I didn't want to weigh in on the Virginia Tech killings mainly because an idiot headcase like that didn't need any more press. Alas, CNN, NBC, et al, have given the idiot headcase all the press he will ever need. He'll be on the internet forever, and his words will have the longevity of Churchill, Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr.
It is sobering to think that we will know more about his words than we will about Abraham Lincoln's. Lincoln's words were only recorded by the pen. We know how boring that is compared to the flash and dash of the TV screen, so we're lucky that some students might even know who Lincoln was, let alone what he said at Gettysburg.
But that is not the fate of the idiot headcase. Before murdering 32 people, he dropped a tape of himself into the mailbox. He posted it to NBC. Yesterday, NBC promptly played the piece. It shows the idiot headcase brandishing firearms, ranting about the world in general, and now and then pointing a gun at his own head. It is a shame that he was more headcase than idiot. He might have pulled the trigger and splashed his idiot mind all over the wall. But he didn't.
The television media that aired this piece should be deeply ashamed of themselves. I don't mean professionally ashamed, as in, "Did we make the right call?" I mean ashamed in the way that you can't look your mother in the eye.
This is a disgrace. To give a subhuman like that a platform to 'air his views' before murdering 32 people is a travesty. It accomplishes three things: it gives the idiot headcase exactly (and I do mean exactly) what he wanted. 2) it destroys the remaining members of the families that he already destroyed. He killed some with the gun, and he now kills the rest with anger and humiliation. Until the end of their lives, these families have a chance of running into the idiot headcase on the internet and hearing his crap. He will never leave their lives. He will always remind them of what he did, what he took away. And he always wins. Remember: he got exactly what he wanted, at their sons' and daughters' expense. 3) any other idiot headcase out there now knows that he will win, too.
This is not a first amendment issue. If CNN or any other organization had transcribed some of his words and put them on a screen, I would have had no problem with that: it's news. It might (though this is extremely dubious) help point out other headcases in the future. But to play the tape in its entirety is pure sensationalism at best.
By the by, when are we going to hear from the victims? The answer, of course, is never. Unlike the idiot headcase (and if you're looking for his name, go look somewhere else; it won't be mentioned here) the victims of this crime did not get a chance to sit down and tape their last words. That was for the idiot headcase alone. The victims were busy going about their day. Maybe they were thinking about exams. Maybe they were thinking about the next kegger, or getting laid, or going home on the weekend to see mom and dad. Whatever. They didn't get a chance to say anything to anybody, except perhaps to beg for mercy.
They got none. Neither from the killer, nor the media.
I'm sick of the news networks. I want them to go to the families with hat in hand, get down on their knees, and ask forgiveness. I want them to ask for any and all family videos they can get their hands on. Then I want them to run these tapes back to their offices as fast as they ran the idiot headcase's tape to their broadcast studios. I want them to sit down with an editor and make a 10-hour movie about these kids. I want the birthdays, the smiles, the touchdowns, the first steps, the graduations, and the love. I want them to cut that as fast as they can, and I want it on the air for tomorrow. In its entirety. And everytime they show even one second of that idiot headcase's footage, I want them to show that 10-hour movie again. In its entirety.
Think it will happen?
Fat chance. About as much chance as the police doing anything to stop idiot headcases like this from killing people.
No, I don't think the police are responsible. At least, not for the first five deaths. Or ten. Or maybe even fifteen.
But 32? What the hell were the cops doing while this creep was executing people?
I'm fed up with the cops, too. We've got America's Most Wanted, COPS, SWAT, Protect and Serve, and all kinds of tough-guy cop garbage on TV. When a drunk driver gets pulled over, the police have no problem throwing him to the ground or using a Taser to zap him into submission. On the SWAT programs, fifteen guys get out of a van all dressed in black body armor. They look ridiculous, like schoolboys at Hallowe'en. When they kick in the drug lord's slum door, they find the 17-year-old menace to society passed out on the couch in his underwear.
When they shackle the drug kid and put him in the back of the van, they usually bring on a sergeant to make some remarks. "Nobody got hurt," he says. "Successful day."
No kidding, pal. You stormed a suburban home as if you were the Marines. The kid didn't even know you were coming. The chances of somebody getting hurt were pretty damn small. Where are these tough guys when somebody is shooting cheerleaders and university professors in the back?
These SWAT guys really take the cake. In almost every instance that one of these rampage shootings happen, the killer ends up taking his own life. Why? Because the police were outside 'securing the building,' and 'waiting for back-up,' and calling in the 'SWAT team.'
I've got news for you, guys: the building is already insecure. The only people that are going to run out of the building are victims and civilians. The killer is inside. Right where you should be.
CNN broadcast a tape that some kid took with his cell phone at Virginia Tech. The kid was outside in the parking lot. In front of the kid were at least three cops, guns drawn towards the building. The cops were behind their cars, in the classic, 'cop with gun drawn over the hood' look. In the background, you heard, "Bang...bang...bang..."
The shots were evenly spaced, and all of the same calibre. There was about five seconds between each shot. It wasn't a shoot out. It was the idiot headcase strolling down the hall executing unarmed men and women.
What heroes the police are. What great training they have. To protect and serve? Get off the damn hood of your car, into the building, find the sonofabitch (just follow the gunshots and the screams of teenage girls), and shoot him, for God's sake.
Don't hand me this 'waiting for back-up', or 'securing the building' crap. We've seen these rampages before. At the Amish school, at Columbine, and in Minnesota. We've seen it happen in Germany, and we've seen in it Scotland. Every time it happens, the cops secure the building so that the killer can get on with his rampage without being interrupted. When he runs out of bullets or get tired of the whole thing, he kills himself. He isn't going to scramble out the front door and start blazing away at the parking lot (where the police are hiding behind their cars), he's going to stay inside where the victims are.
I guarantee you this: if the police had gone inside earlier, less than 32 people would have died. I really have no doubt of that. Every eyewitness report we hear tells us that these headcases do not hide behind desks or slink around corners. They walk very deliberately down the hall, intoxicated with power, and shoot what they see. Bang...bang...bang. Any cop following that noise could peek around a corner and let the headcase have it.
"But what if the cops shoot an innocent victim?" comes the reply. My answer: shoot the guy standing in the middle of the hall, as opposed to the girl cowering in the corner. In other words, shoot the guy with the damned gun. And if there's two or three of them, keep looking until you can shoot them, too.
I fear we will learn nothing from this. An idiot headcase will do something like this again. The TV news will make sure he gets his day in the sun. And the cops will stand back and let it happen. Again.
One thing is certain: if you are ever caught in a situation such as this, remember Todd Beemer: "Let's roll." Do it yourself. Go down with a fight. Because no one is going to save you, and the idiot headcases certainly won't spare you.
Remember that.
No comments:
Post a Comment