On April 16, 2007, there was a shooting at Virginia Tech University. The shooter came in and shot students with no warning. He killed 32 innocent teachers and students and then killed himself. The shooter had a roommate who said that he was not a popular kid; he was quiet and had almost no friends.
How does a person get to a mindset where they would take another person's life and after killing one person, how does he/she have no remorse or conscience and keep killing others?
How does a person get to a mindset where they would take another person's life and after killing one person, how does he/she have no remorse or conscience and keep killing others?
Why do you think that this very quiet kid would do such a thing? Even his roommates who lived with him for the past 7 months did not think he could do something so horrible just like the kids at Columbine didn’t think that the shooters would do such a thing as well.
Tripp
6 comments:
Thinking from the point of view of a psychologist, I would say that they have had so much pain in their lives that they want others to share their pain and they think that the best way to inform people of their pain is to kill someone. I think that he killed himself because he still had that pain inside or he felt remorse for what he had just done after the pain was relived. The warning signs should have been found and they should have been dealt with accordingly. Another thing for EVERYONE to think about is that perhaps if someone in the hallway had said “hi” and asked him how was his today, or asked him to go out for coffee with some of their friends, or just showed some sort of recognition and kindness, this may have never happened. The killer may have said, "Hey life is not so bad after all.” Don’t forget that this could happen anywhere
Andrew S
I am not at all validating what this killer did, but it is possible that the cruelty and neglect from those around him caused him to be this way. If he was always picked on throughout his schooling, and/or his parents or guardians were not very involved in his life it could easily lead him to have so much hate and no care at all for the world around him. Growing up in the area that we do, sometimes we forget that not everyone gets a car on their sixteenth birthday and not everyone goes out every weekend with their friends. Some kids are ignored or teased. As extreme as a warning as this was we need to be careful and help people around us so that something as horrible as this never happens again. Its also important that we reach out to those in need and not isolate them and make them feel even worse. We can only hope that this will be the last event of its kind.
Jordan H
Many kids in many places, ranging from middle school to college, find themselves in situations that may have either just started, or were developing over time, where they feel alienated from "the rest." They make attempts to get out of this situation, whether it's meet new friends, or change their appearance, or whatever. But, a lot of times, they aren't successful, leading them downhill in their attempts to conform to a certain "way," that unfortunately looms in many places. These continuous trials of failure are what lead them into an equivalent of a state of depression, and then it's possible that they become vengeful or hating of the society around them. I believe that Cho was alienated from the society at Virginia Tech, and couldn't find a way out. This feeling also must have been deeply rooted into him, as papers and other things he had written several years before reflected the internal feelings he was battling. Rather than get help, he let it prevail over his thoughts and actions, leading him to be the conductor of this horid event that took place.
Seth
I think that this was a terrible tragedy that can never be explained. We will never know exactly what was going through the killers mind at the time of the shootings, and we will never know how he felt seconds away from taking his own life. He must have felt so much pain that he felt he needed to carry out this act of violence so others would take notice. We will always wonder if he felt any remorse while he was shooting his innocent classmates, or any regrets as he put the gun to his own head. You think something like this will never happen to you, that your school is safe from such a tragedy. If we learned one thing from this event it is that nobody is safe.
molly t
A well-witnessed motive for school shootings, it seems, is revenge. A lack of friends is just such an example. Our friends provide the mortar for the bricks that create a comfortable bunker known as our social lives. Everyone needs a friend, someone who will at least stay with them even if they don't talk with them. Everyone has that hunger to belong to something, no matter what it is, and this guy, Cho Seung-Hui, didn't have that comfortable barrier to protect him. I wouldn't say his life was painful; from what I've heard, it hasn't sounded too melodramatic to me. I'd say it sounds more empty, without purpose.
He wanted to be a writer and wrote some pretty weird stuff; a few plays, poems, short stories, and all of it was tragedy. People figure that this is a sure sign of Cho's insanity, but I'd like to give him more credit than that. I think he wrote that stuff because he was so lonely. After all, as mentioned previously, he didn't have friends so he took solace behind ink and paper. They say you write what you know; Cho knew emptiness. Death is probably the emptiest thing in the world.
But I don't think it was his mediocre fan base that finally pushed him off the precipice of madness and into a gaping chasm he could never return from; I think he was just plain crazy. I've noticed that these days we always try to find a solution in society. We always, always automatically assume that someone else initiated the wrongdoing and that the actual human being was a product of these events. I think that in this case, society may have been a catalyst, but I have a feeling his mental clock was ticking to Judgment Day regardless of how many friends he had or how happy his life was. Plenty of people snap for no apparent reason; it's just brain chemistry. The bomb was ticking even before Cho had learned what a second represented.
Derrick H.
I believe that the quiet people do stuff like this because they generally get picked on by other kids, such was the case in Columbine. I also think that these students aren't given a chance to express their feelings, as they are obviously mentally ill. I believe in a way everyone is to blame, because no one took the time to try and get this kid some help, and no one even tried to be this kid's friend, which may have been all he needed. This just goes to show that picking on other kids doesn't do anyone any good, so everyone should just be nice to each other, because you never know where this could happen next.
Zach
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