School Violence in the Americas—an in-depth look at the mind of the Killer

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/americas/2007/virginia_shootings/default.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6567143.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6564653.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6562529.stm

The recent Virginia Tech shootings will surely come down in History as an intensely memorable incident, the scars it inflicts staying open for many years to come. Indeed it comes down as a searingly painful reminder of how the actions of a single person can shatter and damage the lives of so many. While much of the world laments, a quiet question comes to mind – what silent, potent force has motivated a youthful someone to commit such an intensely perverse and abominable act?

Warning Signs
Many articles have been written on the mental state of Cho, and many of them have focused some of the most graphic and violent aspects of his personality, highlighting on his highly aggressive writings in his literature class involving graphic descriptions, which lead to a reference by a worried teacher to the school psychologist. He has also exhibited much abnormal behaviour, stalking and harassing two female students, and his friends have reported the incidence of suicidal thoughts to the police. Cho often referred to himself as “Question Mark”, and sometimes used that as his name for certain forms. Such irrational behaviour got more and more intense and the day of his attack drew near.


Conditioning
While many articles have chosen to follow such developments in Cho’s character, to see the true motives of his actions one must look deeper, past his branded name as an insane killer.

Many references to a highly disturbed and lost childhood can be found, and many often remark on how his place in his parent’s eyes was obscured by those of his older sister who went to prestigious universities, while he went to Virginia tech. While being attending church sometimes, many of his friends in his church and even in his school mistreat and bully him, and often treat him as no more than a ‘pathetic boy’, whose life was theirs to destroy.

In the now-famous tape he submitted before his act, he mentioned an admiration of the perpetrators of the Columbine high school massacre. He even compared himself to Jesus Christ, seeing himself as a martyr-model for all the weak and bullied worldwide, of how they could strike back. His then almost mentally ill mind could not see how he was at fault in his current situation, and he hit back at the world with a morbid vengeance.

Soul-search
It is only too easy to see how the intolerant culture of social Darwinism and survival of the most popular in his society, among other things, led to his unacceptable behaviour. However the reasons for his actions are not singular, but involve a multiplicity of many different reasons. One of the most referred to reasons for this killing is the relative freedom of the exchange of firearms in the United States, which allowed Cho to start preparing for his attack, hoarding weapons a few weeks before his actual act. This might sound appalling, one reason why the debate on gun control has been rekindled. The widespread occurrence of various forms of violence, from gory movies to video games, among young male American teenagers is also one visible cause.

Indeed much of the American public reacts with a general disappointment with the decay of mores of society, not focusing on any one particular reason, and others respond with just shock and lament.

Perhaps it is more useful to ask why the existence of this drifting, lost soul heading in the wrong direction was not reported earlier, not until almost an hour after his first killing. Perhaps the onus will always be on the family, friends, and others around a person to stop a murderer in his tracks.