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This entire story is becoming so crazy, it hardly seems like it can be true, but alas, it is very true! Here are the latest updates:
- he stalked two women in 2005
- Poet Nikki Giovanni, who taught Cho in one of her classes, tells the LA Times that she actually had guards stationed nearby at one point to intervene in case Psy-Cho (as See-Dub dubs him) went off. And here’s what she told CNN:
“I knew when it happened that that’s probably who it was,” Giovanni said, referring to her former pupil. “I would have been shocked if it wasn’t.”…
[In the fall of 2005,] Giovanni went to the department’s then-chairwoman, Lucinda Roy, and told her she wanted Cho out of her class, and Roy obliged.
“I was willing to resign before I was going to continue with him,” Giovanni said. “There was something mean about this boy.”
Giovanni said she’s taught her share of oddballs in the past, but there was something malicious about Cho’s behavior.
“I know we’re talking about a troubled youngster and crap like that, but troubled youngsters get drunk and jump off buildings; troubled youngsters drink and drive,” she said. “I’ve taught troubled youngsters. I’ve taught crazy people. It was the meanness that bothered me. It was a, really, mean streak.”
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The time gap between the two sets of shootings at Virginia Tech apparently allowed Seung-hui Cho to gather writings and videotape and send it to NBC.
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If they knew in 2005 that he was “mentally ill” and an “imminent danger to himself,” why did the magistrate refer him for outpatient treatment?
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Question from Toasted Tofu:
What I’d like to how someone the court identified as being mentally ill and a danger to himself or others was able to purchase a gun and ammo just 5 weeks ago?????
Others blogging:
- JammieWearingFool
- Turning 25 » I’ll say it again, and support can be so simple
- DPRK Studies
- Mary Katharine Ham
- Riehl World View
- Blog-o-Fascists
- Mary Katharine Ham
- Michelle Malkin
- Ace of Spades HQ
- newrepublicans.us » Blog Archive » It’s gun grab Wednesday…
- Wake up America
- Virginia Tech Spree Killer UPDATE at Conservative Times–Republican GOP news source.
Comments
27 Responses to “NBC receives video, photos mailed by Cho between shootings; postmarked 9:01 a.m. Monday”
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Peejz, point 4, I don’t think the magistrate ordered outpatient treatment, I think the clinic did after he was remanded to their care for evaluation.
What I’d like to how someone the court identified as being mentally ill and a danger to himself or others was able to purchase a gun and ammo just 5 weeks ago?????
NBC Pimps Cho Video
As expected, NBC will have more at it’s 6:00 broadcast and continue with more tomorrow morning.
…
1- TT, I updated the post with your question..as to the magistrate:
The order, signed by Montgomery County, Va., Special Justice Paul M. Barnett, checked a box that said Cho “presents an imminent danger to himself as a result of mental illness.” But Barnett checked another box that said involuntary hospitalization was not necessary.
[…] Right Voices » Blog Archive » NBC receives video, photos mailed by Cho between shootings; postmarked 9:01 a.m. Monday […]
Well, TT the reason WHY Cho was able to buy firearms despite being mentally ill can be laid at the feet of the ACLU and/or the Virginia Tech administrators. Let me explain why the actions of those two seriously contributed to this individual being able to purchase firearms legally. NO law could’ve stopped him from purchasing them illegally, because that would already be against the law and we can clearly see that he wasn’t intending to abide by the law. Likewise, removing or attempting to remove the serial numbers from a firearm is a federal felony, just if you had any questions in that regard.
When a customer goes to purchase a firearm from a licensed gun dealer, the purchaser has to fill out a questionaire called a form 4473. Unless the customer has a CCW permit which has already required a background check, complete with fingerprinting in most states, the dealer then calls the FBI for a national criminal background check. That background check will then tell the dealer to either not sell the gun, hold the sale for 5 days for further investigation, or go ahead with the sale. Unless the buyer has been adjudicated mentally ill and involuntarily committed to a mental hospital, his/her mental health records are considered medical records and therefore, as a result of a number of ACLU lawsuits, private and unavailable to the FBI background check. Hence, since he hadn’t been involuntarily committed ( a LEGAL not medical action), his mental illness was not in the FBI database.
Had he been charged with stalking by either of the two females who filed complaints with the Va Tech administration, and convicted of even a misdemeanor stalking charge, his name would’ve been in the criminal database and the sale denied. Va Tech should’ve pushed to have charges filed rather than sweep it under the rug. While felons are not permitted to legally purchase firearms, neither are individuals convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence or stalking charges.
BTW no licensed gun dealer will knowingly sell a firearm to a prohibited person. The penalties should the sale be discovered are severe.
There are thousands of gun laws on the books in this country, most were put there to reduce crime and very few of them actually do it. They may restrict access to guns but only to those people who are actually going to obey the laws to begin with. We just had a 26 yr old, twice convicted, felon rape and murder a 19 yr old nursing student using a gun purchased for him illegally by his girlfriend. It is called a “Straw Purchase”, and is another federal offense. Since she provided him with a gun, knowing that he is prohibited from owning one, she is sitting in prison awaiting trial as well.
What noone on the pro gun control side of the issue seems to understand is that there are millions of guns in this country and less than 1 tenth of 1 percent of them are ever used to commit a crime. Over 99% of them will never be discharged at anything other than paper targets, tin cans, or game animals. Millions of them are collectors items which may never be fired at all.
Banning guns won’t reduce crime. Changing the mentality of the population to get rid of the “I’m the only one who counts, screw the rest” mentality and the replacing it with a golden rule mentality will. Has anyone else noticed that violence in schools has gone up since the advent of outcome based education wherein it was more important that the student have a good self image than to actually learn the material? I’d much rather have a 6 yr old with self image problems but can read than an 18 yr old with a huge ego but unable to read a job application. Perhaps the quickest way to reduce violence and crime in schools is to start teaching morals in school again. Exactly why shouldn’t we teach kids that it’s not okay to steal, rape or kill? Does anyone really believe that this guy wasn’t mentally unhinged when he was in jr high? Perhaps if someone had started paying attention to him then, they might have been able to fix him before he reached this point.
My question is, “Why have we not heard anything about his family and his relationship to them and with them?”
4, because the parents are being treated for shock.
J.H., it may be a shock to you, but not everyone has to open their private life to you. The senior Chos have a right to privacy.
I’m wondering why the left hasn’t asked is this guy related to Margaret Cho?
4&5,
Unfortunately, like many posts regarding Cho shootings, I think this is an attempt to assign blame or figure out why. I think that in some instances (perhaps this one included) there is no one to blame and no sane reason why.
I’ve seen folks accuse people around Cho for not reporting his mental health issues, for the mental health programs failing, for lax gun laws or too many gun laws and to attempt to assign blame to the parents.
It’s all just grasping at straws. In a free society, things like this just happen. It is impossible to plan for every contingency and misguided to think that we can.
To answer the question about how he got the firearm:
Yes, if he had been “committed” he may never have been able to purchase a firearm.
Without more facts, I am not second guessing the decision of the Special Justice. Perhaps the code should be amended to require the report to be filed upon the finding of iminent danger to self or others, not just involuntary hospitalization.
Bryan Preston notes ATF Form 4473, Question 11f.
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The Associated Press has decided to hound the VTech maniac’s sister. Why? Is there evidence that she knew of his plans or was aware of his murderous tendencies? No. The AP doesn’t report that. Instead, the entire article focuses on her employment in the Bush State Department. And this is relevant how?
The medical records systems and the judicial/criminal systems are separate in this country.
Let me ask this, was there this much scrutiny over a nut getting a gun when it was Hinckley shooting Reagan???
8- PCD, didn’t that start the real anti-NRA push in the country with the Brady Laws etc? For myself, that was when I started paying attention to the arguement.
#6 Tedintheshed , your dead wrong pal ! This fucking nut had serious issues . Giovanni said herself she knew it was him the second she heard what was going on . If the homicide detectives and school officials do the first and logical thing , by shutting down the school , not ONLY FOR INVESTIGATING THE 1ST 2 MURDERS (interviewing ALL faculty ) , but out of RESPECT for the deceast , cho gets pointed out , picked up , and 29 ppl go on w/ their lives and hopefully the SOB gets the chair !…..THEY DROPPED THE FUCKING BALL !!! Look up SUSPECT in the V T dictionary and you’ll see his pic !!!!! ….There certainly is someone to BLAME , and those ppl know who they are , and will have to LIVE W / THE BLOOD STAINS on their $$$hungry faces . ……If not for justification for the victems’ familys , then for the future safety of our KIDS , somebody should go to PRISON !!!!!!!!!!!
9, Yeah, since that is when Brady got shot.
You will notice the Democrats like Feinstein weren’t so upset when it was Mayor Mosconi and Supervisor Harvey Milk getting shot. That their killer escaped the chair with the “Twinkie” defense.
They didn’t get upset when Squeaky Frome and that other ditz, Lynette Whats-her-face tried to shoot Gerald Ford.
Re 10.
No need to shout.
That said, you are amiss on some of your points:
“If the homicide detectives and school officials do the first and logical thing , by shutting down the school …”
It is impossible to shut down a campus that size. I live near Columbus, Ohio home of Ohio State. It would be impossible to shut that campus down. The only possible thing you could do is place an alert to the general poopulation of the campus and make it availabke to them for subsription.
“cho gets pointed out , picked up , and 29 ppl go on w/ their lives and hopefully the SOB gets the chair !…..”
You are contradicting yourslef. If he’s “nuts” as you referred to above, then he wouldn’t get the chair.
“THEY DROPPED THE FUCKING BALL !!!”
No way to tell that at all yet- even Bernie Karreck acknowledges that.
“There certainly is someone to BLAME , and those ppl know who they are , and will have to LIVE W / THE BLOOD STAINS on their $$$hungry faces . ……If not for justification for the victems’ familys , then for the future safety of our KIDS , somebody should go to PRISON !!!!!!!!!!!”
Obviously, emotional unreasoned rhetoric.
It’s simple- while we are a free nation things like this will always happen. It is part of the price we pay for the freedoms we enjoy. We could be like Matthias, and cower behind the governemet and expect them to take care of the issues, but I for one don’t want the governement’s help. I’d rather carry my own weapon and help myself, continuoing to enjoys those freedoms.
10- How’s it going Frank? As Ted said, don’t shout. He is not dead wrong on the issue. Were mistakes made? yes, but they were made long before Monday. Ted is correct in that it would be impossible to shut the entire campus down….
Let me ask you a hypothetical qustion here:
2 people murdered at 7:30 a.m. school locks all buildings at 7:40 a.m. and there are 3000 people locked out of buildings with bullseyes on their backs..is that a good decision?
It is now Thurdays after the murders, and we are all in a position to examine what happened or didn’t happen, but none of us were in the position to make the decisions as the massacre unfolded…
Re 13.
Good points, all.
“Were mistakes made? yes, but they were made long before Monday.”
Making mistakes is part of the human condition.
…as a result of a number of ACLU lawsuits, private and unavailable to the FBI background check.
Thanks for posting that, FAO. Now where is the outrage against the ACLU? Rosie O’Dumbbell, where are you?
Heard John Lott interviewed last night. ~2 million times in the U.S. each year firearms are used to prevent/stop crimes. That is about 5 times the number of crimes committed using guns. So there you have it: the availability of guns in the U.S. reduces crime. That is proof that stands on its own.
You’re welcome Robert.
The two nutcases who tried to shoot Ford were Lynette (sp) “Squeeky” Fromme and Sarah Jane Moore. Neither of whom got off a shot. David Mark Chapman who was caught with a gun and planned to kill Jimmy Carter but got off on an insanity defense, and 18 months later shot and nearly killed President Reagan and James Brady (with a firearm that he had purchased illegally) is in a mental hospital, getting supervised day trips and is petitioning to get unsupervised weekend furloughs. What is wrong with that picture?
BTW I heard John Lott’s credentials this morning. Until he did the study that lead to the book “More Guns, Less Crime” he was an avowed anti gun liberal. Isn’t it amazing how intelligent people with an open (even if only open a crack) mind can come around when the facts are persuasive enough. Of course on another post AKD made a number of claims about the veracity of John Lott’s statistics, but I’d lay money that those that AKD quoted do NOT have Lott’s credentials. He wouldn’t have had the positions that he had were he guilty of playing with his numbers to reach a predetermined conclusion.
16, FAO, thanks for the correction on the names, but Sarah Moore did get off some rounds. When arrested she said if she had her Magnum (I forget if she said .357 or .44), she have gotten Ford. I think she used a .38Special Police Positive. That weapon has much less recoil and muzzle rise than the .357 or especially the .44Mag. I can see her aiming low on the first round and missing.
I would guess that she meant a 357 Magnum. A 357 is the same diameter as a 38 Special and the 38 Special rounds can be used in a 357 Magnum, though not the other way around. 357 magnums can be very concealable. About the only 44 Magnums available at the time would’ve been a Smith and Wesson model 29 or a Ruger Redhawk. Neither of which are readily concealable on someone with a small frame.
That’s one of the funniest things I see on tv or movies is the little 5′2″ woman running around with 2 44 Magnum Desert Eagles. They might try it once, but with the weight and size of a Desert Eagle, they are not going to do it more than once. Loaded those things are larger and heavier than some submachine guns. Personally, I’d opt for the SMG. If you’re going to prison for life without parole for attempting to kill someone, you ought to at least make sure you succeed. Who am I kidding, I’d simply sit back with a hunting rifle and shoot them from beyond the limits of the security detail cordon. Why fail and go to jail, when you can succeed and have a pretty good chance of getting away with it?
BTW Moore and Fromme are both still in prison and really pissed about Chapman’s treatment.
>>
Take the following post with a healthy dose of salt because it is from Wikipedia.
I stand corrected. She was picked up the day before she attempted to shoot Ford carrying a 44 and over 100 rounds of ammo. She missed because a bystander saw the gun and forced her hand down when she fired. She will be eligible for parole in September of this year.
It seems that she was just another liberal crackpot who couldn’t keep a real life and blamed it on “the man”.
Sara Jane Moore (born Sara Jane Kahn[1] on February 15, 1930[2] in Charleston, West Virginia[1]) attempted to assassinate US President Gerald Ford on September 22, 1975 outside the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco, just seventeen days after Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme had attempted to assassinate Ford.[3] Moore was 40 feet away from the President[4] when she fired a single shot at him.[3] The bullet missed the President because bystander Oliver Sipple grabbed Moore’s arm and then pulled her to the ground, using his hand to keep the gun from firing a second time.[5][6] Sipple said at the time: “I saw [her gun] pointed out there and I grabbed for it. […] I lunged and grabbed the woman’s arm and the gun went off.”[7] The single shot which Moore did manage to fire from her .38-caliber revolver ricocheted off the entrance to the hotel[8] and slightly injured a bystander.[9]
Moore had been evaluated by the Secret Service earlier in 1975, but they had decided she presented no danger to the President.[10] She had been picked up by police on an illegal handgun charge the day before the Ford incident but was released. Police kept the .44 pistol and 113 rounds of ammunition.
And Squeaky:
Assassination attempt
On the morning of September 5, 1975, she went to Sacramento’s Capitol Park (purportedly to plead with President Gerald Ford about the plight of the California redwoods) dressed as a nun and armed with a .45 Colt automatic, which she pointed at Ford. The weapon was loaded with four rounds, but none were in the firing chamber. She was immediately restrained by Secret Service agents, and while she was being further restrained and handcuffed, managed to say a few sentences to the on-scene cameras, emphasizing that the gun did not “go off”.[1] Fromme is reported to have subsequently told the Sacramento Bee that she had deliberately ejected the round in her weapon’s chamber before leaving home that morning, and a .45 ACP round was later found in her bathroom by investigators.[2]
After a lengthy trial in which she refused to cooperate with her own defense, she was convicted of the attempted assassination of the president and received a life sentence under a 1965 law (prompted by the assassination of President John F. Kennedy) which specified a maximum sentence of life in prison for attempted presidential assassinations. When U.S. Attorney Duane Keyes recommended severe punishment because she was “full of hate and violence,” Fromme threw an apple at him, hitting him between the eyes. “If you find a apple that has a little spot on it. You cut out that spot.”~ Lynette Fromme
The above info I provided coincides with the exhibit at Fords museum….
It seems that she was just another liberal crackpot…
There is an oversupply of them these days…
Better a liberal crackpot than a liberal who’s a crack shot. Oh wait, what am I saying, liberals don’t like guns well enough to actually fire them enough to become crack shots. LOL
I got into a gun control argument with a person who turned out to be a Poli Sci professor. Of course she had a high and mighty, I have a piled higher and deeper tone to her, but she still refused to logically discuss the point that gun control has no history of stopping violent crime. I wonder how she’d respond if I told her that while she was still in elementary school, I had asked Ramsey Clark a question about crime prevention that refuted his entire evening’s commentary and he refused to respond to it. Or perhaps I could point out that I got my BA in Poli Sci with a minor in history while she was still in jr high at best? Other than become attornies, exactly what use is a Poli Sci degree, especially an advanced one? It doesn’t teach anyone how to produce anything but idiotic treatises on utopian societies that are contrary to human nature. One of the best comments I ever heard from a Poli Sci Professor was ” I used to be a communist until I realized that communism just doesn’t work.” There is a reason why I can argue Constitutional law questions, I did very well in that class, despite being the youngest one in it. The professor required that we be able to make cogent logical arguments based on case law and precedence. We also had to explain the logic behind various Supreme Court decisions. I used to do this for grades, now I do it for fun. Of course being a recovering used car salesman doesn’t hurt.