As the nation bore witness to the chilling photos and video recordings of the Virginia Tech Massacre, countless questions raced through our minds. Why did this happen? How did it happen? Who is going to take responsibility? Why didn’t anyone stop him? These seemingly simple questions became anger in the days to follow the killing spree.

When Cho Sueng-Hui, a Virginia Tech senior, awoke on the morning of April 16, 2007 he knew what he would be doing in precious few hours. It is in my opinion that he had everything planned out to the minute; he was equipped with knives and guns and proved to be well aware of his surroundings when he chained the doors to Norris Hall closed. He was a twisted sociopath who lacked any moral responsibility to his fellow man or social conscience.

He felt left out and alienated by his classmates, therefore felt the need to “protect future generations from the same torment”.

It continues to surprise me that people assume that the government or the police should have stepped in to prevent such a massacre from taking place. We all want our civil liberties, until the moment we feel that someone is threatening us, then we want someone else to take care of it.

But the reality remains that if the police had tried to hold him on anything, people would have been up in arms at the fact that they were taking away this poor college students’ right to free speech.

Everybody has the right to freedom of speech; a first amendment right. Now, I don’t know about anyone else, but as a journalist I value the significance and the importance of freedom of speech, it is what allows me to write what I am writing now. Especially in the college atmosphere, not being like minded is a quality which is strived for, how then can we expect the government to step in when someone is being “different”.

Now I am in absolutely no way trying to justify the things that were said and written, I am simply pointing out the fact that without something more than some writing the government would have had no way to arrest Cho and actually hold him.

Another discussion that continues to surprise me is the topic of gun control. I believe that Cho was so determined to make a statement to those people who “picked” on him, or made him feel like an outcast, that even without a gun he would have found some way to do what he did. A gun was his weapon of choice, but it was not by far his only choice of a weapon.

The gun didn’t murder those thirty-two people, Cho himself murdered and stole the lives of every one of his victims.

The victims will forever be in the hearts of those who remember, and it is up to us to prevent future massacres such as this one, by remembering that we are not alone in the world. All it will take is respecting one another and future generations will not have to deal with the horror of these killing sprees