Didn't We Learn From Columbine?

First off, my heart goes out to the entire University of Virginia Tech. I actually got accepted to the school about four years ago and if it hadn't been for the drastic difference in tuition price between they and an inner-state school, I would've headed off to Blacksburg for my Bachelor's.

Since the gunman is deceased, we now have this obsession of putting on our CSI glasses and finding out the whys, the hows, and where the blame should be spread. Should the president of the University have handled things differently? Security? Should the gunman have been sent for some aid following some violent and vulgar writings in a creative writing course?

I'm not going to lay blame down right now. Would I have handled things differently if I was the president of the school? Yes, but until we're put in that situation for ourselves, it's all speculatory. We can think and talk all we want to about how we would handle a certain situation, but until we're put into that predicament, we ultimately don't genuinely know how we would go about it.

One question I do have is, why weren't classes canceled following the first shooting and death on campus? A friend of mine called me extreme for saying that yesterday. How is that extreme? I can guarantee anyone that if a student shot and killed another on campus at any University around here, classes would be canceled for at least that day. We cancel classes due to inclement weather, which may or may not cause accidents. We cancel classes due to threats, where nobody is killed or even harmed. So, why then are classes not canceled after a student is murdered by another? That doesn't make an inkling of sense to me. Extreme? Would it be extreme to cancel work for the day if a co-worker was shot and killed by a would-be robber? No. In fact, it'd be mandatory, as the police would need to interview witnesses and conduct an investigation.

But, enough of that. I read this gunman's (no, I will not mention his name) writings last night. They were violent and vulgar and if I was the teacher, I would've had spoken to him about the material, just as I would for every student of mine. If during the conversation, he truly struck me as a person who wasn't just writing for shock value and I became fear-stricken just to be in his presence, then I would send him to counseling and alert the school authorities, to inquire on what should be done about it. But, I'm not going to assume that Steven King is capable of such a massacre because of some of his writing material. I'm not going to assume that John Malkovich is capable because of the character he played in the film, "In the Line of Fire". Because the killer is dead, we're trying as hard as humanly possible to find out why it happened, what could have been done to prevent it, what can be done to limit such occurrences in the future, and who all we can blame. Look at any kind of art, there are going to be controversies, oddities, violence, obscenities, etc. It'd be ignorant on our part to be wary of all artists because of this fact. Remember the show, "Everybody Loves Raymond"? I remember in one episode, Ray and Debra's child, Michael, shared a story he wrote at an open house. The story centered around a boy and his troubled and verbally-abusive family. Because of this, his teacher spoke to Ray and Debra about the story and kept asking what may have provoked it. They then went to a parenting class, were told how to and how not to go about things with Michael and their other children. Just in the end, do we find out that the true influence of the story wasn't Michael's actual family, but something he had seen on television. So, what were the gunman's influences for his stories? We will probably never know. Either way, we can't sit here, read his stories and tell ourselves, "Gosh, they should've known! That was the warning right there!" If he wasn't the gunman, we wouldn't have even known about the stories. If it was someone else who conducted the same abhorrent acts, we'd scrounge around into his past to find SOMETHING there, ANYTHING to which we could point to, scapegoat, and say, "You see? That right there tells you something."

Didn't we learn anything from Columbine? The media obsessed over the school shooting and what was the result? Miserable kids in school had idols. The two boys were given more than their fifteen minutes of desired fame. They were given weeks of it. This gave similar-minded kids weeks of seeing their new-found heroes on television and in the tabloids. What resulted? More school shootings. Just a day following the masscare in Blacksburg, the University of Texas at Austin received a bomb threat. Coincidence? I think not. The media obsession may even be worse this time around, because it's "the worst shooting spree in American history." Yeah, that doesn't give like-minded individuals something to shoot for, does it?

The media's non-stop obsession over the school shooting put things into an even greater perspective. Thirty-three people died as a result of the shootings in Blacksburg this week. Countless more have perished overseas this week, yet, I hardly hear a peep about them. The proximity of deaths seems to be an unfortunate factor for most people. If the incident and death(s) occurs within this country, it's front-page news material. If the incident and death(s) occur overseas, they become nothing more than statistics. No life, whether they're a victim of the school shooting in Blacksburg or by a bomb overseas, should be treated as a number.