As our nation grieves over the loss of 33 innocent lives in Virginia, I weep at the horror and senselessness of it all. How can anyone, unless they are deranged, commit such an act of violence on innocent children who were just starting their adult lives?
I am sure, soon, this will become grist for the mill of politics, but now, at this moment, on this first night, let us set all that aside and try to find an answer to this plague of shootings, in offices, and classrooms, dormitories and shopping malls. How did we get to a place in our history where these things only shock us when the body count is high?
Can we blame it on the gun culture, that has been around since the founding of this republic? I don't really think so. Besides, everyone of these men/boys who commit these crimes finds a way around the law, just as most criminals do.
What is it that stirs within a man that can make him think that his and other lives are of so little consequence? Just targets on a video game, who bleed real blood. What problem do they think they are solving with these heinous crimes?
And what of the victims, most of all, who had the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time? All that promise, all that vitality of youth, crushed in a single moment. First, we must weep for them. Weep to the core of our beings, at what the youth of today must face in places once thought safe in generations past. Then we must rise up, and do all that we know how to make sure that this never happens again.
I am sure, soon, this will become grist for the mill of politics, but now, at this moment, on this first night, let us set all that aside and try to find an answer to this plague of shootings, in offices, and classrooms, dormitories and shopping malls. How did we get to a place in our history where these things only shock us when the body count is high?
Can we blame it on the gun culture, that has been around since the founding of this republic? I don't really think so. Besides, everyone of these men/boys who commit these crimes finds a way around the law, just as most criminals do.
What is it that stirs within a man that can make him think that his and other lives are of so little consequence? Just targets on a video game, who bleed real blood. What problem do they think they are solving with these heinous crimes?
And what of the victims, most of all, who had the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time? All that promise, all that vitality of youth, crushed in a single moment. First, we must weep for them. Weep to the core of our beings, at what the youth of today must face in places once thought safe in generations past. Then we must rise up, and do all that we know how to make sure that this never happens again.
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