This post may not be appreciated or agreed with by many people, but it’s something that has come to mind that I feel compelled to write down nonetheless. In breaking news there has been a terrible school shooting at Virginia Tech. I’d like to start by saying that this is a terrible tragedy and my heart goes out to the victims, their families and everyone effected.
My comment on the situation is simple and brief. Why is it that when a domestic citizen goes off the deep-end and starts firing on innocent people we call it a school shotting, but when it’s orchestrated from abroad we call it terrorism? To me they don’t seem very different, and yet I don’t think that there’s a likelihood in a “war on school shootings,” to be coming out of our administration. Not to say that there should be.
If school shootings are senseless and there’s little hope in preemptively defending against them. How can we be naive enough to believe that there is any deterrent effect on terrorism resulting from the precautions and security measures implemented post 9-11.
School shooters have little to nothing to gain from their actions. They’re on the brink and they’re performing desperate acts of last resort. What’s scary is that they are successful. So if there is a large vast network of terrorist aggressors who seek to do harm to innocent American people, then why is it that they are so inept compared to erratic school shooters. Suposed terrorists have a lot to gain their families get paid for their suicidal sacrifices and they believe to reap high rewards in the afterlife. Wouldn’t they be the safer bet for succeeding in acts of violence?
Or is it possible that no imminent terrorist threat to innocent people exists. Witnessing the ease and success of the Virginia Tech massacre makes me at least discount the size and scope of such a terrorist threat far below what we are continually led to believe?
What you say sounds right. But I thought I’d post anyway.
What would you say to someone who says that known methods of deterrence of foreign criminals are, indeed, not any more successful than those directed against domestic criminals, but that foreign criminals, having more restricted sights limiting their targets to those where they expect universal media coverage of their acts, thereby limit the number of places that need to be protected, and so make deterrence more successful anyway?
I suppose the obvious answer is that the Virginia Tech tragedy did receive vast media coverage (I think?), so, if there are terrorists seriously trying to attack American soil, they could do so as easily as did the domestic shooter there, and with the same effect. Why wouldn’t a series of smaller-scale killings achieve the same hoped-for (publicity) effect as would a single larger-scale killing?
Just a thought.
I don’t believe that school shooters have any political goals.
Harry,
I guess if it was explicit that the acts are connected I think there would be more wide scale coverage.
Jeremy,
That’s the point I’m trying to make. If there is a group of both motivated and unmotivated violent aggressors why do we see obvious success by the non-motivated group yet think that we can successfully deter the motivated.
In the words of Chris Rock,”Whatever happened to CRAZY?”