Cho Deadshot

From my time with Virginia Tech i heard that Cho was a Deadshot with his Glock and Walther apparently it only took him seconds to clear rooms according to witnesses and out of his 32 kills 28 were headshots and killshots. To be honest it is strange how he had precision aim but he only spent small amount of time at gun ranges and i discard the MK Ultra conspiracy as unlikely but in my view he must of had a substantial amount of millitary training or at least frequent gun courses to master aim with a pistol especially dual weilding two at once. One possible anwser could be computer games? It is known that Cho played alot of Counter Strike and Counter Strike is the type of game where accuracy is extremely important and most time people will aim for the head and try an 1 tap another player if they are skilled at Counter Strike, linking on to this the same topic could also be traced to Adam Lanza and his remarkable accuarcy at Sandy Hook with a Bushmaster AR 15, Adam was a big contributor to the gaming world and his favourite game was Combat arms which he got 22,725 headshots alone in a space of 500 hours which proves alot of skill.

Personally i do believe that computer games can train to kill and if played enough on the same level or setting it can have a phsycological effect where on the day of their massacre they will try and copy and revise what they did during their digital training sessions and remember key tactics such as clearing rooms or where to aim and other tactical strategies. Also i do not believe computer games should be blamed for any massacre as that is stupid and it should come down to the perpetrator not something they used whch millions of others use worldwide, I myself am a big gamer and play games frequently and i have learned alot from war games and have been educated on many millitary tactics and thats why i belive Cho could of gained his amazing accuracy from computer games.

-Ascension

Im a pretty decent "gamer" myself and can do quite the damage in games like Counterstrike, but nothing compared to alot of serious FPS gamers. In saying this I have done a bunch of shooting down at my local range (remembering I am from NZ where we have great gun laws). I recall having difficulty with the pistol, I shot 9mm in a fast paced competition style after doing a bunch of .177 air pistol target practice. I seriously failed despite getting decent with the air pistol.

The reality is shooting a gun in real life and in a game have nearly no similarities. The physical recoil, re-aiming after recoil, reloading, jammed round, all these things happen and are factors that will contribute the the performance of someone using a firearm. A game literally has minimal physical actions, moving a mouse a few centimeters and pushing down on keys using one hand. On the other hand shooting a gun in real life has major physical factors which will change the performance.

Pistols are relativity heavy and with a full clip that is a lot of lead and steel to hold. Now add in recoil which kicks back on the wrists and hands, making it uncomfortable to hold and hard to hold after doing this 17 times or so each magazine. This doesn't mean that either had good luck I am just saying that gaming has little practice capabilities besides reaction times, tactics etc.

I got this wee little air rifle which is fun to take pot shots in my basement. I can quite easily hit a small target on the other side of the room without much aiming or skill, a head is a big target when you look at it like this. Its not really very hard to aim at a close target in a small area, just handling the gun is the main concern.

Also to go on from your one tap thing. One tap literally is a round to nearly any part of the body besides maybe the flesh of the arms and legs, as seen in many instances survivable and sometimes ineffective on taking someone down. If you take a shot to most parts of the body you are gonna rag doll real quick.

Falcolus wrote:

Im a pretty decent "gamer" myself and can do quite the damage in games like Counterstrike, but nothing compared to alot of serious FPS gamers.  In saying this I have done a bunch of shooting down at my local range (remembering I am from NZ where we have great gun laws). I recall having difficulty with the pistol, I shot 9mm in a fast paced competition style after doing a bunch of .177 air pistol target practice. I seriously failed despite getting decent with the air pistol.

The reality is shooting a gun in real life and in a game have nearly no similarities. The physical recoil, re-aiming after recoil, reloading, jammed round, all these things happen and are factors that will contribute the the performance of someone using a firearm. A game literally has minimal physical actions, moving a mouse a few centimeters and pushing down on keys using one hand. On the other hand shooting a gun in real life has major physical factors which will change the performance.

Pistols are relativity heavy and with a full clip that is a lot of lead and steel to hold. Now add in recoil which kicks back on the wrists and hands, making it uncomfortable to hold and hard to hold after doing this 17 times or so each magazine. This doesn't mean that either had good luck I am just saying that gaming has little practice capabilities besides reaction times, tactics etc.

I got this wee little air rifle which is fun to take pot shots in my basement. I can quite easily hit a small target on the other side of the room without much aiming or skill, a head is a big target when you look at it like this. Its not really very hard to aim at a close target in a small area, just handling the gun is the main concern.

Also to go on from your one tap thing. One tap literally is a round to nearly any part of the body besides maybe the flesh of the arms and legs, as seen in many instances survivable and sometimes ineffective on taking someone down. If you take a shot to most parts of the body you are gonna rag doll real quick.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] I applaud you as make a extremely good point and i do understand the difference between shooting in a game and reality but i also was referring mainly to the phsycological aspect of training in a game for example like how Eric Harris explained how DOOM was burned into his mind and how everything he thought related back to DOOM and also how he picked out and constructed the shotguns to look like the shotgun and super shotgun from DOOM if you understand me.

Yes that aspect of it totally makes sense. Games transport you into another reality and in the case of DOOM they really got into that killer mindset. Although 99.99% are not like this but they can definitely be a psychological trainer, as the past has shown.

Lanza was a gamer but he did go to the shooting range many times and supposedly shot his first gun as a child so he was very familiar with real life firearms. Aside from practice at the range, it has been said that he shot targets in his basement with a pellet gun in the months before the shooting. Some law enforcement have noted his reloading more often than necessary and speculated that he picked up the habit from gaming but that is unconfirmed.

Ascension wrote:

linking on to this the same topic could also be traced to Adam Lanza and his remarkable accuarcy at Sandy Hook with a Bushmaster AR 15

When it comes to his accuracy there's a few things to mention. I think you probably mean that his wounded/killed ratio was very high? One reason for this is the fact that most of his victims were children who were gathered into a small bathroom from which there was no escape and he was using a rifle to spray bullets in their direction. He shot over 150 rounds, if I remember correctly, to kill less than 30 people so the fact that almost all of his wounded victims succumbed to their injuries is simply a testament to the fact that he kept shooting. I'd also wonder, is it really a sign of skill to kill a bunch of people (mostly children) as they huddle in a corner? I don't know that he would have required much experience at all (gaming or otherwise) to do this, even if he did have a long history with firearms.

With Cho, part of this was recently addressed in another thread. I don't believe he was actually wielding both guns at the same time.
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Here too, I think the issue remains that Cho's victims were nothing like the targets in video games. They were probably sitting at or under their desks. Again, how much skill is really necessary to kill sitting ducks who have no weapons of their own? Not very much like the video games he played, I'm sure.

I'm not much of a gamer but considering what Eric said about imagining his targets as monsters from DOOM, I do think it's worth mentioning gaming. I don't think that gaming makes people violent or helps them learn how to shoot but virtual combat could easily be used as a psychological training tool like you said. The US military has even recognized that digitally simulated warfare is a useful tool in training their soldiers.

Can we just squash the "video games make you good at shooting" crap? I grew up around guns, I own two firearms myself, and I've played video games my entire life. How much did playing video games help my accuracy? Absolutely zero. Twiddling joy sticks and pressing buttons isn't the same as aiming and firing a gun. Video games don't allow a person to experience recoil or the deafening boom of a gunshot. They also don't teach you how to reload or take care of a firearm. What video games do is give people confidence that they can go out and shoot a gun. War games teach people basic battlefield tactics. Ultimately though its not even close to being a reliable teaching tool. There's a reason the army puts people through boot camp first before putting them in simulators, and not the other way around.

Agreed with the computer games. I once won a game of football 83-0 but doesn't mean I should be England's next centre forward.

lol the virtual reality military training is such a joke.
I think its all show to get little kids interested.
Its worthless. It looks like a terrible engine too

I lol a bit at this. Video games do not make you great at shooting guns any more than they can teach you to fly a plane or even play a guitar!

I have played a surgeon game. Does that mean I am qualified to do real surgery now?

it was small class rooms, you couldn't really miss.

Yeah, and it could just be coincidence. In most cases it really only takes one bullet to kill somebody.

Also, was Cho really a deadshot? If I remember correctly, Cho put at least 2 to 3 bullets into people, which is a far cry from the idea.

Police investigators found that Cho fired more than 170 shots during the killing spree, evidenced by technicians finding at least 17 empty magazines at the scene.

I wish i was good at counter strike.

To be honest, in that situation, you wouldn't need half a brain cell or much training. There's nothing impressive, to me anyway, about his shooting skills during the massacre. It was like shooting fish in a barrel. Someone mentioned earlier that he shot each person 2-3 times and that's pretty much true. When I saw the photos of the classrooms, I realized how really awful that had to have been. Nowhere to hide, no locks on the doors. Just sitting ducks.

Interestingly, I haven't heard much about his actual shooting skills at a firing range.

Tomb wrote:

To be honest, in that situation, you wouldn't need half a brain cell or much training. There's nothing impressive, to me anyway, about his shooting skills during the massacre. It was like shooting fish in a barrel. Someone mentioned earlier that he shot each person 2-3 times and that's pretty much true. When I saw the photos of the classrooms, I realized how really awful that had to have been. Nowhere to hide, no locks on the doors. Just sitting ducks.

Interestingly, I haven't heard much about his actual shooting skills at a firing range.

This may not be a very good comparison but Charles Whitman, a marine sharpshooter, mostly got chest shots in the U.T. Tower shootings. But I do think Cho was exceptionally good with pistols.

Don't forget the tactical reloads.
Adam lanza also used tactical reloads.

Yes, he completely trained with games! After playing enough Sonic the Hedgehog, he'd become an expert killer.

we need to ban assault children's video games before its too late!!!

I would have too say sonic the hedgehog was definitely a contributing factor

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Video games do have beneficial traits. While they may not make you a better shot, they give you abilities that would easily translate to being a better shot. People who play video games make faster decisions and have improved hand/eye coordination, among many, many other benefits.

Did Duck Hunt help me with shooting clay pigeons? I'll never know

Ascension wrote:

It is known that Cho played alot of Counter Strike

That's a myth. There wasn't a single video game found in Cho's college room, and none of his roommates recall him being a gamer. So enough of this Jack Thompson shit.

QuestionMark wrote:

Ascension wrote:

It is known that Cho played alot of Counter Strike

That's a myth. There wasn't a single video game found in Cho's college room, and none of his roommates recall him being a gamer. So enough of this Jack Thompson shit.

I've heard he played CS in high school but I haven't seen anyone confirm this so it's probably false.

Old thread but I'm gonna say that Cho never played counter strike and the anti gun media made that up.

Moordenaar wrote:

Old thread but I'm gonna say that Cho never played counter strike and the anti gun media made that up.

The articles about this say that the reporter got this information from high school acquaintances so I don't think it was completely made up by anyone with an agenda, however, the quote was reportedly removed in subsequent edits of the article because there was more relevant information available. I would guess that at the most, a reporter ran with what he believed was most likely factual information except that he did it without confirming sources and he didn't want to admit that later on so he made excuses for removing unverified information.

I'd also say that although Cho's college acquaintances never saw him play video games, he still may have played occasionally. I would bet that he was researching guns and possibly mass murders like Columbine before his own attack and no one saw him doing that so he could have been doing anything including playing games when he was alone. I do agree that it had nothing to do with his choice to engage in violence, even if he had played graphically violent games. There are other cases where gaming was much more relevant although I would not say that I know of any case where a video game had a major impact on someone's decision to inflict real life violence on others (but Eric and his Doom obsession probably come closest to that characterization and Anders Breivik's obsessive WoW playing was related to his withdrawal from real life and possibly bolstered his fantasies of being some sort of military man).

FIBAgent wrote:

we need to ban assault children's video games before its too late!!!

we didn't ban assault children's video games guys ;(