I knew there was a good reason I don't like asians...

So after the DC sniper, the U. Penn shooting, and now this, can the stereotype of the typical nutjob lone shooter as a white male be put to rest?

did the shooter complete his compulsory military service in South Korea?

u penn shooter was also korean.

who gave these people visas and green cards?

Oh shut up about race for goodness sakes. The stereotype of the typical nutjob lone shooter took a blow with the DC Snipers, who were both African-American. And I don't have the numbers, but I read a study that said somewhere around 99% of serial rapists and killers were white males. So don't even try to start the race finger-pointing.

I should have known better than to come to the comments section. But I wanted to point out that the news articles, while using the shooter's last name correctly in the articles themselves, get it wrong when they first state the name. Cho is is his last name, so the name should be stated as "Seung-Hui Cho."

Oh shut up about race for goodness sakes. The stereotype of the typical nutjob lone shooter took a blow with the DC Snipers, who were both African-American. And I don't have the numbers, but I read a study that said somewhere around 99% of serial rapists and killers are white males. So don't even try to start the race finger-pointing.

I should have known better than to come to the comments section. But I wanted to point out that the news articles, while using the shooter's last name correctly in the articles themselves, get it wrong when they first state the name. Cho is is his last name, so the name should be stated as "Seung-Hui Cho."

UPenn Shooter also had the same last name as this guy.

The U. Penn shooter was also named Cho, I think.

12:35/6-

I think 12:28's point was that we shouldn't talk about race in this context. 12:28 was trying "to start the race finger-pointing"; 12:28 was trying to stop it. But now you've started.

Yeah. Koreans have like ten last names. Kim, Park, Lee, Chung, ...wait, maybe five. And all those other English derivations of those names are just different English spellings of the same Korean last name. (i.e. - Park = Pak = Bak. And Cho=Jo=Choi).

So what if they had the same last name? I'm pretty sure there have been multiple killers named Smith.

I completely disagree with your characterization of 12:28's comment.

south koreans are completely inhuman and lack souls.

thank you, wawaweewah, you've enriched all of our lives

He studied karate at Kyung Yee University.

12:49 you are so racist damn.. and 12:44 don't be so ignorant Koreans have way more than 10 last names. Just don't think you can write anything because you are protected by the anonymity of the internet.

I need to clarify Clarify's comment (April 17, 2007 12:44 PM). Actually Cho and Choi are not the same surname. And there are more than five surnames. Lastly, this shooter kid was just plain psychotic. I didn't hear anyone blaming "all them crazy white folk" after the Columbine shootings, so let's stop with the blanket comments.

what an insightful group of comments. How many died in Iraq yesterday? Oh, right, we dont care about them dying, they are just a bunch of poor children from the ghetto. 33 rich kids dead? lets all spend the next five years postponing testimony and making guesses at what happened...

insight, you're an idiot. Most of the soldiers (assuming you're referring to them and not Iraqi civilians) who have died in Iraq are poor rural white kids from the south. In fact, blacks are underrepresented in combat zones (8% vs. 12% of population).

I served in Iraq, and I thought I was from a middle-class family on Long Island. I guess I'm black and from the ghetto. Who knew?

I was a company commander and at least 60% of my company was white and from middle-class and/or rural families.

I understand it's easier on your tiny brain to believe that only poor dumb ghetto kids get tricked into joining the military, but it's just not the case.

Also, 12:49 - you stupid asshole - this isn't 33 dead rich kids. VT is a big ole state university and there's a lot of poor people who go there and people who are certainly not rich. I know this cause I grew up poor and I went there, like a whole boatload of my classmates.

Re: race - Who gives a crap. He's a nut, plain and simple. It's too bad he killed himself, it would have been awesome to see him strapped in the electric chair.

I agree that the race stuff is fucked-up, but I do have to point out that the shooters in these situations are always dudes. What is going on with that?

i don't think "insight" was talking about the service members. and, although i agree with the comments in response to "insight" that point out his/her palpable insensitivity regarding the 33 lives that were lost at VT (query how "insight" even knows the nationality/race/class of the victims--not all of the names have been released), i think that "insight" makes an important point: at the lowest estimate, over 60,000 people (service members plus Iraqi civilians) have died over the course of the war. while it is a bit too easy to immediately compare two such horrible but vastly different events (and i don't purport to), i do get a certain twinge in my stomach when i see the headline in 50 pt font re the VT shootings, and, after ferreting through the website, find that nearly that many were yet again killed in iraq yesterday. is the loss for the parent of the soldier that died yesterday less real or important a student who died yesterday? i don't mean to lessen the importance of the VT shootings--it is indeed a tragedy in every sense and needs to be mourned. but i can't also help but think about another area of the world in which loss of life is also occurring....

1. Not that many US servicemembers die each day. 3300 over the past 4 years.

2. Maybe that many Iraqis died, but they're Iraqis, not our own people.

I hope you see the difference, if from no other viewpoint than as a human interest story.

Which upenn shooting are you people talking about? Esp. the part about that shooter being Korean too. Link to a story, please.

Also, as far as servicemen and women are concerned... they have volunteered to risk their lives in a combat zone. All the VT kids did was pursue something that all of us attorneys have... an undergraduate degree. How many of you, in deciding whether or not to go to college, thought it necessary to consider being killed while at school? Probably none... and if you did, you are either paranoid or went to Penn. Being shot is not a risk assumed when you pack up the station wagon and head of to school but it is when you enlist.

i honestly don't think there is any value in comparing the two situations - people have died and we should mourn all of them.

I realize that this is a gossip blog and that ATL is not necessarily known for deep thoughts, but it's no wonder that people perceive lawyers to be self-absorbed assholes when people can't even refrain from turning this thread into an opportunity to start petty arguments and insult others.

Apples and oranges. The casualties in Iraq are arguably for a greater cause and, at the very least, expected. You expect the military to take casualties in war and you expect innocent civilians to die in war. In the VT Tech massacre, these were lives senselessly and unexpectedly lost because of one deranged man's low sense of self-worth. It doesn't mean the lives at VT Tech are any more valuable than innocent Iraqi lives or American soldiers, only that the sudden loss at VT is more unexpected, more senseless and more shocking. No greater good can come from this loss.

3300 over the past four years.

365 days x 4 = 1460 days

3300 soldiers' lives / 1460 days = 2.26 lives/day

33 VT students / 2.26 = 14.6

Therefore, every 14.6 days, or every two weeks for the past four years, as many service people die in iraq as did in VT yesterday.

and 2:38, i ask you this: when it comes to the value of human life, IS there a difference between an iraqi CIVILIAN and a US one?

"i ask you this: when it comes to the value of human life, IS there a difference between an iraqi CIVILIAN and a US one?"

-- Certainly not in my religion.

Some math,

When it comes to the value of human life, IS there a difference between an iraqi civilian and someone dying of starvation in north korea, or aids in south Africa, etc? So why bother talking about Iraq...

calculus,

cute name. and a good point. absolutely not. iraq is merely an example. but just because it is one of a long list of mass losses of life (n. korea, aids epidemic, darfur, etc.), doesn't mean it is not worth bothering to talk about.

While comparing deaths in Iraq vs. VT, etc.... isn't anyone concerned about the carnage caused by the consumption of alcohol? It certainly dwarfs, on an annual basis, either murders, war casualties, etc...

I'm calling for the return of Prohibition!

Prohibition ... a ban on alcohol ... what a waste ... I call for a ban on Heart Disease!!!

It really is an interesting commentary on how racist we as a society can be when this kid's ethnicity comes into play AT ALL in discussing this.

I mean, of all the spree killers you can think of in U.S. history, they have almost ALL been white guys. Save that Native kid last year.

And yet people care that this one kid happened to be Asian? Would it matter if he was Irish, German, Italian, etc?

I am glad I'm not a minority in this country. When people cut me off in traffic, they just think, "that asshole." It's never "that black asshole" or "that Asian asshole."

CLOSE THE BORDERS

"Here is where I can really envy white people because when white people do something that is inexplicably awful, so brutally and horribly wrong, nobody says – “do you think it is because he is white?” There are no headlines calling him the “White shooter." There is no mention of race because there is no thought in anyone's mind that his race had anything to do with his crime."

this guy wasn't a citizen

so obviously race is a factor

True, this guy wasn't a citizen. But that's because he and his family came to this country in the hope of achieving the American Dream. Which is precisely what your ancestors did.

KOREAN NEWS REPORT THAT THE KILLER'S PARENTS HAVE COMMITTED SUICIDE. Father slit his wrist; mother drank poison

ninemsn reports that parents have not attempted suicide, but were hospitalized "with shock"

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

10:29 wins.

This place has become a toilet. Lat, why don't you moderate comments?

korean culture is very racist. when hines ward first went to korea about 15 years ago, people would spit on him in the street because they were so disgusted by mixed race children. even today many koreans are still very racist and look down on other races, especially blacks, with contempt. you damn well better believe that if this shooter had been black every korean person you know would have been talking about how black people are so violent/crazy/insane.

case in point: recently two US soldiers in korea (both black) were convicted of raping a korean female police officer. the ensuing press coverage was vicious and painted a picture of all black people as being potential rapists.

now that doesn't make it right for us to blame all korean people for what happened at virginia tech. but, at the same time, it's hard for me to listen to korean people complain about racism against koreans, when they never seem to complain about racism by koreans.

The question is not whether Koreans are racist or Americans are racist. In any majority/minority environment, the majority will tend to associate the actions of minority individuals to the minority group at large. Thus, majority Koreans in Korea will tend to associate the actions of minority American soldiers to all people who look like those particular soldiers (whether black or white), and majority white Americans here will tend to associate the actions of a minority Korean to all Koreans, or even East Asians.

Obviously this was not a hate crime directed towards a certain race. Of the victims, there are actually 2 Korean Americans, 2 Indians, several Hispanics and an African American person. Given this, why do we care that the killer was Korean? He was just a crazy guy who just killed anybody he could. The American Media and people like you breed racism by focusing on the wrong aspects of the crime.

no one is saying this was a hate crime. they're just saying that when koreans complain about racism, that's a little like the pot calling the kettle black.

11:51: then you might as well say that whenever anyone complains about racism, it's the pot calling the kettle black. Any race which at some point in time has had majority status in some part of the world has at one point or another been racist toward those of minority status in that particular part of the world in those particular times. Pointing out that Koreans constitute one of these races doesn't advance the ball.