Pro-Gunners: Pay Attention Please

I'm sure that by now, all of my potential readers have heard about the Virginia Tech Massacre. If not, where have you been? Turn on the TV or radio and you'll hear all about it. It was the deadliest mass shooting in our nation's history. The sad thing is, this is the fourth one to occur during this school year. There was one at a college in Canada, the Amish School House Shooting (that one hit close to home), and the other one (I forget the location). Those are just the ones that I've heard about. Most of these shooting, unless they happen on a very large scale (like this one), or are very unexpected and unusual (the Amish one), they get very little media attention (like the third one mentioned). Those are only a small fraction of shooting crimes that occur in this country. There is so much useless bloodshed. Most other industrialized nations have been using gun control for quite some time now. The result: a dramatic reduction in their amounts of shooting crimes (duh!). It thrills me to hear this being brought up in the news. Unfortunately, those comments are usually followed by stating the fact that those countries also have a rise in stabbings as a result. Honestly, it's a trade I'd be willing to make. Think about it, had that guy today gone into Virginia Tech with a knife, most likely less people would have died, and much less would have been injured. With a gun, you can stand at a distance, and then just point and pull the trigger. Just standing in the doorway that man was able to shoot an entire class. With a knife, you've got to get in close, and the victim at least has a chance to run, or fight the attacker off.

Another group that needs to be paying attention is the campus security at most colleges and universities. The regulations regarding who is permitted on campus, where they are allowed to go on campus, and what to do in an emergency like this are all quite lacking. Heck, Melissa stayed over the weekend once back in January, and I didn't even need to have her register anywhere, and I'm fairly certain that they never would have noticed her car.

So yeah, basically this whole incident has me rather fired up. It could have easily been avoided, had the proper people taken a good hard look at the past, and try to prevent it from repeating itself. Schools have been a target for this sort of thing since Columbine, which I believe happened while we were still in elementary school. Now, here at college, it's so reassuring to see that it had no effect, what-so-ever on school security.