More VA Tech Musings
It’s the Information Age (…I cringed too); we have the ability to discover all sorts of minutiae on any number of newsworthy items. Why, then, do the recent events at VA Tech – and the now-obligatory reaction to ferret out whatever details we can – make me uneasy?
Maybe it’s because of the lingering fear that whatever hobbies are found, whatever musical tastes scrutinized for violent themes, others who share these tastes – though not the mental illness of the shooter – will be tarred with the same brush. I saw it happen after Columbine, when my high school instituted a restrictive dress code that banned, yes, trench coats, Marilyn Manson shirts, and hats (hats?).
With rumors already surfacing from various sources regarding the shooter’s interests (Counterstrike, naturally), can I be blamed for simultaneously feeling sorry for the victims and thinking, “There goes the neighborhood. …Again”?
Better to simply feel for the victims, I think, than to cast blame on environmental factors that are unlikely to have been the primary cause.
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The focus should be on helping and supporting the victims.
I can’t help thinking about what it must have been like for the people that got shot dead, what an awful and horrified last moments they must have had. So young, so random.
The cause must be investigated first before a solution and/or remedies can be implemented. Easy blame targets are insulting to the people that died. The focus should probably be on what help and care the shooter got for is mental problems (assuming the reports are right) and if the social system is developed enough to catch people with this illness. I am from Europe where we have another view of social and medial care then in the US. My take is that this issue is much more difficult to resolve so the easy option is to blame gaming instead.