than I have in months. A friend was home sick and had the news of the Virginia Tech shootings on the television. Like so many, I was shocked. I'd read online about the first shooting, and at that time they were saying one was dead. It sounded like an isolated incident--tragic, but contained.
Then I went to my friend's house and that all changed. I thought of a co-worker who went to Virginia Tech, whose parents work at the university. I thought of my own alma mater, UK, of similar size in terms of students, although I think VT's campus is larger. How could anyone hope to lockdown UK's campus? Have these reporters who are so loudly demanding why this didn't happen ever actually been to college? There are hundreds of buildings, thousands of students. And there was no indication that this massacre was about to happen, from what I've heard. I feel a certain amount of sympathy for school officials and the police, who will be under such terrible scrutiny for some time.
When I was at school a disgruntled physical plant division worker walked across campus in the early morning with a gun (I believe it was an assault rifle), walked into the building he'd worked in, and blew away his boss, then started sniping at cars and people on the street. I found out (our dorm was across the street and just a few buildings over from the building the gunman was in) when my roomate's boyfriend called to warn us. I don't remember the details well (this was in the late 80s) but I think the supervisor died, but I don't think anyone else died and I think the gunman lived and was tried. Afterwards some enterprising soul sold 'I survived the UK sniper' T-shirts. It was one way of dealing with the fear of what could have happened, I suppose, although I'm sure many people would have considered it sick humour. For most of us, though, we were removed from any real danger. We were scared by what could have happened, but didn't experience it for ourselves. And we were far enough in time that things such as the Austin sniper in the 60s (even those of us who knew about it) seemed far removed--we were babies, if even born) or the Wichita sniper in the 70s, didn't seem quite real.
This, however, is on a scope that clearly goes beyond anything we experienced and is terribly, horrifyingly real. Thirty-three lives were snuffed out--many more will be directly affected by this tragedy, and it touches those far beyond it. There will be debates over gun control, motive, and all sorts of things (one of the big discussions on the news was the supposed ethnicity of the gunman--Asian--and how Asian cultures supposedly hold individuals to much higher academic standards, for instance).
As much as I feel sadness that this happened, I have to admit I was angry at the way the media fed off it. Maybe it's because I don't have cable and don't normally see stories done to death, but it just seemed to me that a lot of 'talking heads' were speculating about matters they had no concrete facts about, often critical of things that weren't even understood as yet. I felt sorry for the law enforcement officer being grilled by the press and for the school officials who no doubt acted within policy but couldn't know the full horror that was about to befall the campus. I'm surprised they were able to notify as many people as they did. And of course they're not going to release information until they get their facts straight--not if they're smart, anyway.
Then there's the gunman. You have to be pretty disturbed to do this sort of thing. Some people would say he was evil. But he may have been sick. And if that is the case, he is a victim of his own daemons as well. I just wish he hadn't walked into that classroom building and took innocent lives today.
To the students, faculty, and staff of Virginia Tech, and to the families and friends of those slain or wounded, I give my greatest condolences. In time perhaps we will know more about this tragedy, although we will perhaps never really understand why it happened. But hopefully it will remind us to treasure each day, and make our lives meaningful, rather than paying too much attention to the unhappy details that we tend to get bogged in. Life is so much more...and it is a gift.
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