A Message For Firginia Tech: This WILL Happen Again

What happened today on campus at Virginia Tech will happen again and it will happen again soon. A lone gunman shoots 32 people dead in two and a half hours of madness. I have just watched the ABC coverage of the biggest mass murder on American soil since 9/11, and the focus is simply not broad enough. Americans are not thinking outside the box; the view of the American is morphed too much by being American. The main question posed by the ABC broadcast was why did the shootings begin at approximately 07:15 and not cease until two and a half hours later? The question is not the right question to ask. What Americans should be demanding the answer to is why was this troubled individual in possession of a firearm in the first place.

Asking this question though, would reveal deep faults in the Constitution of the United States. This document is fundamentally flawed by the Second Amendment. Until this amendment is repealed these killings will happen again. The right to bear arms effectively legalises gun crime. As soon as this is realised the United States will not be the greatest nation on Earth.

It is reported that the police on the Virginia Tech campus treated the original shootings at 07:15 as individual incidents. This is simply laughable here in the United Kingdom. I attend Liverpool John Moores University and if gun shots were heard in my campus then it is likely the whole of the city would grind to a halt. Gun crime does not happen hear in the United Kingdom. We do not have legislation like you second amendment.

The politicians, the political leaders, the social leaders, the cultural leaders, -- they can all express their 'deep sorrow' as much as they want, but it the grand scheme of these things this does not mean anything. This is meaningless. They did not know any of the victims personally. Something they could do is make legally owning a firearm an almost impossible thing. But they will not do this.

Remember the shootings in Texas in 1966? Nothing has changed since then. NOTHING. A gun can still be freely purchased and if someone wanted they could easily conduct another killing spree. I am British. I doubt there is little to stop me getting on a plane to America, buying a gun over the counter, buying some bullets and shooting as many people as I possibly could. While this can still happen, not a single American is free. No one in the United States can be truly free from the fear of being shot. This will happen again.

Yours, wherever you may be,
Daniel C. Wright