Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Virginia Massacre

Like everyone, we are sick at heart over the tragic massacre at Virginia Tech. From CNN we now hear: fellow students said the 23-year-old English major had written two plays so "twisted" that his classmates suspected he might become a school shooter. "very graphic" and "extremely disturbing." "It was like something out of a nightmare," someone wrote in a blog. "The plays had really twisted, macabre violence..."
What can we do to prevent this from happening again? A person's words, his writing, are coming from his head, his heart. This happened at Simon's Rock 15 years ago. If authorities and school administrators are truly trying to prevent another similar tragedy, where is the follow-up to help or remove a person who is writing in such a way? This is a real scream for help.
And why is it no big deal when a student buys a gun and 50 rounds of ammunition, no questions asked?


2 comments:

Zoe said...

Me again. One more comment... re: these latest shootings, sadly, in a very harsh way, I must say that I dont want to attach to the grief and suffering caused. The reason why? I spend time crying for a cause which never seems ends.

The news screams of the 'highest US shooting death toll so far', of the first 'university campus' shootings.... however, didnt they say this 'last time', when it was a high school, or the last time the toll was considered to be the highest at that time?

What I'm saying is that, from someone across the world being newsflashed US news on student schootings each year, it never seems to end. There's always a higher death toll, or a more tragic story.

What level of tragedy will it take for this issue to be sorted out? And why do we continue to upset ourselves by being 'informed' on issues like the gunman's personality, on the reasons he may have committed this crime when (cynically & bluntly) nothing is likley to come from this?

If no laws have been changed from past killings, then surely nothing will happen now?

I'm curious as to what needs to happen for someone in authority to take action? What is considered 'enough tragedy' to make a change?


As an Englishborn person who has never seen a gun in the UK, I sometimes wonder how everyone is so outraged about the tragedy of gun culture, yet it continues and continues... Surely this is the biggest disrespect to those who suffered needlessly and their families.

I dont claim to know how to get those in authority to do something. I do realise that families of victims and others fight very hard for these changes and my heart goes out to them.

I'm not a US citizen, but I do feel very frustrated nevertheless as a non-US citizen who is becoming numbed by the frequent reports and I feel that, scarily, the rest of the world is becoming more and more blase to these headlines - after a lack of any 'real' remedies are ever introduced.


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elainehev said...

Hey, Zoe! Wow, my first comments came from you . . thank you! I don't know if we talked about this in Taos, but Lou's son was shot in both legs at Simon's Rock College, part of Bard, 15 years ago. Everyone forgets that one...6 were shot, 2 died. The killer is in jail. His blog is formidable: rootedcosmopolitans.blogspot.com I'm going to go read yours now.