Words Fail Me

And I'm sure they're failing other people too in regard to the recent massacre in Virginia Tech on April 16, 2007 (aka this past Monday)--an event being described as the worst massacre in recent US history.

That doesn't mean there aren't people who are already commenting on the event. And it's sad to see how much of the commentary seems reminiscent of the same Monday morning quarterbacking (no pun intended) we witnessed after the Columbine massacre. Once again we'll see a lot of political ambulance-chasing done in the name of “compassion for the victims.” Once again, we'll see a lot of people talk about how people -- not them personally, but, you know, other people -- should have responded to signs that seem obvious in retrospective. (But then such signs always seem obvious in retrospective.)

If you hate immigrants, you'll use this incident as an excuse to bash immigrants. If you hate Koreans, you'll use this incident as an excuse to bash Koreans. If you hate guns, you'll use this as an excuse to promote gun control -- even though incidents like this rarely seem to happen in places like Switzerland in which most citizens are required to own guns. If you hate anything, you may or may not give in to the temptation to blame this incident on that particular item you hate.

Ever since I've heard about the gunman's two-handed gun firing technique, I've been waiting for some jerk to blame this whole incident on John Woo movies.

In the end, all this rhetoric will matter little to the dead. All we can do is try our best to prevent the next such incident. And ironically, if we are successful in doing that, few people will ever know. But at least they'll be alive...