Cho’s massacre would have been stopped — if gun control worked
The call for increased erosion of the Second Amendment has hit a couple of speedbumps in the wake of the senseless mass murder of thirty-two innocent people at Virginia Tech. Arguments favoring gun control claim that making the purchase, use and possession of personal weapons increasingly difficult will lower gun crimes like the Virginia Tech bloodbath. Yet mass-murdering Korean immigrant Seung-Hui Cho would have been stopped cold if such restrictions actually worked: he was in violation of at least two of them when the fateful day dawned.
The first rule that Cho broke was the well-known ban on all campuses in the State of Virginia of possession of guns, a rule that was nearly dropped very recently over concerns about exactly the kind of scenario seen on April 16. As has been pointed out, the rule, which suspended Virginia’s conceal-carry law on school grounds, stopped victims from the chance to protect themselves, leaving them literally defenceless and preventing an outcome seen in similar incidents, when an armed victim killed or incapacitated a spree-killer.
The second anti-gun statute, which is only now gaining attention, has to do with the mental health of Cho. According to federal weapons rules, anyone who has been confined to a mental institution involuntarily, or who has been “adjudicated as a mental defective” is not allowed to purchase a gun any kind.Cho had a long history of mental health problems. He was kicked out of one class for threatening behavior, stalked women students, and used his cellphone camera to photograph their legs under desks. Cho was referred to “mental health specialists” as a result of these behaviors, as well as over fears that he was suicidal. He was eventually detained for observation in an institution in 2005. A judge declared the Korean to be “an imminent danger to himself as a result of mental illness,” and ordered that Cho, as a “Court-ordered Out-Patient…follow all recommended treatments,” which reportedly included medication.
Cho went on to purchase at least two handguns after his mental health assessments; both of the weapons were used in the slayings, in violation of the gun control rule. While the mental health rule stems from the federal government and is overseen by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, states themselves are tasked with administering the program to identify such people. To the chagrin of those who believe in the efficacy of the nanny state, while only 22 states properly comply with the mental health regulations, Virginia leads all the states in flagging and reporting those disqualified on mental health grounds.
The Virginia Tech spree-slaying shoots a gaping hole in the arguments of anti-gun advocates and their “there oughta be a law” thinking. Government attempts to control guns are mainly about controlling the population and increasing government involvement in the Constitutionally-protected right to keep and bear arms. Society in the US is increasingly atomized and prone to violence and other illegal actions. The same kind of government attempts to interfere in other Constitutionally-protected rights, such as speech, and efforts to socially engineer our nation with affirmative action and Third World immigration, has similar chaotic and dangerous results.
According to politically correct logic, the intervention of incompetent government and other “professionals” should replace the reliance of individuals upon themselves. Yet the Virginia Tech massacre is a standing indictment of what happens when government erodes our freedoms.
The killer’s name has been rendered as both Seung-Hui Cho and Cho Seung-Hui. The family name is Cho, which in Korean and some other Asian usage, appears ahead of the personal name. Seung-Hui Cho is the Anglicized form that is now being used in the media.
http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=377
http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=385
http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=398
http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=369