I've had this post drafted for a few days now, mainly because I've been composing my thoughts on the tragedy probably heard round the world by now: The Virginia Tech Massacre that happened on Monday, April 16th that was the worst slaughter in US History. It was an unnecessary and unwarranted day of bloodshed from which the events and details are still unfolding. The basics are such however, that during the 7am hour in Blacksburg, VA Cho Seung-Hui, a Korean born 23 year old male who had been living in the United States for the past 14 years went on a rampage killing 33 people including himself. First killing two people in a dormitory before heading back to his room to reload, gather materials, send a package to NBC including an 1800 word Manifesto, pictures, and video, before heading back to the Virginia Tech Campus to kill more innocent people.
There are no words to say here that haven't been said in a million other ways and places. However, I do think that it is important to stress the message that this was an isolated event that was carefully constructed and thought up by the ideas of a madman, and it should not cause any backlash as the Asian Community, or to South Korea itself. South Korea has sent its condolences and support to the area, and a number of international newspapers have reported on many occurences of the same.
What is important now is finding a reason as to what specifically made him result to this tragic behavior, not to attack the entertainment industry because he susposedly was copycating a violent film, review gun control (they don't need to be taken away, but stricter rules and guidelines should be created and enforced), and in my opinion the state of Mental Care and preventative measures need to be reevaluated and overhauled (people like Cho that were declared an "imminent danger to himself because of mental illness" should have had proper care, and no access to purchase traditional weapons).
And I say this next statement in response to a few of you asking if I'm still hoping to go abroad; of course I am - America is the place with the violence problem, so now is a PERFECT time to get the hell outta dodge.
2 comments:
America is the country with the violence problem? Yes, I'm sure the millions of troops on either side of the DMZ, the thousands of landmines in the DMZ and all of the long range missiles pointed at Seoul would agree that there's no violence problem in Korea :-P Hell, if I had the North Koreans on my doorstep, I'd want to carry heat too.
The Country of South Korea is actually very safe. And I'd like to point out that there are probably missiles pointed at the US from any number of places, so living anywhere in this day in age is a crapshoot. ;)
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