Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Virgina Tech Shooting

Alright, I'll go into scholar mode in a second. First, I'd like to my support to those who have lost life, loved-ones, or faced the resulting racism from the Virginia Tech shooting. I've never been able to tell if people who are afraid become prejudiced, or if prejudiced people use fear as an excuse to expose their hatred. Regardless, nobody should live in fear of death threats.

I read some of the articles on the shooting. Some were very troubling. Others were very touching... especially the one about the professor who never made it out of the room because he was holding the door so his students could escape. We've suffered a tragic loss, as all needless loss of life is, but I suppose it hit me because I deal with academic community development. Along with beatings in libraries and whatnot, our higher educational institutions are no longer world-class places of freedom and safety.

I've begun to question my stance on gun control because of this incident. While I'm a firm believer in expanding citizen rights, we risk other rights by allowing such loose gun control in this country. I'm at a bit of a quandary. With crime, I think the solution is fair distribution of resources. With cold-blooded murder, besides creating good communities where people feel they have social support and environmental control... what else can you do besides take away ways they can hurt more people?

I'll go back to my community development and hope that it makes a difference... keep people in healthy social networks and teach others to create them. However, one person's efforts can only go so far.

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