...
And yes the images of Cho did chill me. The look of hatred in his eyes. It just sickens me to think how he got to such a terrible state. My heart goes out to him, those he killed, and their families.
But god Jack Thompson is an idiot... How can people be so thick?? All he's doing is destroying what little credibility he had left. If he had any to lose... Seriously... training on
Doom for a school shooting? Get a life Jack, I'm sure there's at least a million better ways to "rehearse" for such a thing.
Last edited by Tojira; April 20th, 2007 at 14:45..