This almost seems like a broken record, but there has been yet another mass shooting at a school -- this time, it's Virginia Tech. As I write these words, at least 25 are dead and perhaps as many injured. The suspected shooter is also dead. Apparently there were two separate shooting sprees about two hours apart which makes one ask why the campus wasn't locked down in the first place.
And once again, it's just a matter of time before we see the usual comments; from the NRA and Dubya saying how terrible this was but it just goes to show why everyone should have a gun on them at all times, and from gun control advocates who say this is just more proof that there should be tighter controls or even an outright ban.
A few years back, a popular television program had one of its characters -- who nearly lost his father in a workplace shooting -- say something to the effect of that everytime he heard of a shooting, the gunman felt as if he had a score to settle. In that sense, perhaps each and every one of us could be a time bomb waiting to explode. True, most of us have the common sense not to act out on those impulses but a few do.
I have long supported gun control, with the view that gun ownership should be a privilege and not a right -- and even where it is a right is one that can be taken away if one breaks the law. I also think that this is yet another lost opportunity, a case of a person who got lost in the system and didn't get the help he needed and in the end wound up going postal.
In the long run I don't know what it'll take to put an end to this kind of bloodshed. I am convinced that once again the politicos will scream at each other and blame Marilyn Manson just like they did at Columbine. When confronted with that and asked what he would tell the families, Manson famously said, "I would not say a single word. I would listen to what they had to say; and that's what no one did."
What Manson said six years ago is still relevant today. Let's not blame him. Let's blame a society that allows Slick Willy to get away with adultery while Karl Rove gets away with treason.
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1 comment:
Uh, yeah, hi, I am in CO, I was a block away from the shootings at Columbine. I also happened to have a Manson cd or two in my car at the time. So, it's not as if I am coming from nowhere on this. Manson actually said that quote in reference to what he would say to THE SHOOTERS, not the parents. In context, your quote makes more sense that way. But, it isn't really applicable here because, well, I don't think anybody cares what this guy had to say. The comparison to the two incidents don't really work on anything other than the action and the setting. I consider Harris and Klebold children. Their reasons were the typical mass killing reasons, a percieved injustice that only they could right with blood. But, they were still only children in both the legal and mental sense. This guy was by all accounts an adult. I know that by legal defintion, this line between the two is thin, but, you have to have a line. But, I have already heard the war drums of violent media sounded. Video games appear to be burdening most of it thus far. Which is ironic due to his apparent (at this time) foreign origin. Which would make any allusion to an American media problem a bit distant. Why can't "just plain crazy" be satisfiable anymore? Besides, nobody would blame Marilyn Manson on this, he's not relevant anymore. I say, this time, we blame Sanjaya Malakar.
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