Gunman Tries To Leave Video Epitaph - Don’t Let Him

I also posted this here on BNN (Blogger News Network):

http://www.bloggernews.net/16135

It's more in-depth thought from my post last night.

This has been a horrible week, soaked in death and blood and pain that will never go away. It is a week that will never be understood. The media has been relentlessly raising safety concerns since the tragic shooting spree on Virginia Tech’s campus. Yesterday, NBC released a video which Cho Seung-Hui (the gunman) mailed to them between his brutal attacks.

Like many have, and many others will, I watched the video; at least part of it. I’m not really sure why I watched. I know I want to find some small rationale for the deadly rampage, no matter how twisted; but, I know I never will. There can be no rationale, even twisted, for such carnage. So in the end, I guess I was just curious.

As I indicated, I only watched part of the video. A chilling thought occurred to me halfway through the tape and I lost all desire to watch it or even acknowledge its existence. Cho Seung-Hui wanted me to watch that video. He wanted the whole world to watch it. Seung-Hui was not dumb; very mentally disturbed, but not dumb. He got into a very good school. He apparently took a number of creative classes. Seung-Hui didn’t send the video to the school’s president. He didn’t send it to the student body president. He sent it to one of the largest news organizations in the world. He knew everyone would see it. Is that all he wanted? Could that be the explanation for this thoughtless act of violence? Seung-Hui slaughtered a bunch of random people in an effort to go from his self-perceived insignificance (we are only insignificant in our own minds) to notorious infamy? As twisted as it is, it appears as though that may very well be the reason. And NBC played right into his hands by releasing the video.

What alarms me, in regard to the safety issue the media has been questioning all week, is with the release of such a video, what is to stop other such mentally ill, troubled introverts from noticing and beginning to think along similar lines? Nothing. I think all media, no matter how big or small, if they are really concerned for safety, will stop showing this video. They will take it off the Internet. They will release statements saying that if such a video is ever sent to them in the future, no one will ever know. It will go unnoticed, their voice unheard. Again, Seung-Hui sent the video specifically to NBC, making me further ponder his intent. As much I am a fan of the show, I do not want to see an episode of “Law & Order” a month from now, in which a college student shoots a bunch of peers locked in a campus building. I don’t want to see a mini-series or movie of the week about Seung-Hui. Don’t turn him into some twisted version of a martyr for fellow disturbed peers. Instead, show videos of those massacred. Show them in their daily, happy lives, as they were before that day occurred. Give them all the attention. If Seung-Hui thought all the attention would go to those he killed; those he randomly, categorically hated, he may very well not have taken this route to have his name known.

Again, he sent the video to NBC. He sent it to NBC. If you haven’t watched it yet, I implore you not to; trust me, you won’t find any sense in it, because there is none to be found. The only thing I know today that I didn’t know on Monday was the name Cho Seung-Hui. And that’s what he wanted. Well, I for one, will soon forget the name; never the act, but the name. I will not forget those he killed or their families, but already his name is slipping from my mind. He has failed, at least with one person.

Peace.