Issue 155

Virginia remembered by Swansea

08th May 2007

Can you imagine it? You're just starting off a week of lectures, (give or take a few!) on a Monday morning in the Spring time. You're sat there, with some friends or just trying to keep your head down to make notes and then get back to bed. It's early on in the day, a perfectly normal day as far as you're concerned.... two fellow students have been shot dead in their bedrooms less than two hours before and that same gunman is on his violent rampage to the lecture theatre blocks and you, a normal student at university, are perhaps one of his many victims? No, didn't think so. It's something that most people can't even begin to comprehend at all. But it did happen and it shocked not just a country but the world.

Twenty-three year old North Korean student Cho Seung-hui was responsible for all 33 deaths on Monday 16 April 2007 in West Virginia Tech University, including himself at the end of his deadly rampage.

What started off as a seemingly jealous and obsessive motivated killing of Emily Hilscher in her University Halls of Residence room and Ryan Clark who came to her aid, ended two and a half hours later when Cho shot randomly at students and lecturers in lecture theatres, stairways and corridors.

The second ammendment to the United States Constitution is where the country's people right "to keep and bear arms" is stated. A constitution is a system which establishes the rules that govern an organisation. Most national constitutions guarantee certain rights to the citizens of the country.

However, many still ignore the fact that the right to "bear arms" only relates to doing so for military purposes. This was affirmed in 1796 that Americans have the right to keep and bare arms for the use of their defence also. However, there are then cases like this which shows how easily weapons can be used for wreckless and violent acts, without any purpose behind them. It is an valid question to ask in the light of these events whether this Constitution should be ammended further and tightened.

For those UK students here in Swansea, it seems hard to understand the affects of the gun culture that is so widely prominent in the United States. Events such as the 1999 Columbine Shooting are deemed unlikely to happen here and to us or people that we know. It is in the light of campus tragedies of this magnitude that can shatter an individual or collective sense of security and makes us wonder that if it can happen on their campus, can it happen on our campus also. Even with all the modern technology inventions of different types of security measures that are around, surely there will be the odd few that manage to work out a way to go around it if they are desperate enough to cause carnage.

During times like this, we find ourselves questioning just how safe our campus here is on all levels and this probing question led to seeing how students, lecturers and exchange students alike feel on the subject of the safety on campus and the shooting tragedy itself.

To have your say on this topic, head over to our World News blog and leave us a comment.

Kimberley Davies