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Jeff,
Death before its natural time is tragic in any form, and a waste in all incarnations. We are so loud over VT because it happened in our own backyard.
Iraq…Rio…VT…there comes a point when people must stand up for themselves. They must choose to right a wrong system; to break a cycle which has spun out of control long before our hands ever reached it.
It is as if we are taught to be afraid and wait for the “heroes” to come. Why can we not be our own heroes? 32 Dead, 29 dying? A classroom fired upon and none were willing to rush the son of a bitch and fight for their lives.
The same in Iraq. People are dying everyday. Why won’t anyone stop those that are killing for control? Why won’t the people stand up and break a religiously and racially oppressive cycle?
In all the world where corruption flourishes as the rule and not the exception, why will the people who are being victimized not stand up and say “No more, you gun wielding thug bastard!”
We wait for heroes, and when they are late to arrive we are quick to point our plank-eyed fingers and say, “This is all your fault.”
Maybe they made some poor decisions, but what about those who waited to die? What about us? What about our choices to support, and in ways create, the monsters which we seek salvation from?
One man with a handgun…
None the less my heart goes out to all who have been affected. They remain in my prayers.
Blessings,
-Michael
Shalom Michael,
We are, I fear, too close to the event for reason to be heard, but I am in total agreement with you. We have become a society in which we’ve outsourced our own safety.
I found this blog entry from Bradford Wiles of use. There will be many of my readers who will disagree with me, but I think that what Wiles says is true.
You can find more in this vein here.
B’shalom,
Jeff
Thank you for the links, Jeff. This is what I have been saying for years. I feel that I must agree with whoever told us that “…an armed society is a polite society.”
We foster fear of the boogie man, and then tell ourselves that there will always be caped crusaders who will rush to our rescue. Sit down, shut up, watch T.V. because the Feds have everything under control.
How long? How many tragedies? I know for a while there will be a re-examination of the second admendment in the Bill of Rights, just like we saw after Columbine; but the truth remains that if you take firearms out of the hands of the law abiding you leave only the lawless armed, dangerous, and free to commit heinous acts such as the one just experienced.
Maybe it is my military training, maybe it is my martial arts experience, or maybe it is just my will to live, but I still cannot understand how no one was willing to rush the man and fight for their right to live.
Perhaps we have been just too well trained. Too many are too far into the coma which we have been lulled into to look around and say, “no!”
Blessings,
-Michael
Shalom Michael,
Training really is the key. Video games just don’t cut it.
B’shalom,
Jeff
acually michael, there was a 76 year old (prolly the reason he didnt storm the gun man) professor/holocaust survivor who gave his life to block the classroom door and his students (or atleast some) were able to flee out the window…id say that he was a hero, and as the story unfolds, im sure there will be more
…the beaurocracy, on the other hand, should have been more on top of things…the guy never should have managed to take over a second location
Shalom Molly,
As the story has developed, more tales of herorism have been discovered. At least two men and one woman blockaded doors and saved the lives of their fellow students.
B’shalom,
Jeff
I have been giving this post a lot of thought. I think it would take great nerve to charge a man with a gun. Professor Kevin Granata, a military veteran, was gunned down trying to confront the shooter. I was just reading today’s Washington Post article ‘That Was the Desk I Chose to Die Under’ when I began to wonder why more students didn’t try to barricade classroom doors with their own bodies? In one classroom 3 students did so when the shooter tried to reenter, and they were able to keep him out. In another room 76 year old Professor Librescu was able to briefly keep the door closed with no help. If a few students had assisted him they might have lived. In one room students put a table in front of the door and pushed against the table, keeping the shooter out, but in another class they blocked the door with a desk but did not put their own strength behind it and he was able to get in. It sounds like I am blaming the students but really I am just trying to understand how people respond. Has fight or flight been replaced by duck and cover?
Shalom Cailin,
I don’t think that much has really changed in that respect. I do agree that three generations of “duck and cover” present a problem.
But there will always be Will Kanes and Hadleyvilles.
B’shalom,
Jeff
[...] sympathy for the victims and their families. My second reaction was similar to that of Jeff’s at Have Coffee Will Write, the realization, not intellectually, but emotionally, that in other places in the world this [...]