Over the past few days I have seen some of the media coverage of the shootings in Virginia. Inevitably, after the news channels had reported the available information - which took all of 2 minutes - they repeated the story. On every channel. All evening.
Why do news channels do that? In the absence of any new information, they repeat what they know - ad nauseum - perhaps in the hope that some greater understanding or hidden information will be brought forth.
My immediate reaction to the shootings was similar to the rest of Europe - “when will guns be banned in America?” - but over the course of the last couple of days, having seen the reaction in the US media and among a number of American people, I began to wonder at what point the wheels came off America and it started to freewheel out of control.
Some observations.
As soon as Cho Seung-hui was named as the shooter, the US media immediately constructed an elaborate case around him in order to apportion blame. The fact that Cho had apparently suffered some kind of breakdown complicated the blame game (not even the US media can seemingly blame somebody who is mentally disturbed) - so the hunt has started to find more people to blame. Why was the disturbed young man not noticed before? Who should have noticed? Who else can we blame?
Why on earth does everything have to be somebody’s fault? Stuff happens - and the rest of the world (outside America) seems to be quite adept at dealing with that.
The rest of the world also seems to be quite open to the idea that quite often the populance do not know best - and therefore there are laws to stop people getting themselves into a real mess. Yes, I’m going to talk about guns.
Throughout Europe, in order to own and use a gun, you need a license, a valid (professional) reason, and training. Apparently this is true across most of America too, but it would seem the laws are not enforced.
I don’t think the fault lies with people buying guns though - I think the fault lies with the capitalist mentality of “Make sure I’m okay, and f*ck everybody else”. This is of course the central tennet to American society that has served it so well. It has created Microsoft, Oracle, General Electric, IBM, and any number of other huge companies.
Unfortunately the same mentality has caused the proliferation of huge fuel inefficient cars - through the argument “in order to make sure I survive an accident, I’m going to make sure that my car is big enough that it destroys the other car”. The logical conclusion to this is the sales of military Humvee vehicles on US roads, which would have sounded like a joke even twenty years ago. It might surprise Americans to learn that many European countries are starting to heavily penalise large vehicles for both their size, their weight, their fuel inefficiency, and their killing potential.
Following the same train of thought, we return to Virginia. I wondered how long it would take for anybody being interviewed to suggest the ultimate form of gun toting “I’m alright jack” lunacy. It happened within hours.
Voices are coming out of America saying that if all the students were allowed to carry powerful guns, the shootings in Virginia would not have been as bad. I’m guessing this follows the law that was passed in Florida allowing residents to shoot strangers if they feel threatened by them.
What on earth is happening to America? I know so many people in the US - decent, intelligent, thoughtful, caring, selfless, wonderful people. There appears to be another America though - one that carries guns, looks after itself above all else, invades countries, and ignores the plight and poverty of millions of it’s own people in order to further it’s own greed.