Sunday, April 22, 2007
Virginia Tech mass murderer’s eBay account
It turns out Seung-Hui Cho bought ammunition clips for one of his two handguns on eBay. Clips he undoubtedly used the day he killed 32 unarmed people at Virginia Tech. On eBay he went by the user name blazers5505. He had a feedback rating of 64.
He also used the email address of “Blazers5505@hotmail.com”.
Looking at this eBay history, be both bought and sold on eBay. He recently sold two tickets to the Peach Bowl. It looks as though he sold tickets to other Virginia Tech sporting events too. He recently sold two tickets to a Virginia Tech Hokies vs Coppin State Eagles basketball game.
He also sold a Texas Instruments TI-83 Plus scientific calculator. He claimed that it was barely used because he dropped the class he needed it for.
He also sold textbooks on Half.com which is owned by eBay. His current seller page shows that he is “on vacation”. Yes, in Hell. Past books he sold include Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film by Carol J. Clover and The Best of H. P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre.
Is that how he got money to buy both guns and ammo? By selling junk on eBay? He didn’t have a job. His parents don’t seem to be very well off.
I’ve wondered since the day of the massacre how he was able to buy handguns. Not because of his apparent mental problems. How did he come up with the money? Often the price of a gun alone keeps them out of the hands of people that have no business owning them. Like Seung-Hui Cho. How did he get a credit card with enough available credit to purchase expensive, top-end firearms? He had no job or any other source of income. The guns he purchased were not cheap pieces of junk.
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if he worked at The Gap, would that make you feel any better? what’s the problem here? why is this worth blogging about?
The only answer to this problem is incentives for gun makers to limit their output and track their guns and for some sort of liscensing and safety program to be put into place. We need liscenses for cars and boats, why not guns?
Feel better? That’s not the point. How does a person with no income have the money to not only buy one, but two expensive high-end handguns? The reason so called Saturday Night Specials were made illegal was that since they were so cheap, the wrong people were able to easily get their hands on them. The cost alone is a barrier that keeps guns out of the wrong hands.
You don’t need a license to purchase or to drive a car. Granted, it’s illegal to operate a motor vehicle without a license, but so is murdering 32 people.
You really think Seung-Hui Cho could have been stopped with a gun safety course?
my main questions is why is it relevant that he got money from ebay?
in response to your question abou the safety course….it doesn’t matter what i think about if i think such and such would have stopped Cho, as it’s already happened. If one were in place, then maybe he could have been stopped but I think he would have found a way to get whatever he needed to to start killing people in mass amounts (weather it be guns, knives, fertilizer, flares, or an Istar Marathon).
It’s not up to us to debate weather Cho could or could not have been stopped, it is up to us to figure out where to go from here.
His source of money is relevant because people generally need a source of income to purchase things. Like fancy handguns and hallow point bullets. This guy was able to spend a large amount of money with seemingly no source of revenue.
so are we to be mad at ebay? what’s the call to action here?
I gotta agree with Luke; eBay is scott-free here, unless it could somehow be proved that he bought the guns or ammo in an online auction. eBay wasn’t his SOURCE of money, just an intermediary for the sales he held online. We wouldn’t demand retribution on the local newspaper if he had sold things by placing ads in the Sunday edition. Nobody’s THAT liberal. Plus, of course eBay couldn’t have any idea where his earnings would go. I’m making a big assumption here, but I doubt any of his feedback comments read: “Bobble-head doll arrived promptly, seller didn’t kill me, thanks A++++++”
No! I don’t mean to imply that eBay is in anyway culpable in this. I just don’t understand how he was able to buy so much stuff when he seemingly had no source of income.
Maybe he held Tupperware parties.
See above comment. Maybe he sold drugs? Maybe he stole money? Maybe he donated plasma? Maybe he mowed lawns? Why does it matter WHERE the money came from?
@Joe Blo: Maybe he was pimping out your sister.
That’s good work if you can get it.