Umm, I hate to bring this up, but I think it’s kind of relevant – why isn’t the Korean media talking about Woo Bum-kon (우범근), a Korean national (and police officer) who holds the world record for deaths by gun shooting spree? There were actually more references to this (here and here) on the Western Internet than the Korean one. Strange, no?
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It’s all about the Han.
I mentioned it in the other thread about the killings
http://www.rjkoehler.com/2007/.....ment-78210
It’s really incredible how such a deranged act like the one perpetrated by Mr. Woo is so forgotten. If it had happened in the US i’d just ask for one dollar for each movie/documentary/tv special about him.
I’d be a millionaire.
Actually if you go to Naver and type in “우범곤” (this is the correct spelling of his name), you will get plenty of results.
From the dates that appear with the search results, it seems that a lof of the info regarding the policeman in question has been posted as a result of the tragedy in Virginia Tech.
A typo there
lof -> lot
Sorry
OK, that is two nut jobs.
As for the reason why the above tragedy is not appearing in Korean news outlets, one can only speculate.
But IMO, the reason may be that Korean news outlets are so focused on the current tragedy that another tragedy that happened 25 years ago is not registering on their radar screens however relevant it may be.
“But IMO, the reason may be that Korean news outlets are so focused on the current tragedy that another tragedy that happened 25 years ago is not registering on their radar screens however relevant it may be.”
So focused on the current tragedy? Then how come everytime a G.I. does something against the law they bring up everything bad thing G.I.’s have done since NoGunRi? They don’t want people to realize that they now have the Gold and Silver medals for mass killing with a gun by a single person. Then they would have to change the new Korean Tourism logo from Korea, Sparkling to Korea, Shooting.
Man, that case makes the Virginia Tech incident look like nothing…
madne0,
Actually, I think I brought it up first in that thread. Metropolitician’s post essentially expands on some of the ideas I had already posted: mainly that according to crime statistics, strict gun control makes us much safer here and that given the number of suicides in Korea, it’s probably better if South Korea continues to enforce these laws.
The reason 우범곤 hasn’t been brought up just yet is that his murder spree occurred at about the same time as the Kwangju massacre. For that reason, it didn’t enter Korean collective consciousness as much as you would expect…that and most reporters now were probably too young in 1982 to have heard of him.
Oh, and Gerno, that comments of yours about silver and gold…that was really in bad taste. Besides, don’t use it to bash Koreans. As AJ was apparently suggesting, nut jobs don’t define a nation (Is Germany Hitler?).
@Marmot: I suppose this guys is relevant, but only in that a Korean man, under certain psychological pressure, has committed multiple murder before. That should not come as a surprise to anyone.
Certainly, the use of firearms, and the extraordinarily large number of victims are striking commonalities, but I believe they are simply coincidental product of circumstances in both cases.
Rather than the large number of victims or use of firearms in those cases, I find it more disturbing that both of these cases seem to involve individuals that are more suicidal rather than sociopathic. Surely some level of sociopathy must be present with people who commit such monstrous acts. I don’t know if these people can’t tell right from wrong, but it definitely seems that these people didn’t care whether it’s right or wrong because they were going to end it all anyway.
I find this very disburbing, especially considering Korea’s documented high rate of suicides. Something in the society is very rotten, when individuals are willing to throw away their lives so easily, occasionally taking many innocent people with them along the way.
“Rather than the large number of victims or use of firearms in those cases, I find it more disturbing that both of these cases seem to involve individuals that are more suicidal rather than sociopathic.”
You must admit, the number of victims wouldn’t have been as high if his weapon of choice was a spatula.
SomeguyinKorea: “Actually, I think I brought it up first in that thread.”
You’re right. I searched for the guy’s name, and since nothing showed up i thought he hadn’t been mentioned before.
“You must admit, the number of victims wouldn’t have been as high if his weapon of choice was a spatula.”
Sure, but attacks with knifes can be just as deadly. Look at that lunatic in Japan (Osaka i think it was?). Went into a elementary school and killed 8 or 9 and injured a dozen more. And let’s not forget the guys who, instead of going down i a hail of gunfire just torch the place. The Happy Land Fire is such an example. 80-90 people killed. Sure, it didn’t have the “panache” of the Virginia shootings, but it was much more effective.
All you need to be a successful spree killer is a deranged mind.
“Sure, but attacks with knifes can be just as deadly. Look at that lunatic in Japan (Osaka i think it was?). Went into a elementary school and killed 8 or 9 and injured a dozen more.”
One thing…he was at a university, not an elementary school. By the pictures I’ve seen of him, he wasn’t physically imposing (a tall skinny guy, apparently). My guess is that if he had had a knife, a spatula, or an eggplant, it would have taken about 5 minutes for a group of students to tackle him (actually, they probably would have just laughed at him if he had the spatula and the eggplant).
He had two handguns. A group of 5 students could easily have rushed him and only one or two would have been shot. Same deal with a knife.
I’ve thought the same thing. It’s two bad there were not some young men there as brave as those in Flight 93. I’m a bit ashamed of that — someone should have been able to take him down.
LOL…”too bad”, my bad.
Now as Good Americans we should not rub noses in the trash. It is not a Korean trait; it is the fault of Han. Gold metals for shooting sprees. That is good, and accurate!
“He had two handguns. A group of 5 students could easily have rushed him and only one or two would have been shot.
I’ve thought the same thing. It’s two bad there were not some young men there as brave as those in Flight 93. I’m a bit ashamed of that — someone should have been able to take him down.”
I may be mistaken, but I think one of the surviving men from the University of Montreal shooting in 1989 may have killed himself later due to guilt over not having been able to do anything to stop the killer. However, there’s no way of telling how any of us might have reacted in that situation.
This guy had the advantage of surprise, and if my university students here are any indication, likley encountered a group of students who weren’t fully awake yet. I gather he started to fire immediately upon entering the classrooms, not giving the victims much of a chance to get away, let alone defend themselves.
I think that the guys who blocked the door to their classroom reacted pretty well, and they deserve a lot of credit for preventing the shooter from getting in.
I might add that if trained and armed soldiers have been known to run, cower in fear, or be reduced to tears in combat situations, I’m not shocked that that these university students - likely with little training or experience in life and death situations, and without any weapons - were unable to take him out.
Unfortunately, trying to make sense of this kind of event in general isn’t possible. There’s no formula that produces a satisfactory answer. Going over the “what ifs” of this kind of a situation is understandable. I’ve been running them through my head the past few days too.
And to think Officer Woo was able to do all that without access to the internet.