I Suppose It's a Little Insensitive

Condolences go out to all the friends and family of the victims of today's shootings at VaTech. It's a real tragedy - senselessly violent and violently senseless, I suppose.

If you haven't heard, and I highly doubt you haven't heard, but a man (I'm assuming a college student) shot and killed two people in a VaTech dormitory in the morning, then fled. While the police thought he had left the campus, he had actually gone back and went into Norris Hall, the engineering building, and opened fire on a classroom, killing 30 and wounding several (~30) more students. Then, he apparently shot himself. As of right now, they have no positive ID on the shooter, nor any motive for the incident, which is what makes it so frightening. How could anyone do this? Where were the signs of distress before today? What was going on? Could it happen here?

I'll say this about Berkeley. This place isn't the safest city in the world, and this campus is a little off-center in every respect. So to think something like this could happen on similar college campus, in a quiet, unassuming town like Blacksburg, is scary. Just think about a guy running around with a gun on Sproul Plaza, or a sniper posted on the top of Barrows. It can be a bit disturbing and I hope, I really, really hope, that nothing like that ever happens here. Happens anywhere, for that matter. This is a tragedy, and there's no other way to describe it. There's no other way to react than to stand and stare agape at the pictures of tragedy. There's a great deal of sorrow from so many people that had been and would have been touched by the lives that were taken today and I think it's best to share in that. It's a tragedy and we should feel it.

Still, while I hope that this incident doesn't spread and trigger copycats elsewhere, at the same time, I have other fears that might appear in response to this shooting, much like the tightening of security after Columbine. Administrators will try to enact restrictive and reactionary policy, and I hope that they will be limited in scope and nature. While this tragedy is great, I hope it doesn't lead to the loss of our freedoms as students and as citizens. That's my greatest fear, and I suppose that it's a little insensitive given the situation, I don't think it's unfair to suggest a course of events that will try to prevent something like this from ever happening again. Let's just hope it doesn't take any more sacrifice to ensure it.

(The title of the post originated from my feeling ashamed at the miscellany of my previous post today, considering the magnitude and gravity of today's events. I'll keep it there to lighten the mood, but I don't want to feel as if I'm ignoring the world and what happened today. Sorry.)