Story Time with E: Everything You Know About the Virginia Tech Shooting is Probably Wrong

Posted by Enrique on 04.19.2007

Witness the Postmodern Stages of Grief: Denial, Acceptance, Blame Assignment, and Self-Serving Symbolic Interpretation.

Can't ignore it, can't unlive it, can't move forward without wrapping your head around it and figuring out Just What It Means To Me, And What's More, The Nation. And that's okay – when a tragic event occurs it's natural to assume that we're supposed to learn some kind of lesson. We have to figure out how to take this horrific event and use it as an opportunity to change ourselves for the better.

Here's an ugly truth – when I saw the first headlines about Virginia Tech, it was 22 dead, and I didn't have any particular reaction. I was pretty indifferent. It was Monday, I was at work and it was busy. It's an awful thing to happen, but there's nothing I can do about it. Y'know? I don't think that makes me a bad person (not that I'm biased). I think it just means I'm jaded. You see enough headlines in your life about scores of people killed in Iraq every week, and eventually your brain just filters it all into the "Not My Problem" file.

Okay, maybe that does make me a bad person, but I look at it like this – If you sit around all day pissed about how humanity is so completely depraved that our children's future is doomed, then you're just going to develop a financially unsustainable substance abuse problem. It's much thriftier to grow numb and disinterested by the senseless waste of human life that goes on every day all over the world. After all – menthol cigarettes, light beer, and illicit prescription painkillers aren't cheap.

This is the real no spin zone. O'Reilly can suck it.

The story so far…

We all think we know the story. You may have heard that it's the single deadliest shooting spree in American history. The gunslinger was named Cho Seung-Hui. He killed 32 people over the period of a few hours at Virginia Tech before turning the gun on himself. Apparently he was armed to the teeth and ready to die. The early word is that he was a loner.

And that's all we have – the early word. How much is the early word worth, really? While I appreciate the charms of living in an open society with a free press that operates on a grinding hour-to-hour news cycle, the early word has proven to be unreliable in the past. It might be prudent to step back, take a deep breath, and think about what we don't know – what we couldn't possibly know.

(Note: I realized after the fact that I stole this bit from Glen Beck.) (But I swear it was subconscious.) (I never even watch him.) (Sometimes I catch a segment of his show when I'm flipping channels.) (Why am I still using parentheses?)

What We Couldn't Possibly Know:

1. We don't know if the University authorities did anything wrong. There was an article on Drudge Tuesday headlined "Parents Demand Firing of Virginia Tech President, Police Chief Over Poor Handling of Mass Shooting." Maybe America is in a firing mood after the Imus thing, but it's only been one day. There's no need to put anyone's head on the chopping block just yet. This was an extraordinary event, a grisly worst case scenario – the excrement hit the propeller. If there's one thing I've learned in my short time on this earth, it's that awful things happen all the time, and they often aren't the result of human incompetence. You can't war game every grotesque possibility.

Sure, with the benefit of hindsight, everything is obvious – they should have reinforced the levees in New Orleans, someone should have foreseen terrorists using planes as weapons, Al Gore should have petitioned for a statewide recount of Florida instead of just four counties, etc. The downside of hindsight is that it makes it convenient to draw unreasonable conclusions. All I'm saying is, maybe it's fair to suspend judgment on university officials and local law enforcement for not perfectly responding to the Unforeseeable Extreme Massacre until all the facts are in.

We want to assign blame because it gives us the illusion that we have control.

2. We don't know whether or not this crime has symbolic resonance regarding the Gun Control Debate. If you're clever, like the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, you capitalize on the traumatized psyche of a nation to push your agenda. But if you're REALLY shrewd, like the NRA, you simply release a polite statement offering condolences and nothing more for days. The NRA doesn't have to say anything, because they know that the rightwing blogs will push the issue, and present this is as an example of why gun ownership should be mandatory for all 18-year-old citizens and resident aliens. If those rightwing blogs are really devious, they'll chirp on about the campus shooting at the Appalachian College of Law (also located in Virginia) in 2002.

It's a disturbingly appropriate story. A disgruntled student, apparently hysterical at having flunked out of the College, returned to campus to wreak revenge. He killed three people before being subdued by his fellow students. Two of the students who detained the gunman had firearms of their own, which were no doubt helpful in stopping the peeved lunatic. A textbook example of how responsible civilian gun ownership can save lives – or so the rightwing blogs would have you believe. They usually don't mention that the heroic gun-wielding students were off-duty law enforcement, and therefore had training beyond that of the average layman.

But still, the rightwing blogs would probably harp on the Appalachian College of Law shooting. Since it's pretty good point, actually.[/cynicism]

3. We don't know what to do about loner males. If you believe what you read in the New York Times – and who doesn't now and again – Cho was your standard issue introverted loner sociopath (I'm paraphrasing). He didn't socialize, he wouldn't respond to his roommates' attempts at friendly banter, but no one suspected that he was capable of such a thing. Cho was an English student who wrote violent stories that disturbed his classmates and instructors – read his thrilling play "Richard McBeef" now at The Smoking Gun. The Virginia Tech English Dept. made some unspecified "intervention," but that's just the early word.

We all know a guy like this. Maybe we know him from work, or from class, or from the tavern, or from the strip club that has the buffalo wing lunch special – that one dude who pretty much keeps to himself. He's basically polite, but he's quiet and hard to read, and sometimes he seems to have a disconcertingly unpleasant attitude, as if he's a resentful social outcast capable of GOD KNOWS WHAT.

But it's hard to tell if the average loner male is just a plain old shy fellow, or if he's a shy fellow concealing homicidal rage. Most people want to avoid confrontation, and how exactly are you supposed to start that conversation? "Good day, Cho! Chilly weather this time of year, wouldn't you say, old sport? I can't help but notice that you don't have much in the way of small talk these days. It's not because you're plotting an historic mass murder, is it?"

4. We don't know if Bush is responsible. Attention Keith Olbermann: I know you're probably being very sincere, but it comes off as really douchebag-y. Just sayin'.

What we do know:

Everyone dies. And sometimes death is horrible.

It's surprisingly easy to forget. Let's not overthink this. A hideous thing happened. And we need to move on. Because the next hideous thing is right around the corner. On Wednesday, there were at least 183 killed by bomb in Baghdad.

What does the future hold for the human race? So far, the plot sickens.