Another school shooting.

[Ozy_Flame]

Originally Posted by OILFAN #81

http://news.aol.com/virginia-tech-sh...17134109990001

That's a link to two of the plays the shooter wrote.

That's what they write in University? Those are pretty crappy plays.

I don't know why I LOL'ed at your comment, but I did......

[TheyCallMeBruce]

Originally Posted by OILFAN #81

http://news.aol.com/virginia-tech-sh...17134109990001

That's a link to two of the plays the shooter wrote.

That's what they write in University? Those are pretty crappy plays.

I would have wrote one about playing first person shooters, and confusing it with reality.

[Dion]

The signs were there but nobody followed up on them or took them seriously. Maybe if they did this senseless massacre could have been avoided.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl.../International

Some students who shared writing classes with Mr. Cho last year say the student had appeared troubled long before the campus massacre, evidenced by the horrific themes that anchored the one-act scripts he submitted for peer-review in a playwriting class.

"When we read Cho's plays, it was like something out of a nightmare," Ian MacFarlane, a former classmate of Mr. Cho and a current employee of America Online, wrote in a blog on AOL yesterday and posted two scripts he said Mr. Cho wrote. "The plays had really twisted, macabre violence that used weapons I wouldn't have even thought of.

"When the students gave reviews of his play in class, we were very careful with our words in case he decided to snap."

The plays have a dark tone students said was typical of Mr. Cho's writing. In one, a high-school student describes his desire to kill his teacher. "I wanna watch him bleed like the way he made us kids bleed," a character says.

More than one professor in the school's English department harboured the same fear.

[OILFAN #81]

CNN has reported that there is an incident this morning at Burruss Hall (this is next door to Norris Hall where the shootings took place). I'm watching CNN and officers are wearing bulletproof vests and have guns and are entering the building along with the Swat Team.

[LockedOut]

I can't imagine what the parents of the shooter are going thru right now. I feel really sorry for them too along with the victims and their families.

[OILFAN #81]

Originally Posted by LockedOut

I can't imagine what the parents of the shooter are going thru right now. I feel really sorry for them too along with the victims and their families.

His parents were actually hospitalized after learning that their son was the shooter. There were rumors that his father attempted to commit suicide but those were later just found to be rumors. However, there was an article online that stated that he was hospitalized from shock.

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=261805

[Ozy_Flame]

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/...ain/index.html

While we greive our own, lets not forget that there are worse things happening in this world on a more frequent basis. We live in a very safe society still that alot of people in this world can only wish for.

[Burninator]

Originally Posted by Dion

The signs were there but nobody followed up on them or took them seriously. Maybe if they did this senseless massacre could have been avoided.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl.../International

I asked this earlier in the thread. But what are you suppose to do? Of course in retrospect the signs are as clear as day. But lots of people are troubled or write about dark things. You obviously can't lock these people up or send them to an asylum. They have to show signs that they will commit acts of violence either on themselves or others, or commit a crime/violent act. Only then can you make them go to jail, counselling, take medication etc. But you can't do that to someone who writes about disturbing factious events or listens to angry music. Even idol threats are a sketchy area too.

Stephen King wrote a short novel called Rage about a student walking into his school and shooting people. Now the circumstances are not the same as this one, but you can't make Stephen King go see a psychologist.

Now where that line is of someone being disturbed to cause concern but is harmless and a disturbed someone causing harm, I don't know. I am just trying to make the point that if everyone who acts similar to this case I bet the lines to psychologists offices would be out the door. I think cases like this are so isolated that they are almost unavoidable.

[Ozy_Flame]

I honestly think silence is the biggest threat, and Cho obviously was a very quiet, troubled individual. You just never know what they could be thinking or what they are capable. This is why when I was in university, those people who didn't say a word made me feel uneasy, especially in an environment where opinion and debate are encouraged.

[Bobblehead]

Originally Posted by Burninator

I asked this earlier in the thread. But what are you suppose to do? Of course in retrospect the signs are as clear as day. But lots of people are troubled or write about dark things. You obviously can't lock these people up or send them to an asylum. They have to show signs that they will commit acts of violence either on themselves or others, or commit a crime/violent act. Only then can you make them go to jail, counselling, take medication etc. But you can't do that to someone who writes about disturbing factious events or listens to angry music. Even idol threats are a sketchy area too.

Stephen King wrote a short novel called Rage about a student walking into his school and shooting people. Now the circumstances are not the same as this one, but you can't make Stephen King go see a psychologist.

Now where that line is of someone being disturbed to cause concern but is harmless and a disturbed someone causing harm, I don't know. I am just trying to make the point that if everyone who acts similar to this case I bet the lines to psychologists offices would be out the door. I think cases like this are so isolated that they are almost unavoidable.

Exactly. The idea of Thought Police is, to me, more scary than incidents like this.

Jack Thompson was on Foxnews blaming video games even before the shooters name was released (link). It seems very wrong to me more for anyone to use this tragedy to make political points mere hours after the actual event.

[Zarathustra]

Originally Posted by OILFAN #81

http://news.aol.com/virginia-tech-sh...17134109990001

That's a link to two of the plays the shooter wrote.

That's what they write in University? Those are pretty crappy plays.

That was absolutely terrible, this coming from a science student. I can't believe this guy was an English major.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Zarathustra

That was absolutely terrible, this coming from a science student. I can't believe this guy was an English major.

Wow what tripe, but you can certainly read into his state of mind by reading those plays.

[Zarathustra]

Yes, you could tell something was psychologically off after reading his plays.

[Bobblehead]

In hindsight perhaps you can tell, but if you read these before anything like this happened, would you pick him to be a mass murderer?

How about Steven King? Clive Barker?

The thing is, if you know you are writing fiction you can let your mind go wild and come up with all sorts of crazy stuff. But I don't know that you can look at some written work and say the individual that wrote it is disturbed.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Bobblehead

In hindsight perhaps you can tell, but if you read these before anything like this happened, would you pick him to be a mass murderer?

How about Steven King? Clive Barker?

The thing is, if you know you are writing fiction you can let your mind go wild and come up with all sorts of crazy stuff. But I don't know that you can look at some written work and say the individual that wrote it is disturbed.

I might not think that he was a mass murderer, but I would think that he was mildly ######ed. But the theme was the same in both, older people are out to screw you, take advantage of you and possibly molest you.

[philip1985]

After reading one of his plays, couldn't bare to read the next one. The play I read was very graphic, if I was his professor and had to read this I would definitely get him help. Reading the first play with the step father and son, there is a lot of anger in that student's head one would assume. As far as predicting he could be a mass murderer, I don't think so. If I was the one that read that, I was assume this student needed help for his aggression

[Jayems]

apparently he had imaginary super model girlfriend named Jelly, and he was called Spanky...

[RougeUnderoos]

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/18/vat...sor/index.html

It's an article about the prof of that playwrighting class.

"Yet, in writing he could communicate. You've seen the plays. They're not good writing. But they are at least a form of communication. And in his responses to the other students' plays, he could be quite articulate. If writing is the only way you can communicate with the wider world, then I guess being an English major makes sense."

[Burninator]

Originally Posted by Bobblehead

In hindsight perhaps you can tell, but if you read these before anything like this happened, would you pick him to be a mass murderer?

How about Steven King? Clive Barker?

The thing is, if you know you are writing fiction you can let your mind go wild and come up with all sorts of crazy stuff. But I don't know that you can look at some written work and say the individual that wrote it is disturbed.

Agreed. I'll add another author to the that list. Chuck Palahniuk. The guy who wrote Fight Club. I've read a couple of his books, and Fight Club is easily the tamest. If he wasn't an established author his work would look very twisted, probably even more so than this guy.

That said, Chuck Palahnuik is probably a very balanced person in real life. So in regards to the shooter, it doesn't seem like there was enough to warrant serious suspension of violence.

[FireFly]

Originally Posted by Burninator

Agreed. I'll add another author to the that list. Chuck Palahniuk. The guy who wrote Fight Club. I've read a couple of his books, and Fight Club is easily the tamest. If he wasn't an established author his work would look very twisted, probably even more so than this guy.

That said, Chuck Palahnuik is probably a very balanced person in real life. So in regards to the shooter, it doesn't seem like there was enough to warrant serious suspension of violence.

While I agree that in most cases writing about violence and acting out on those fantasies are two completely seperate issues, when you also take this into consideration:

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/18/vat...sor/index.html

It's an article about the prof of that playwrighting class.

"Yet, in writing he could communicate. You've seen the plays. They're not good writing. But they are at least a form of communication. And in his responses to the other students' plays, he could be quite articulate. If writing is the only way you can communicate with the wider world, then I guess being an English major makes sense."

it changes things. For a person who can communicate well with others, you get a better sense of their level of dimentia during normal conversation. For someone who cannot communicate with others very well, who isolates himself and has trouble fitting in, you often use the only tools you have available as the ones to help you cry for help. However, a person also needs to be receptive to that help, and it appears the killer in this case, wasn't. He was offered help. His prof spoke with him a number of times. However, you can't force a person to receive help. So he cried out for help, was offered it, and refused it. Hindsight is 20/20, and no one probably understood just the kind of help this kid needed, however, it's not like his work was ignored.