Virginia Tech: NOT PREVENTABLE

I'll try to be brief with my comments on the events at Virginia Tech yesterday. No jokes this time. All seriousness, I promise.


I don't know what a lot of you felt when you heard about the shootings at Virginia Tech yesterday. I'm going to be completely honest: it didn't even phase me. I felt sorry for the families that had lost someone, but not much else. As the reported casualty number kept climbing throughout the afternoon, I wasn't mad. I wasn't even that shocked to be honest with you.

Am I that jaded, or is this the world we live in? Is it that I've given up most of my faith in humanity and expect these things to happen every once in a while because that's how people are? Or has this kind of thing become so commonplace that there are actually a large number of people out there like me that watched the coverage on CNN last night and thought "This doesn't surprise me."

To be entirely truthful, I did feel something else as the hours passed and new details kept rolling in. I felt annoyed. It was the kind of annoyance that came with knowing that, in an example of "Americans being Americans", this event was going to be twisted around into things that it wasn't for the benefit of people that have no right to benefit off of an event like this.

Whenever there's an event like what happened yesterday, it seems to me like it's a pure moment in the truest sense of the word. There are real feelings that are felt, and deservedly so. Grief, sadness, fright...these are real feelings that people are experiencing. But every time an event like this happens, there are people there that spoil the purity of the grief and the sadness by attempting to convince people to turn those feelings against a common enemy.

Sad that your friend/son/daughter got shot and killed? Use that sadness to write your Congressman to ask them to support a ban on violent video games.

Angry that someone could shoot up so many people so easily? Turn that anger onto the lobbyists who support the right to bear arms.

That is why I felt annoyed as I was hearing about the events of yesterday's shootings unfold. I could see it coming a mile away. The reactions and feelings of a nation are going to be recruited to 100 different causes.

I'm going to try to explain this as clearly as I can: THERE IS A 99.99999% CHANCE THAT THIS COULD NOT HAVE BEEN STOPPED. You know what the bottom line is? A student, for one reason or another, got it into his head that he was going to shoot some people. Whether he was planning on just shooting one person or if he planned to kill over 30 people from the beginning, this student made up his mind to take the lives of others. This wasn't something that happened in the heat of the moment. The fact that the classroom he shot up was chained shut leads me to believe that this was planned.

And you know what? As of right now, there is no single person/entity to blame. This is not the fault of people that support the second amendment. This is not the fault of Marilyn Manson/Ozzy Ozzbourne/Snoop Dogg. This cannot be blamed on Halo 2. Yet all of them are most likely going to receive some kind of blame, as will many other people/institutions.

The shootings at Virginia Tech were a huge event, and people are going to be coming out on both sides of a lot of issues trying to use it to catch your ear. Here's the thing: more gun control would not have stopped this shooting from happening. Less gun control would not have stopped this shooting from happening. Unless there's a timestamped videotape that surfaces of the shooter holding up 2 forms of government ID and hooked up to a polygraph saying "I am going to kill 32 people and then myself because Snoop Dogg told me to," I refuse to believe that rap/rock music had anything to do with this. Violent video games and movies had nothing to do with this shooting. Yet you are going to hear a lot of people in the next few days telling you otherwise. The first of these stories started coming out just hours after the shootings. And I'm sure it doesn't help that the student was South Korean either. I don't know about you, but I've met people in my life that will have no problem using this event as justification that we should go to war with South Korea in the near future. They may not use this event as their entire justification, but if things between the US and South Korea ever get dicey, you can bet there's going to be some people sitting at the bar watching Fox News and saying "You know who else was South Korean? That kid who shot up Virginia Tech. See? They're all evil."

The one thing I can't really comment on is how the University handled the situation. They seem to be catching some heat for not being more efficient in notifying students of the situation. I went to a college with 500 students, so I have no idea how hard it is to alert thousands of students on a massive campus of something like this.

The one issue that seems like it's going to be bigger than any other is gun control. Here's the bottom line: increased gun control would not have helped this situation. If someone makes up their mind that they want to shoot someone, they are going to get their hands on a gun one way or another. From what I've heard, the guns that the shooter used were handguns that were not very big at all, so it wasn't like security was allowing someone to walk around campus with a bazooka. You and I could have been walking next to this student down the sidewalk and not even noticed that he had a gun up his sleeve or in his pocket. I'm not saying that I'm pro-gun control or pro-2nd Amendment on this one. I'm just saying that it seems like we're all going to hear more people calling out for stricter gun control than anything else, and it probably would not have made any difference whatsoever yesterday.

33 people are dead and many more are injured, and I honestly believe that this tragedy was not preventable. I know that new facts about the case are surfacing every minute, and if facts come to light that completely make everything I've said here completely untrue, then I'll be the first to admit publicly that I was wrong. Nothing would make me happier. But I don't think that's going to happen.

This was a terrible event, and my thoughts go out to the families and friends of the deceased and wounded. I would encourage everyone to take at least a few minutes and talk to others around you about it, just to say what you think. Just don't use the events of yesterday's shootings to further your own agenda. That's probably the most respectful thing anyone can do.