Why Everyone Is Asking The Wrong Questions About Virginia Tech…
I really don’t like to listen to bad news unless I need to to know facts to keep myself and my family safe. If there’s a hurricane out in the Atlantic and I’m in a house on the coast, I want to know all the details–where it is, how strong it is, when is it going to make landfall.
I’ve tried not to listen to broadcasts about Cho Seung-Hui, the assassin at Virginia Tech. The story has gotten to me anyway. What strikes me about the media coverage is how they basically keep asking the question–how could this have been avoided? How can it be avoided in the future?
The answer is it couldn’t have been avoided, but so many lives did not have to be lost. Let me explain.
You can’t protect yourself from random violence. Somebody pulls out a .45 in traffic and starts shooting and you get hit, even though you’re three lanes over. Is there anything you could have done? Other than reading the future, no.
There have been times in the past when meteorites have hit the earth causing a great deal of devastation. Some even believe that’s what killed the dinosaurs. How can you avoid something like that? Look up a lot when you’re outside? Run fast when you see an object approaching at an incredibly high speed from space?
Bad things happen to everyone. It’s just the laws of statistics.
That said, is there anything that could realistically have been changed that would have affected the outcome at Virginia Tech?
All this finger pointing at this kid’s English teacher and the school psychologist isn’t helping. The English teacher did her job. She was sensitive to Cho’s troubled writings and sent him to counseling. Psychology is part science, part art. What? Are we going to lock up every stressed out college kid? Yours truly would have been locked up.
We all seems to think there is some magic solution, some entity that should have caught this–the government, or the school.
At times of crisis, it’s pathetic how we look around to see which of our institutions failed us. A huge hurricane hits New Orleans; it’s George Bush’s fault. Lack of rain causes crops to fail; it’s global warming (George Bush’s fault). Some neo-Nazi genetic reject blows up a building in downtown Oklahoma City; it’s got to be someone’s fault other than the perp’s. The FBI let us down.
Cradle to grave security is not possible. That’s just another name for slavery–err, socialism.
Our country, our way of life, was predicated on the power of the individual. (Notice, I used the past tense.) This idea goes all the way back to the American Revolution–before that, actually, to the Magna Carta.
The basic argument of the Declaration of Independence is that individuals (not nations) have unalienable rights and power. The proper roll of government should be to aid the individual in protecting and using these rights. The foundation of our very way of life puts the burden of responsibility squarely on the shoulders of the individual. This only marginally reflects how many Americans approach life today.
Today we are supposed to be take care of. Children need taking care of! Coddle adults and you ruin them.
Human nature is molded by experience, but it’s annealed by hardship.
Like our forefathers, we must return to looking no further than ourselves when we look for someone or some institution to save us.
What would have saved at least half of the students at Virginia Tech would have been an armed student.
A student with a gun, who knew how to shoot, could have disposed of Cho before he had the chance to shatter the lives of so many.
A student with a tactical knife could have at least cut Cho, maybe killing him, maybe just stopping him.
Heck, a student with a small can of OC spray could have stopped Cho right in his tracks.
I detest violence. I detest the people who cause it. Once unleashed, however, it’s often counter-violence that puts the evil genie back in the bottle.
I can hear it now…You can’t stop hate with hate! Cho’s shooting spree wasn’t exactly hate–it was sickness. Protecting yourself and those you love is not an act of hate, either. Ultimately, it is an act of love…for the ones you’re protecting!
Vaya con Dios!
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April 20th, 2007 at 11:19 pm
OK, I’ll bite.
With the “what it” scenarios you mentioned that would have affected the outcome, you didn’t mention one - what if, because of a collective decision made by society, Cho did not have easy access to firearms to begin with? I do agree that sometimes strong acts must be taken to prevent more harm from coming to others, and I agree that such would be an act of love. But I’m not sure if arming everyone is the way to go.
April 21st, 2007 at 10:39 am
Chris, you’re alluding to one of the truly “big” questions. It’s in the bible. Jesus says “turn the other cheek,” whereas earlier it’s “the sword of the Lord and the sword of Gideon!” Although people do, you can’t say that Jesus reformed the old testament, because he said that he didn’t. Now that I’m writing this reply, I’m realizing that a real reply, which your comment deserves, will really take another post. I’ll work on that today. Hopefully, I’ll have it posted by tomorrow! As usual, very thought provoking comment. Thanks!
April 28th, 2007 at 12:05 am
Cho had at least two English professors, and you can read the work of one of them here: http://www.aavw.org/special_features/pofidr_poetry_gio
vanni.html
According to Newsweek, she is now claiming that she went to just about everyone to get help for Cho. The police dispute that, however, and say she told them she was trying to “take him under her wing.” This, despite the fact that she has also said Cho was “mean” and that when she heard about the shootings her first thought was that she would be surprised if it was someone *other* than Cho. I think I’m inclined to believe the police, rather than Giovanni.
I don’t disagree with your larger point here, Lee, but I don’t think the adults who had the most contact with Cho did anywhere near as much as they could have.
April 28th, 2007 at 1:37 am
Wolf, Thanks for the comment. I know Nikki Giovanni as a poet, but I had no idea that she was a professor at Virginia Tech. I would very likely agree that the adults did not do as much as they could have. I would reiterate that often adults don’t do what they are supposed to. Sometimes the police don’t come. The Feds can’t always save us from every thunderstorm that happens our way. We need to get back to the point where we as individuals see our lives and the lives of those around us as our responsibility, not some government institution’s. Thanks so much, Wolf! I was in a sort of writerly funk. I do believe, however, that I’m baaack!