A
Strange Love Affair
By Dr. Syed Amir
Bath, MD
Blacksburg is a small, rural
town nestled in the mountains of western Virginia,
with a population of less than 20,000, where on
most days nothing much of significance happens
and life goes on at a slow, leisurely pace. Its
primary claim to fame until recently was the fact
that it was the home of Virginia Tech, the State’s
largest university.
The institution attracted a great number of bright
young students, many from other states and even
from other countries. All the idyllic ambiance
of this town, however, changed abruptly and violently
when, in the early morning of April 16, thirty-two
students and professors were mowed down mercilessly
by a lone gunman as they sat defenselessly in
their classes listening to lectures.
Another two dozen were seriously wounded and needed
hospitalization. The killer was a 23-year-old
student, Cho Seung-Hui, son of Korean immigrants
and himself a student at the university. He became
his own last victim when he shot himself through
the face. Cho is reported to have suffered from
mental problems and psychiatric disorders for
years.
Cho’s gratuitous expression of rage and
mindless anger was inexplicable. The students
had done nothing to earn it and most probably
were not even known to him. Yet, he had planned
the killing rampage meticulously, buying two guns
in the past two months and crates of ammunition,
some through the Internet. He began the carnage
at his hostel where he shot two fellow students,
one male and one female. As the news became known
to the police, they mistakenly concluded that
it might have resulted from a romantic jealously
that drove the gunman to murder, and perhaps no
one else was in peril. Unfortunately, that misguided
assumption proved very costly. Mysteriously, the
gunman did disappear for about two hours after
committing his first murders, but then he returned
with loads of fresh ammunition and an invigorated
demonic zeal. This time, he targeted class rooms
in an academic building, moving methodically from
room to room and leaving mayhem in his wake. By
the time, the police arrived it was all over.
The scene resembled a bloody battlefield. The
victims were drawn from a wide spectrum of ethnic,
religious and national backgrounds, Indians, Arabs
and Israelis, but mostly Americans.
As the news spread, the parents of students became
frantic and attempted desperately and often fruitlessly
to contact their children. Some in a state of
despair got into their cars and started to drive
hundreds of miles towards the university campus.
The reaction was understandable. Parents, who
place their children in the custody of institutions
of learning, never suspect that in an instant
their most precious assets will be taken away
so brutally by a vicious gunman. Soon, the university
initiated the grim task of identifying the bodies
and notifying the parents. The sight of grieving
parents, as captured on camera, was heart-wrenching
and unbearable. The loss of someone in his or
her teens, so full of promises of life and in
the prime of youth is hard to accept even for
those not related. The mourning has been worldwide
and extensive.
In this country, mass killings at educational
institutions by disgruntled individuals with grudges
of unspecified nature and various scores to settle
have not been so uncommon. In the summer of 1966,
a crazed gunman climbed the tower of the University
of Texas at Austin and using a high-powered rifle
gunned down 15 unsuspecting passersby some 27
floors below before he was felled by the police.
He had suffered from manic depression and mental
disorders, and had killed both his mother and
wife before climbing to the clock tower of the
University and starting on his carnage. Until
the April 16 massacre, the University of Texas’
tragedy was the worst case of mass murder in the
United States at an educational institution.
More recently, in April 1999, another mass murder
took place at a high school. Two students at Columbine
High School near Denver, Colorado, felt they had
been ridiculed and teased by fellow students.
They carefully planned their revenge and one day
brought a stack of guns and ammunition to the
school and fatally shot 12 students and a teacher.
They finally turned their guns on themselves.
Most of their victim had been picked randomly.
The senseless massacre of students at Virginia
Tech sent shock waves in this country and abroad,
many questioning the direction American society
is taking. In the aftermath of tragedies, the
country goes through a predictable routine of
self-analysis and introspection. First, there
is deeply felt sympathy for the victims and their
close relations, accompanied by saturation media
coverage of the event, followed by lengthy psychoanalysis
of the murderer and his indecipherable motives
by various psychiatrists.
In the case of Cho Seung-Hui, it has been revealed
that his bizarre and abnormal state of mind was
already known to his teachers. In fact, his English
teacher took her concerns to the Dean, but nothing
further was done. Cho had also been committed
briefly to a mental hospital for treatment, but
apparently he was not kept there for any length
of time. A controversy is going on among the experts
whether there is a way to analyze personality
disorders and identify potential psychopaths before
they strike. Unfortunately, the consensus is that
human behavior remains unpredictable.
America, of course, does not have the monopoly
on mental illness; however, the combination of
people with such disorders and the easy availability
of firearms in this country makes it a lethal
mixture. Despite their high impact, the deaths
caused by mental patients using guns constitute
only a fraction of the total gun-related deaths.
According to statistics published recently by
Newsweek magazine, nearly 29,650 people in America
die of gunshots per year (10 deaths per hundred-thousand
people), compared to 159 in England and Wales
(0.31 per hundred-thousand people) where private
ownership of guns is strictly prohibited. In Japan
the rate is even lower, with only 96 or 0.08 recorded
violent deaths per hundred- thousand people per
year. Based on these figures, the United States
has been labeled the most violent country in the
world.
The difficulties in the way of controlling gun
violence are well known; they are rooted in the
unwholesome love affair of Americans with guns
and a long tradition of unfettered access to firearms.
The gun culture is nourished by the second amendment
to the US constitution adopted in 1778, stating
that a militia, being necessary to the security
of a free State, the right of the people to keep
and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
The amendment may have served some purpose in
the eighteenth century, when wars were being fought
against native Indians and British colonialists,
but now it is an anachronism. Passionate gun advocates,
however, hold the second amendment as sacrosanct,
insisting that it applies today much as it did
two-and-half centuries ago. The proponents of
guns would prefer to have no restrictions placed
on the possession of any number or style of firearms,
including high-powered military style assault
rifles. They argue that they need the weapons
to defend themselves against criminals and to
use for hunting.
The lax laws have led to the proliferation of
guns in this country. There are more handguns
and assault rifles in the United States than people.
The laws have also created some paradoxical situations.
While there is a minimum age limit for obtaining
a license to drive a motor vehicle, in some states
there is no age restriction on owning a gun. In
the great majority of states, any citizen can
buy assault weapons, without having to undergo
licensing or registration formalities. Many states
impose no limits on the number of guns anyone
can buy at any time. The lenient US gun laws have
long been a source of astonishment and bewilderment
to people in the rest of the civilized world,
a sense aggravated by the deaths at schools and
college campuses such as Virginia Tech.
With so much rampant violence and a majority of
Americans favoring some restrictions on possession
of guns, why is it that no strict rules regulating
their purchase and ownership can be enacted or
enforced? The answer lies in the strange quirks
of American democracy. Although the democratic
system is well established, the lawmakers, Senators
and Congressmen, are beholden for monetary support
to the various powerful lobbies promoting their
special interests.
The National Rifle Association (NRA), the formidable
gun lobby that promotes the free ownership of
weapons, is one of the most powerful advocacy
groups in Washington. During the 2006 elections,
it contributed $1.2 millions to the election campaigns,
85.5 percent of the funds going to Republican
candidates. It spent another $1.6 millions on
lobbying the legislators in the US Congress to
support unfettered access to guns last year. At
the 2006 Congressional elections, the NRA collected
more the $11.2 million to support the candidate
of its choice. Its influence has become so strong
that opposition by the NRA often means defeat
for a candidate at the polls.
While democracy thrives in America, money plays
an increasingly powerful and insidious role in
the electoral process. Gone are the days when
in 1860 a relatively unknown lawyer, Abraham Lincoln,
with modest means could be elected as president.
It is estimated by the Federal Election Commission
that the 2008 presidential elections will cost
each candidates about $1.0 billion dollars; most
of the money is likely to be provided by various
lobbying groups.
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