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Final Thoughts: Mourning Virginia Tech
Tuesday, April 17th 2007.
On that day all the stars and stripes I’ve seen flying so proudly throughout these weeks were flying half-mast, the invisible flag of death above them all. Reactions to this senseless mass killing were varied. They included bewilderment, a quest for those responsible, or determination to move on. There weren’t many smiles around, but not too many tears either, except those of uncontrollable grief on the tragedy site. The whole nation seemed suspended between two states of mind: wanting to dwell and wanting to move on. And they resolve bravely to move on, albeit probably not learning enough.
This is not an issue of repealing the right to bear arms or suspecting foreigners. These acts of folly are inexplicable and unpredictable, to the degree that warning signs as reported throughout the youngster’s school career were not paid attention to. Who could imagine he was a ticking time bomb?
But leaving aside the grief and shock, what I saw in the country gave me confidence for the future. Like a phoenix, Americans’ spirit rises more vigorous than before from the ashes of tragedies that would indelibly mark the spirit of any other nation. As it is closed in mourning, America ponders and decides to move on. After 23 days, 5 cities visited and 1800 miles travelled by bus through the US and Canada I dedicate my last report to the students of Virginia Tech, and I leave with a mixed feeling of sadness and admiration.
Sadness for the knowledge that tragedy always strikes those who least deserve it, and sadness for the seemingly trendy self-deprecation I notice in news reports, blaming the society for being a breeding ground for such madness. But the strength of America and its resolve to move on instil a sense of admiration, and a feeling of pride for sharing the same key values that make our nations strong.
To paraphrase the words uttered at the beginning of the vigil for Virginia Tech: “We are probably better than we think, but not as good as we want to be”.
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April 18th, 2007 at 5:34 pm
I would have to disagree with you to a certain extent - it is all about America’s gun laws. The young chap who did the killings managed to aquire a firearm despite having received mental care in 2005 - if they had proper background checks and stricter gun laws then this and other similar incidents would be far less likely.
April 18th, 2007 at 11:24 pm
Its not the gun law that is wrong, although I disagree with it. Background checks should include (with good peace of my privacy advocacy) any reported behaviour and any mental care received. These data are utterly confidential or spurious. Who’d trust a mere report on suspicious writings? We’d be running Stasi-like snitching policies.
This is a conflict between the right to bear arms and the right to privacy at all costs. It is a trade-off: either we don’t allow to sell firearms so easily, or we allow background checks to access all data of a prospective gun owner, including mental health records, reports to authorities that weren’t pursued et cetera. What next, political orientation?
To be honest I can see another rift between North and South on this issue: The North would favour less guns and more privacy, the Southerners would give anything for their shotguns.
We’re talking about a potential constitution amendment (repealing the Second Amendment), which needs 4/5 of the states to consent. State laws regarding gun purchase can be tightened, but inconsistencies in the national framework would make most efforts to curb gun purchases by nutters futile.
As I see it there’s no chance of any change in the national laws regarding guns purchase, therefore we must focus on the causes and prevention rather than the tools used to carry out such massacres.
April 20th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
It’s nothing like a rift between North and South. The staunchest pro-gun states aren’t in the south, but in New England. That’s why it’s called ‘Vermont carry’: because Vermont has no laws whatsoever against the possession of firearms in public. By comparison, five of the seven states (AR, FL, OK, SC, TX; IL and NY being the others) that make open carry illegal are in the South.
The fact is that the Second Amendment does nothing to encourage murder. Take the case of the one part of the United States not covered by the Second Amendment: Washington D.C. The District is not a state, but a federal territory. Hence, as it is not a “free state”, it doesn’t need a militia, so has been ruled to be unaffected by the 2nd amendment.
As a result, the federal government has slapped a complete ban on the ownership or possession of firearms by civilians. Fewer murders, you’d think? Not by a long shot. Washington has BY FAR the highest murder rate in the USA; at 36 murders per 100,000 people, it’s over 3.5 times that of the most murderous state (which is Louisiana: a state with very tight gun laws, in line with the rest of the Deep South).
The problem is quite obvious. Career criminals don’t care if they commit crimes. Anyone that has decided that he’s going to go on a murderous rampage isn’t really going to give a damn if it’s illegal for him to own a gun (as it would have been had he lived in DC or in the UK). The only people that it penalises are the law-abiding citizens that wish to protect themselves.
One could imagine the Virginia Tech campus as a microcosm of DC or the UK: guns were prohibited, yet those that want to murder will smuggle guns in illegally, no matter what. However, because the rest were prevented from carrying firearms to stop his rampage, they were left at Cho’s mercy, or lack thereof. That is the reason that the Virginia Tech massacre was the worst in US history, and also the reason that Washington DC is the most violent city in the Western World. An armed citizenry is a safe citizenry, which is exactly why the citizens of the rest of the United States - whether in the North or the South - are happy to have their Second Amendment rights.
April 20th, 2007 at 5:05 pm
Oh, and a constitutional amendment takes 3/4 of the states, not 4/5, but that’s a technicality and relatively moot. No American politician is seriously considering proposing a change to the Second Amendment. If anything, this causes states to decriminalise and deregulate firearm possession for the law-abiding citizen.