BillLindau

Venting after the Virginia Tech shooting

The scary thing about Cho Seung-Hui: There are a lot of people like him. That could include you and me.
I try to dwell on bad news so much, but details unraveling in the news about the Virginia Tech shooter have caught my attention. He was quiet to the point of being bizarre, not even answering questions. The stories didn't mention any girlfriends, but two women before that had complained about him stalking and IM'ing them. He was apparently obsessed with his first victim, a 19-year-old woman, but there was no evidence she knew him.
He did not have a police record, so he had the legal right to purchase a weapon. He also had his head together enough to reach his senior year. Existing gun laws would have been unable to stop him.
ASIDE: This case may weaken the arguments for gun control, but it hasn't converted me to NRA membership; the gun rights crowd's frequent battle cry that he'd have stopped him if everybody on campus packed a pistol is an even weaker argument. (Don't tell me you'd feel any safer with a bunch of drunken frat guys around and all of them packing heat. Don't think so).
Cho was sent to a mental health unit one time, instructors had told him to seek counseling. The law or the university couldn't force him to go without proof positive that he'd commit a serious crime without human intervention.
His messages railed at rich kids and females.
Apparently he felt so jacked around that he got up on a Monday morning and decided declared war on the world.
Just like I feel like doing sometimes. Just like a lot of people feel like doing when they have a whole work week ahead of them.
That's the difference between Cho and the rest of us. It's bad enough to feel that way, but it's a hell of a lot more normal than acting on that feeling.
I can't help thinking if he had found somebody to talk to, he wouldn't have done that. Somebody would have talked him out of it or called the police on him.
It's what I've done when I've been at the end of my rope. That's one of the reasons I've recently sought counseling. The young black woman who mentors me only meets me once a month. She can't control what I do when I leave the office, but she doesn't let me fall too far off the radar screen.
The people I frequently have contact with have their own lives and can't always drop everything to hear me out. But there are always hotlines, emergency lines, and you can talk to a total stranger.
Four years ago I lost a job I'd held almost 15 years. I wasn't quite familiar with the unemployment process and it flipped me out. Sometimes I had panic attacks in the middle of the night. The local mental health services had somebody manning their phone round the clock, that could call an on-call counselor if somebody was really having some problems. I made two such calls in the middle of the night. The counselor's advice: Let's figure out who to talk to about the issue that's got you so freaked out. And stop worrying about things at times you can't do anything about them. Such as the middle of the night.
I have an old classmate I've been worried about. He has gotten into trouble with the law for getting into fights and harassing people, I understand. Last fall he went to jail for several months for violating probation. K---- is not some dumb redneck, he's a well-read person who attended a prestigious college and has children in college themselves.
Other people who know him have said things about him that he never told me. For one thing, he suffers from bipolar disorder, and his legal troubles have come from instances where he wasn't taking his medication (so one person has told me). Another person told me he was harassing people, including old high-school teachers. I don't always take this latter source's comments as gospel, but it has made sense to me.
A few times last year I've gone to a pub and met K--- there. He's supposed to be one the wagon and I never saw him with a drink in his hand. I'm not sure what he was doing there unless he was trying to pick up women. Most of us in his old crowd have "outgrown" the pub scene -- even confirmed bachelors like me -- and most of the patrons are young enough to be his children.
He went to jail just before Patty Duke came to the Sandhills Sept. 30-Oct. 1, 2006. It was too bad. I think it would have done K---- good to go see her.
I'd have hoped it would have done Cho a bit of good.

Labels: Unpublished commentary in general

posted by Bill Lindau @ 11:49 AM