Randy Cassingham's Blog

Posted by Tena, Vancouver, WA on April 21, 2007:

I was raised by "Parental Gun Control". That meant that I knew if I touched the rifle that sat in its case in the corner of my parents' room, that I wouldn't be able to sit for a month. Having experienced a spanking by my father only once before, I tried my best to never have one again. But at the same time, both he and my grandfather took great pains to teach me the PROPER way to handle firearms.

Some say I was verbally abused by my father, who sometimes told my siblings and I that we were "too stupid" to do things when frustrated with our actions. I was a wall-flower in high school, and was sometimes picked on because I was shy.

Does that mean I'll someday pick up a gun and run amuck? No. That means I can appreciate being raised with "Parental Control", which meant I had parents who praised me when I did good, and showed me that there were conseqences for doing wrong. I never took a gun to school, even though I knew where my father's handgun was kept and had easy access. I was never even tempted to do so.

Gun control is not the answer, for when rules are against evil, then evil follows no rules. More parents need to take back their children, and teach them that there are consequences to every action. School teachers cannot do the parenting for parents; only Parents can parent their own kids!

The media doesn't help when it gives so much airtime to killers like Cho. ENOUGH on Cho!! Like others have said, let's see more about the heroics of the teachers and folks who died trying to save others! Killers deserve no more media coverage.

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Hear hear. -rc

Posted by Marc, Santa Cruz, CA on April 21, 2007:

To Holly in New Brunswick: Regarding your point about the psychiatric assessment, if it had been an involuntary committal, Mr. Cho would have been prevented from purchasing the pistols. However, it appears that he signed a consent form at some point during the process, making it a voluntary committal, and therefore it didn't show up on the background check.

Then again, if the fellow who did the assessment had ticked the box that said "imminent danger to others" as well as "danger to self", he might have still been under supervision instead of being handed a prescription and released back into society. It's hard to tell and hindsight is always 20/20.

Posted by Kathy, Thibodaux LA on April 21, 2007:

Zero tolerance is useless.

School murders are a direct result of school administrators refusing to take action against bullying.

So consider this: If you're a teacher or school administrator and you witness kids getting picked on, and you do NOTHING, then YOU are the problem and it's YOUR fault if someone ends up killed.

Posted by Charlotte, Redmond Oregon on April 21, 2007:

Wait a minute, what about the mental health guys? If they saw a problem, why didn't they do something like get him on meds, or put him in a hospital and have some group therapy to bring out the cause of his sickness. I bet he was bullied in some way too.

In other words, this society creates very disturbed citizens. Cho was not part of the huge uneducated mass, but was probably caught up in a mental illness that caused vengefull attitudes that grew to rage. But many of our incarcerated are not educated, or don't have access to good health care. Of course there is a huge population that come under those standards and are not felons or criminals, but have terrible lifestyles. They might even be gun owners. I am. Although I am one of the educated, I am on a really low income now as a senior citizen. My little .22 is for defending my chickens from the racoons, or dogs who attack my livestock. I'm old enough now to probably not hesitate too much with shooting someone if they were trying to harm my family. I pray that will never happen.

Yes, this country is corrupt and in one of the final stages of societal rise and fall. We could be so great. Legal and Greed are the big roadblocks to quality lifestyles, with freedom to defend oneself and recognize our differences with respect.

Posted by Dean, Washington on April 21, 2007:

I am insulted by the mainstream media spouting off calls for more stringent gun/weapon laws and giving free air time to the various control groups around the country every time an event like this occurs.

If closer scrutiny is given to the statistics they use concerning gun use one comes up with an entirely different view of the issue. One most often used is the "number of deaths by firearms" lumping ALL deaths into the same category. Do authorized Police shootings and legal self defense shootings by average citizens really belong in this figure when talking about the "need" for more laws? I think not! It makes even less sense that a judge in this country would even entertain a lawsuit by a criminal assailant or the assailants family to recover damages from an intended victim who fought back with convincing force. There are publications out there that print accounts of private citizens thwarting criminal action against themselves or an unknown victim, yet these accounts are not reported as visibly in the national media.

Holly suggested registration. While it may sound good at first glance, I point to the use of such registration during WW II in Europe when the Nazi forces used such information in subduing the civilian populace. Such events still could happen today by external as well as internal forces with questionable motives.

Posted by Ryan, New Hampshire on April 21, 2007:

The one positive thing to come from this event, and the one positive thing I can say about the media's coverage, is that it gets everyone talking. Unfortunately, it takes high-profile tragedies such as this one to draw the collective attention of the world.

Unfortunately many people want to "feel" protected, and time and again the reaction is the same: we need to fix the law, we need new laws, we need to change the institutions' policies. All of these "solutions" only make the problem worse, and most people miss the point: PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. We try to put the reponsibility on the government, on institutions - which is impossible! Institutions exist only as a collection of individuals, and individual responsibility is non-delegable.

If we forget to care about others and try to pretend it's "not my problem", no amount of legislation will prevent these events from occurring. Everyone says "Someone should do something." It should be, "I should do something."

The difference between life and death, in this case, could have been one human caring about one other human. No one wants to hear it, but: Who's to blame? You. Who can fix it? You.

Posted by John, Colorado on April 21, 2007:

The "safe zones" are just silly feel-good crap for parents to see when they drop their kids off to school. Instead of having GSG-9 and other anti-terrorist teams, we should just hand signs around ambassadors and and other VIP's that say: "Terrorist Free Zone". That way the terrorists will read the signs and quit kidnapping and executing in that area.

Posted by Jeremy, Tigard Oregon on April 21, 2007:

My personal feelings regarding 'gun control' are that ultimately, I am the only one I can rely on (and the only one I SHOULD rely on) for my own personal protection and survival. If that means legally obtaining a C&C permit and carrying a firearm then so be it.

A person with bad intentions towards me forfeits their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness the moment they move to forcibly deny myself my own.

[Tena - My brother and I were "physically abused" by our Dad, who would pull the car over and beat our butts if we didn't wear our seatbelts (way before mandatory seatbelt laws). We didn't grow up to be maligned sociopaths, either. My brother is a police officer, and I'm a (mostly) law-abiding upstanding citizen. Every time I get in a car I'm physically unable to move the vehicle until I fasten the restraint, and I thank my Dad every time for that.]

The bottom line is that I don't want society to take away my abilities and obligations to protect myself because of a misguided concept of the "greater good". By forcing me to be defenseless, the part of society that dictates that takes on the ultimate responsibility for protecting me; in a situation like V. Tech, that part of society failed miserably.

If I was at Virginia Tech that day I would've been eternally greatful to the one rule-breaker who was able to take down this nut before he did too much damage.

Posted by Mary, Port Aransas Texas on April 21, 2007:

A bully threatens you, steals your lunch, trips you, pushes you, even fights with you -- and the school quickly suspends ...you.

The last paragraph of the April 20 update is too true. I am a high school student, and when I, after several years of abuse by the same person, took it upon myself to stop the abuse I was the one suspended, not her. It didn't matter that she had started the fight, it didn't matter that I didn't even hurt her, I still got suspended and she got off scot-free. This is the effect of a ZT policy that as soon as I attacked her back, instead of rolling over and letting her hurt me, I was the one to blame and she the victim.

Posted by Scott, Oregon on April 21, 2007:

You wrote: "Columbine, after all, was really about powerless little boys raging against bullies at school."

I am so very pleased to see that at least a few in the working press are aware of that aspect of this tragedy.

Thank you.

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I'm not exactly mainstream media, but it seems to me that if we don't understand the deeper meanings of such tragedies, then the victims died in vain. -rc