The VT Massacre and a Free Society

What is a free society? Some argue that any society in which people are denied the right to poison themselves with illicit drugs is not free. Most, however disagree, and we have and enforce laws against mind-altering drugs. There is a wide spectrum of philosophy regarding what is and isn't a free society and we have worked toward what people in general feel is a satisfactory compromise, but the VT Massacre brings many of those elements into doubt.

Immediately after the shooting the Media referred to the students as "children", "boys and girls" yet at any other time college students are referred to as adults, men and women. Which is it? They certainly revel in adult behavior like drinking and sex, so they think of themselves as adult. But I remember my college days and the whining students did when the University didn't mother them by providing things any adult would know they needed to handle themselves.

It's being argued that had Cho been committed in 2005, he wouldn't have been able to buy the guns. But do we really want to hand over that much power to doctors? In Germany right now a 15-year-old girl is being held by the state because some doctor diagnosed her as "mentally ill" because she doesn't like government school. It's long been argued that using mental illness as an excuse for imprisonment is to hand the state a blank check for virtually unlimited power. Would society be free if one could have their rights stripped on the subjective opinion of one doctor?

Any argument starting with "This could have been prevented if only..." needs to take into account the big picture. Sure, this could have been prevented if we imprisoned people for life for merely possessing a gun, as many Asian nations do, but would that have been a realistic trade off?

Let's look at the blame factors.

It was easy for him to get a gun, but it was impossible for other students to carry guns they would have been legally been allowed to carry elsewhere. People still get killed by illegally acquired guns. No one has ever been murdered by a concealed carry permit holder.

The courts could have imprisoned him when they had the chance. A subjective argument by Monday Morning Quarterbacks. Not a focal point of blame.

The tapes released by the killer show a pathological hatred for the rich. Now who is it that's been waging a decades long propaganda war against the wealthy in America, implying almost any and every evil and wrong in the nation is at the hands of "The Evil Rich, who pay too little taxes and rob the poor"? Think the MSM or the DNC will bother to note that their own irrational rantings against the wealthy are being echoed in Cho's maniacal ramblings? Don't hold your breath.

As the media are scrambling to find anything and everything they can about Cho, they are finding that few people knew anything about him, even those who lived with him. How do you spend every day with someone and not know anything about them? There's a reason solitary confinement is an additional punishment for people in prison. A social vacuum is not pleasant. Take someone already suffering from mental instability, place him in a social vacuum where he's treated like the invisible leper from creepy land and you get what we saw earlier this week.

I remember when a friend committed suicide during my college days. The response was a subdued self-examination on the part of everyone on campus, wondering what part they themselves played in the tragedy. Rather than trying to blame others, the looked inward to see what they could have done differently. The campus changed almost overnight and an important lesson was learned.

Looking at the response in the wake of this tragedy we see everyone trying to blame someone else, rather than looking inward to wonder what they themselves could have done differently to have caused or at least influenced a different outcome. The victim mentality demands that someone else is to be fully blamed while we ourselves are declared totally innocent. There is no one totally innocent.

Take the example of two college-age kids that both decide to make the same bad choice, promiscuity. One has a wild time and emerges unscathed. The second, though, after just one wild tryst contracts an incurable disease that crumbles the rest of his or her life. Who made the more foolish decision? Does outcome really determine the level of stupidity in a bad choice?

At Virginia Tech we had a morose, sullen guy who rarely talked with anyone. It's easy to dismiss someone like that as, "not my problem," "those loners want to be alone," "like I'm supposed to talk to some creepy guy." But the social vacuum was part of the problem. We are judging Cho by the outcome and not the initiating stupidity. We are also ignoring the contributing factors in our zeal to lay the blame 100% on one person. We ignored it at Columbine (partly because many of those records are still sealed) and if we continue to ignore it, we'll have another tragedy a few years down the road as the process repeats itself.

I think one of the main problems right now is that by elevating the killer's infamy, the Media can cash in on the sensationalistic aspects of the event, and make money. It's to their benefit to parade him around while the maddened crowds scream in anger. That every media outlet is showing the tapes he made is even more irresponsible. Kids in that kind of angst feel the world has no meaning and they are nothing but a purposeless bit of refuse. The Media hype the concept that fame brings affirmation and for most of us fame is a star forever out of our reach. But infamy, infamy is just a few bullets away. By airing Cho's tapes the Media are sending the message to every other lonely, frustrated kid out there that their own 15 minutes of infamy is only as far away as the nearest illegal gun merchant. And there's always the slight possibility you can commit mass murder and walk away scott free. Just look at Janet Reno.

Posted by Danny Carlton at April 19, 2007 6:13 AM