ViRgInIa FiRiNg

The gory firing incident on Monday 16th April, 2007 in the campus of Virginia college in Blacksburg in the US where 32 people were shot dead in a crime of the worst form must have yet again shell-shocked the conscience of the US citizens. The whole world is as much shocked on the tragedy as the US. The enormity of the juvenile crime is such that one shudders to think that a heinous crime of this proportion can be committed by a teen-ager boy. The whole episode appeared as if lifted straight from a Hollywood potboiler ending with a lot of gore and blood.

For the US administration this must surely be a wake-up call against its far liberal arms laws. The episode points to the need to urgently review the mindless gun totting-culture in the name of personal freedom and liberty. Self Defence is also extended as an alibi for continuing with the arms Raj. The US Civil Liberty activists conveniently underplay the reality that there are several other democracies across the world wherein too the personal liberty and self-Defence are well protected legally without permitting the citizens to flaunt arms as though to scare and ward off potential threats.

The episode also points to the rich-dad-poor-dad syndrome the US parents and the children alike have been facing without any solution much to their dismay and anguish. The difference between the rich and the poor is not reducing in the US despite the satisfactory performance of the US economy. This is going to certainly put more and more pressure on the middle class and the poor. It is but natural that the children of the poor who cannot afford the lavish life style of the children of the rich parents will naturally grow envious of their more fortunate big brothers. If one goes by the figures of 2005, at least 37 million US citizens were living below the poverty line. The hedonism of the US is under severe threat from the poor children who are envied of the rich and varied life-style of the filthy–rich children.

The easy availability of the arms and ammunition make the job of such psychos very easy and effortless. The contribution of the rich children in provoking their less fortunate brethren to react violently causing the loss of lives also may be a possible cause for such violent backlashes in the society where human relations are also perfunctory and humdrum. Lack of parental control and the influence of the media wherein violence and sex are glorified may be other possible causes for this.

Though stringently monitored by the state authorities, the increasing influx of the hopefuls in search of the US El Dorado must be a major cause of concern for the US authorities. The US population earlier known as a melting pot is presently known as a salad bowl for the obvious reasons. They greatly disgusted with the migrants are filling every possible corner of the states. Some migrants are said to have some pathological hatred for the rich kids making the campuses very vulnerable. Sadly, this will only result in transforming the US society to be more inward looking and legislate more and more exclusivist agendas to insulate them from the migrants, though most of the US citizens today are one day or other were migrants to the US.

If this heinous crime can help mobilize the public opinion against the thriving gun-culture of the US society there may be some hope for the ordinary citizens who have little security against such gun-wielding perpetrators. But then it looks like a tall order in a country where lobbying on the policy matters is a way of life. Moreover, the US National Riffle Association is not only a powerful gun lobby it is unabashedly pursues its agenda openly with the active support or connivance of the political support of the Republicans.