"Tragedy" is too meager a word to describe Monday's shooting of scores of people at Virginia Tech. It was a massacre of horrid proportions.
Nearly three dozen were slaughtered and nearly two dozen more were wounded on the Blacksburg, Va., campus. It's the worst mass shooting in this nation's history. Among the dead is the lone gunman.
We offer our sincerest condolences to the families of the victims; America grieves as one. And our heartfelt prayers are said for the wounded; American heads are bowed in unison.
Such incidents usually lead to great outcries for greater security and stricter gun control laws. Perhaps this incident will prompt calls for airport-like security at our institutions of higher learning, if not at all our schools, if not in each and every public place.
And turn America, land of the free, into America, home of the fortressâ¢
There may even be a rising chorus for repeal of the Second Amendment. After all, haven't we had enough of this kind of thing -- Columbine, the Pennsylvania Amish school shootings and now thisâ¢
But if not guns, the deranged who perpetrate their atrocities will employ some other inanimate accomplice. It is not the instrument of the deeds but the mind-sets that precipitate them that must be addressed.
How do we do that⢠A national conversation must begin in earnest. For we must somehow overcome the pathology we sadly have become.
