Here are a few observations regarding Cho Seung-Hui and the worst mass shooting case in U.S. history.
First of all, as a parent with two college-age students, I can't imagine that phone call. Or worse, I can't imagine seeing the news and trying - over and over - to call my kids' cell phones and not getting an answer.I can't imagine the pain, the heartache. My thoughts and prayers are with those parents and all the friends and relatives of the victims.
Losing a loved one at a young age is heart-wrenching, regardless of circumstances. But when it's such a senseless act of wanton violence, it makes it much worse. You can rationalize and internalize an accident or illness. But this? I simply can't imagine.
Frankly, I don't know how people close to the tragedy deal with the media. For two days on CNN and Fox News Channel, there apparently was no other news. It was all Virginia Tech, all the time.
Those news channels are starting to freak me out.
The reporters and commentators keep using all this pejorative language to describe the shooter - deranged, nut, loser, freak, crazy, insane, monster, evil, psycho, etc.
And as deserving as the guy is of those labels, I think news people should tone it down a bit. They should give us the news and lay off on the histrionics.
Here's why:
I envision some other unhinged individual sitting there glued to the endless coverage. This person actually relates to Hui - feels sorry for him - much like Hui said he related to the Columbine massacre guys.
I'm afraid continually denigrating Hui could make a person like that fly off the handle. I'm afraid - and I sincerely hope my fears are unfounded - the constant barrage of verbal assaults on Hui could actually motivate a copycat.
In a nation of 300 million people, what's the likelihood that there's a couple more people like Hui out there?
Besides, everything they're saying really goes without saying, doesn't it? We all get it. The guy was crazy.
Then, to make matters worse, NBC trots out the guy's video where he calls the Columbine guys martyrs, rails against rich people, labels himself as some sort of messiah, and then blames his victims for his crimes.
Of course, before you know it, the video is all over all the other news stations and the Internet and everybody in the country - including any prospective wannabe mass killers - have Hui's sneering image and psychotic message indelibly stamped on their brains.
How can this be a good thing?
Honestly, am I the only one who sees a glaring contradiction here?
The Big News guys are telling us how this guy is a worthless vial of bile. Yet they simultaneously give him and his insane rants primetime access to the living rooms of America.
How great would it have been if NBC would have said something like this:
"Yeah, we got this video from the Virginia Tech shooting guy. We turned it over to the cops and washed our hands. We didn't even make a copy because we didn't want crap like that laying around our studios. We're not going to air it because, obviously, that's precisely what he wanted us to do. We're not going to humor him posthumously. We're not in the business of providing a public forum for mass murderers."
But hey, that wouldn't really boost NBC's ratings all that much, now would it?
Another thing I find curious about this case is the apparent unwillingness of cops and university officials to discipline this guy.
What does it take to get kicked out of college these days?
I realize academia today is all liberal and warm and fuzzy. I get that.
But looking back to my college years, I am pretty sure if I was starting fires, stalking girls and making professors so uncomfortable that they threatened to resign, I would've been kicked out of school.
Now, even if they would have kicked him out, that doesn't mean he still couldn't have came back and wreaked his deadly havoc. But we'll never know.
And what's up with Virginia's instant check system and gun laws?
Seems to me if I had a court document that labeled me "a danger to himself and others," after I was reported to the cops as a stalker, I probably shouldn't be able to buy a gun.
People do have a right to privacy, to be sure, but that "danger to himself and others" label needs to make its way into the instant check system.
For whatever reason, that information never made it into the system and Hui was able to get his guns.
The problem wasn't the guns. The problem was the fact that despite several red flags waving, Hui was able to buy them.
But now there will be the usual gun-ban cacophony from the left. It always amazes me how easy it is for so many people to shred the Second Amendment.
Banning guns sounds noble, high-brow, humane and all that, and it plays well in certain demographics.
But with an estimated 250 million firearms in America, banning guns is a senseless political position to take.
Even if the manufacture of all firearms was outlawed tomorrow, the ones in existence would last a couple hundred years.
Gun confiscation? That's just insane. What is this, Nazi Germany?
And aside from the totalitarian, dictatorial nature of gun confiscation, if the government forced everybody to hand over their guns, law-abiding citizens would do just that.
That's what law-abiding citizens do. They obey laws. What kind of people would ignore that law and not turn in their guns? That, of course, would be people who don't abide by the law. The very people who shouldn't have guns in the first place.
It may sound trite, and anti-gun types belittle people who say it, but the old adage, "if guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns," rings true.
Sure, the gun issue is vexing for lots of people. But it doesn't have to be. We need strict, sensible gun laws that are stringently enforced.
How about a federal law mandating life sentences for people who commit crimes with firearms?
It wouldn't take crooks long to figure out that if they're going to rob a liquor store, they better use a knife.
The last thing this country needs is a knee-jerk, anti-gun reaction to the Virginia Tech tragedy.
If there is a measured approach taken to keep guns out of the hands of people like Hui, sign me up. I'm all for it.
Are guns the problem in this society?
Think about that for a moment and answer honestly.
I remember a time when there were rifles and shotguns in the back windows of pickup trucks in the school parking lot.
Nobody ever got shot at school.
What's different now? The guns? Hardly.
It's the culture that's different. We've lost moral compass. We've strayed away from traditional values.
We've expunged prayer and any hint of religion from our schools. We've placed a higher value on material wealth than emotional well being. We've entertained ourselves with a steady stream of sex and violence in the name of expressive freedom.
Those who suggest that perhaps society pays a price for this are labeled as old-fashioned, unenlightened or just plain stupid.
For decades the left has been nurturing the cultural atmosphere that breeds violent episodes like Columbine and Virginia Tech.
And as we reap the fruits of decades of hedonism and permissiveness what are we told to do?
