As an Asian myself, I was stunned when I heard the person who committed this brutal crime was a Korean student. Some Asians are concerning about a backlash from this incident that might spread prejudice among their fellow Americans. And that is possible, given the brutality and casualty of this massacre, some people might find an excuse to fan the flame of racial discrimination.

Hopefully, the majority of the Americans will be wise enough to distinguish between the individual sickness and the racial profile. But we will see.

Every time when this kind of horrible incident happens, ordinary people, media and government start questioning about the issue of gun control and violence in the media.

In this case, how in the world this 23 year old student was able to lay his hand on those guns and ammunitions? If his background indeed was checked, shouldn’t his age alarm the seller that why he needed those lethal weapons for? In particular when he had a record of being an imminent threat to himself and people around him.

In this society, guns seem to be easier to acquire than prescription drugs. If you cannot buy in your state, you can order it from other states that people are allowed to carry gun.

To ban people owning guns is impossible. But should we tighten the rules of how people can acquire guns? Should the authority both federal level and local level take parts in background check of people who are buying weapons? But who would want to put more burdens on your business? The government is apparently in the National Riffle Association’s hands. No politician has enough courage to stand up to this powerful lobby and pass some meaningful legislations in order to curb the distribution of guns to wrong persons.

The Columbine High School massacre in 1999 put the fire on politicians’ butts and then faded away with the powerful lobby like NRA; we will see what the government will have to say about this issue for this newest tragedy.

People have complained about the violence in the media for a long time and now it has spread to VDO games and Internet. We cannot deny that those violent scenes in movies and games have heavily influenced to some people. Just look at the picture of the killer that was released from NBC, it reminds me of Angelina Jolie in the Tomb Raider.

Of course, there is no easy answer to explain this inciden t because factors like society, school and family environment and religion must have contributed to this tragedy. But those factors are broad, subjective and it might take longer time to change it and the government has little to say about it. But issues like gun control and violence in media are two factors that the government can do right now, if they are willing to, in order to make our society a little safer.