Virginia Tech Student Shooting

Shino · Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 10:07 am Post subject:

Well I'm sure most of you have heard about the video...

Here's an article about it. Including footage.

Sounds like he's blaming spoiled kids.

News flash. We all hate spoiled kids... but I don't go around fucking shooting them!

Daijaga · Chosen of Luck Gender: Joined: 17 Dec 2003

I think Ariail put it well.

http://www.comics.com/editoons/ariail/

Ming · DOOM! Gender: Joined: 13 Jan 2003

I had also heard that he was mainly targeting spoiled kids. Not that I'm siding with the kid or condoning what he did, but maybe a lesson can be learned from all this. Generally speaking, spoiled little rich kids, for the most part, treat everyone around them like crap because they think that they're better than everyone else. I saw it all the time when I was in college. I'm not saying that they deserved to be murdered, but maybe a lesson can be taken from this to shore up your attitude towards other human beings, becuase you never know who's going to snap one day and do something like this.

ScrumYummy · bunnyhunches of scrums Gender: Joined: 29 Jun 2005

I liked that cartoon, Dai.

About the footage. We need to quit playing it. It's already too late, but we need to stop. I watched CNN for a little while yesterday and they played the video about fives times in half an hour, including right after a retired FBI profiler was interviewed saying that it wasn't a good idea to keep showing this video. It's giving the killer what he wanted (to be famous, to get his "message" heard) and telling other whackos that you'll do the same thing for them if they kill a bunch of people and send a tape in to the news.

If we didn't treat school shootings like spectacles and the killers like rock stars, maybe this would stop happening.

Doot · Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 10:51 am Post subject:

The guy was a good bit detached from reality comparing himself to Jesus and being put on a cross. Unfortunately all of this becomes a media circus and literally forces viewers to become desensitized to this type of mindless violence.

Sciler · Mistress Age: 46 Gender: Joined: 15 Sep 2002

That was the first time Ive seen the video. I do what I normally do, I watch the news for the first day or 2, just to see how many are ok, and to pay respect to the dead, then I completely withdraw again.

I'm sad so many people died.

And am I off my rocker to feel slightly sad for the killer? I mean of course I am angry at him, for being so stupid and selfish, but I do feel bad that he felt SO tortured, that he felt this was the answer. Makes me wonder what happened to him up until this point....if just people around him had been more compassionate, if he had had friends, or at least people be nice to him, if this could have all been prevented.

Shino · Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 11:10 am Post subject:

Legend · Queen of Terabithia Age: 41 Gender: Joined: 14 Oct 2005

Sciler-- from what the other students have said, people -did- try to be nice to him and reach out, but he rejected all their efforts. I don't really feel bad for him, because in reality it sounds more than anything else like he did this to himself. And believe me, I'm usually one of the first people to give other human beings the benefit of the doubt.

Sciler · Mistress Age: 46 Gender: Joined: 15 Sep 2002

Yeah, I know, thats why i just wonder how far back this started for him....you know? Did he officially "snap" in elementary or middle school, when sometimes kids can be especially cruel. I wonder if people made fun of him for his ethnicity, or maybe made fun of his family, etc. By the recent times, he was already far gone...

I just wonder about stuff like this. What is so horrible, that makes a person snap SO badly.

Is it truely just a chemical imbalance int he brain, where the person becomes delusional, and all this horror in life, he feels was inflicted on him personally, or did he actually experience many horrible things.

I dont know, I guess it makes me feel good in a sense, to know I always tried to be nice to everyone around me, even the "odd/wierdo" because I know they are people too, they just express themselves differently.

Legend · Queen of Terabithia Age: 41 Gender: Joined: 14 Oct 2005

I agree that it's possible he got picked on for his ethnicity and stuff, but from what people are saying, he seems to have been genuinely insane. There was a movie made in Korea that he decided to emulate (a lot of the pictures he sent are equivalent to screen shots from said movie) in which a guy ran about violently murdering people with a hammer.

He was rather obviously mistakenly identifying himself with the lead, and perhaps got ot the point where he made the movie real (this is not based on the usual video games/movies = violence, given the guy actually -created- pictures of himself in a position like the ones in the movie, etc, so it's rather obvious he was emulating it.)

Some people, I think, really just are chemically imbalanced. This doesn't always make them psycho-killers, but really...*shrugs* Silvanus is clinically depressed, and it's 100% chemical imbalance proven by the fact that my brother and I completely are not, and we were raised in exactly the same conditions she was. In fact, she is -prettier- and more -popular- than myself, so there's even -less- chance she became depressed because of her situation.