Free Will and Virginia Tech

Is there any point in adding to the explanatory mix for the Virginia Tech massacre a collapse in moral responsibility?

I believe that the answer is: yes. Elsewhere on this website, I have written on the question of free will, decisively afirming that it does exist and it is axiomatic to understanding ourselves, ethics, and law. To put it in the negative, I reject as morally suspect and emperically unjustifiable theories that affirm predestination, kismet, fate, astrology, behavorism, and the like.

In the case of Seung-Hui Cho, I'm willing to concede that his actions were the confluence of forces that he and we cannot comprehend. But there is a point where background forces stop and individual choices begin. In the case of this incident, moral responsibility doesn't merely rest with the shooter. From his own admissions, he had self-awareness, enough so as to prevent this tragedy from unfolding. And the same is true with other actors in this drama-- the police and judges, the psychologists and counselors, teachers and students, legislators and citizens. The confluence of countless decisions converged to produce an immoral act.