Vicious Rants of an Angry Yellow Man

A few people have asked me to comment on the Virginia Tech shooting. I don't think I have much of interest to say about this tragedy. In the future I would write something about growing up as an Asian American male. This would seem to be easy since I am an Asian American male, but to me it is not so easy. It would be difficult for me to be objective and my experience may not reflect other Asian males. So I am going to wait for the right opportunity, with the right type of lead in. To me the VT tragedy is about one mad man and not reflective of an ethnic group's experience. Anyways, there are a few points I want to make:

My wife was all worried when the killer was identified as Asian. She said that she hope that he is not Chinese. I can understand her feelings. The paper next day interviewed Korean leaders in LA who apologized for the killing by a Korean. I can understand that also. But I think we should set these feelings aside. There is no need to apologize. White people didn't have to apologize for Tim McVeigh and Jeffrey Dahlmer. Just because some people think that I should know all the Chinese doctors in town, it doesn't mean I should. Nobody is responsible for this killer's action except for him, so nobody else should apologize.

Now that doesn't mean that there are not some racists out there who would take advantage of this. Remember the time an American spy plane went down in China? Some Chinese restaurants were threatened or vandalized. After 9/11 the yoga studio my wife goes to was graffitied with the words "go back to where you came from". This happened even though the studio was owned by a white female and there are no Arab members. Fortunately there were not too many of these incidences. Majority of Americans are fair-minded. We should not let a few crazies intimidate us. There is no reason feel shame of being Asian over this.

I am a gun control advocate. I don't see the reason to have any guns except rifles for hunting. All automatic weapons should be banned. Forget about the so-called constitutional rights to bear arms. There has to be a line drawn because if not then someone can claim his right to own an atomic bomb. Some people say that to protect one against criminals, one needs to be armed. Some even suggest that if someone had a gun in VT then the killer may have been stopped. Well, I don't think the average person is carrying automatic weapons and if he has just a hand gun, then he would be no match against the bad guys. I would bet the number of times an armed innocent person save the day is way smaller than the number of accidents caused by guns. People, not guns, are ultimately responsible for killing people. But I have yet to see a person kill thirty people at a time with a knife or a baseball bat.

All this nonsense about privacy of mental illness has to change. Psychology is not an exact science. But a person with a history of psychological illness should not be allowed to purchase guns. People who have seizure disorders are not allowed to drive and a doctor has to notify the state. This is obviously a right law because a person may have a seizure and kill others with a car. So why should people with mental illness be allowed to operate a gun and be able to kill others? People with mental illness can also refuse treatment unless they are imminently dangerous to himself or others. Since their judgments are impaired, why do we have to wait to the danger point or maybe beyond that to force treatment?

I think these issues are the more important lesson to be learned from this case. It is not a case of ethnic or racial problems. It is a case of mental illness and our violent world in which guns play a major role.