Reflections on Virginia Tech shootings

Yesterday was a surreal day. I didn't learn of the shootings until after I had returned from my morning classes at around 1PM. The first news reports convinced me it was a fairly isolated incident with only a few casualties, but as that number exploded to over 30, I began feeling more and more frightened and saddened. It's not often there is a school shooting, and its less often there’s a Virginia school shooting, and even less often more than 30 innocent students are killed in less than 3 hours.

I took solace in a letter from the University of Virginia's President John Casteen to the students, available here. His words are heartfelt and powerful, and in my opinion do a better job in summing the thoughts of so many of us than any news report or editorial yet published.

After the initial shock of the event, my fear and sadness began turning to anger. Throughout my life I've advocated more stringent gun purchasing requirements and firearm controls. About two years ago I decided once and for all that no civilian in the United States should be able to own a handgun. There is simply no need for one. Practially all of Western Europe, Canada, and Japan is gun-free and they aren’t anarchical. Many on the pro-gun side of the debate will make the point "guns don't kill people, people kill people". That is undeniable--a gun cannot kill someone without some external intervention. However, the failure of that argument is that we, as a society, have to draw a line as what dangerous weapons civilians can and cannot own. Knives don't kill people, people kill people is also a logical argument. The flaw is that knives don't have the potential to kill tens of people. A person can't walk into a classroom and kill 32 students and faculty with a knife. The opposite of that argument is demonstrated in that we, as citizens and civilians of the United States, cannot own armored tanks with artillery shells. This, from my perspective, is the same reason we should not be allowed to own handguns. They have an enormous capacity for loss of life.

Pro-gun activists will also claim that thorough psychological screenings and background checks will weed out the potential sociopaths and mass murderers. While this is true for the most part, we will never be able to detect 100% of these people. All it takes is one disgruntled and mentally disturbed person to kill so many, as again was evident from yesterday's events.

Virginia has some frighteningly relaxed gun purchasing laws, as noted in this SciAm blog post. We need to address these issues before another Virginia Tech can happen.

Happening in the last two months

I haven't posted an update in a while due to several factors, one is that I've been fairly busy with finishing my coursework for my last semester as an undergraduate, and two is that I've been doing a lot of partying.

I finally got a job as a consultant/IT specialist with IBM Application Innovation Services, which is both exciting and somewhat overwhelming. Previously, I've only been employed by public sector government entities, which are typically considered some of the laziest jobs on the face of the Earth. This is pretty much true, as I've based my performance in these jobs on Peter Gibbon's philosohpy in Office Space of "working just hard enough to not get fired". I'm used to being lazy and not facing any consequences, but I do know I have the capacity to work hard if I enjoy something and find it challenging. Also, they're paying me a ridiculous amount of money, so I have a huge incentive compared to my past jobs where I've earned no more than $15-17/hour.