Seung Hui Cho, a 23-year-old South Korean national and U.S. legal resident, was found dead on the campus of Virginia Tech on April 16, 2007 after going on a shooting spree that reduced the population of this college by 33 students.



Many gun and anti-gun advocates would agree that such a crime should not have happened. Some question how the assailant was able to obtain a firearm if he is not legal to vote in a country that gave him only a green card, a status signifying a halfway point between illegal status and full-fledged American.

Immigrants who are walking on the road to U.S. citizenship are awarded some privileges as they seek to become naturalized citizens. Some of those privileges include getting financial aid to attend college, getting a social security number, being allowed to work a regular job, and buying a firearm. Buying a firearm??

Yet these same individuals are not allowed to vote in the U.S. Voting is a right allowed for all Americans as well as buying and keeping a firearm. How is it that federal law bars Mr. Cho from voting for the next president but allows him to purchase a deadly weapon in order to go on a shooting rampage? Something is not right here.

Given his previous history of mental compromise, he should not have been able to walk into a gun shop and take home two semi-automatic pistols. The application to buy a firearm should read "You must be a U.S. citizen" instead of "You must be a U.S. citizen or legal resident."

It is my humble opinion that only Americans should be allowed to purchase firearms for the protection of themselves and their families. Legal residents are still learning the laws required to take the U.S. citizenship exam. I do not think those laws cover firearms as of yet.

Again, the question is why is Mr. Cho allowed to buy a firearm? What would be going on in peoples' minds if Iraqi citizens with U.S. legal residency walked into a gun shop and bought thirty AK-47 assault rifles? There should be cause for concern there. This definitely would raise red flags on my part. What would they be doing with these weapons?

Being an advocate for immigrants' right to seek U.S. citizenship, I think there are more important things that immigrants should be concerned about than buying firearms. I think that their quest for U.S. citizenship should be foremost on immigrants' minds than buying a gun especially in Cho's case.

The Constitution needs to be amended to exclude firearms purchases from legal residents whom we are not sure will become U.S. citizens.

Not legal to vote, but legal to buy a gun. How silly is this?