Tragedy In Virginia As Some Fail To Draw Conclusions From VTech Massacre
Title
Tragedy In Virginia As Some Fail To Draw Conclusions From VTech Massacre
Description
By a4g
Point Five Staff Writer @ 4:51 pm
April 16, 2007
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Fears Raised That Details Of Shooting Might Be Released Into Context-Free Void
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A massacre at Virginia Tech took the lives of 32 on Monday. But as the sun set, and sketchy details slowly emerged on what was still a largely unclear series of events, an even greater tragedy began to reveal itself, as a few irresponsible Americans had not yet drawn broad life lessons from the atrocity.
"We've got scores of kids dead or wounded," said one police officer on the scene, "and there's folks out there who have the gall to tell me they haven't decided what this teaches us about America? Sometimes I wonder if I even recognize this country anymore."
While most media reports wisely began to correlate the shootings almost immediately to pre-packaged positions on gun control and video game violence, few ordinary citizens have the resources of a major television network to so neatly encapsulate the horror�- and the life lessons� of the shooting spree into an easily digestible sound bite. This worries analyst Greg Collier, who warned that such individuals were basically "on their own", and may find themselves without a support system when the media machine moves onto the next big story sometime Wednesday or Thursday.
"Listen, if you're big on Sudden Jihad Syndrome, just for example," said Collier, "you've got a window of basically six to twelve hours before they identify the shooter. So what are you waiting for? If you don't take your shot against Islam now, and this guy turns out not to be a diabolical Muslim convert�- but just some ordinary shmuck with some adjustment problems�- you're out of the discussion, irrelevant."
He said the same devastating metric applied to race hustlers, white supremacists, militant feminists, conspiracy theorists, and Bill Maher.
"If you haven't drawn your conclusions by nightfall, you're going to be trampled by tomorrow's news cycle. I mean, imagine if right now you were still pondering the implications of the Imus firing, leisurely asking yourself questions about the proper response to boorish behavior in a society that values free speech. Hello? Imus is gone, baby. Al Sharpton already solved racial inequality last week. We're on school shootings now. We've got a country to save, people."
Even worse, mental health professionals feel that important "closure" may not occur in those who are unwilling to quickly find a way to make sense of the murders.
"As humans, we need to make sense of the senseless," said Dr. Jane Krempsky, a grief counselor, television commentator, and frequent expert witness in civil trials.
"We need to exert our control over those things that seem uncontrollable, in order to feel safe once again. Some people just don't appreciate that the clock is ticking."
Krempsky said the issues involved in this shooting became plain almost the instant that the widely conflicting reports hit the wires, and included increased gun control, liberalized concealed carry, the effects of the Iraq war, America's obsession with violence, the feminization of the Western male, and the prevalence of pre-marital sex and binge drinking on campus.
As one blogger noted in an iconic post near the end of the day: "Virginia who? Oh yeah... I remember that. Horrible tragedy. That was the one caused by global warming, right?"
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Original Source: <a href="http://pointfiveblog.com/index.php/2007/04/1260">http://pointfiveblog.com/index.php/2007/04/1260</a>
Licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License</a>.
Point Five Staff Writer @ 4:51 pm
April 16, 2007
--
Fears Raised That Details Of Shooting Might Be Released Into Context-Free Void
--
A massacre at Virginia Tech took the lives of 32 on Monday. But as the sun set, and sketchy details slowly emerged on what was still a largely unclear series of events, an even greater tragedy began to reveal itself, as a few irresponsible Americans had not yet drawn broad life lessons from the atrocity.
"We've got scores of kids dead or wounded," said one police officer on the scene, "and there's folks out there who have the gall to tell me they haven't decided what this teaches us about America? Sometimes I wonder if I even recognize this country anymore."
While most media reports wisely began to correlate the shootings almost immediately to pre-packaged positions on gun control and video game violence, few ordinary citizens have the resources of a major television network to so neatly encapsulate the horror�- and the life lessons� of the shooting spree into an easily digestible sound bite. This worries analyst Greg Collier, who warned that such individuals were basically "on their own", and may find themselves without a support system when the media machine moves onto the next big story sometime Wednesday or Thursday.
"Listen, if you're big on Sudden Jihad Syndrome, just for example," said Collier, "you've got a window of basically six to twelve hours before they identify the shooter. So what are you waiting for? If you don't take your shot against Islam now, and this guy turns out not to be a diabolical Muslim convert�- but just some ordinary shmuck with some adjustment problems�- you're out of the discussion, irrelevant."
He said the same devastating metric applied to race hustlers, white supremacists, militant feminists, conspiracy theorists, and Bill Maher.
"If you haven't drawn your conclusions by nightfall, you're going to be trampled by tomorrow's news cycle. I mean, imagine if right now you were still pondering the implications of the Imus firing, leisurely asking yourself questions about the proper response to boorish behavior in a society that values free speech. Hello? Imus is gone, baby. Al Sharpton already solved racial inequality last week. We're on school shootings now. We've got a country to save, people."
Even worse, mental health professionals feel that important "closure" may not occur in those who are unwilling to quickly find a way to make sense of the murders.
"As humans, we need to make sense of the senseless," said Dr. Jane Krempsky, a grief counselor, television commentator, and frequent expert witness in civil trials.
"We need to exert our control over those things that seem uncontrollable, in order to feel safe once again. Some people just don't appreciate that the clock is ticking."
Krempsky said the issues involved in this shooting became plain almost the instant that the widely conflicting reports hit the wires, and included increased gun control, liberalized concealed carry, the effects of the Iraq war, America's obsession with violence, the feminization of the Western male, and the prevalence of pre-marital sex and binge drinking on campus.
As one blogger noted in an iconic post near the end of the day: "Virginia who? Oh yeah... I remember that. Horrible tragedy. That was the one caused by global warming, right?"
--
Original Source: <a href="http://pointfiveblog.com/index.php/2007/04/1260">http://pointfiveblog.com/index.php/2007/04/1260</a>
Licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License</a>.
Creator
a4g / Point Five Blog
Date
2007-05-25
Contributor
Brent Jesiek
Rights
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5
Language
eng
Citation
a4g / Point Five Blog, “Tragedy In Virginia As Some Fail To Draw Conclusions From VTech Massacre,” The April 16 Archive, accessed November 21, 2024, https://april16archive.org/items/show/243.