Tragedy to Politics:

The events that occurred Monday morning in Blacksburg, Virginia are absolutely terrible. So terrible that I thought we, as a country, would at least have some respect for those whose lives were taken for at least several days before the politicizing of this tragedy occurred. Like so many times when I give humanity the benefit of the doubt, I was dead wrong. Just hours after the shootings, while bodies are still laying in dorm rooms, the blame game began. Everyone is to blame of course, violent video games, gun control laws, lack of metal detectors in schools, our decaying morality, and probably even global warming.

The finger pointing began at noon for me when I tuned to my “favorite” pundit Rush “Rx” Limbaugh. As the first hour of information and solace passed, it flew into a blame game. First on the chopping block were violent video games. Clearly the millions and millions of college students around the country who have played a “violent video game” (this definition probably involves everything other than Bible Adventure) and not shot up a school are clearly in the minority. Then our declining social and moral fabric was under attack and before I could have an aneurism, I tuned out. On CNN later that day people were appalled over the lack of oversight in our gun control laws and demanded more security at schools including metal detectors.

What everyone in the country needs to realize is that this was a tragedy involving an extremely troubled individual. The human brain is so complex that the possibility of just “snapping” exists within all of us and just the descriptions of how he went from classroom to classroom shooting people clearly indicates that he snapped and had extreme psychological and emotional problems. Would gun control laws have prevented this? Honestly? No. Someone who is that “prepared” for what he was going to do would have went to the black market if gun control laws were more strict and what do you think would have been right beside a 9mm or a shotgun on the black market? I would guess the world’s favorite gun, the AK-47, or maybe even an Uzi which would have caused much more damage. What about metal detectors? As described, this man was locking people in buildings to up his horrific tally so what would a beeping wall done to him? I would guess, make him shoot any security guard and walk through and carry out his plan.

We are always quick to blame situations and circumstances when usually the easiest explanation, although providing no comfort in this case, is usually the correct one. The young man clearly just snapped. The scale of his act suggests that little protective action could have prevented something so chaotic and barbaric. In this day and age of polarized politics, people are so corrupt and immoral that they jump on this and try and spin it to their advantage when we really should just be thinking about the families involved. It happened, now we need to cope with it, not blame everything under the sun besides the person who did it which is where all the blame needs to lie.