April 17, 2007
Virginia Tech Shooter, Weapons Identified
Allahpundit has the story on the shooter, who has been identified as Seung Hui Cho (CNN calls him Cho Seung Hui), a Korean national, a permanent resident of the United States and a Virginia Tech student.
I'm cross-referencing this to Curt at Flopping Aces, who noted in an update a post to a firearms message board, where a gun shop employee claims (site currently down) he sold Cho the firearms used in the shooting:
"Well, I'm screwed. They found a receipt in the gunman's pocket indicating that he bought the gun from me in March. ATF is at my shop right now. See you later, I'm on my way to the shop right now."[...]"Call BS all you like, but I just spent the last several hours with 3 ATF agents. I saw the shooter's picture. I know his name and home address. I also know that he used a Glock 19 and a Walther P-22. The serial number was ground off the Glock. Why would he do that and still keep the receipt in his pocket from when he bought the gun? ATF told me that they are going to keep this low-key and not report this to the tv news. However, they cautioned that it will leak out eventually, and that I should be ready to deal with CNN, FOX, etc. My 32 camera surveillance system recorded the event 35 days ago. This is a digital system that only keeps the video for 35 days. We got lucky. By the way, the paperwork for Mr. Cho was perfect, thank God."
I'm as disgusted as you probably are with the poster's focus on himself among all the real carnage around him, but that fact remains that he named "Mr. Cho" more than 12 hours before officials, so I think his claim that he sold these firearms to Cho is probably legitimate.
The firearms used in the shooting appear to be a Glock 19 (left, above), a 9mm pistol very popular with police agencies in many countries including the United States, and a Walther P22 (right, above), a .22 caliber pistol that is primarily used as a practice or target pistol. The Glock is typically sold with two standard 15-round factory magazines, a capacity fairly standard among comparable sized 9mm pistols. The P22 is typically sold with a pair of ten-round magazines.
I think the argument that needs to be made is that the anti-gun attitude and laws actually made the victims more vulnerable. If but one person had possession of a fire arm they could have stopped the killer.
I was in a similar situation in the early 70's. At that time people carried more than they do now. The fact that the population was armed and willing to use force contained the shooting incident.
So instead on more legislation, we need less.
Posted by: David Caskey at April 17, 2007 09:15 AMI'm sure you've already seen this, but I thought it interesting how foreign press responded to the VA Tech shootings -before- it was discovered that the student was from South Korea.
""The ... slaughter forces American society to once again examine itself, its violence, the obsession with guns of part of its population, the troubles of its youth, subjected to the double tyranny of abundance and competition," it wrote."
Irony. A foreign student goes on a shooting spree on a gun free campus.
"The Leftist Il Manifesto newspaper said the shooting was "as American as apple pie.""
Weird, I never saw any apple pie when I was in Korea.
The amount of hits he got with handguns (and his age) tells me that he probably did his 2 years compulsory military service in Korea.
Posted by: paully at April 17, 2007 09:32 AMps: Both sources are correct in naming him (Seung Hui Cho vs Cho Seung Hui), as in Korea the family name appears before the given name.
pps: I was equally disgusted by the student(s) who was(were) quoted as saying "I hope no one I know was hurt." I've seen that on a few websites.
Posted by: paully at April 17, 2007 10:01 AMPaully. I doubt that he would have received extensive handgun training as a conscript. They mentioned that he was a 23 year old senior. That leaves little leeway between graduating high school and going to college.
Posted by: BohicaTwentyTwo at April 17, 2007 10:11 AMa few things I find odd:
He would take the time to remove the ser numbers, yet not remove the receipt from his wallet from a purchase made in March?
That the crime lab would have been able to locate the gun shop that sold the weapon so fast?
he was 23 years old, and came to the US in 1992.
an 8 year old conscript???
Posted by: weaponeer at April 17, 2007 11:10 AMIt doesn’t surprise me that they may have found the receipt in his jacket.
According to the post, he made the purchase in March. If he’s anything like most of us – and I use this term lightly - he probably simple left the receipt in his pocket. Over the last few days it’s been unseasonable cold in VA, so he probably just got up and put on a warmer jacket which still had a receipt in the pocket from March.
