"Someone To Watch Over Me"

As I write this the Virginia Tech massacre is only a day in the past. It is the most horrible tragedy of this type that has ever happened on American soil. It is heart breaking and gut wrenching in its horror and the thoughts of so many deaths is enough to drive us all into depression. And as the dust settles everyone is asking "why" and "how" and there are not many answers coming forth.

One issue did stand out in my mind and that is the fact that the members of one class were lined up and shot execution style. That means one man with one gun held twenty-five to thirty people at bay and shot them individually. How could that happen? Why didn't they charge him and take away the weapon? Did they just stay there in line and wait to be shot?

Now I am not saying I would have acted any differently, none of us can say how we would have responded to that threat. But when did we change from a society who would protect itself to a society that waits for someone to protect us. We have got to go from reactive to proactive if we are going to survive in this world as it now exists.

This is the same mentality I perceived when I saw the film from Louisiana after Katrina. I saw people waiting for someone to come in and do something for them. But it didn't happen very fast and people were left on rooftops and in huge stadiums. People held on to their belief that the government was going to come in and help them and it didn't - at least not quickly enough.

At some point whether on a rooftop in a flood or against a wall awaiting execution form some deranged killer it is time we all said "I am mad as hell and I am not going to take it any more." And yes that is a quote from Peter Finch's character in the film "Network." There is a lot of truth in his rant, as we can not always play the victim card. Twenty-five people could have taken the Virginia Tech killer since he only had one gun and it was not an automatic weapon to my knowledge.

For too long we have been living in our cocoons and have had someone else worry about taking care of us. Now the world has changed. There is evil out there and it is determined to beat us down. We have to take care of ourselves and take care of our families, and when someone says they are going to harm us we have to act to keep them from doing it.

This is not a cry for vigilantism but rather a call to take care of yourself. As Christians we are taught to turn the other cheek but when it is a you vs. them situation I say go with righteous action. It is a sin what happened at Virginia Tech. I look at the faces of those who were gunned down and I cry for them.

I think of the people who were on United Flight 93 that crashed in Pennsylvania on 9/11. They stood up and fought back. True none of them survived but they weren't going to survive anyway. In this instance at Virginia Tech maybe if they had acted as a group some of them would have survived.

Of course this is all speculation but it does have some probability in being true. Depending on big brother or whoever to take care of us may not be the best way to go any more.
 

 

 

 

 

©2007 Jackie K. Cooper

Click above to find out more about Jackie's books!