Vantage point




Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Acceding A Request

Young Nilu mails in a plea -

My University was a weapon-free campus. I am sure VT was/is too. Someone please point this to all those want more gun control.


Haven't you seen this drama enough number of times? Some will ask for gun control. Others will say if victims had guns, the toll would have been lower and ask for gun un-control laws. Charlton Heston will dodder along with the NRA and growl. Blacksburg residents will wonder how to make his people go. Michael Moore will make a sequel called "Howling for Hokies" and try to flirt with Heston again. Shivsena will demand that Virginia Tech be renamed Chhatrapati Shivaji Tech. And before you know it the media will be discussing who gets custody of Anna Nicole Smith's pet beaver. Cynicism is very seductive.

The campus seemed very sombre today. The business undergrads in the building, usually cackling all around, were quieter. Maybe it was sympathy for the victims, maybe it was a chilling realization... that it could so easily have happened here. Some were talking of the Amish school shootings in Pennsylvania last year. Others recalled the 1996 incident at the HUB in Penn State, one of the rare, if not the only incident of a campus shooting by a gunwoman. And the desis were talking about Prof. Loganathan and Minal Panchal, the two Indian victims in the VT massacre.

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