Cohen: What is the solution?
Virginia Tech massacre opens up debates about serious flaws in American culture
After a student killed 32 on the Virginia Tech campus, many try to place blame on pitfalls in our society, whether it's bashing the violent video-game industry or the open gun laws. It's time for us to wake up and realize something is very wrong.
By Ben Cohen
Wednesday, April 18th, 2007
Sadly, an old wound has to be reopened. Every few years, it seems another senseless act of violence forces us to reevaluate where we, as a society, stand on things such as violence in the media, and the availability of guns. In the late nineties, there was a long and bitter debate over the role of the media in the Columbine massacre, and while it is not as strong as it once was, it never quite died down. Unfortunately, the assault on Virginia Tech by one of its own students forces us to look again at where such horrific acts of violence can come from.
When we are surrounded by images of violence on a day-to-day basis, it is more than likely that at least some of us will be desensitized to them at some point. The question then is begged, what is the solution?
It seemed as if people who blamed video games and music videos were just zealots trying to water down the entertainment industry. I myself used to believe this, but it is hard to be sure any more. The most prominent acts of gun violence in the last ten years have been by young people, who are the target audiences for video games featuring heavily-armed criminals who rarely have to face consequences for their actions, movies featuring shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later heroes and a general glorification of what one person can do with the right amount of ammunition.
In 1998, two middle school students in Jonesboro, Arkansas killed five people, and wounded several others. In 1999, two high school students laid siege to a school in Littleton, Colorado and left thirteen people dead and several others wounded. In 2004, a crazed fan in his twenties shot and killed rock musician Dimebag Darrell Abbott onstage at a concert, along with three other people. The death toll of the attack on the campus of Virginia Tech has been placed at over thirty people. Accounts from survivors describe having to be locked into classrooms to protect themselves from the gunman and barricading a door to keep him out.
Mass murders do not just happen. Someone, or something, must put it into the minds of those who carry these acts out that what they are doing is the right thing. When we are surrounded by images of violence on a day-to-day basis, it is more than likely that at least some of us will be desensitized to them at some point. The question then is begged, what is the solution? Would greater restraint by the entertainment industry, or even something as extreme as censorship, be what it takes to keep the seeds of horrific violence out of the heads of young people in America? Or do we need to reevaluate gun culture in general? Countless vehicles are adorned with stickers expressing the respective driver’s love of their firearm, while the National Rifle Association would have us believe that owning a gun is a greater display of freedom and national pride than freedom of speech.
Regardless, there must be a solution. How many more innocent lives have to be lost before we wake up and realize that something is wrong?
Cohen is a Topeka sophomore in Journalism.
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Wow, that's amazing that you took five paragraphs to say absolutely nothing. Well done, sir.
"Mass murders do not just happen. Someone, or something, must put it into the minds of those who carry these acts out that what they are doing is the right thing."
Mind-blowing insight.
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