Are Cho Seung Hui's Bullies to Blame for the Killings?

Question

True MOST people being tormented by bullies would not go on a shooting rampage but however....

We have now learned that Cho was Autistic, this means that even if people wanted to help him he was unable to NOT unwilling to be helped because Autistics just DO NOT know how to emotionally connect with others. Therefore were his tormentors to be 100% for the shooting? Or where does most of the blame lie?

In my opinion his educator, parents take some of the blame, but his tormentors are 80% to blame for what has happened...I hope they marinate in their shame and more importantly learn about their mistakes.

Answer 1

no they are not to blame, but it is due time that bullies should be accountable for the mistreatment of others, having fun by ridiculing others is wrong, making the excuse that it is part of life is only perpetuating the abuses allowed by society........
the same reasoning guns don't kill people people kill people, bullies don't make people kill people, but their actions contribute to the cause....but are not the cause......
what i find troubling is 33 Americans died, and the media will not shut up over speculating why, yet in Iraq 174 people died in multiple bombings and it was only a mere headline......where is the sympathy for Iraqi people.......we should have the same concern and sadness for others as we do for citizens of our own nation......it was truly sad that one person could be troubled enough to do this......it is sadder that it happens daily in Iraq, and other places around the world....yet unless it is over oil or national importance, the U.N. does nothing......

Answer 2

Kids torment each other. It's fact. All over the world, you will see children of certain ages being abusive to each other. It's because they are going through a phase where they are so unsure of their own value that they have to belittle others in order to feel better than someone else. Cho had serious mental problems. Even the psychologists were unable to reach him. His family said he was an unusually cold child emotionally. How do you blame his family for that? Autism is genetic. People did try to help him, but they did not recognize that he was a great danger to others. I feel very sorry for his family. I also feel very sorry for him. Cho did not know how to fit into society. He did not have the mental tools to do that. Kids are bullied in junior high, and they also bully other kids. But nearly all of them recover and become reasonably stable adults. So I don't think the bullying necessarily pushed him over the edge. I think it was primarily his own mental state, plus the stresses of being in college, plus the fact that he had no idea how to interact with people even when they tried to help him. it's a tragedy. Let's not make it worse by blaming people.

Answer 3

What a very sad situation for all those concerned. It is funny how we need to find blame for the bad things that happen in life. I guess because it is just so bizarre from our daily lives that we want to avoid it from happening again. I don't think we should blame the victims, because the killer may have just killed who ever was in his way at the moment. The bullies may still be walking the streets. Why did it take so long for this Autism to be an issue? Here is where if find a fault with the system. One would think that along the path this young person would be getting help for his condition. He fell through the cracks. The guns laws should be tougher so that people who have mental problems or police records can not get them.

Answer 4

I have autism. I can emotionally connect to people... I just don't express it in ways that can be understood by many people, which is why it's been so hard for me to find a relationship. But anywho... ;p

I think that his bullies were essentially a catalyst. However, he had underlying psychological issues that brought him to do the evil deeds he had committed. What I found funny about the video was the lack of any specific individual or group that "made him do" what he did. He can blame who he wanted, but the fact is, he probably would have done an atrocity at some point no matter what because he simply was not sane.

PS Liberalism has nothing to do with it. Is that really how tories think?

Answer 5

Even though he was bullied, even tormented, he still should not have done what he did - and a good 80% of the blame rests on him. Hundreds - thousands, of autistic people are ridiculed every day, yet they don't shoot people.

Perhaps it is so that if he wasn't bullied then he wouldn't have shot anyone. Yet you do not know that this was so. The people who bullied him - whilst in the wrong- shouldn't have to take responsibility for actions that they couldn't have forseen. Of course they shouldn't have done it, but nobody expects to have a gun pulled on them for it.

In a perfect world then everyone who set him on the road to do this would take responsibility for it - someone who brushed past him in the corridor and put him in a slightly worse mood for instance. Even tiny things that would make him feel the way he did - and society in general would take a lesson from this. But that simply will not happen - and even with the most supreme 'justification' killing is wrong.

So in short, they shouldn't have bullied him - but far more definately so he shouldn't have shot them for it. If he were alive he should take responsibility for what HE did.

Answer 6

Here is a nice selection of articles that cover (to some extent) the question that I'm about to give:

http://www.naturalchild.org/alice_miller/

The main source? Parents. The secondary source? The society itself. Parents are the only ones that can twist a kid enough to pull such stunts. Especially if the kid turns out to be autistic, parents are almost certainly to blame. Why society? Because the style of parenting that usually leads to severest forms of autism and other disabling disorders is widely supported by the society. Statistics say that more than 90% of autistic kids have parents that are highly intelectual and successful professional, mostly doctors, that are also highly respeced in the society. I've a friend who works with autistic kids, who told me what the numbers showed her. It supports this thesis.

Answer 7

Millions of people have, are and will be bullied and they don't go on murderous shooting sprees. This man was a loser who couldn't deal with life like the other 99.99% of us. The fault was in his soul, and he alone owned it.

And don’t mistakenly blame the shooting on guns. I’ve been waiting for the liberals to start screaming how we should outlaw guns. If one of those students was armed, there might be one or two dead instead of thirty two. You can only take guns away from honest, law abiding people by passing laws. The criminals don't care if you pass that law, that's why they call them criminals. I'm not saying we should allow guns in schools, but consider Virginia Tech as a small country. Carrying guns in V.T. is illegal, so when the criminal comes in with a gun he can go on an unabated shooting spree because all of the law abiding people are defenseless.

Answer 8

Our world is imperfect and bullies are inevitable but there are also sensitive people who have the guts to approach a person like Cho; therefore, I believe we are to blame because of are society always picking on the weak. All of us are to blame equally as he and all the other victims as well was a victim of our imperfect society.

Answer 9

Access to Guns...no matter how nuts a person is, if they can't get a gun they won't shoot 30 plus innocent people.

Answer 10

but what about the guys who profit from a free market for handguns?
are they washing their hands after the sales?