Troubled state of Virginia Tech killer was known in '05

BLACKSBURG, Virginia: Campus authorities were aware 17 months ago of the troubled mental state of the student who shot and killed 32 people at Virginia Tech on Monday, an imbalance graphically on display in vengeful videos and a manifesto he mailed to NBC News in the time between the two sets of shootings.

"You have vandalized my heart, raped my soul and torched my conscience," the gunman, Cho Seung-Hui, said in one video mailed shortly before the shooting at a classroom and his suicide. "Thanks to you, I die like Jesus Christ to inspire generations of the weak and the defenseless people."

NBC, which received the package on Wednesday and quickly turned it over to the authorities, broadcast video excerpts on "The NBC Nightly News."

The hostility in the videos was apparent in 2005, when Cho's sullen and aggressive behavior culminated in an unsuccessful effort by the campus police to have him involuntarily committed to a mental institution in December.

It is laughable when I hear this creep was a victim of bullying. In my day, if some pervert had been trying to peek up girls skirts or the modern version of that using a cell phone camera to do so, he would have been a victim of some real bullying. Some football player types would have beaten the crap out of him because defending the honor of womanhood was a good enough excuse to deal a creep such as this some physical pain. But today with political correctness and cultural diversity run amok, perverts and crazies are ignored until their anti-social behavior becomes so criminal it has to be dealt with. In earlier days the power of the informal group was such that a misfit such as this would not have wanted to hang around long. But we are so tolerant that misfits are allowed to hang around and make normal decent students feel uncomfortable. Of course, in my college days how many ever queers there were in college were all very much in the closet. Homosexuals were objects of open ridicule which may or may not have been a bad thing depending on whether you think the uncloseted like Rosie and her ilk contribute anything to our social fabric when allowed to be themselves in public.

But we are so tolerant that misfits are allowed to hang around and make normal decent students feel uncomfortable.

This Cho guy was obviously a sick, twisted individual. I think pretty much everybody agrees there can be no possible excuse or reasonable explanation for his random shooting rampage.

If Cho was a victim of bullying all the way back to his very young years, it's probably something we as a society should examine only so we can prevent more shootings by others in the future. Cho mentioned the Columbine killers in his final writings, and they were also social outcasts who were being ridiculed by other students.

Any parent who hasn't had a talk with their children about respecting others and not ridiculing them for being loners or different needs to have that talk immediately. It could prove to be a life-saver.

As per usual the gun grabbers are doing their best to make this about the second amendment.

What this is really all about is profiling; the university had profiled the guy and the profile was flashing red.

But profiling is bad we are told, and due to legal restrictions and probably in fear of a suit by the ACLU or some other lefty organization, they tried to kick the can down the road, graduate the guy and let him go be someone elses problem.

So the end result is that 32 bright, educated, forward looking children are dead because of political correctness.

If we do not push back hard on the political correctness types we will all commit cultural suicide and probably suicide in fact.

Kids are hardwired to zero in on the ones who are different. I went to elementary school in the 40s/50s and there was massive *bullying*, meaning anyone different was taunted, pestered, made fun of, set up as the butt of pranks and subjected to name calling.

Our parents lectured us, but deep down, everyone acknowledged this was the way of the world. We were cautioned that people can snap, can turn on tormentors and it was wisest to not hassle people. We were also told that everyone is different in some manner and that the tormentors could also one day become the goats. However, ignoring isolates is not bullying, it is common sense.

Guns and knives were common. Every male over the age of 8 carried a pocket knife.

Teachers were mostly female, a lot of them had personality problems and quite a surprising number also bullied anyone different or not of the prevailing *correct* group.

We grew up and while I am sure there were repercussions in young adulthood and beyond of the bullying, the vast majority of us became functioning adults who did not go on to hurt or destroy others.

Between 1948 and 1961 I do not recall one single incident of anyone turning violent in my classes and that including several tough guy *hoods* who were regularly suspended for disobedience and defiance. However, by 1973, when my son was in third grade, his school had one particular child who did all sorts of things, including using a school fire extinguisher against a teacher. There may have been others, but I never heard about them.

We left the city in 1975. Over the past 30+ years, as I have met other people who left that city and others (places that were mid-sized/Midwestern and always considered good places to live), I heard more and more stories of violence in the schools and the neighborhoods. Eventually, we began to read about these incidents in the papers or hear about them on TV.

While I don’t think anyone should be allowed to bully or demean others, I do not think it was the major cause of the VT massacre. I think society has become passive out of fear of lawsuits and retaliation. We are too ready to think that self esteem/acceptance is a cure for anger or violence.

People tried to speak to Cho. His parents and grandparents recognized that he had major problems. No one caught those problems and perhaps what began as schizophrenia ended in paranoia and unmediated rage. What I’ve seen of Cho’s rants all blamed others in general terms, full of media talking points. I think this was simply him lying to himself. Something pushed him to the point of acting out and we may never know what it was. But, essentially, he was what we used to call “a last marble” and such people have been driven out of society since we lived as small tribes on the savanna.

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