Virginia Tech Shootings.
In light of today's tragic shooting spree at Virginia Tech University, I would like to think the media will wait to gather all the necessary and relevant facts, interview key people, research the background, then do some honest reporting on what happened. But as much as I would like to think that, realistically the next two weeks are going to be absolutely unbearable as sides square off and try to use this tragedy to try to further their own agendas. The North American media is a disgrace and we are about to see a perfect example of how bad it has become.
For what it's worth, my thoughts go out to all family members and friends of the victims.
(A quick aside - How long before people somehow try to blame this on Michael and Marcus Vick, both of whom were Hokies, and their "thug" image? I say no more than 12 hours.)
posted by Skeelo @ 3:57 PM
6 Comments:
Well the Vick brothers, classy individuals that they are will come up on sports radio for sure. The real issue that you'll hear, I even heard ESPN Radio host Doug Gotleib talking about it this afternoon, is gun control.
Fact; half of this country is completely and utterly idiotic when it comes to guns. They take a 230 year old piece of the Bill of Rights as sacrosanct and try as they might, they can never understand what the founding fathers meant by it. The Fathers never envisioned mass urbanization, widespread drug use, semi and fully automatic weapons and that their amendment, which was meant to protect farmers and local militias in 18th century America, would be brutalized by powerful and corrupt interest groups.
There is a fundamental difference between America and every other 1st world country. Americans feel that owning guns and more guns add to their security. Every other civilized country understands that more guns = a greater likelihood they'll go off and kill someone. Or in the case of this country 12,000 people a year. That's four 9/11s every year for god's sake. Talk about a threat to national security? Sadly there isn't anyone in the political future of this country to take aim at this problem and that means we're only going to see more of what transpired today at Va Tech.
I'm no gun nut, but the Dawson College shooting in Montreal six months ago would not and could not have been prevented by the gun control laws we have here in Canada.
I know the details of the case are still emerging in Virginia but I don't think that gun control is necessarily the panacea that a lot of people think it is when it comes to preventing crime.
My two cents.
There is a difference between gun control and thinking that you have the right to own and carry an automatic weapon, something that could not possibly be used as a tool (as in farming or ranching).
I can't believe I'm going to say this - I agree with Diamond Joe. Well said.
In this case I agree with Hammer. Gun laws are ridiculous in the States but gun control is overplayed in the States a s a cause of crime.
And this is a mass murder not one gang banger shooting another. People are going to kill people in large number somehow, this time it was with a gun. The Unabomber and Timothy McVeigh used bombs and I don't see those situations as any different than this one.
And your damn right about Dawson College Hammer. I got into last night with a few friends who claimed guns were the problem less than twelve hours after the victims died. Nobody was bitching about lax gun laws in Canada after the Dawson College shooting. The fact is if you want a gun you are going to get hold of one regardless of where you live.
The real issue for me as I pointed out in the post was timing. To dive into the gun debate right away diminishes the death of the victims, the grief their family feels and the tragedy of it all. All it does is use their deaths as a political prop.
All good points by Hammer and the Skeelos. I think I should have replaced the words gun control with gun lifestyle. There are 200 million firearms in the USA so we're way beyond "control" here.
But I have to disagree with Skeelo's contention that dialog around guns and their affect on society diminishes the death of the victims. I think sitting idle and doing nothing to address how and why we have millions of devices that can kill en’ mass in our every day lives would diminish the victim’s lives a whole lot more. I'm in no way suggesting we go door to door and take firearms away from citizens like they did in Britain 10 years ago. However, I think asking the question, why do we feel the need to arm ourselves with these weapons, is the proper way to begin.
I didn't say asking the gun question diminishes their deaths. I said using them as a prop to make your case for or against guns does, and by people jumping into that argument right away does just that. The gun topic should be talked about but first the families should have their time to grieve, and the victims should be talked about. Putting a more human face to the argument is a better way to make your case. As it stands now nobody knows what any of the victims looked like or anything about them and I think that's a shame. That was my original point. Wait a few days before starting that debate.
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