Virginia Tech GunMan

Shaping the mind of the Gunman

I believe many people gasped in shock and terror when the news of the Gunman Cho Seung Hui was reported. Who would have guessed that a young adult of 23 years will take the lifes of 32 innocent people, followed by his own?

From the mouths of those who had interacted with Cho before, the readers understood that Cho had been some kind of loner even before he moved from South Korea to United States. His former classmate quoted him as “a loner obsessed with violence, and had serious personal problems”. Is being brought up in a family that is not so well-to-do the main reason for his loner character? I believe not, for there are many cases of successful figures who came from humble backgrounds.

The large streak of violence and rebellion in Cho might be due to the lack of concern from his family members. He himself lived on the Virginia Tech campus, away from his parents and sister. He was seldom mentioned by his father to his friends and relatives. Instead, his Princeton-graduated sister was the trophy of the family who was always boasted about. The alienation he experienced might have arisen because of the lack of communication between him and the community he had lived in.

Disturbing dark side to technology exhibited during murder

Cho had made use today’s advanced technology to record explanatory videos of why he killed in Virginia Tech. What is so disturbing is that improved technology has enabled Cho to record such videos, package them and mail them before continuing the massacre at Norris Hall.

The airing of the footage on television had made the media complicit in the bloodbath. A much dreaded effect of this is, many mindless people who want to gain ‘fame’ would follow in his bloody footsteps.

However, the internet was put to use while Cho’s bullets shot his victims to death. Chat rooms and emails were filled with rumors of the massacre as news get out. I trust that there should be quite a few students in the campus who received the mails not believing the news. To them, this might just be another one of the many silly pranks played by the many fools out there. This goes to show the level of trust and belief people put into the internet, and should set us into thinking. Should we trust what is passed around on the net in times of emergency or crisis?