Adventures in Thailand

The horrible shootings at Virginia Tech on April 16th, 2007 left me with a lot of questions; I struggled (and am struggling) to come up with answers to them. The most pertinent being “How do we stop another Virginia Tech-like Massacre?”

The most obvious first thing that came to my mind was gun control. I know that Virginia, my home state, has some fairly relaxed laws on obtaining guns. But I had no idea that anyone could walk into a gun store, and after passing an instantaneous criminal background check, walk out with your firearm. You don’t even have to register the weapon. I thought there was a waiting period of at least a week or something. On the other hand, even if there was a week-long or more waiting period, that wouldn’t have stopped this lunatic. He would have just waited and gotten his gun and done the same thing.

I had a short discussion with a coworker about this, declaring that somehow we have to tighten up our gun control laws to make it harder for anyone to get guns. My friend replied “Tell that to a friend of my family who shot a man as he was breaking into his house and about to rape his daughter.” I had no comeback for that one. Nothing at all. I know that this is an oft-used argument by proponents of the right to bear arms.

While I will never own a firearm, stories such as my friend’s above are very hard to argue against in terms of gun control. Defending your family from harm is the ultimate pathos argument; appealing to a person’s emotions by putting them in yours (or someone else’s) shoes.

My friend also had another strong point to make in saying that even if this guy had been denied the guns he sought, he could have made even more damaging and lethal weapons, like a bomb, out of ingredients bought from a grocery store and/or a hardware store. Indeed, the online magazine Slate published an article recently titled “Thank God the Blacksburg killer only had guns.” Can you imagine how many lives would have been lost had he produced something even remotely like the bomb used in say, the Oklahoma City bombing? And if all he really wanted was to use guns, I imagine it can’t be that hard to get them off of the black market.

All that being said, steps should be taken to tighten up gun control in this weapon-saturated nation of ours. While that will do some good, the reality is that terrible tragedies like this are very difficult to stop. The only way to effectively reduce their number is reaching these deeply disturbed individuals before they act on their twisted thoughts. This guy at Virginia Tech put out the warning signs, with one of his professors referring him to counseling because of his macabre and twisted writings; the police being called about him stalking a girl, etc.

So what can be done about this? Our country has many, nay far too many school shootings (and regular street shootings) every year. No other country in the developed world has anywhere near as many. Why? That is the question at the root of the matter. It’s not the easy access to weapons, although that doesn’t help. No, there is something askew deep within the psyche of American society. I only wish I knew what it was.

Any thoughts?