So by now, I'm sure everyone's heard about the horrific massacre that took place at Virginia Tech yesterday. It's blasted across all the newspaper headlines this morning and the news has been non-stop on cable TV and radio shows, the ticker feeding constant updates on the dead, wounded and shocked.
These sorts of occurences have always made me sick, but of late, not for the reasons that such an event might evoke.
Watching hourly updates on CTV NewsNet last night, as well as flipping across other Cable news networks, I couldn't help but notice a theme of seeking out instant-explanations and finding ways to compartmentalize this event and stick it in a box marked "understood". The impetus to "move on" from the event was more shocking than the event itself. Lloyd Robertson (who, I admit, is not my favorite newscaster) encapsulated this sentiment when he stated that (and I'm paraphrasing): "our sympathies go out to the families of those killed and hope that this issue can be resolved so that the healing process can begin."
Excuse me? The "healing process"?! Hours, not days, HOURS have passed since the occurence, the bodies are probably still warm, and we are to believe that now is the time to "get over it"?! Where is the grief? The disbelief? The anger? Are we skipping through those steps towards acceptance and "moving on" or is it some sort of macabre real-life Simpsons episode where we are expected to go through all the stages of grief within a matter of minutes, so we can move on.
I expressed my disgust to my brother as he sat on the couch next to me, and he turned to me and shrugged: "when you live in the world of the 30-second soundbyte, people don't have time to think about the repercussions or impact on society."
So we are not meant to digest this event, merely swallow it and move on? I guess for some that might work, but the grumbling indigestion I feel tells me that perhaps such awful events wouldn't be happening with such frightening regularity if we took the time to reflect upon what we do as a society that evokes such outcomes, rather than choke down some mind-opiate pepto-bismol crap to avoid ever asking ourselves the hard questions to which we may not like the answers.
K
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
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4 comments:
As a side note, I just finished reading that 40% of U.S. households have at least one gun and that there are 200 million licenced (!) guns in private hands. That doesn't include government such as police and army, etc, or all of the illegal guns floating around the streets. To buy a gun in Virginia all you need is to have a state issued ID. No waiting period, no limit.
Learning about the gun laws from state to state is terrifying. If you get a chance take a look at Florida.
The world has always been a scary place...but it's so much scarier with guns.
Granted, but as cliched as it is the whole concept of "guns don't kill people, people kill people" is apt. What is it in our psycho-social North American makeup that not only drives the gun-purchasing craze, but compels us to use them?
I completely agree that people kill people but it's a lot easier to kill someone with a gun than it is with a knife. I don't really want to make it sound better...but it takes balls to kill someone from up close. To punch them or hit them with a bat or a car or to stab them...it's personal.
A gun is impersonal. The last big school shooting was from a bell tower! Killing someone with a gun is like a video game - you're removed from the result.
Obviously 'society' is a big factor in a killing spree - but society is responsible in one way or another for every action that any of us makes. People do horrible things - they always have. It doesn't mean that society should make killing easier by allowing guns to be readily available.
It will take a lot longer to change society than it will to change gun legislation. Anyone who has gotten into the law of attraction knows that you have to start acting like a society that doesn't love guns for the change in society to take place.
Gun controls won't take the evil from people's hearts, but it may force them to go through a 2 week waiting period (perhaps where they can sober up, think it over, etc). Also!! semi-automatics aren't for self-defence unless you're fighting off zombies. The only thing they're good for is killing fast...so why sell them at all? sigh. that's gun rant enough for now.
love,
mandy
p.s. i hate guns!
Since I both live in Virginia (not far from VT) and work for a news media organization, I've had an overload of Tech information - more than I care to have. Yes, it's been very tough to deal with this tragedy. And the topics of gun control, college security, mental health issues, media ethics, etc. that keep coming up are not helping anybody deal with the grief.
It does, however, make you put things in perspective. Life is short - live, love, laugh.
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