Usually my first thoughts would be that he was the victim of harrassment, as being bullied and threatened seems to be the common factor in school shootings. Kids get beaten up, verbally abused and intimidated while school administrators and their own teachers stand by and do absolutely nothing to stop it unless the parents of the victim threaten to sue, then when the kid loses it and goes after the bullies there's this huge outpouring of sympathy for the little bastards who were shot. There's a pathetic irony in that. If they hadn't been bullying someone they wouldn't have been attacked in the first place, yet they get all the sympathy in the aftermath.

I don't condone violence against anyone, but I do understand how someone could get to such a point of hopeless desperation that the only way they can see to get a bully to back off is to take his life. You can only be verbally abused, harrassed, threatened or physically attacked so many times before either the instinct for self preservation kicks in or something snaps. I do get it. A couple more months of high school and I might have been the first one to snap and kill someone. Way back in the 80s. Before it started happening once or twice a year.

So of course this was the first thing I thought of as a possible motive for Cho Seung-Hui's meltdown.

And I was wrong.

Everything I've read tells a different story; one of a boy who not only was not bullied, but to whom his classmates tried repeatedly to reach out. One who was not ostracised and ignored by his classmates, but who was the object of many attempts to communicate. He was so quiet and always within himself that on one occasion his classmates took him out to lunch and made a definite effort to make him laugh. For what may have been the only time he ever showed any emotion in his four years of attendance at Va. Tech, he did laugh.

Whatever had effected him so deeply that he felt no urge to connect with his roommates and others with whom he shared classes, it doesn't seem to have originated there at the school.

I must say, I'm surprised.

Reportedly Cho was receiving treatment for depression, which leads me to wonder how long he had been taking the meds, which meds he was taking, and if his doctor had referred him to a psychologist or just written Cho a prescription and forgotten about him as soon as he left the office? I have to wonder because when I was first diagnosed I had the benefit of such a referral and a doctor who actually called to check on me, and who later saw me through several attempts to find the one medicine that would control my depression without making me ill in the process. At least one of Cho's professors tried to get him some counseling, why was there no follow up? Why was it not recommended that he be taken into custody for a psychiatric evaluation? If someone shows signs of being a danger to themselves or someone else they can be taken into custody and evaluated, which isn't the same as being committed. The law in this state (Maryland) only allows three days of evaluation, then a diagnosis must be made and the patient either committed or released; I was told this many years ago by a friend who wanted to have her abusive and violent husband evaluated.

That three days could have provided Cho with some help and possibly spared the lives of 33 people.

I understand that the threats in his writing were not overt, and this is why no legal action could have been taken at the time, but arresting him probably wouldn't have accomplished much, except to enrage him further. When he got out of jail he'd be even more likely to go on a spree kill than he was before. But his writings, which so terrified his instructors that one threatened to resign if he was not removed from her class and one had a password system to alert her assistant in the event that Cho went on the attack, contained no direct threats. The message, however, was clear. And it should have been enough to motivate someone to do something more proactive for Cho than move him to another class.

As an adult, he would of course have the right to refuse other care, but if taken into custody for an evaluation he'd have had no choice and evantually he'd have probably been grateful for the help. Three days isn't much, but it's enough to determine if someone is dangerous or at least in need of extended care.

I don't know what the laws in Virginia say about this kind of thing but it seems to me someone could have done something. The one professor who tried hit a brick wall.

I just keep thinking about this and it's making me nuts. Because I see there was a possiblity that someone somewhere at sometime could have done something, and because the one person who tried had no resources to make sure something was done, 33 people died. There has to have been a way to stop this.

Why is it that we can not do anything proactive in situations in which we know - not just suspect but KNOW - that there is a serious threat? Why do we have to wait until something horrible happens then say, 'well he obviously needed help, but...'?

So here's this nice looking, smart young kid that never even got the opportunity to have a life, and in the end took away that opportunity for several of his classmates, and murdered a couple of professors as well - one of whom was reportedly a holocaust survivor.

I'm just so, so sorry...not just for his victims, but for him as well. And for all of their families. I suspect Cho's family will be the forgotten victims in all of this. The families of the ones who do things like this often are.

But I hope people remember them in their prayers. I want people to remember them because they're grieving too. They lost a son, one who they had no chance to help because he hadn't returned home for a holiday in a very, very long time.

And spare some prayers for Cho, too. What he did was horrible and no one should ever forget it. He was also very ill and no one was able to help him when he most needed it.

I suspect that's the reason behind all of this. The people who tried to make sure something was done hit a wall. I don't know what has to change so that this never happens again, but clearly something does. It isn't just about increasing security, either, though that would definitely help.

We need to figure out a way to make sure that everyone gets some intervention before they reach the breaking point.

As to how we can do that...I seriously don't know.

Maybe the system we have already is workable and we just need to make sure everyone knows how to use it.