Letters to the Editor
Amerigo
Published Letters: 955 Editor's Choice: 60
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Playing with guns
[Read the article: I'm almost 21. Should I buy some guns?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I grew up in England, where, as most people know, gun ownership is very limited, though you can have rifles and shotguns for hunting.
But when I was a child, I did have a handgun. It did not fire bullets but you put percussion "caps" under the hammer and it made a loud bang when you pulled the trigger.
My mother told me never to point a gun at anyone, which was good advice, but we still played games like "cops and robbers" and "cattle herders and native Americans" (which we called something else, a name that has disappeared down the memory hole)in which we not only pointed the guns at people, but also pulled the trigger and called out "bang, bang, you're dead.
Having satisfied this early curiosity in childhood play, by the time we reached adolescence, we were ready to holster our guns and hunt a really dangerous man-eating species--girls!
This sounds a little facetious, but I do think that boys of a certain age do need to play with guns, make bombs, set off fireworks, light bonfires etc. so that they can get over it and mature. By banning these urges, our risk averse society just drives the impulses underground, and sometimes in a more dangerous direction.
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Rush and Viagra (2)
[Read the article: Is Rush Limbaugh next?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It is true that child prostitution is illegal in the Dominican Republic, but to be fair (the fairness doctrine should apply to even such loathsome individuals as Rush) I don't think there is any evidence of him having sex with children.
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Prison culture
[Read the article: "Bitches-and-hos" lesbian subculture]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Having read the original article in Village Voice, it is apparent that these women are for the most part members of or products of the criminal underclass and this behavior represents a kind of extension of the values of prison society.
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Running amok
[Read the article: Instant prejudice: Korea and Virginia Tech]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The phenomenon of "running amok" does seem to have been first observed by westerners in eastern countries.
Typically a male--it is always a male, never a woman--with no prior history of violence suffers some kind of affront to his dignity or deep shame that makes life unliveable (from his point of view).
Wikipedia quotes the 1911 Encylopedia Britannica as saying: ""A Malay will suddenly and apparently without reason rush into the street armed with a kris or other weapons, and slash and cut at everybody he meets till he is killed..."
This may be interpreted as a way of committing suicide in cultures where regular suicide is not acceptable.
The phenomenon apparently died out in the east under colonial rule, though the American equivalent "going postal" applies to the phenomenon of highly intelligent, but socially maladjusted individuals obtaining employment by competitive examination in the US Postal Service, but at a later date developing an overpowering sense of grievance and massacring supervisors and other coworkers before turning their weapons on themselves.
Interestingly, the competitive examination for employment in postal services was instituted after a US president was shot and killed by a dissatisfied office seeker--one who was quite unqualified for the position he sought.
The Virginia shooter seems to have spent more than half his life in the US. At this time we don't know what his predominant cultural influences were, but chances are that we (the US) will have to bite the bullet and claim his as one of our own.
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Ismail Ax
[Read the article: "I think he was just a confused kid"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The "Ismail Ax" insignia appears to refer to a Koranic version of the Old Testament story of Abraham, commanded by God to sacrifice his only son Isaac, but then countermanded to sacrifice a ram instead.
The general interpretation in Christian circles would be that this story illustrates how Israelites in the Abrahamic period turned away from human sacrifice to sacrificing animals. (This story is important relative to the Christian doctrine of the Atonement.)
What this story meant to Cho Seung-hui is anyone's guess. Mine is that the young man had been suffering for some time from a paranoid mental illness. Many persons with mental illnesses of this type do become preoccupied with religious themes and imagery, which they incorporate into their delusional thinking. (I have personally observed this many, many times.)
It sounds like some people at his college had tried to help him with "counseling", but unfortunately the counseling system is probably inadequate to recognize when someone is suffering from a severe psychotic disease that would be very recognizable to a psychiatrist, clinical psychologis, or other professional in the field of psychiatry.
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First stories
[Read the article: "I think he was just a confused kid"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Ptolemyx asks why the first stories are never about the victims.
I think the main reason is that the victims didn't do anything. We all know that their story was simply that they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The immediate question becomes WHY did this man do this, and then HOW can we stop this happening again.
www.guardian.co.uk/ has some coverage of the victims, both of who they were and of their awful last moments. Also accounts of survivors who played dead and lived to tell their tale.