The massacre at Virginia Tech leaves a gaping wound in the heart of our country. I pray that those whose lives are effected by it will find peace and be comforted in the midst of their grief. I have been disgusted by the rush to blame those in authority, to call for resignations; mob mentality rules.
Whenever anything terrible happens in this country, whether it be a natural disaster or a heinous act by sinful mam, people look to blame someone for it. If that person happens to be of the opposing political camp, so much the better. Even if no one is to blame, someone gets blamed. Except, perhaps, those who truly are guilty.
In the case of Virginia Tech, nothing like this, with these exact circumstances, has ever happened before. People can only act on the evidence at hand. The authorities were still dealing with what appeared to be a domestic dispute when they heard about the second shooting. (Why didn't the authorities in New York evacuate the second tower before the second plane hit?) People are saying that the entire campus should have been locked down.
Question: Until when? Until next week? Next month? Next year? Forever? Why stop with Virginia Tech? What if there were more than one shooter involved and the university was just the first target? What else should have been locked down? All schools? All businesses? How could they be sure that this was just an attack on schools? How could they be sure it was just an attack on schools in this town? Maybe there was a plan all across the country to shoot people on university campuses. Maybe efforts were being coordinated in multiple countries and the entire world should have been locked down. This may seem absurd and extreme, but the ramifications of the current mentality are staggering.
The bottom line is that no one could have anticipated that 2 hours later the shooter would strike again. They didn't know who he was, so he could might have waited 2 days, or 2 weeks to finish what he set out to do.
Should school authorities be expected to anticipate every possible scenario? Should they be responsible if one scenario (the one the shooter acted out) slipped past their imaginations?
From what I have heard (from my very distant vantage point) it appears to me that the campus authorities, as well as the off-campus authorities, acted rightly. No doubt they wish that they did have the ability to predict the future and thus have the power to intervene in (and thus prevent) every coming act of violence, or accident. But they don't, and neither does anyone who is out there blaming them for not being able to do so.
So who can we blame? The guy who pulled the trigger. From what is known thus far, he is the only one who knew what was his plans were. And somehow in his distorted sense of justice, he had convinced himself that what he was doing was the right thing.
In this fallen world, where we are all sinners by nature, that is an all too common reality with varying degrees of results, from hurtful to devastating.
Whenever anything terrible happens in this country, whether it be a natural disaster or a heinous act by sinful mam, people look to blame someone for it. If that person happens to be of the opposing political camp, so much the better. Even if no one is to blame, someone gets blamed. Except, perhaps, those who truly are guilty.
In the case of Virginia Tech, nothing like this, with these exact circumstances, has ever happened before. People can only act on the evidence at hand. The authorities were still dealing with what appeared to be a domestic dispute when they heard about the second shooting. (Why didn't the authorities in New York evacuate the second tower before the second plane hit?) People are saying that the entire campus should have been locked down.
Question: Until when? Until next week? Next month? Next year? Forever? Why stop with Virginia Tech? What if there were more than one shooter involved and the university was just the first target? What else should have been locked down? All schools? All businesses? How could they be sure that this was just an attack on schools? How could they be sure it was just an attack on schools in this town? Maybe there was a plan all across the country to shoot people on university campuses. Maybe efforts were being coordinated in multiple countries and the entire world should have been locked down. This may seem absurd and extreme, but the ramifications of the current mentality are staggering.
The bottom line is that no one could have anticipated that 2 hours later the shooter would strike again. They didn't know who he was, so he could might have waited 2 days, or 2 weeks to finish what he set out to do.
Should school authorities be expected to anticipate every possible scenario? Should they be responsible if one scenario (the one the shooter acted out) slipped past their imaginations?
From what I have heard (from my very distant vantage point) it appears to me that the campus authorities, as well as the off-campus authorities, acted rightly. No doubt they wish that they did have the ability to predict the future and thus have the power to intervene in (and thus prevent) every coming act of violence, or accident. But they don't, and neither does anyone who is out there blaming them for not being able to do so.
So who can we blame? The guy who pulled the trigger. From what is known thus far, he is the only one who knew what was his plans were. And somehow in his distorted sense of justice, he had convinced himself that what he was doing was the right thing.
In this fallen world, where we are all sinners by nature, that is an all too common reality with varying degrees of results, from hurtful to devastating.
