more thoughts on Virginia Tech

The media coverage of the Virginia Tech massacre has been peurile and insipid beyond words. Either we are given mawkish coverage of the grieving process with endless sacharine valentines to the victims, or we are given an intense close up of the deeply sick mind of mass-murderer Cho Seung-Hui. Never mind that by doing so we are fulfilling Cho's fantasy that by killing as many people as possible alongside himself, he would achieve the attention he craved but couldn't get in life. Even worse, American society is sending a message to the many other disturbed young men who are obviously lurking out there that 'If you act out like Cho, you too can become famous, notorious for eternity'. The message we ought to be sending, the only real way we can ensure that the victims of this horror did not die in vain is exactly the message we are not sending; namely, getting that we are going to get serious as a society about keeping guns out of the hands of psychotics like Cho. read the following

for an understanding of how a sane society would behave. The sad truth is that we are an insane society; one that refuses to do what is necessary to protect our citizens from gun violence. Even the most feeble attempts in that direction are stopped by the gun lobby, in front of which politicians of all descriptions quake in fear.
The most fundamental obligation of a society is to accord the maximum security to its citizens; American society gives the clear message that 'gun rights' are more important than the right to be protected from crazed murderers with guns. How sick is that?

My friend Locke wrote in response to my last posting on this subject that the solution is to let more people carry guns into places they are presently banned--like on college campuses. He falls for the gun lobby conceit that a well-armed citizenry will always act responsibly, and if they must shoot, shoot straight. Does he think no one will shoot prematurely; that no 'normal person' with a gun will ever become angered, drunk or some combination of the two and lose control? I'd hate to see Brighton Beach in the early morning hours as people stagger out of the restaurants if everyone around was packing heat? It would be 'Shootout at the 'Haroshe Corral' or something like this. Presumably we are living in the 21st Century, not the era of cowboys and Indians. What Locke is apparently saying is forget about the police, everyone should carry a gun, shoot first and ask questions later. And that is going to make us safer? The purest madness...