21st April 2007

20-20 hindsight is oh-so-clear

posted in Uncategorized |

I have no words to describe this.  (”Did the Devil Make Him Do It?”.  Seriously, folks.)

It goes nicely with this.  (Fred Phelps and his gang of true-love Christians think the people who were killed were killed because they “weren’t Christian enough”.)

Excuse me while I go roll my eyes right out of my head.

Folks, this was a sad, sick young man, filled with a persecution complex and violent fantasies, who decided to go out in a blaze-o-glory, and made sure he sent his “manifesto” to NBC before he did it so that he was guaranteed that blaze-o-glory.  We don’t need supernatural demons to explain why people do bad things.  We don’t need people telling grieving families that their kids and parents were killed because they didn’t do the right religious things in the oh-so-proper fashion.  For that matter, we don’t need people telling the grieving families that their kids and parents were killed “because God was teaching us a lesson which we don’t understand” or equally pompous idiocy.

I am also here to tell you that the administration at Virginia Tech did mighty damned good to get word out to the campus about the first shooting as soon as it did, and they acted blazingly fast getting the news out when they realized there was a guy out there with a gun randomly shooting people.

The second-guessing that’s going around just makes me want to scream.  Doctors should be mind-readers, and fortune-tellers, to boot, so that they know that a young man referred to the hospital for depression is actually going to blow up and shoot the world up a year from their visit.  College administrators should know–like some kind of all-seeing, all-knowing psychics–that the domestic violence case the university police dealt with in the early hours of the morning is going to explode into random shooting a few hours later.  Well, dayum, of course they should have known!  Everyone knows that domestic violence cases–rather than typically being done by upset spouses/lovers–are actually the first symptom of psychotic killers on a rampage.

Of course university police should be able to close off a 2700-acre campus as soon as they hear of a random shooter.  We all know that the people who are second guessing the university police wouldn’t be up in arms about the UP sending their small forces to close off the campus, rather than trying to deal with the gunman. 

Yah, right.  Small Mountain University is 730 acres, a quarter the size of VT.  The thought of having to cordon off SMU within minutes of hearing about a crazy shooter makes me howl with laughter.

Don’t get me started on the media.  First off, the sanctimoniousness of the various networks saying they would never have used the video footage or photos from the manifesto is laughable.  NBC’s ratings soared through the roof when they aired that stuff, and other networks’ ratings tanked.  Oh, there might have been a bit of debate at various networks about using the material if they had gotten it instead, but my cynicism makes me doubt that they would have stood fast against the lure of Ratings.

And some blogs I have read that talk about the presence of the media afterwards at VT make me just sick.  Intrusive, insensitive, obnoxious, omnipresent…

We’ve got people arguing that it makes a case for more gun control.  We’ve got people arguing that it makes a case for arming students on campus.  We’ve got people arguing that the tragedy is the result of immigration.  We’ve got people arguing that it’s the lack of community…the inability to involuntarily commit people…violent video games…the culture of violence in the U.S.  Pick a favorite hobby horse, and someone is arguing that that is the reason for this young man going berserk and being able to kill 33 people.

All I can say is that my heart goes out to the families of those 33 people dead–including the family of the killer.

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There are currently 5 responses to “20-20 hindsight is oh-so-clear”

  1. 1 On April 21st, 2007, Johnny said:

    Here, here.

    I think Monday Morning quarterbacks would be the ones peeing in their pants if/when the same type of situation were to come upon them.

  2. 2 On April 21st, 2007, Lizard said:

    ok, the devil possession is almost enough to make me laugh– if it came from Jon Stewart, I would, but from Oral Roberts University (and who in hell accredits them?) it just makes me so damned sad and angry. Fuckers. Why must everything come back to religion– and everything bad be because someone isn’t part of their religion.

    Self absorbed assholes. Not to mention idiots.

    Sorry, I’m kinda sliming up your comments here, but I am really angry at this. When I heard about it, and finally heard that W was going to be making a statement, all I thought was “please do not let him say that this is no argument for gun control” but of course he did say it. He couldn’t just deal with the tragedy, say it was terrible, and not try to get in a fucking political dig. What an asshole.

    I feel so sad for everyone who was there, and their families. So terribly sad. Isn’t that enough, without trying to lay blame every which way?

  3. 3 On April 22nd, 2007, Spacemom said:

    And for some reason, everyone forgets that the university police were interviewing the ex-boyfriend of the first woman slain when the second shooting started. They thought this was contained.

    This is a sad event and I am sick of idiots using it for their own purposes…

  4. 4 On April 23rd, 2007, Anne said:

    Thank you for this. I think all the Monday morning quarterbacking (sorry if this term seems to make light of the situation) is in part a way that people make themselves feel better about horrible, uncontrollable situations like this. You know, the idea that if there WAS something that could have been done, then the situation is actually controllable, and therefore I can rest easier knowing that it is less likely to happen to me.

    Unfortunately, as a psychologist, I know that prediction of future violence is one of the most difficult things to accomplish with any accuracy. Even today, with all of the research at our disposal, the best predictor of future violence remains past violence. You could make a case that the VA Tech shooter DID present evidence of violence in his creative writings, but very few people who write about violence actually go out and commit it.

    For those who believe that the answer would have been to involuntarily commit the shooter to a psychiatric hospital, I ask that you consider how you would feel if you were the one being involuntarily committed for things that you had written for a college class. Most of us believe strongly in maintaining our personal freedom unless we have actually committed a crime.

    For those of you who believe that notifying the parents of the shooter would have been the answer–picture yourself as a young adult in your twenties. Would you have wanted your college authorities to notify your parents about the state of your mental health? (well, perhaps, depending on your relationship with your parents). But, even if they had been notified, then what? The shooter was an adult. His parents have no legal authority over his actions any more. Even if they had wanted to commit him to a psych hospital, they would have had to have gotten a court order to do so, which is not very easy to do.

    My heart goes out to all the victims of this tragedy. Are there things that we might have done differently? Perhaps. We should definitely talk about it. But unfortunately, I don’t think we will ever be able to prevent all situations like this.

  5. 5 On April 23rd, 2007, carosgram said:

    I couldn’t have said it better! Thank you

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