As a Virginia resident, I feel obliged to comment immediately on today’s shooting at Virginia Tech – a university with a student population of over 26,000. Because everyone in the Washington Metro Area, including the president of the United States, is in shock after learning that a lone gunman opened fire this morning in a dorm and classroom – killing (at least) 32, wounding dozens more, and then killing himself.This massacre now has the dubious distinction of being the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.
But I entreat you to ignore pundits who seize on this tragedy to denounce gun laws which allow so many evidently crazy people to get their hands on all kinds of deadly weapons. And ignore also the reflexive calls by partisan commentators – invariably citing Columbine – for specious security measures, including airport-style metal detectors, to protect students from gun violence.
That said, let me hasten to disclose that I fully support strict gun-control laws. Nevertheless, I am convinced that no laws can prevent these kinds of human tragedies. In fact, incidents like this bring into stark relief that it’s not guns, but insane and troubled people – with motives no one can possibly anticipate or comprehend – who commit murders. And, incidentally, the very notion of outlawing all guns in America is even more (prohibitively) absurd than the notion of repatriating all illegal immigrants living here.
Therefore, let us look to psychologists to help us understand what triggers such psychotic human behavior; not to politicians to legislate against it.
Accordingly, my thoughts and prayers go out to the family and friends of those affected. Indeed, the sentiments of Virginia Tech president Charles Steger convey almost all that seems appropriate to say under the circumstances:
Today the university was struck with a tragedy that we consider of monumental proportions. The university is shocked and indeed horrified.
NOTE: Reports are that the twenty-something gunman went on this rampage – using two perfectly-legal handguns – after a dispute with his girlfriend. Meanwhile I find it ironic, if not instructive, that legions of Robocops always linger about scenes like this – long after the fact – with their useless big guns cocked and loaded….
*Originally published yesterday at 4:17 pm
Related Articles:
Recent history of school shootings in America
Virginia Tech massacre
Bronwyn says
Disarming helpless people from those who would take up arms to murder them, results in more dead people.
However, perhaps it’s time to secure these institutions with able-bodied protectors.
In addition, perhaps it’s also time that people study self-preservation techniques as vigorously as they are taught the ways of high-minded men.
After all, self-preservation is nothing unknown in the historical education of our forefathers.
My sincerest prayers and condolences to the families and friends of those victimized in this unconscionable tragedy. May God be an ever-protective presence; even in the places they have forbidden His name.
Lori says
I am once again amazed that the media has choosen to blame the campus police and administration for what one madman did. All of the talking heads have said the police did not respond in time and should have locked down the campus. My question, were do they think the police should have told 26,000 people to go? When they did not know where the gunman was, should they have told everyone to stay lock in the buildings? And what about all of the students walking to class, where should they have been told to go? And the gunman, where do they think he was and what would he have done when told by public address to stay inside? Would we have then blamed the police for telling students to stay locked inside with a madman?
Why didn’t a campus full of students notice a person walking around with a vest and weapons?
Instead of blaming the police and administration, why not blame the students who lived in his dorm for not reporting the fact that the gunman was a loner and quiet? Why not blame the professors for not reporting the gunman was odd? What would be done if a fellow student said this man was very quiet and keep to himself? Nothing! Let’s blame his family for not knowing their son was about to commit mass murder? What could they have done, reported their son was odd? What would have been done? Nothing!
Better yet lets blame the gunman. This man took it upon himself to buy 2 guns and kill as many people as he could. Was he crazy, depressed, angery? Probable all of the above. Should someone be held accountable for this man’s behavior? Yes, the gunman.
We do not want to admit horrible things happen and we can not stop them, no matter how prepared we are. We always look back and blame someone for not acting sooner because that means we have the power to stop one madman from committing mass murder, but we don’t. Had we known this person was strange, quiet, a loner, or even that he bought guns we would not have locked him up, had we, the public outcry for doing so would be heard around the world.
We have become a society that blames everyone for what they could have done instead of the person who committed the crime. We try to understand why a person would do something like this, when the truth is we can’t. Everyone has been depressed, felt slighted, or had their heart broken, that does not explain why a person would choose mass murder.
Let’s try to stop assigning blame to everyone one and focus on how to help the families, student faculty, administration and police deal with this unspeakable crime.
ALH ipinions says
Amen.
Thank you Lori.
Bronwyn says
Lori, you wrote: “We do not want to admit horrible things happen and we can not stop them, no matter how prepared we are.”
Do you believe these kids were prepared? I don’t. I believe if they were, less or none would be dead. Therein lies the problem. I sincerely don’t believe we teach our children to be able to react to the worst.
This was the worst and 32 people died at the hands of one person who could have been bulldozed by a group of 2 or more, if they were prepared.
I guess I disagree with both of you then in that we can stop madmen on a rampage if we’re only prepared to handle it. However, the school systems DISCOURAGE handling violence and that happens to be a fact.
My son is in the 4th grade public school system. If he retaliates physically against a physical threat, he is equally punished. That’s a sad FACT. They start them young in that education with absolutely zero education in self-defense.
I will continue to fight that mindset and prepare my own for the worst. If the school systems or anyone else doesn’t like it, too bad.
ALH ipinions says
Bronwyn
I sympathize with your outrage. But how would you have prepared these students to “handle” this rampage? Arm them all with concealed weapons?
Bronwyn says
No, I certainly don’t live every moment with a weapon in tow and I wouldn’t expect anyone else to.
What I’m referring to, and hopefully letting people be aware of if they are not, is that the public school systems have adopted a zero tolerance for any type of violence whatsoever, including self-defense, since they lump that into the same category.
Last year my son was assaulted on school grounds. That was 3rd grade we’re talking about — in a prominent school system no less. He defended himself and as a result, was punished equally with his attacker, by the school. However, he suffered no injuries as a result of his defensive upbringing.
This year my son was assaulted again. He stood there and took it as per school policy, yelling for help instead of helping himself as the school insisted. Well, help didn’t come but it incited no less then FIVE other boys to join in. He almost suffocated to death as a result. While the school was emphatically apologetic, it did nothing to stifle my outrage.
My outrage is NOT in, “Where were the teachers or supervision?” or “Where did the assaulter obtain the weapon to attack?”. My outrage is in my son being taught to do nothing, over my own advice and knowing that it was this confusion and hesitation to defend himself, that put him in a defenseless situation.
Had he been left to follow my guidance, it would have never happened, or wouldn’t have reached that pinnacle, because he would have been free psychologically to prepare himself physically. Not only that, but his confident demeanor would have put clear hesitation into the attacker.
I am bringing to your attention the fact that these are the rulesets of our early education systems in this country. I encourage you to ask around.
When one person can walk into a school of thousands and kill 32 people before ending his own life, I believe it’s because panic prevailed in the victims instead of an educated understanding of how to protect themselves.
I agree with you that the further controlling of guns is not the answer. Guns, registered or not, will always continue to exist as much as any other weapon and madmen will continue to use them. However, there are numerous self-defense techniques that can save your life against guns and other forms of malicious violence.
Instead of educating our young to leave self-preservation as the responsibility of someone else, let us be free to teach our young that self-preservation is a personal responsibility and give them the tools needed to secure it.
No, we will never stop every senseless killing. But we can stop massacres such as this if we teach these young people what to expect and how to react, along with a heavy dose of morals and values, starting from their impressionable years, instead of what the systems have been ordering today.
I’d love to be the first one to preach peace, love and kumbaya around the campfire. Unfortunately, we don’t live in such a world.
Bronwyn says
Hey Anthony!
Someone is either reading these thoughts (unlikely but you never know) or they’ve simply come to the same conclusion.
See: http://www.foxnews.com/index.html#
Scroll down to Neil Cavuto and play the Confronting Evil Video: Did the VT massacre happen because young Americans are unwilling to confront evil?
In part: “I think clearly that when one man is able to kill dozens of people in the same location over a period of several hours, that reflects a systemic failure. So we need to understand what caused that failure.
I think part of the problem is the general culture of passivity which Virginia Tech exemplifies.
If you look at its disruptive behavior manual, for example, it tells you you should never confront people. It tells you if someone produces a weapon, that you should ask them to calmly put the weapon in a nuetral position and then advise them that violent behavior will have consequences.”
————-
That’s what I’m talking about! That’s what is NOT being said and needs to be looked into; the policies these systems are imposing on our endoctrinated children, starting them from very young ages, and we wonder WHY stuff like this happens.
Please review this video and contemplate this perspective further.
Thank you.