On Insensitivity: Reaction to the Virginia Tech Shooting

“Real men do not read anything other than GUNS AND AMMO, SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, or SHAVED BEAVER.”
--Dennis Leary

In light of the recent shooting on the Virginia Tech campus, I am hesitant to post this out of fear of being a hypocrite. I am afraid that my displeasure with the response of our Nation to this tragedy has gotten me to fall in step with the rest of my insensitive brothers, talk show hosts, and political figures.

On a message board that I can often be found lurking, and occasionally posting, I made a simple post on the incident that took place. I said:
“My heart goes out to the families and friends of these thirty some people.
I don’t even know what to say.”

This is entirely true. What can you say? The New York Times describes the event as “the deadliest shooting rampage in American history and came nearly eight years to the day after 13 people died at Columbine High School in Colorado at the hands of two disaffected students who then killed themselves.”

Thirty-two people lost their lives.
Thirty-two families lost children, brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, cousins, aunts, uncles...
Thirty-two families are irreversibly changed.
Thirty-two families will never be whole again.

This is how one message board responded:

“I'm not sure why a supposedly intelligent individual would resort to an action like this, but I guarantee that it will be blamed on lack of gun control.......”

“That said, I have very good control over my own gun. I don't need anyone else, particularly big brother, telling me that I can or cannot have one.”

“I have excellent gun control....I always hit what I aim at.”

Thank God for Real Men like these.
Without them to cheapen the loss of these families by yucking it up about their gun-given power, this would not be America. If this mentality ruled the nation, there would be a perfect Utopia.
Why if only everyone had guns, there would be no more violence in this Country. If only everyone had guns there would be no more poverty or hunger. There would be no more rape, no more incest, no more child abuse, no more unemployment... The only problem this many guns would be unable to solve is the epidemic of impotence that would be sure to follow in the wake of such a high power need. After all these Charlton Heston clones have to be compensating for something...
Like Stacey Keach said in his role as Ken Titus: “We dont need guns son, the men in our family have penises.”

Of course it wasn’t limited to the insensitive remarks of these Macho guys. Alan Colmes was found discussing gun control pros and cons the following evening on his Fox radio show, as was Laura Ingram. I am sure that there was tireless banter on the subject all over The airways, but I just couldnt listen. I shouldnt be surprised. In a recent article, Charles Krauthammer said it very well:
“What can be said about the Virginia Tech massacre? Very little. What should be said? Even less. The lives of 32 innocents, chosen randomly and without purpose, are extinguished most brutally by a deeply disturbed gunman. With an event such as this, consisting of nothing but suffering and tragedy, the only important questions are those of theodicy, of divine justice. Unfortunately, in today's supercharged political atmosphere, there is the inevitable rush to get ideological mileage out of the carnage.” For full article see http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/04/obama_turns_tragedy_into_polit.html.

It isn’t just the right side of the political fence either as I mentioned. All of the John Waynes in this country had their moment to say stupid things: “If just one or two people had been armed this Cho would have been stopped(Not taking into consideration the fact that just as many people could have been killed in a crossfire).” But even presidential hopefulls from the left were not immune to idiocy.

Barak Obama proved his mental impairment by stating “There's also another kind of violence though that we're gonna have to think about. It's not necessarily physical violence but that the violence that we perpetrate on each other in other ways. Last week, the big news, obviously, had to do with Imus and the verbal violence that was directed at young women who were role models for all of us, role models for my daughter.”
In context, these comments make a little more sense. However context or not, the fact that Obama can compare a 60 year-old shock jock calling the Rutger’s Women’s basketball team “nappy headed hos” to thirty two individuals being slaughtered like animals is astonishing. No... Idiocy and insensitivity in America knows no bounds.

To all you gun advocates; Give it a rest when you are in a venue that is discussing lives lost to gun violence. Your John Wayne mentality is charming, in a short-sighted, selfish, hammer-for-every-job lind of way. But it isn’t welcome or warranted in places where loss weighs heavier than political rhetoric. And before you jump knee deep in my sh*t about being some pinko commie scumbag, know that I am licensed to carry concealed weapons in several states. I have carried on and off the job, and am surgical with my weapon of choice—a quality 1911. There is a time and a place for everything... and pro gun talk in a forum to process or offer condolences to shooting victims is not one of them.

To all the rest of you insensitive clods who find it necessary to preach the values of no guns in our society—give this a rest too. Those of you who don’t believe that guns have a place in our country need to remember that no amount of laws or control measures will keep an unstable person from committing a horrible act. Cho would have made pipe bombs if he had been unable to obtain firearms. For chrissake he would have brought a chainsaw to class that day if he had to. Don’t delude yourselves. If someone wants to hurt you badly enough... make no mistake, he will.

Since this is my forum for putting things out there I will tell you all what I feel is more important than the pro or con side of gun control: To remember what happened, and who it happened to.

Ross Abdallah Alameddine, 20 years old.
Christopher James Bishop, 35 year old language instructor.
Brian Roy Bluhm, 25 years old.
Ryan Christopher Clark, 22 years old.
Austin Michelle Cloyd, 18 years old.
Jocelyne Couture-Nowak, adjunct foreign languages instructor. Daniel Alejandro Perez Cueva, 21 years old.
Kevin P. Granata, 45 year old engineering science professor.
Caitlin Millar Hammaren, 19 years old.
Jeremy Michael Herbstritt, 27 years old.
Rachael Elizabeth Hill, 18 years old.
Emily Jane Hilscher, 19 years old.
Jarrett Lee Lane, 22 years old.
Matthew Joseph La Porte, 20 years old.
Henry J. Lee, also known as Henh Ly, 20 years old.
Liviu Librescu, 76 year old holocaust survivor.
G.V. Loganathan, 51 year old environmental engineering professor.
Partahi Mamora Halomoan Lumbantoruan, 34, of Indonesia.
Lauren Ashley McCain, 20 years old.
Daniel Patrick O'Neil, 22 years old.
Juan Ramon Ortiz, 26 years old.
Minal Hiralal Panchal, 26 years old.
Erin Nicole Peterson, 18 years old.
Michael Steven Pohle Jr., 23 years old.
Julia Kathleen Pryde, 23 years old.
Mary Karen Read, 19 years old.
Reema Joseph Samaha, 18 years old.
Waleed Mohammed Shaalan, 32, doctoral student from Zagazig, Egypt.
Leslie Geraldine Sherman, sophomore history major and member of the honors program.
Maxine Shelly Turner, 22 years old.
Nicole White, 20 years old.

I think that these people and their families would rather have back what was taken, than pointless and insensitive discussion about what “could have happened if only...”

To those families I can honestly say I feel your pain.
My thoughts and prayers are with you.