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I am quite tired of all the bad news lately. The economy. The war. Gonzales and every new scandal of the week involving the White House. And now the deadliest single-perpetrator civilian shooting in United States history.
Sigh.
We have so much to be proud of lately.
Better writers than I have been beating the details of the story to death. The media and all the political pundits have turned this unfortunate series of events into a soapboxing opportunity on the issue of gun control.
One group says that gun control is too strict, and that if all students were allowed to carry a concealed weapon, they would have been able to defend themselves.*
The other side says that gun control laws are too lax since they allowed the perpetrator to purchase the weapons and ammo in the first place.
Everyone has a position and the country is, according to the media, polarized on the subject.
Why do I feel like the general public is letting the political debate over gun control divert them from the real story? Oh. Because that’s what is happening.
Instead of asking why the gunman had access to guns, or why the rest of the student population did not, why aren’t we asking how the system failed to catch a student in trouble?
I’ve not seen or heard a single interview of someone who says, “He was the nicest guy!” “I would have never suspected him of doing anything like this!” or “I have no idea how he could behave this way!”
All of the interviews have described him as a “loner,” “troubled,” even “dangerous.” One professor suggested that he get professional counseling from a therapist.
He wrote plays and stories depicting horribly violent and disturbing scenes. He was not an unknown threat.
The internal system of the institution failed. The public is pointing fingers at the University for not locking down the campus “quickly enough.” What would you expect them to do? How could they forsee that an incident two hours earlier in the day would culminate in the massacre of 30 additional students when they didn’t forsee the threat the student posed in the first place?
But how do you turn that argument into a platform that can win an election? You can’t. So we won’t talk about it anymore.
Instead, let’s talk about something horrifying and disturbing and BURIED among other facts of the story…
Here’s an interesting paragraph from an ABC News Story that should make each and every one of you sit up and say “What the FUCK!?”
Some news accounts have suggested that Cho had a history of antidepressant use, but senior federal officials tell ABC News that they can find no record of such medication in the government’s files [emphasis is mine]. This does not completely rule out prescription drug use, including samples from a physician, drugs obtained through illegal Internet sources, or a gap in the federal database, but the sources say theirs is a reasonably complete search.
What? There’s a database tracking the general public’s drug prescriptions? Glad you asked! Yes, Virginia, there is. Seems the “National All Schedules Prescription Electronic Reporting Act” of 2005 sailed through congress and under the radar. I’ll bet we were busy being misdirected with tales of oil prices and the “progress” being made in Iraq.
Under the guise of tracking the usage of prescription narcotics, the Government has been silently collecting data on every drug refill you call into Wal-Mart. You see those words “All Schedules” in the title of the bill? Yeah, that means not only are they tracking who is getting “Schedule 3″ drugs like morphine and Oxycontin, they are also tracking every refill of antibiotics you get for your STD’s. They are tracking your prescription of herpes medication, and counting the number of times you pop a Viagra every month.
This should worry you.
This should scare you more than the very small chance of being the victim of a brutal violent school shooting.
The federal government has systematically eroded our privacy and personal freedoms under the umbrella of stopping terrorists. If this system were actually working, why couldn’t THEY have recognized the threat that Cho posed?
If the government were able to successfully demonstrate an instance where all of their record keeping and invasion of our privacy has lead to the prevention of an attack like those at Virginia Tech, I might be able to understand the argument for conceding a few of our rights.
As it is, I find myself reconsidering the wackjobs at the National Rifle Association position on the 2nd Amendment.
We were granted the right to bear arms as a way for the States to defend themselves against a tyrannical government.
Perhaps that time has come.
National All Schedules Prescription Electronic Reporting Act PDF
* Can you imagine the aftermath of hundreds of freaked out college students with handguns shooting at each other in an incredibly stressful and confusing situation?
