How did this happen? Why did this happen? How can we prevent it from ever happening again?

I'll tell you how and why:

Human beings snap sometimes. We are capable of horrific atrocities of the coldest kind.

But we forget this.

We go on with our lives, dealing with our little human affairs (as we should) but occasionally something like the Virginia Tech massacre, the Oklahoma City Bombing, or 9/11 happens, and shocks the hell out of us.

Questions like, 'how can this have happened?' 'Why me?', and statements like, 'I just don't understand how this could have happened' and 'he seemed like such a normal young man' are repeated over and over again.

That's just it.

He was a 'normal young man' -just like us. But something in his head went seriously askew, and he was able to rationalize, and justify his psychotic actions.

Of course, there is going to be the inevitable back-lash that follows these tragedies. Calls for changes to gun laws¹; probably -considering how cautious, and paranoid America has become, post 9/11,- calls for more racial screenings for who is allowed to come into the country², etc………

But at the end of the day, WE have to take a long hard look at ourselves (which, unfortunately, isn't going to happen) and admit that we are ALL capable of doing terrible, terrible things.

Rarely, do they manifest themselves in the way that events unfolded yesterday, but when they do, we're all deeply shocked, and gravely puzzled by how something so awful could have happened.

We are human beings. For the most part, we adhere to concepts of common sense, and logic, to sustain an harmonious existence. But we forget that we are animals. We forget (or fail to acknowledge) that many times we defy logic, and common sense. We delude ourselves into thinking that we are the glorious product of a million years of evolution.

But we sometimes rationalize things in our heads, that are completely 'wrong', or counterproductive. On a small scale, we ALL do this.

You could say that the person who carried out the shootings yesterday was mentally deranged -I certainly would- but I also believe that we're all mentally deranged to a certain extent. Given a particular sequence of events we could ALL kill. We can ALL commit atrocities. Here's proof.

Mark my words: There are going to be lawsuits brought against either the local police, the local government, or the University itself, because the families of the victims will feel that 'someone has to pay for this.' I'm not trying to say that said organizations didn't fuck up (I don't know either way) but it strikes me as supremely ironic that lawsuits should be brought against someone or some organization for a problem that lies within all of our hearts.

Although I AM in favor of much tighter restrictions regarding guns, even getting rid of them altogether is not going to solve the problem.

Sadly, these types of tragedies will happen again, and again, and again……………..

¹Pretty stupid when you think about it. Granted, guns should be controlled a lot more than they are -especially automatic weapons, that serve absolutely no purpose other than to kill, but the point I'm trying to express here is that in two other catastrophic events in the last decade (Oklahoma City, and 9/11) guns were not to blame. People were.

²Also, pretty stupid. Timothy McVeigh was not a foreigner. He was home grown.

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