Virginia Tech Shooter Was a Loner - Is This The American Way?

Filed in archive Latina Musings on April 18, 2007

The gunman who killed 32 people and himself on the campus of Virginia Polytechnic Institute Monday was identified yesterday as a student who lived in a dormitory on campus but kept to himself.

Law enforcement authorities said the gunman was Cho Seung-Hui, 23, a South Korean who was a legal permanent resident in the United States and in his senior year as an English major. Mr. Cho was described by fellow students and his teachers as a loner.

"Loner" is a typical American character. A lonely, taciturn person, who keeps everything to himself. The use of this stereotype to describe people is not common outside of the US. At least not in Latin America. Among Latinos, its very unusual to see someone who doesn't socialize with others, who has few or none close relationships.

Latinos are different from Americans. We are sociable in nature; Americans are individualists above all things. Americans' most important goals are to be successful, wealthy, productive, to achieve great things. "Being somebody" is the American dream. Latinos are more focused in less materialistic values, like family, friendship, love. Of course every person is responsible for his acts and decisions; but I firmly believe that society and culture provides the bases for those acts and, most important, for those decisions.

In this article: A Latin View of American-Style Violence, Rob Schmidt says:

Foreigners see clearly that which we don't-namely, our cultural mindset. "The individual as solitary gunslinger and society as a hostile frontier" is exactly the point made in Culture and Comics Need Multicultural Perspective. When our response to everything from poverty to drugs to kosovo is a "war," our "us vs. them" mentality should be obvious to everyone.

The article was written in 1999. Almost ten years later, it's still up to date. I've found it through this post: Virginia Tech, Indians, and comics, where Rob highlights some interesting articles he has written in the past, regarding violence, culture and shootings. Really worth reading.

The "me vs. them" mentality is obviously present when somebody decides to take revenge on random people, in a shooting rampage. On Tuesday, investigators were examining a note Mr. Cho had left behind in his dorm room, a rambling and bitter list of the moral laxity he found among what he considered the more privileged students on campus.

American society should think about where the individualism and the materialism is taking the country to, and act in consequence. Unfortunately, I think this episode won't even produce any legal changes regarding gun rights and restrictions.

Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, who is also running for president, said, "This brutal attack was not caused by nor should it lead to restrictions on the Second Amendment, which guarantees an individual right to keep and bear arms."

Oh, please. Don't you think stronger restrictions would help to prevent this kind of tragedy? Remember, in the US buying a gun is as easy as buying gum. Don't you think that purchasing a lethal weapon should be more difficult?

Read all the stories about the Virginia Tech shooting rampage - New York Times.