Thursday, April 19, 2007

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A Moment of Silence (scroll down slowly for full effect)








































Get The Fuck Off That Soapbox!


The gunsmoke has barely settled at Virginia Tech, and already the din of furious fusillades can be heard in the media. At first it isn't so bad, just the arrow-like whoosh as entire nations collectively whisper “Columbine”, or “Dawson College”. Then come the go-to pundits, shooting off their mouths like crude blunderbusses loaded with speculation (awful simile). All that remains is for the rank-and-file of the advocacy groups to march into battle, bayonnets fixed, fire in their eyes. The coming days will see these golden fields drenched in more blood than was ever spilled by a psychopath in any school. The generals on both sides urge their troops forward, in a no-holds-barred race to gain the moral high ground.


There are many vultures overhead.


Not a dove in sight


Yes, the VT killings are another oportunity to hold the attention of the North American population for a period greater than 15 seconds. Yes, they are an excellent reason to debate current gun-control laws, policies regarding potentially unstable individuals, perhaps even student privacy. No, we should not be doing it so soon. Want proof? America's response to Terrorism was laid out within hours of the attacks themselves. Still think we should be discussing those topics listed above? I think it would be fair to have a moratorium on all speculation on issues such as this until the Police have compiled some kind of preminary report, until there is some information available to the public. Infringement upon Free Speech, you say? I'd consider it more akin to anti-defamation laws. Even if the perpetrator is dead, pointless speculation is little nore than slandering the deceased, at least before there is INFORMATION to be had!


Get off the fucking soapboxes, and take a while to think about what has happened, and what the victims' families are feeling. There will always be a day, week, or month for bloodshed. This one has already seen enough



5 comments:

Priestshinigami said...

............Miss YOU Long Time

Anonymous said...

At the same time, what better time is there than now to try to understand what happened? Using tragedy as fodder for political agendas is terrible and shameless but what we sometimes forget is that these tragedies are caused.

Only when we understand the problem can we solve it. And I refuse to accept, even for a single second, that these atrocities cannot be prevented. We, as a society, failed the victims at Virginia Tech, as we have failed so many times before. But with each new thing we try, each discussion we have, maybe we get just that much closer to succeeding.

One final caveat, however: In trying to understand the mind of the killer, we often forget that the finger that pulled the trigger was his. We cannot lose sight of the fact that at heart he was a madman and an evil coward. But maybe we can change the next one's heart.

Anonymous said...

I'd agree with cheeselike, mostly. But I'd also say that this is a perfect moment to debate gun control. One of the guns the guy used was a Glock 9mm. In Canada -in every western country except the United States- that is a weapon that cannot be legally carried by anyone other than an on-duty police officer. In Virginia you can buy that with a proof of residency and three pieces of photo id. (Although, of course, without a license you can't buy more than one handgun per month(!)). This is, frankly, obscene.

Of course this guy was nuts. It's possible that this in particular could have been prevented, but in the end you just cannot stop all of the crazies all of the time. What you can do is keep them from doing this kind of absurd scale of damage.

Guns don't kill people; people kill people. Guns just make it a lot easier to kill a lot more people at once. That's what they're designed for.

(All right, Loud, I'll get off my soapbox now.)

Loud said...

The gun control issue is important, but should it not be just as important any other time? There is always the potential for someone to abuse a gun...why wait for the worst to happen? Given that we already have, I suppose this is the next-best choice, but I was more upset with people who didn't even think before they had an opinion. Once we know what happened, THEN we can begin to debate a response. Until such a time, these tragedies should be just that.

GoldMatenes said...

"crude blunderbusses loaded with speculation"...

f***in' brilliant simile.

Talk to you on Nichiyoubi

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