Gunman bought gun clips on eBay
The gunman who killed 32 people and wounded scores of others at Virginia Tech bought handgun ammunition clips on eBay, investigators have revealed.
Seung-Hui Cho bought the empty ammunition clips from a vendor in Idaho about three weeks before Monday's massacre, according to the Associated Press. An eBay spokesman said the purchase was legal and that the company has cooperated with authorities.
An eBay spokesman confirmed that Cho used the eBay ID blazers5505. Cho had been a registered eBay user since January 2004, using the account to sell items such as Hokies football tickets, horror books and a Texas Instruments graphics calculator that contained several games. His member profile lists his feedback as 98.5 percent, receiving only one negative comment.
Authorities are also examining the personal computers found in Cho's dorm room and seeking his cell phone records. A search warrant affidavit filed Friday stated that investigators wanted to search Cho's e-mail accounts, the AP reported.
Investigators also plan to search the Virginia Tech e-mail account belonging to Emily Hilscher, one of the first two victims, to determine whether he had any contact with her.
Steven Musil is the night news editor at CNET News. Before joining CNET News in 2000, Steven spent 10 years at various Bay Area newspapers. E-mail Steven. 
She has since led the charge for concealed weapon upgrade in Texas, where we can now stop evil. Yet, there are still the mindless puppets of the Brady Campaign and other anti-gun organizations insisting on continuing the gun-free zone insanity by which innocents are forced into unarmed helplessness. Shame on them. Shame on America. Shame on the anti-gunners all.
No one was foolish enough to debate Ryder truck regulations or ammonia nitrate restrictions or a ?cult of agriculture fertilizer? following the unabashed evil of Timothy McVeigh?s heinous crime against America on that fateful day in Oklahoma City. No one faulted kitchen utensils or other hardware of choice after Jeffrey Dahmer was caught drugging, mutilating, raping, murdering and cannibalizing his victims. Nobody wanted ?steak knife control? as they autopsied the dead nurses in Chicago, Illinois, as Richard Speck went on trial for mass murder.
Evil is as evil does, and laws disarming guaranteed victims make evil people very, very happy. Shame on us.
Already spineless gun control advocates are squawking like chickens with their tiny-brained heads chopped off, making political hay over this most recent, devastating Virginia Tech massacre, when in fact it is their own forced gun-free zone policy that enabled the unchallenged methodical murder of 32 people.
However, there are some cases where such actions would definitely save lives, so you can't necessarily dismiss it either. My biggest fear is if every one had weapons on them, we'd be falling back to the style of life we see in old western movies.
I think one of our biggest problems is punishment... we are far to lenient on violent crimes. When you can commit murder and be out in 2-5 years there is a HUGE problem. I think if we had an eye for an eye type judgment system and criminals knew ahead of time what the punishment would be for their crimes they would think twice. Someone might not be so quick to shoot a convenient store clerk if he knew he'd be put in front of a firing squad after conviction.
It should be known that guns are just tools, guns alone do not kill people, but guns in the wrong hands kill people. Just because bad people use guns doesn't mean you should take away the rights and freedoms of good people to keep and own guns.
Campus has a security force, where were they those two hours from the first shooting until the second one? How come they allowed Cho to move about campus freely and mail his package to NBC without any gun checks and where were the Police and how come the campus was not locked down after the first shootings?
The truth is that the system failed, and because the system failed Cho was able to carry out his killings.
So now we are blaming eBay because he bought empty gun clips from there? How about we blame whomever sold him all of that ammo? How about we blame background checks that didn't catch that a court found him as being harmful to himself and others and should have prevented him from buying the guns in the first place? Besides Cho had a knife and a hammer, and even without guns, would have been able to kill some people with them. Do you want to take away knife and hammer ownership because Cho had them in his possession as well?
Do we turn a blind eye to all of the bullying that Cho suffered from high school to college? Do we just ignore that most people treated him bad and like something they scraped off of the bottom of his shoe? Do we ignore that he was discriminated against for being an Asian from South Korea and not being able to talk English like natural born people in the USA? That in his classes, people snickered and laughed at him while he gave his presentations? If Cho is a real sociopath, he had a lot of other sociopaths that made him that way with all of their bullying. Most of them part of society and the community that discriminated against him for being different. Even if Cho is a victim in some way, that is no excuse for the rampage killing spree we went on. It could have been prevented had people been nicer to him and more tolerate of him being different.
I myself have been bullied, and called names, and laughed at, and put down, and attacked, and suffered mental, emotional, psychological, and even in some cases physical abuse. I refuse to take it out on society, the community, or anyone else. Instead I hold it inside and it makes me mentally and physically ill. There is no justice for people like me, but I refuse to kill or harm others over it. Instead I speak out against bullying, and the sort of abuse that happens all of the time in society and the community against people who are different in some way. I am trying to make a difference in a peaceful way. While I don't get the media attention that Cho gets, I don't want that sort of attention. If I can educate at least a few people to see how bullying and abuse can lead to monsters like Cho, and how some of us who have been bullied and abused don't end up like monsters like Cho, maybe some people can stop their bullying and abuse and be more tolerant of people who are different in some way.
More guns does not equal safer streets. The more guns out there, the more likely they will be mis-used. Guns in homes are more likely to be used on a family member than an intruder, and can we name an instance where a conceal-and-carry person offed a mass murderer? I can't think of one, but I can think of several instances of motorists shooting at each other not to mention all the domestic and drug-related shootings.
I, a college student, would feel less safe if my classmates all carried firearms than with the off-chance that one of them would bring one and use it. If Cho was never allowed to buy the gun it would have been much more difficult for him to do what he did. It is our weak gun laws that contributed to this tragedy.
One day somebody might sit you down with some newspaper clippings about city cops and security guards killed or injured in the line of duty. Not by criminals, but by bystanders who fired on the real bad guys and accidentally hit the cop responding to the incident instead.
Had some of the Virginia Tech students been armed they might well have been more dead. 30+ killed by the gunman and the rest killed in the cross fire. Scared people, thin walls and handguns don't mix. Ever.
A better solution to Virginia tech would have been to have prevented the shooter from buying the gun because he'd been in a mental institute. That way no innocent gun owners would have been be punished by new gun laws. Guns don't kill, people kill. Keeping guns out of the wrong hand is our best hope.
around every day and legally carrying a firearm... While your story
sounds interesting.. the vigilante/frendly fire scenario you paint
simply does not happen.
Had some of the Virginia Tech students been armed they might well have been able to stop him before he had killed more than a couple of other students, maybe if it had been public knowledge that Others on the campus Would be armed he would've chickened out himself. Few of that type personality have the intestinal fortitude to willingly face an armed opponent, most of them end up killing themselves when someone armed shows up.
Now, your third section I can find no fault with. There have been more than a few sent to institutions that were completely nonviolent though. I would support having anyone who has been in one to be required to undergo evaluation before being allowed to regain their firearm rights.
Maybe we should focus on why he did what he did. Maybe we should look at why he hated rich people and felt like such a stranger in a strange land.
And if not, then lets at least focus on some more interesting news. For all you patriotic Americans that disagree with me, all I have to say is that today, while we were still talking about last week's news (and not even the important ones) 85% of the French electorate got up and voted for the presidential run off. How many of YOU voted last November?
- Absolutely right
- by chabig83 April 22, 2007 3:07 PM PDT
- Yes. To get into a dormitory should require a security screening
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- Metal detectors
- by dl_zero April 22, 2007 7:09 PM PDT
- thats absurd. thats like installing a metal detector in front of sombodys house.
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(15 Comments)just like that required to get into an airport. There is no excuse for
not requiring metal detectors, explosive sniffing equipment, and a
small cadre of TSA personnel at each dorm door!