Does anyone else think that the Virginia tech massacre was unavoidable?

Question

Fact is, you can't plan for insanity. He was nuts, he did a horrible thing, and its nobody's fault but his. Can't just blame lack of guns, or too many guns, or anything else.

Your thoughts?

Answer 1

Yep, it was largely unavoidable.

It would have been reduced if the Virginia Tech police did something in the two hours...but yeh, they were absolutely useless..

Answer 2

You hit the nail on the head, none of this could have been predicted or stopped. the shooter was thought to be dead which is why nobody else was informed, it was thought to be over. how could anyone predict such a slaughter. I agree that everyone is trying to point a finger of blame at someone, Law enforcement, parents, the institution he was sent to, the school and faculty and sickeningly enough even the students are questioned about how they didn't see it coming. I'm sickened by the medias response to all of this, everyone looking for the Pulitzer i guess. It is just what it is, if something could have been done it would have been. The man was mentally ill , unstable and unpredictable and is the only one to blame. some say a victim of society which is also ridiculous else we would all be this way. Heck we cant even blame him really because he was disturbed. I hate the gun blame bull. If I had a hundred loaded guns I still wouldn't shoot anyone. As the old saying goes; guns dont kill, People do. and if guns weren't available he would have used a knife or explosives or fire or his bare hands. In the end if a disturbed man or woman has a desire to kill someone and rationalized the behavior in his or her mind there going to do it regardless.

Answer 3

Whenever something bad happends the first thing is to try and figure out who to blame and what could have been done to prevent it. Well, somethings are just unavoidable and unpredictable and this is one of them. Should the school be blamed for not shutting down the campus after the first shooting? No, because my school would have done the exact same thing. There's no way to know that the next shooting was going to happend. No one is psychic. Should the people at the mental hospital be blamed? No, because they too are humans besides from what I've been hearing, they thought he was only going to harm himself not anyone else since he still knew what was right and wrong. Should we blame him then? Not entirely because people should have reached out to him like his family. So who is to blamed? I think everyone should take some responsibility for their actions. The school should take some responsibility, the mental hospital that he was treated, his family, people who made fun of him, and of course himself. All those things led up to this horrific act.

Answer 4

Same here...cannot stop these things from happening. This guy was a defective human with a bent on causing mass injuries.

But I do believe that a few people with guns could have at least lessened the numbers of dead though. Not saying it is a for certain, don't know exactly how everything went down, but having a few armed people around could have evened the odds.

Answer 5

We had no more control over Cho than we did over the kids at Columbine, the guy in the Texas tower or the Unabomber.

As you've observed, this has nothing to do with guns, they have the most extreme gun laws in Canada but still have crimes which involve guns. Someone who is driven to do harm to others doesn't need guns, look at what Timothy McVey did in Oklahoma.

There's no escaping from insanity, not until the last person on earth has killed off his neighbor.

Answer 6

In the list of blame the shooter is 1st. But other steps should have been taken. The metal heath system did not do their job and lock him up he was showing signs of this in high school. More than that VT holds allot the teachers and other students were so afraid of him he had to be in one on one classes with help just out side. He set a fire in the dorm and tried to burn it down he was staling women at VT. WHY WAS HE STILL THERE.....

Answer 7

Agree to a point - if it were in a country where guns weren't so readily available he might have gone on a knifing rampage which wouldn't have had so many casualities.

In reality it's pretty difficult to do the whole 'shoulda woulda coulda' thing.

But you did hit the nail on the head when you said there are mental people everywhere anyway and you will never be able to stop them all....

Answer 8

There was a bomb scare 4/13/07 Friday, and a previous week. His English professor said on NBC, and ABC she had witnessed his abuse last year. Gut feelings are unavoidable as well, but authorities can't act on gut feelings.

May be some serious law suits going on now though. This is all wait, and see.

Answer 9

Your society creates it, your economy condones it, your government acknowledges it, and declares war on it, and your corporations finance it, and then you claim denial that you are personally responsible (in part) for such events, and claim there is nothing you could possibly do to stop it, or prevent it, when every thought, word, and act by every person at every stage of every exchange could be changed for the better, if you only chose to learn which thoughts of yours are producing the effects that you claim to want, and procreate them, and perhaps films like "The Secret" (www.thesecret.tv) are beginning to teach people around the world how to procreate those thoughts.

You think?

Answer 10

If any other students had guns , it would have ended before so many got killed. Society is partially to blame for making guns so taboo but then again the college may be to blame for having banned guns thus preventing law abiding students from carrying any thereby making them defenseless for the attacker.


Also he is a product of this xenophobic society which taught him to hate those who are different ie. john mark karrs and debra lafave.

It is the hatred and intolerence fed to him and shared with him by society that caused this.