When tragedy is for sale, it isn’t tragic enough
description: Issue Date:Tuesday April 17, 2007 Section: Editorial Section Ry Rivard, City Editor By the end of the Monday it was obvious that the media had begun selling the day's horrors at Virginia Tech. No matter the gravity or magnitude of a tragedy, this country's commentators veer from events as they are, in and of themselves horrible, to a decontextualized, surreal account of things so they can be sold to and consumed by us. The shooting - the deadliest shooting in American history - quickly became, for some people, another chance to make various political points. It became, by the time Wolf Blitzer's show aired, a sort of tragic-porn, a way for the media to provoke rather than inform. Commentators tried to politicize it, politicians tried to comment on it, the news channels tried to heighten the drama with their usual parade of loud music and epic comparisons, "This is worse than ... " or "This is the biggest ... " Was what happened not enough in and of itself? Glenn Reynolds, law professor at University of Tennessee, quickly posted a 52-page paper on his popular Weblog arguing that the best way to prevent shootings like Monday's is to permit concealed handguns. It was the day's most academic approach to the event, but it was also one of the most callous. Written by two economists, the paper concluded that "the only policy factor to influence multiple victim public shootings is the passage of concealed handgun laws." Reynolds and several others who followed his lead took the deaths of 33 students to advance an agenda which, although done in an attempt to stop such events in the future, made them into a policy argument. Similarly, the Drudge Report, a conservative news site, dragged out a fourth-month old story from Roanoke Times about failed piece of legislation that would have permitted concealed handguns. It reported, "Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker was happy to hear the bill was defeated. 'I'm sure the university community is appreciative of the General Assembl…
creator: Ry Rivard
date: 2008-02-18
contributor: Kacey Beddoes
rights: Leann Ray <Leann.Ray@mail.wvu.edu>
language: eng

Va. Tech and the N.H. primary
description: By THE DARTMOUTH EDITORIAL BOARD, Published on Friday, April 20, 2007 There is no easy answer to the question, What could have prevented the Virginia Tech massacre? Perhaps nothing could have been done. However, gun violence occurs every day across America and the ready availability of guns exacerbates the problem. After Ali Abu Kamal shot and killed seven atop the Empire State Building 10 years ago, then-New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani called for Congress to "do more" in monitoring the ownership of guns in this country. It is unfortunate that it takes tragedies of these magnitudes to jumpstart conversation about gun control, but gun control has been an issue long before the events in Blacksburg or Columbine or New York City. It is our hope that the heinous acts of one man on one college campus will awaken college students at Dartmouth and across the country to force this issue to the forefront of the national political arena - and that it stays there. It's easy to present statistics seemingly demonstrating that the presence of handguns either increases or decreases senseless deaths. One thing is for sure: The debate here hinges on safety and the prevention of violence - not the peripheral goals of hunters and the gun industry. Guns are an unfortunate part of the American tradition. No one can seriously suggest that arming students or classrooms would be valid measures to combat violence. The non-sporting arguments against gun control contend that citizens should have the right to have firearms in their home to protect against intruders. No reasonable individual thinks people should carry weapons around. A rational measure that could help prevent another Virginia Tech massacre would be the institution of more in-depth checks and restrictions on those who want to purchase guns. As for the Dartmouth community, we are in a unique position. Every presidential candidate who is serious about winning the White House will be visiting Dartmouth in the coming months. When the…
creator: Editorial Staff
publisher: The Dartmouth
date: 2007-07-11
contributor: Sara Hood
rights: "Edward D. Kalletta III" <publisher@thedartmouth.com>
language: eng

The Politics of Pride and Shame
description: April 18, 2007 [Update: I stand by my piece, which is mostly a bunch of questions, rather than statements linking race and culture in the explanative way it is being taken. I merely pointed out that as an American working deeply in the education field for years now, and having identified just such problems (and seen them connected in the Korean-language media for years), that perhaps questions about culture, as related to specific conditions that surround child-rearing, education, being educated overseas, the taboo of discussing mental health in Korean society, etc. might not have played some role here, on top of the fact that many Asian and Asian American males indeed might have specific ways of feeling alienated in "white society." Obviously, to even broach mere questions is deemed "racist" by many readers. Fine. I don't delete comments (unless they are abusive) and people have a right to come in and say what they want - that's why I blog, after all. Yet, before we start flinging around the "R-word" I hope people actually think about what I'm saying, and remember that what I said was that cultural context may be helpful as far as looking at context, but that "Korea" and the rest of the world should look at him as an individual. I spend half my post saying that, and the two need not contradict. And yes, when it comes to the fact that most serial killers have been/are still white men, it does astound me that America seems to have trouble talking about this obvious fact, and mums was the word when Columbine happened. Yet, broaching the topic is going to get one accused of saying their horrendous acts were committed "because they were white," which would again, be not what I said. But pundits of all kinds of backgrounds have license to talk about the concerns of "black youth" as it relates to drugs or violence for years. I don't call doing so "racist" although some strains of it certainly can be. For those who call such explanations as this "back-tracking," well, I gu…
creator: Michael Hurt
date: 2007-06-21
contributor: Brent Jesiek
rights: Michael Hurt (kuraeji@gmail.com)
language: eng

VT Students turn to God
description: Dr. Roger Passman April 18, 2007 Reporting for Reuters, Andrea Hopkins writes: By all accounts, the prayers started even before the gunshots stopped at Virginia Tech university, and the pleas to God from grief-stricken survivors of the massacre have continued ever since. "God cares about Virginia Tech," said Megan Martin, 24, joining about a dozen fellow students in a traveling prayer vigil that rambled across the sprawling campus a day after the worst U.S. shooting spree in modern history. Carrying placards reading: "Jesus loves you," "God knows and He cares," and "Can we pray with you?" the small knot of students worked their way through the university grounds in Blacksburg, a Bible Belt town in the mountains of southwest Virginia. I suppose turning to God(s) cannot do any serious harm to the individual that does the turning. The evidence, however, does not justify such a move. "God cares about Virginia Tech," said Megan Martin, is quoted in the article. Is this God so cruel that he (she, it) only cares after the fact? Is this God(s) so indifferent that he (she, it) only takes an interest after the dastardly deed has been accomplished? God knows and He cares, is another after the fact fantasy that may serve to salve heightened emotions but does not address the fundamental issue-was this God who cares so much simply on vacation when Cho Seung-Hui decided to engage on a shooting rampage on the VT campus? Does the evidence point to a God(s) who cares, who knows? I think not. What the evidence points to is a random series of events that occur every so often because Americans are willing to sacrifice security for the right to bear arms for any purpose whatsoever. The evidence does not point to a loving God(s) but, rather, to a heightened probability that because guns are so readily available in the United States tragic events such as the VT shootings are more likely than not to occur. While turning to God(s) is a defensive move in cases of unthinkable tragedy for many …
creator: Roger Passman
date: 2007-05-24
contributor: Brent Jesiek
rights: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States
language: eng

Virginia Tech: It's Not About Gun Control, and You're a Fool or a Monster If You Say It Is
description: Apr. 18th, 2007 at 12:02 AM Virginia is, if memory serves, one of the states that had a particularly malevolently horrible 2004 national election, one marked by substantial Republican chicanery and vicious suppression of the minority vote, so the last thing on earth that I could ever have imagined myself doing was cheering for Virginia's Republican governor, Tim Kaine. But Tuesday afternoon I not only cheered out loud over something he said, I was so glad he said it that I was waving my fist over my head and very nearly jumped out of my chair. And it wasn't just what he said, but how he said it; I wish I could find a way to show it to you. But at the end of the Tuesday press conference, some sleazebag in the audience, knowing how pro-gun Kaine is, tossed him what he probably thought was a softball question, namely, did the governor think that some of the deaths could have been averted if Virginia Polytechnic students had been allowed to carry concealed firearms on campus? Instead of the reaction the so-called "reporter" was expecting, what happened was that governor Kaine's face twisted up as if he had bitten into a bug. And with disgust dripping from his voice, he said something to the effect that the only response he had to anybody who would try to use this tragedy to make any kind of a point about gun control was "total loathing." And he's right. So I don't feel good that I've let some of you prod me into having to defend my statement from last night that neither more guns on campus, nor fewer guns, would have made things any better. That some of y'all are sliming up this horrible but essentially random tragedy, that some of you are dragging your muddy political bootprints all over this while the corpses aren't even yet in the ground, that so many of you are so sick as to seek to twist this massacre into proof that your side should win in the literally pointless debate over gun control before even one family can bury their dead in peace, both sickens me and lower…
creator: J. Brad Hicks
date: 2007-05-24
contributor: Brent Jesiek
rights: Creative Commons Attribution, NonCommercial, ShareAlike 2.5
language: eng