Agreed, this guy had nothing to go back on and he has probably been living through a daily hell for the past 10 or so years. I gaurantee no one seriously tried to include him and he was the kid that everyone made fun of in high school.

There is no justifiable reason to do this because he directly affected over 10,000 people but if you make someone's life a living hell, exclude him from society, and give him a gun, what the hell do you expect?

I think he just plain cared too much. I'm a social outcast, I guess, sure -- but look at me. I'm here conversing with and acting like a sane reasonable mature adult. You know why?

Because I dont care what they say or think. I'm here to have a good run while I'm here on earth, cause I wont be here long. Only a handful of decades. So I'm gonna have a good run and not let this shit get me down. I act like everyone loves me anyway, act like all the kids here who hate me are my closest friends, because hate and jealousy get me nowhere.

This kid was sick and needed help. Blame his chemicals, blame his broken mind, dont blame the other kids.

Why not? The kids played just as much of a role in it then the chemicals and the broken mind. It is like telling a very badly treated slave that we shouldn't blame his slaveowner because he cared about his freedom too much.

I agree that it has to do with caring too much but that intertwines with his obvious irrational feeling of being opressed. He said he hated the self-centeredness of people and he had to kill because of their greedyness. This means he had goals and aspirations of being rich at a young age but this dream was repeatedly shot down while watching other people live up his dream. This comes down to jealousy and a unwillingness to accept the failures and realities of life.

Thank goodness for multiquote, so I can do this as one big, long post rather than a series ...

Remembering that my experience is based primarily on Pennsylvania's very different commitment law ...

I did look at the Virginia law. Their standard for commitment is "imminent harm to self," "imminent harm to others," or "substantially unable to care for self." Their law does not define the criteria further. (Pennsylvania is a LOT more specific about dangerous behaviors, and also allows for threats with acts in furtherance of the threats to be utilized as grounds for commitment). Sure, folks were noticing Cho's bizarre behavior ... but until Monday morning, he hadn't crossed the line into observable dangerous behavior. The play posted on The Smoking Gun was weird, certainly showed disorganization of his thinking, but didn't represent any overt dangerousness.

This is a bad week for that sort of thing. Oklahoma City, Branch Davidian, and Columbine all share similar timing, not to mention Hitler's Birthday (anybody else catch the 88 reference in the page posted to the msnbc site?), and the date of the final entry (or was it the blowing up of some Federal Building in DC, I forget) in The Turner Diaries. April 16, the day of the shootings was "Patriot's Day" according to my calendar (which I thought was supposed to be April 19 because of the Battle of the Old North Bridge that's regarded as the beginning of the American Revoluntary War. Guess it was Monday Holiday Billed).


Interesting brush with infamy. I remember her well. Especially since I'd been at the Springfield Mall only a few days before the shooting.

Mental health law, because of the civil rights issues of detaining a person against their will, and violating their right of self-determination of treatment, is based on the notion that a patient will be treated at the "least restrictive setting" for their care.

Emergency commitments are just that ... emergencies. A person's behavior two years ago may be interesting and helpful to understanding them and their situation as it provides context, it is not relevant to the commitment process. You can only be treated for what you're doing NOW, not what you did, or what you might do.

The door swings rather than revolves most of the time.

Interestingly, the state of Virginia has been, over the last few years, in the process of attempting to revise their commitment laws. I think that the speed at which those changes occur might increase.

I doubt it. While a lot of people who are severely mentally ill show signs of it in high school, a lot of the time they don't. He may have been a bit odd, shy, bookish, geeky, but then most of us here were. Schizophrenia, in particular, is like that. All of a sudden, entering into your early 20s, you start having some strange ways of perceiving the world that you become more and more convinced are absolutely true. You start believing that certain songs have special meanings inserted in them for you, and you alone, or that you can hear the thoughts of others, or god and the devil start talking to you, or that the way you pick colors of clothing has impact on world politics.

There are a lot of resources for the mentally ill. People (patients and their families) don't necessarily take advantage of them, however.

This is particularly true in the Korean community. They have a much stronger stigma about mental illness than a lot of other cultures. They keep things in the family most of all, sometimes will seek help within their own community, and only very rarely approach their local mental health services. When I see a Korean parents and their pastor (to translate) show up, I know that the situation has deteriorated to the point where someone has gotten hurt. They don't come in to do a commitment otherwise.

It is too early to make that assumption. As I stated above, he was probably a bit odd, but pretty much normal in high school.

Now that we know he has a prior commitment on his record ... this should have prevented him from being able to purchase the pistols. I don't know how Virginia's version of the background check works, though. In Pennsylvania, involuntary commitment results in an automatic denial through PICS (Penna. Insta-Check System).

Because you're a basically normal kid. Actually, one with a better sense of self-esteem and independence than many.

You are trying to interpret his world through your own ... none of the things that he was concerned about were real.

Independence, sure, but not self-esteem. I hate myself, I think I'm ugly and dumb and a lot of other bad things, then i hate myself more for being all angsty and thinking it... I just dont let it bother me.

I've been a social outcast while living in america and it bothers me a lot but I never felt any violent urges because of it.

yikes, i just realized -

at TAS,
I'M the kid who sits in the back of the class
talks to myself
dresses weird, acts rather crazy, all of that...

I wonder if they think I'll be the next to snap?

You are buying into his take on reality. The things he said were only truth to him, not to the rest of us. Many people tried to be friends with this kid. The kid was the problem, not those around him. I will leave the psychoanalysis of his childhood to the experts.

I know, that is why I said obvious irrational feeling of being oppressed. I've been irrational before and all it does is build up on each other.

I don't buy that. It is extremely rare that someone will try to be friends with the creepy, violent obsessed kid that never talks. Yeah, they may try to include in a conversation every once in while but I can almost guarantee that no one actually tried to include him in their group. Am I blaming anyone for that? Of course not, I wouldn't do and I'm sure 99% of people wouldn't either.

If people had been friends with him, if that were even possible, he would have used some other rationale to kill. It's a brain chemistry problem, not a social problem. If awkward loners always turned to killing, the streets would all be red with blood.

Yup, normal kid ;)

Could people have been friends with him? I doubt it, from what I've seeen so far. Many cry that they'd be different if people gave them a chance, but in reality, they push away anyone who tries to get close.

After watching some of the videos, I think I might understand why he finally snapped...because he's a fucking tool, and everyone that knew him probably felt the same way.

Comments, in no particular order:

Ibram, even your low self-esteem is normal. We all love you, just not in that way.

It seems that HIPAA regulations, civil and privacy rights interfere in some cases. Maybe there should be situations that override these policies, that come before violence starts.

Aside from my well-known opinions on guns, this guy should never had been able to get a gun.

Mental health "mechanisms" cost money. Who wants to pony up? My guess is that themercenary doesn't want his taxes increased to pay for someone else's mental healthcare - until there's a shooting spree, of course. :rolleyes:

UT is right. In fact, if people had tried to be his friend, they might well have been his first targets - he may have percieved them as being the cause of his distress.

That's scary. Need some counselling, Syc? :cool: