By Darren Mcvey
Steven Kazmierczak was a 27-year-old sociology student on Wednesday and joined Cho Seung Hui in the inner-most circle of Hell on Thursday.
In Dekalb, Ill., on St. Valentine’s Day, students at Northern Illinois University were taking notes, text messaging, and drifting in and out of focus in their afternoon geology class when Kazmierczak emerged from behind a screen and indiscriminately began murdering.
For the second time in a year, I’m writing a column about a campus shooting.
While looking at Kazmierczak’s photo, I saw three headlines that made me cringe. One declared, “Another ‘Gun Free Zone’ Massacre…” another, “Obama Embraces Right To Bear Arms…” My only question is what kind of person sees news of a campus shooting and immediately thinks of constitutional law or scoring political points? I don’t doubt the sincerity or morality of these people, I question their judgment.
This was a disturbing fact of the Virginia Tech Massacre last April. There will be a time for discussing gun rights and the causes of these tragedies. The day after, however, is time for mourning, grieving, and being angry. Those who persist in making all events political disrespect the grieving communities.
On the other hand, those who speak of immediate “healing” and “forgiveness,” as Virginia Tech’s president did the day of their massacre, equally rob the community of their rightful time to mourn, grieve and be angry. Humans cannot automatically heal after traumatic events, it takes time and there is nothing that can be done in the immediate aftermath to heal the pain.
Humans also do not hand out forgiveness for the evil that is done to others. The only people who can rightfully forgive Kazmierczak for his murders are the victims of his deeds and they are dead. Maybe I am not as enlightened as others, but when leaders speak of healing and forgiveness, I don’t really get it.
The other headline that troubled me claimed the murderer “Had ‘Become Erratic’ Off Meds…” This is a most disturbing thought. Because a young man stopped taking his pills, five innocent people are dead.
There is no doubt that mental health plays a role in these events, but there is also no doubt that this type of evil is just in some people. It is easy to overlook this evil when it is in the streets of Gaza and the caves of Afghanistan. But it hits much harder in the classrooms of Dekalb and Blacksburg.
We must remember that whether evil takes place in Iraq or Illinois, the victims are equally human. Americans, myself included, need to try harder to mourn for the victims of Palestinian suicide bombs and Sudanese machetes as much as we mourn for the victims of American shotguns.
Most of all, these events should help us focus on what is important instead of trivial. Make sure your friends and family know you love them, try to be happy and don’t waste time because evil can steal it from you in just a moment.
