Pacifist, Humanist, Pragmatist — Trying To Make Sense In Aftermath Of Sensless Virginia Tech Shootings
Posted on April 20, 2007
| buzz-it! | Huff it!
There are plenty of wonderful tributes to the victims, survivors, and their families on the web, both in the MSM as well as Facebook and Myspace. It’s important to understand the human losses this week. Personal stories of the victims make clear the depth of losses in the tragic shootings on the Virginia Tech Campus.
I’m conflicted about writing this. I’ll decide whether to post and when later. Some folks will find me reactionary or opportunist. In truth, my writing is motivated by anger and grief. My earlier reaction was shock and rage. Yes, rage. Don’t worry. I understand my own rage and am a pacifist at heart. You will never catch me packing heat. Never. Again, I understand my rage and abhor violence.
Jane Smiley had a telling piece in Huffington Post quoting a former gun owner,
I gave my gun away, because when I had it, every time something happened that made me mad, my mind would start circling around that gun, and I would be thinking about using it. So I got rid of it and I’m glad I did.
Once, in Junior High, I threw a bic pen at a classmate. She was taunting me. I throw badly. Those who taunt me would say I “throw like a girl.” Any self-respecting “girl” would take exception. Somehow, without intention, I landed the pen uncomfortably close to her eye. No physical harm was done, but I was mortified by my own actions and the potential consequences.
The pen incident was my last violent act.
Today my weapon of choice is still a pen, but this time, I’m writing. Actually, as most weapons contests go, I’ve escalated to a more efficient weapon, the computer keyboard. I can definitely get more words down; but, writing at high speed, not all hit their mark. Fortunately, removing poorly chosen words is also a more efficient process.
Monday, April 16, a lone gunman murdered 32 people, injuring numerous others, on what one witness called the “bucolic” Virginia Tech campus. I have family nearby in Blacksburg, and was born and have owned a home in Virginia, but do not have any personal ties to this tragedy. And yet, I am still deeply affected by the events there.
I avoid immersion in the endless commentary by any number of talking heads and their interviewees. I am especially quick to lower the volume when a newsperson has extracted all the facts they can from a witness and then attempts to get some emotion for the microphone, turning empathy into just another question designed to get a voice to crack.
I worry that I’ve become inured to the emotional side of the tragedy. I’m assured by my anger that I have not. My knee-jerk is “too damn many guns,” but that is too easy; though, it has to be part of the story. Another part of the story is how badly the federal and state governments deal with problems that are politically inconvenient, including moneyed opposition to all reasonable restrictions on guns, and mental health care which seems to be most available to the well-to-do and a small portion of the indigent population.
In Virginia, the politics certainly play a role. With the NRA headquartered in Fairfax, one fears that the lunatics truly are running the asylum. Amazingly Virginia has managed to elect two truly decent Democratic governors, in succession, including the present Gov. Tim Kaine. The trade-off these otherwise good men have to make to take office is that they have to embrace Virginia’s sacred cows to some extent. That means promises to maintain at least the status quo on guns, abortion, and the death penalty.
The status quo on guns and the death penalty are actually pretty extreme. Sadly, not even the most basic of Virginia’s restrictions on gun purchases proved any impediment for Virginia Tech’s gunman. Having been committed to a mental institution involuntarily for anti-social behaviors, having been determined to be potentially “of harm to himself or others,” should have kept the young man from purchasing guns legally.
I’m convinced there will always be guns in America, and hardly oppose legitimate hunting rifles and the activities for which they were designed. I do not understand hunting “for sport” but the traditional hunt for food for meat-eaters seems more humane than factory farming practices. That sport hunters are necessarily included in regulated hunting seasons is not an issue for me.
I question a society where guns are celebrated in everyday life. The NRA does much to promote such a society. Without trying to account for their large donors, its clear that they extract donations and member fees from a broad swath of the population by making believe that even reasonable gun ownership will be outlawed and that any restrictions are an abridgment of rights. They prey on ignorance and fear and perceived victimhood, in much the same way televangelists and politicians do.
I worry about first-person shooter video games and don’t know their affects on impressionable minds. State-sponsored execution legitimizes killing and Virginia has been one of the biggest killers of alleged violent offenders. Televised wars of choice and bloody civil conflict, and public hangings of deposed leaders have to contribute to a culture that accepts violence too easily. That a hanged leader is known to have been a murderous despot himself, only reinforces the idea of “righteous” killing.
There is a community of 26,000 in Southwestern Virginia, at Virginia Tech, whatever their political beliefs, who has seen the affects this week either of a mostly anomalous case of one troubled youth with dangerous weapons, or of a culture run amok with the permissiveness of violence and the tools of violence.
We know that Tech’s shooting, however shocking and severe, was not an isolated case. America is the mass murder capital of the Western world. Those who promote pat slogans like “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” need to be exposed for high cost of their lobbying efforts on society. America needs a national discussion on the death penalty and it’s effects on the minds of it’s people. Conservative pastors need to reconsider their constant messages of retribution for personal wrongs and wrongs against God, and look more to messages of generosity and forgiveness which are just as easily found in the same texts they preach from.
We need better mental health intervention, wider availability of mental health services and help for middle class and poor patients to pay, and to continue to work to remove the stigma on those who seek assistance.
We need to examine our entertainment business and identify as pornographic gratuitous and graphic violence for entertainment’s sake. It’s crazy how worked up we get over sexual content of any kind while letting violence mostly slide. This clearly includes the fast-growing gaming industry. What we do with these forms of protected speech, and in a few cases, art, is the stuff for much discussion. Some of these violent vehicles do a better job than others — acknowledging violence but showing the waste of it. Maybe in a scheme of ratings and enforceable and enforced age restrictions these would be treated somehow differently. It seems like whatever disincentive for producing and selling these entertainments should be at least as strong as the market forces that encourage producers to escalate violence to increase the bottom line. Maybe the most violent-rated could be the most highly taxed. Somehow that seems ripe for first-amendment challenges, but there has to be a price for those who purvey violence, when the rest of society seems to be paying a high toll.
And yes, there are too damn many guns.
Sphere ItComments
2 Responses to “Pacifist, Humanist, Pragmatist — Trying To Make Sense In Aftermath Of Sensless Virginia Tech Shootings”
Leave a Reply
Trying To Make Sense In Aftermath Of Sensless Virginia Tech Shootings…
Once, in Junior High, I threw a bic pen at a classmate. She was taunting me. I throw badly. Those who taunt me would say I “throw like a girl.” Any self-respecting “girl” would take exception. Somehow, without intention, I landed the pen uncomf…
this is crazy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!