V Tech Shooting

As word got around that the killer at Virginia Tech was an Asian man, all Asians in America like us must have been praying that the guy wasn't someone from their own country of origin. There was rumor that the guy was a student from Shanghai, who entered the US on an F1 visa. My intuitive response to the allegation was that it must not be true. As soon as the shooter was positively identified by the police as a South Korean national, the Chinese community (including me) seemed to have been relieved. My intuition has been proven sound, or has it?

Why couldn't a Chinese or Chinese American commit a mass murder? Why couldn't a Shanghainese man suddenly snap and become a cold-blooded killer? Should the Chinese feel relieved about the killing being not a Chinese but a Korean? Can the part of American society who are less savvy about international geography and politics distinguish a Korean from a Chinese? I can't tell the difference between a French and a German just from their looks. To the white American community, the killer has an Asian face, and he looks Asian (just like every Chinese), not Korean. Why should we feel so happy about his not being Chinese or of Chinese descent?

Why should we make a big deal about the killer's racial identity? A white lunatic can take out a whole class of students. What was so odd about a troubled Asian doing the same thing (or copycatting the whole thing)? Certainly, this incident greatly shattered (or confirmed?) the stereotype about Asians in this country, but there can be a bunch of such self-centered, desperate, and violence-prone people (I'd refrain from calling them perverts, because there is always a reason,social or personal, behind their madness) in every society and of every nationality.

If we have to address the racial issues involved in the massacre, let's talk about the first-generation immigrant experience in this country, the hardships they have to endure, and the cultural battle within the immigrant family. Let's not be afraid to renew the debate on gun control. Contrary to what Bush said about finding a later time for policy debate, there's no better time than this to tackle the gun control issue head-on. It is unmistakable how guns has magnified the damage of malicious individual actions. There was a university student in China who killed his four roommates with an ax and hid their bodies in the closet. If he had swung his ax on the students in the classrooms, he wouldn't have been able to kill or injure more than a few before being stopped (or just getting exhausted.) I believe the lesson is loud and clear. It may be impossible to eradicate crimes (and as difficult to provide counseling for every troubled person), but we're definitely able to control the impact of irresponsible individual behaviors by doing away with guns.

Gun manufacturers and their congressional supporters have already had too much blood on their hands.