Lifestyle > Train of Thought
Virginia: 32 Shot Dead In School Shootout
JEWBACCA:
Looks like L.A. gooks are a lil' nervous
Los Angeles-Kyeyoung Park grew worried as she listened to news reports referring to the Virginia Tech shooter as "Asian-looking."
On Tuesday, she learned that the perpetrator of the worst shooting in U.S. history was not only Asian, but Korean - and it seemed like reporters couldn't stop repeating it.
"This is something that white Americans never have to be concerned about," said Park, an associate professor of anthropology at UCLA. "If one white American commits a crime, nobody will apply it to all white Americans. But for minorities, you are always seen as a group."
The identification of Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old senior, as the triggerman who left 32 dead before taking his own life Monday sent a shudder through Los Angeles' Korean-American community, the largest outside Korea.
Fifteen years ago this month, Korean-American shopowners in South Los Angeles suffered the brunt of the L.A. riots when the predominantly African-American surrounding community identified them as an outlet for their frustration.
On Tuesday, Korean-Americans were fearing the worst.
"Many Americans can't differentiate between North Korea and South Korea, and then to get this massacre - if there is stereotyping, it will be really bad," said the Rev. Young K. Yoo, pastor of Korean Church of North L.A. in North Hills.
Korean-American organizations attempted to head off any problems by issuing press releases expressing condolences and hosting candlelight vigils.
"Our hearts go out to the victims, their family members and friends. This unspeakable tragedy hurts all of us," the L.A.-based National Korean American Service & Education Consortium said in a statement.
"As a community, Korean-Americans will come together to provide the support and resources needed for the students, their families, the faculty and the staff at Virginia Tech to overcome the grief and pain that overwhelms them all at this moment."
Outside the Greenland Market in Van Nuys, news racks for four Korean newspapers, including two sports papers, each displayed front-page photos of the shootings.
"All Koreans feel very sorry. That strange guy is not all Koreans," said Kim Tong, 55, who runs a small newsstand nearby. "All Koreans work very hard and are diligent and gentle-minded.
"He is crazy. He's very different."
Cho was described as a loner and an outcast with a dark mind. The Smoking Gun Web site reported that he was referred to counseling last year "after professors became concerned about the violent nature of his writings," including a short story about a 13-year-old boy who accuses his stepfather of pedophilia and of murdering his father.
Like others, Tong, who emigrated 10 years ago, emphasized that Cho grew up with American values.
"He is almost American, not Korean," Tong said.
An English major at Virginia Tech, Cho's family immigrated to the United States in 1992 when he was 8. And yet journalists kept referring to Cho as a Korean immigrant.
"I was disturbed that media kept calling him a South Korean immigrant, as if he arrived yesterday," Park said. "He didn't. He grew up here, in the 'burbs, in Virginia."
Narrator:
--- Quote from: virtuoso on April 18, 2007, 03:59:05 PM ---If criminals want to get hold of guns though, they will, using europe to illustrate the point is pointless purely and simply, because there has never really been mass gun ownership. Therefore controlling guns has never been that much of a problem, the big big problem in gun registration, is stopping someone from having a gun because they have a criminal record. Just on a practical common sense basis, millions of those with a criminal record will have gained it through petty crimes. The problem with such centralisation, is the government has proved over and over again they can not be trusted and give away that much power and it will be abused. What I mean is, as soon as a major precedent is set, moves come into place to incrementally expand this law and in the long term most people can longer own a gun. However there will still be millions of guns available on the black market...the peaceful people will be even more at risk.
--- End quote ---
Using Europe as a point proves that if criminals want guns, they WON'T be able to get ahold of them nearly as easily. Since I came to London, I've heard of some shootings (a few months ago, some dude up near Clapham North got clapped up by gangbangers, and one of the weapons used was a MAC-10 sub-machine gun), but they're so rare that when they do happen, they make front-page news all across the country. How often does that happen in the U.S.? Except for some gang members and of course the Irish terrorist groups (both Republican and Loyalist), almost nobody in the U.K. is armed. Shit, even the police here don't usually carry guns (except SO-19). They don't need to.
If somebody has a criminal record, it's probably a safe bet they might be involved in more serious offenses but haven't been caught. I don't believe a dude who stole Skittles from a 7-11 when he was 15 shouldn't be allowed to have a gun, but anyone who's been arrested multiple times for assault & battery, burglary, or anything else, shouldn't.
Cut it out with the government conspiracy bullshit. Lest you forget, Switzerland is a country that is heavily armed, yet it also has a very centralized system of gun control. Besides, you've said it yourself...so many people own guns in America that any politician that wanted to ban them ALL would face their wrath come elections. If the Democrats did decide to pass a complete gun ban tomorrow, that would be 80 million people who would be pissed off as fuck. A lot of Democrats believe that Clinton's support of the Assault Weapons Ban in 1994 cost the Democrats in Congress, so you can only imagine what a ban on ALL guns would do. Trying to ban all guns in America would be political suicide. The best route to take, and the one that should make all parties involved happy, is to find a middle road, and that's what licensing more-or-less achieves. I don't expect it would satisfy all the hard-line right-wingers and right-Libertarians that consider ANY infringement upon 2nd Amendment rights to be bad, but for the vast majority of gun owners (the rural hunters and the homeowners who buy guns casually for practical purposes), it would probably be OK.
Narrator:
Oh, yeah, and I don't see why so many South Koreans are rushing to apologize for this. Are they worried that all South Korean kids are going to be stereotyped as potential school shooters? I don't think this shooting is going to change the stereotype of school shooters as crazy white boys wearing goth clothes who listen to Marilyn Manson or Nirvana and play too much "Counter-Strike".
virtuoso:
Conspiracy theory bullshit? I said if the government are given power they will abuse it, the american government and the president in particular can be impeached on so many grounds, so once again what conspiracy theory bullshit? You have done absolutely nothing to dispell what I just said approximately there are 7.5 million people in switzerland and about 15% of households have a gun, so you are talking about just over a million people who posess a gun. Therefore if you take the statistics from 1992 as a guide, there were 97 handgun murders in switzerland, multiply that number by 200 and you get a figure which would be somewhere near the handgun murder rate of the U.S. Also of course what this data fails to address is that switzerland is very affluent and america by contrast has massive inequality and this is no doubt a reason for so much gun crime. Clearly you chose to misinterpret what I said, I don't recall mentioning a total ban I said it would pave the way for more and more people to be prevented from owning a gun in fact I was at great pains to point out that changes would arrise incrementally and only in the long term would people truly appreciate the impact of the changes, by then it's too late. It's like air slowly escaping from a football, you continue playing on with it and sure it still works to an extent but it becomes much harder to kick the ball but still you carry on until the ball is flat as a pancake and by then you can do nothing about it.
Narrator:
How do you get that Switzerland has a handgun murder rate equal to the U.S.? Last I checked, there are something like ten THOUSAND handgun murders in the U.S. Do the math...that puts the handgun murder rate at less than one-fifth that of the U.S. Furthermore, you're failing to account for TOTAL murder rates. On the other hand, I have heard that Switzerland does have the second-highest handgun murder rate in the world, but it's still a very distant second to the U.S. Still, maybe that proves even stricter gun regulations are necesary...I've heard at least part of the reason for the Swiss gun crime is the fact that ammunition controls aren't well-enforced.
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