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Opinion

Dwelling on ‘what ifs' offers no answer

Jim McCormick
Opinion Columnist

After Monday's shootings at Virginia Tech University, there was a discussion on www.slashdot.org about the incident. Various people espoused various positions on several measures they claimed would have prevented the incident. But none of this keyboard punditry will do any good in the long run, nor will it provide comfort to grieving families. 

No justice will be served in this world, as the only suspect in the shootings took his own life before authorities could apprehend him.

Some said the solution was giving students weapons, and others said nobody should have access to firearms. Neither side paid much attention to the realities in this country, instead pointing to statistics that compared our violent crime rates to the rest of the world's -- a category in which this country has historically done poorly. 

Nor did people pay attention to the fact that most guns are sold and owned legally. The fact is that in every incident of a shooting massacre, multiple laws have been broken even before a single shot is fired -- laws that obviously did no good.

Jack Thompson, a noted critic of the video game industry whose ethical practices have been under investigation by the Florida Bar Association, appeared on Fox News in the hours following the events and predictably claimed that video games were entirely to blame -- this was when little was known about the shootings. 

Of course, gamers expected nothing more of Thompson, who has a history of attacking the video game industry without any sense of dignity or decorum. However, there is no doubt that some vote-hungry politician heard his remarks and will lead another push against video games. 

Many are also disappointed in the school's response to the initial dorm shootings. None of these people, however, seem to realize that universities are almost impossible to "lock down," as there are usually several thousand people on campus in several buildings. Such a measure is equivalent to trying to shut down a small town or suburb. 

There wasn't much campus officials could have done beyond what they did.

At the end of the day, there is no comfort to be had or solution to be found, particularly in the words of pundits and politicians, who will use any tragedy to their advantage. 

Perhaps the best thing people could do now is to turn off the news, step away from their computers and go spend some time with loved ones instead of dwelling on the tragedy and how it "could have been" prevented.

McCormick, a computer science post-baccalaureate student, 
can be reached via dccampus@mail.uh.edu