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I’ve been very interested in reading about the V-Tech shooter after listening to his manifesto. Mr. Cho grew up in Fairfax County, Virginia, the county with the second-highest median household income in the United States. I grew up in a working family as well surrounded by an affluent community where most of my age group peers had much more money than I. It’s easy to have sympathies for class war when you are mistreated and “picked on” by the apposing class. The American dream is a beautiful ray of light that unfortunately only shines on a select group, and they flaunt that light in the face of those who are in the darkness. Killing innocent people is wrong, in a classroom or in sending soldiers to die in an illegal war. Murder is murder. 

I can’t help myself though to be slightly impressed that Mr. Cho could carry this out. I do not agree with what he did but the fact that he could carry out all these killings without anyone rushing and disarming him is certainly noteworthy. Is it an observation about how passive the “herd” has become. Or are we all so individualistic that our instinct is to play dead and hope he shoots your neighbor instead of you. I understand life and death situations, I also understand fight or flight, but no where in fight or flight is an instinct to play dead. Some students ran, some laid there, and the heroes seem to be the teachers. No one, as far as I have heard, were killed trying to pry the pistols from his hands.  

I also keep thinking about how many victims had at least 3 bullets in him. It makes me think of military training (3 round center mass) which is beaten into your head. This kid, post high school, should have joined the military. We could use people with the lack of a fear complex. In basic training he would have learned socialization skills, he would have been surrounded by people of similar or lower means levels, the crazy in him would have been put towards good instead of bad. As I heard about the 30 casualties in the 2nd phase of his attack, all I could think was “army of one.” 

Psychologists that studied “the ice man” Richard Kuklinski, a former contract killer who’s murders are numbered in the hundreds, speak of his lack in a fear complex. This kid seems similar in that regard, and I think it’s his lack of socialization that drove him to use this ability for bad as apposed to good (soldiers, firemen, police officers, rescue divers etc… often have the same lack of fear complex) 

I don’t want you to think I sympathize with this murderer, but I do understand the anger, resentment, and frustration in being ”weird” and financially disadvantaged while surrounded by rich people. It’s almost enough to drive anyone crazy.  The lesson that should be learned is to socialize and appreciate our eccentrics, they often grow to become great contributors to our society. But when we ostracize and bully them and make them feel like “dog shit” some react in horrible ways.  

This August I am going off to College and the media would have me believe I’d be safer back in Afghanistan. When people die in large numbers here in the US is a massacre, when a president sends troops to die in an illegal war in Iraq it’s called the “price of victory.” Fuck that, the soldiers dieing in Iraq as just as worthy as breaking news, their names their killer’s names are worth as much journalistic coverage as these victims at VA Tech. It also amazes me that a shooter with two pistols could kill 30 and wound 17 more without anyone subduing him. There appears to be some heroic stories though, a professor who was also a holocaust survivor, held the door to his classroom so his students could escape out the windows. He was shot dead through the door. 

But acts of heroism occurs everyday in Iraq and these stories are rarely told.