The spate of school shootings that has hit America in recent months struck close to home yesterday, February 14, 2008, when gunfire shattered the serene atmosphere at Northern Illinois University (NIU) in DeKalb, Illinois. A gunman burst into an amphitheater and shot 22 students, killing five, and then turned the gun on himself.
NIU DeKalb is some 65 miles west of Chicago, and a mere 35 miles from my home. It is also my alma mater. My wife, also an NIU alumna, works with the mother of one of the victims.
So here we are again, faced with another senseless shooting at another American university campus - citadels of learning have now been transformed into war zones. These days, death by gunfire occurs in the most unlikely places; malls, churches, playgrounds, schools, etc. No place is sacred… or safe.
One of the victims, 32-year old Julianna Gehant, served in the U.S. Army for 12 years. Her family was thrilled beyond words when she abandoned her military fatigues for the classroom. They thought she was finally out of harm’s way, and that they would never get that dreaded knock on the door informing them that their loved one had died in some distant land. Alas! What the family feared finally occurred in the most unlikely of places – not on some IED booby-trapped road in Iraq but in an amphitheater in a major university in the American Midwest - a very cruel irony and a symbol of what modern America has become.
May the souls of the departed rest in peace.
Go Huskies!!!
Save $$$ from any phone
Everybody in America knows that easy accessibility of guns is the cause but the politicians are afraid to say that plain truth. It is political suicide to speak truth about guns, so they all pander. I sincerely hope that Obama and Clinton, unlike Clinton and Obama before them do not go for pretend duck hunts just to impress gun political machine.
Background checks will generally have no preventive effect in these cases, because the perpetrators usually have no criminal records, and their "crazy" records, if they have those at all are a matter of doctor-patient confidentiality.
Every couple of months, somebody kills a mass of people in some school or mall. When will the school lobby and the mall lobby and the people lobby tell the gun lobby enough!
Posted by: Ma Mary | February 16, 2008 at 01:54 AM
These copycat campus shootings seem to be getting more and more frequent. No need second-guessing that the proliferation of the cheap guns in unsafe hands is responsible for the madness. I hope the debate about gun culture of America could be one of the issues that decided who will be President in the coming elections.
Within the last week alone, there has been a spate of at least 5 mindless multiple killings by a pack of boneheads at different locations. It beggars belief why there is still no law to tighten the acquisition and possession of weapons on the high streets.
America still lives in denial about its litany of self-made catastrophes. There is evidence that global warming causes new and weird weather patterns. America has singularly suffered the effects of such crazy changes and unpredictable weather with climate change. Yet, they refuse to sign the Kyoto protocol and continue to drive their big cars without a care in the world, spewing their carbon into the atmosphere. Remember Katrina, the other time it was California, last week it was Michigan. The tragedies continue
Similarly, they drag the rest of the civilized world into a barbaric war in the Middle East; subjecting us all to the bigotry and hate of the terrorist . But they refuse to quit Iraq.
They introduced the fast food culture in the world, the one unnecessary thing now responsible for causing an epidemic obesity of global proportions.
They allow thugs to acquire cheap guns off the counter, and they suffer from its effect when innocent kids are slaughtered in cold blood by hallucinating idiots! But they refuse to legislate on the gun culture.
The American dream is a self- prescribed nightmare and America still snores and roars.
aNyango
Posted by: nlatane | February 17, 2008 at 02:11 PM
Very, very, sad. It makes you wonder what is going on with the young people of today. Why is this becomming more, and more common. It breaks my heart.
Posted by: Televisiontraci | February 20, 2008 at 04:47 PM