In what has become the worst mass-civilian-casuality shooting in America to date (I say "to date" because this kind of violence will no doubt happen again unless something changes pretty dramatically in our country), Virginia Tech is suffering the needless loss of innocent lives.
In the short time since the shooting, I have had little time to listen to much media coverage of the massacre. As I predicted, the anti-gun folks came out with their guns blazing (*smile*) and the NRA types were loaded for bear.
To address this first, I am not against gun control and I am not for absolute freedom with regard to gun ownership. I live in Texas, grew up around guns, know what they are for and how to use them. I don't own one nor do I plan on owning one, at least in the forseeable future. However, I acknowledge that having guns in a society begets gun violence. If we as a society want to have access to guns--at ANY level--then we must accept the violence and loss of life that will result. If we are serious about stopping--not just curbing--gun related violence, then we will start controlling guns more seriously and tell the NRA that the right to bear arms is NOT ABSOLUTE. And frankly, I have yet to hear a convincing argument as to why ANYONE needs assault weapons. PERIOD.
But on to the more substantiative reason for this post.
Tonight on a national politica talk show (which one is really irrelevant) the host took an entire segment to show pictures of those who had died in the VT massacre. They showed the faces, brief stories from loved ones, and their names.
Immediately, i thought about the value of these people. We valued their lives enough to take time out of the normal polical diatribes to think about them--to remember who they were, even for a moment. Even if tomorrow, we will go back to our daily grind. Even if we never think about them again...we spent one segment of our time thinking about them.
That led me to think about those serving in Iraq, of which I have more than a few loved ones. If one of them died, what program would post their picture and name? Where would the faces of thier loved ones be? I think they would be lucky to make their local news paper. We have anywhere from 1 to 30 soldiers dying EACH DAY in Iraq and Afghanastan and we never take a 15 minute segment on our networks--ANY NETWORK--to remember these people. And, if someone does so (as was done earlier in the Iraq war), people begin screaming "DON'T USE THE LIVES OF OUR SOLDIERS FOR POLITICAL REASONS!" or "DON'T TRY TO BROW-BEAT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE INTO GIVING UP ON THIS WAR!"
Today, for the second time, president Bush stood in front of troops used as a backdrop to make a speech about the War on Terror. This was clearly a political speech made to bolster the support for the war (laugh). But I don't hear an outcry about the president using the troops for political purposes. There is no righteous indignation from anyone.
If we can spend all this time mourning the very tragic loss of these VT students and faculty, we can CERTAINLY remember EVERY DAY the loss of those who fight for our country--every night, one segment, every news network--right, left, and center. Not for political reasons. BUT BECAUSE IT IS THE RIGHT THINK TO DO.
