After a tragedy like what happened in Blacksburg, Va., somebody always says “this could have been prevented.” Indeed, tragedies such as this could have been prevented, but the solution always seems to be the same: “stronger gun control laws.” I am concerned by this because I don’t think the gun is the real killer. Elon Glucklich’s column (“Controlling the threat,” ODE, April 23, 2007) accurately claims that there are two factors involved: the disturbed individual and the gun. If the gun is taken away, we are still left with a disturbed individual; the same individual who has suicidal tendencies and anger toward society. The gun is merely a vessel of exacting the person’s vengeance.
I am not a gun owner, nor do I strongly desire to own a gun. I am not a member of the NRA, nor am I a Republican. I do not fit any of the stereotypes that Elon describes as the “old mentality” that still clings to the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment, however, did not grant guns to the citizens because the citizens were afraid. American patriots were escaping an oppressive monarchy – one that had the power to trample individual liberties and rights. More so, it was easy for the government to do so because the citizens were unarmed. An armed public would not be conquered as easily. The right for citizens to bear arms acted as a deterrent to oppression and violence. Guns act as deterrents, in the hope that they will never be fired at a human.
The second factor that was relatively unmentioned in Elon’s article was the disturbed individual, Seung-Hui Cho.
I read student accounts of Cho’s school days, of other people laughing at him for the way he spoke, telling him to “go back to China” (although he is of Korean descent), and I cringe. I was considered an outsider throughout middle school and most of high school, and although I never considered suicide or exacting my anger on classmates, I remember how lonely it feels to not be accepted by your peers. We, as a society, can do better; acceptance, or even tolerance, is not a difficult thing to do. It would be much easier to accept and tolerate an individual such as Cho; it takes effort, along with malice and ignorance to tease and ridicule a person.
We, as a society, can do better, and it starts not at limiting our individual freedoms, but with being more tolerant toward others.
Adam Betz
University student