What? Virginia Tech got shot up?

[epilonious]

So. My bloggy opinions on the Virginia Tech shootings.

I do not know anyone at Virginia Tech, I do not feel the need to grieve like I did know someone at Virginia Tech.

I do not know anyone at Virginia Tech. I know someone who knows someone who knew someone who they think got shot but I am not sure. This whole 4-degrees of separation things means I just sort of look on with a detached sense of horror. It's how I dealt with 9/11. It's how I deal with Iraqi deaths. I pretty much know I won't feel large amounts of grief over it because the deaths associated with that incident read the same on the freak-o-meter as vehicle crashes and construction accidents. I didn't know the people who died, I can't pretend to fathom their importance to others closer to the incident, I can really only issue a "I'm terribly sorry for your loss" to anyone closer than me. This may seem like an asshole's perspective... but I really do feel pretending to be closer to the incident than I was for grieving purposes would be worse.

The media is frenzying over everything. I choose not to bait them, and will point out tackyness when I see it.

American media outlets are, I feel, trying to convince me I need to "grieve with the nation". Hell, I posted the JibJab piece "What we call the news" that made fun of such frenzies. I'm pretty sure for the next two weeks I am going to have to be proxy to many kinds of speculation, post-mortem armchair psychoanalysis of the shooter, active unsolicited psychoanalysis of the victims and their relatives (Some psyche they yanked onto Fox news apparently said people close to the shootings weren't crying and blithering for the camera "because the awfulness hadn't hit them yet"), funeral coverage, Fred Phelps trying to attention whore at funeral coverage... Sure enough, the day after the incident, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution had a 2.5 inch headline reading "BLOODBATH". Today, we get treated to "Are our students safe!?".

Meanwhile, some AOL news-blogger who went to a creative writing class with the shooter posted the shooters shitty plays from said class. I feel this is incredibly tacky and exploitative (and perhaps illegal given current copyright laws). I have said as much in some forums and people argued to me "If you read the plays, you'd understand!". Understand what? That the shooter was crazy? I'm pretty sure I can label him crazy because he shot people. So what? a crazy school shooter wrote disturbing stuff? Okay, I can point to lots of people who write disturbing stuff who haven't shot people. Furthermore... I would rather not think of all the shitty stuff I wrote in college and whether or not it would get me into a counselors office being asked uncomfortable questions. There are plenty of people who write dramatic angst-ridden crap who aren't planning on shooting up their classmates. It's like a teenage right of passage.

And yes. I think the blogger was more interested in page views and ad-clicks when he scoured through blackboard or an old hard-drive to find another students work and post it on the Internet. Such is the nature of sensationalism frenzy: "Everyone's looking, what do we do to grab their eyes." It is despicably tiresome.

Gun laws should not be affected by outliers

This was a crazy incident... and the most recent similar incident happened in the 60's. I predict that like the other crazy incidents, copycats will feel a need to confess to their close friends their need to go copycat (and subsequently get arrested and hauled off to counseling before anything goes down). This does not mean every student who wasn't interested in getting guns before should now go get one, and it doesn't mean students who were sort of interested in guns (or concealed carry permits for the guns they already had) should be given easier access to them than what is already available. If you want to change gun laws please don't throw around some "but what about what happened at VeeTee !!1" whinge as a serious reason.

[Emily]

Let's just generic-ify that a bit: laws should not be affected by outliers. But I agree.

[rambleredhead]

I can agree with you on the coverage about this horrible event - it took them hours from Monday night to Tues morning just to get the identity of the shooter and would fill the shows with comments from experts who said well i think he was upset about something....hmmm I wonder!!!

You should read the great article in USA Today regarding the television coverage!!