Apparently, this killer *was* a Christian. If he wasn't, the headlines would have read: "Atheist murderer" or "Muslim Terrorist," or, if they'd found a stray Tarot card within a block of his house, "Pagan Cult Murderer" or some such.

Someone mentioned 'Spiritual Warfare,' ...this is a practice a lot of people who want folks to take their teachings literally actually enforce on the mentally-ill, under some belief that this represents Satanic influence.

Including the idea that people are evil and corrupt, particularly in colleges, ...then they wonder why troubled people flip out at people they teach are the 'enemy.'

The 'war' metaphor, and identifying righteousness with firearms in that strange way some extremist Christians do is, I think, a real problem, and one that exacerbates the problems inherent to the West's difficulty dealing with mental illness, particularly in a context where the system is set up to subsidize pharmaceutical sales and make the human touch too expensive to really gain experience with.

The whole idea of 'spiritual war' tends to give people who are out of their heads an illusory sense of control over what their illness presents, even if the 'enemy' is a mirage that happens to be taught to overlap innocent college kids.

I've dealt with a great number of the underserved mentally-ill... both on and off their meds. A number of them are greatly further-disturbed by the fact they are taught to see what they experience as 'demonic,' (and guess who gets to deal with *that,* that's right, those 'white witches' and shamanic folks: contrary to popular assumption, a magical worldview and 'magical thinking' in a pathological sense are very different things.)

Now, accordingly, I'm very suspicious and critical of our over-medicated and under-treated mentally-ill, but absent a better context of real-world care in particular, there are a lot of cases where the medications do in fact do wonders: paranoid schizophrenia and extreme bipolar mania among them.

We still don't care well, spiritually and materially, for those so afflicted, and a few folks like me doing what we can does not a system make.

Likewise, I think a lot of the 'spiritual warfare people' sincerely believe they're actually fighting evil in some way, but the general effect is that they populate the minds of those too sick and unstable to discern for themselves with 'demons and demonic oppressions...' And enemies. Frankly, a lot of them are pretty out there, themselves, but they get positive attention from certain churches for claiming they personally saw Satanic conspiracies among tree-huggers, often citing as 'evidence' the very delusions induced by the 'exorcisms' they've been exposed to.

In a world where anyone who half-tries *can* have enough firepower to defend the Alamo, as a society we simply must care better for those among us who are too sick to be safe with them. The wonders of our modern world have also made an individual madman far more dangerous than the old ways ever were meant to deal with.

To the Christians who come here and blame college students having sex, or taking 'God' out of the schools, or all the other things you blame for someone losing it, and taking it out on just the people you teach them to blame for some Satanic influence, I say... If you believe that, what do you think *you* would do if you suddenly lost all sense of reality and impulse control?

Now, this isn't to say I haven't seen and participated in some truly wonderful spiritual healings: but I think a lot of that success actually has a great deal to do with *not* teaching people their distress is part of some externallized and internalized *war,* and that they're seeing actual demons and angels when they're just losing their filters.

In fact, people, for much of my life, have known, 'You start seeing weird things, talk to PP,' ...and I'll be darn up-front about referring people to qualified medical personnel where possible and even remotely-appropriate, but even for those that needed a lot more than I could do, I have really observed that it *helps* for them to feel, "No, reality isn't unraveling and letting devils and holy wars in, you're experiencing something, and others have before, and we're going to work with this."

People tend to subconsciously internalize these notions of devils and hells and holy wars, ...too horrible to look at, so they file them away in the subconscious, where they fester into monsters: and the moment things get weird, they're liable to start believing that devils and evil and wars are what they must be experiencing.

We get more than our share of mental illness in the Pagan community: frankly, those who are having a little material-reality trouble are likely to seek magical or spiritual means to deal, hopefully in a positive way.

If they've learned, then even in the event of a thyroid blowout playing merry Hel with their brains, what comes out during the misfiring of the neurons isn't war and violence and guns.

So I propose to 'Spiritual warfare types' that if you don't want to see these horrors among our severely mentally-ill... don't teach them they're in a war against demons and 'sinners' and college students, as the source of their psychiatric distress.

They might believe you.

To all of those who are saying that "this happened because society is evil" and "all he needed was Jesus", I ask you this:

How do we know that this person was not a Christian? How do we know that he wasn't just a guy who went off his meds because they caused him to "feel like a zombie", rather than asking for a different prescription, or working with his doctor? What happens when a Christian has serious mental problems? Do you shun that person? Do you claim that s/he is "possessed by demons"? Or do you treat this person with compassion and try to get them the help that they need?

My sincere condolences to those at NIU who are dealing with this tragedy. And to those of you who are exploiting it to try to push your religious or pro/anti-gun agendas, just STFU for a month or so until these poor people can bury their dead.

Noticeably absent in the discussion of Kazmierczak's past is his upbringing as a Roman Catholic in Elk Grove Village, IL. Rather than question the Second Amendment - a distinction critical to America's unique place in the development of nations, now under broad and diverse threats from that which Thomas Jefferson regarded as the "real Anti-Christ" - we should look to Kazmierczak's having been molested as an altarboy, like Charles Todd Whitman, Adolf Hitler, and so many other mass-murderers, and the parallels to the VPI killer's festering pain as a secret homosexual...likely also a victim of child molestation.

We came here to escape "monkish religion," its "European effeminacy" and the child molestation it has used to institutionalize homosexuality since before Babylon. Now Rome's minions run America and turn a blind-eye to their pedophile priesthood's role in atrocity after atrocity.

my prayers are with you and for the other people who are still among the living because somtimes it seems like the survivors of lifes earthshaking events often become profoundly changed ....i know in my own mind life changing event was just a phrase.. afew words strung together that i thought i knew what the meaning was.... and then at 10.49 am on april 11 1994 (411 for irony score keepers) on a crystal clear morning ... surley with no warnining... my life was forever changed by a very tragic auto accident... it was not my fault like that matters when death is invoved.. two people who i had never met before became a center piece on my life when they were horrifically killed. alll the paltitudes that people use to make themselfves feel better were some how not valid in this case. yes he did see what was coming.. i have burned into my memory the eyes of the man whose face was smahed off by the front of my worktruck....he bled to death in great pain and another human being ... a woman who thankfully i have no mid picture of also died... i rode in an abulance 15 miles with the woman who had run the stop sign with her asking me over and over .... why did i kill her husband and sister why did... i ... do it. she cou;ld come to terms with the fact that se had rn the stop sign. she later sued me and my employer for wrogful death even though the highway patrol report put 100% fault with her. i was again devastated emotionally by something that i had no control over then to make ironies mor ironic i did a series of self portraits when i was being torn aprt emotionally at tallahassee community college and had discovered art. i did a phot called gods hit man.. it was ment to explaint to well meaning people what they were actuallu say with real words to my.... face... that it was thier time... and god just used you to take them out of this woeld.... i guess iwas was supposed to feel better buut i found myself asking well what does that make me Gds hit man in thier eyes a title i found profoundly offensive. they publishied it in the erie the fine art magazine after taking out the word god without my permission which i complained about. apparently its okay to have a photograph with a gun that says hit man but you couldn't say God.... i was perplexed to say the least... i find it highly ironic that a person like myself who abhors violence and except fro some druken rnatings in my youth (i dont drink i have nothing agasist it i just dont drink now havent for years) has never displayed anything close to antisocial behavior with the exception fo being very capable of using certain adjectives in thier most prickly way and asking people questions about themselves that they do not wish to answer. apparently over the years the good people of tallahasse not knowing the context to which that 1 of a large collection of prtraitsi and emotions.. all of them by the way described as part of the process of moruning a loss was some how inter woven by peopl with little ethics or honesty and here i'm talking about administrators at florida state university who would rather to continue to lie and cheat and pretend than to have the truth actually know... my heart goes out to the virginia tech students and faculty... my father is and alumni of tech as is my brother and many of my relatives. my last name is well know in the halls of virginia tech and duke. we are hillbillillys and a little shy but we do alot good things. that i think is the answer to my situation and any situation to which there is no answer.... the aswer is life has changed....how can i let God build somthing god and decent and useable out of all this mess and in a way that might look pitfull do actual real things instead of always waiting until a large grand thing can be done... i think it sometimes is a lot of baby steps and blind reachings that actually make the grandest of things.. be nice... but nice does not mean door matt

jeff wrote: "...Sad to say, but the most effective way to stop this is to get a permit, get a gun, arm yourself and be prepared to fight fire with fire. These "Gun Free Zones" like NIU do nothing but provide notice to the deranged that the defensless gather here. Eliminate those too. Perhaps after a few nut jobs get taken down quickly by an armed citizen before they can continue to wreak havoc, then the nut jobs won't target schools. When is the last time a nut job went on a shooting spree inside a shooting range or inside a gun shop? They know where they can score the most victims, a place where none will be armed..."""
^^^^^^^^^

That sounds good. The problem would occur after the would-be victims shoot the bad guy. The trigger happy crazies from the local SWAT gang would come busting in and blast the guys who just shot the real killer. Some guy would be standing there with a gun in his hand in shock over killing the bad guy. The black-garbed face-covered SWATTERS kick in the door and put sixty bullets in the guy's chest. And if the guy is black they'll pump in a hundred.

It's just like the meat-cleaver killer in NY. The shrinks cover-up for the nutcases under the HIPA law. But every once in a while they get stuck with the bill. The college killers were likely under psycho care. However, their records are confidential to protect their "privacy". If one is ever captured the shrinks will storm the jail house to get him out so that they can share a snack of milk and cookies.

jeff wrote: "...
Sad to say, but the most effective way to stop this is to get a permit, get a gun, arm yourself and be prepared to fight fire with fire. These "Gun Free Zones" like NIU do nothing but provide notice to the deranged that the defensless gather here. Eliminate those too. Perhaps after a few nut jobs get taken down quickly by an armed citizen before they can continue to wreak havoc, then the nut jobs won't target schools. When is the last time a nut job went on a shooting spree inside a shooting range or inside a gun shop? They know where they can score the most victims, a place where none will be armed..."""
^^^^^^^^^

That sounds good. The problem would occur after the would-be victims shoot the bad guy. The trigger happy crazies from the local SWAT gang would come busting in and blast the guys who just shot the real killer. Some guy would be standing there with a gun in his hand in shock over killing the bad guy. The black-garbed face-covered SWATTERS kick in the door and put sixty bullets in the guy's chest. And if the guy is black they'll pump in a hundred.

It's just like the meat-cleaver killer in NY. The shrinks cover-up for the nutcases under the HIPA law. But every once in a while they get stuck with the bill. The college killers were likely under psycho care. However, their records are confidential to protect their "privacy". If one is ever captured the shrinks will storm the jail house to get him out so that they can share a snack of milk and cookies.

1. Regarding the issue of medication for the mentally ill, the Washington Post had an excellent op-ed piece in last Sunday’s paper entitled “Healing A Troubled Mind Takes More Than A Pill.” It is well worth reading, here’s the link:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/02/11/ST2008021100863.html?sid=ST2008021100863

2. I’ve read some comments that question where God was during this tragedy, and at least one characterizing Him as a “violent” God. These are valid questions.

People of faith believe in some form of spiritual warfare between good and evil. We accept that it’s a grand enterprise to teach us to love all life. You could even call it a game. I believe that we are designed to be peaceful warriors in this battle. It’s good to remember the current situation and its background.

Jesus has inherited heaven and earth from His Father, really the universe. It’s as if one of us had inherited property in a far off place and upon visiting it found it to be inhabited by squatters. In this case the squatter is the devil and his army. He is the immediate source of evil, chaos and violence in existence. He also has great power, especially on earth (see Luke 4:5-7).

It’s fair to say that if God is omnipotent than ultimately He is responsible for allowing the current situation. If you believe, as I do; that He will ultimately reconcile all people to Himself, and the eternal payoff in heaven is love and happiness beyond our imagination, then the interim suffering is well worth it.

Christianity started with one man reading scripture in a synagogue from the Old Testament and saying that the ancient prophecy had been fulfilled. It now counts approximately 2 billion adherents, one-third of the world’s population. Even if, say, only 1 billion are serious about their faith that’s still an incredible achievement.

When bad and violent things happen they are often meant to test or to teach, or both. The goal is to convince more people to step off of the sidelines and enter the game. The sooner more people take a more proactive part in the game (hopefully for the forces of good), the sooner the war will be won.

Sometimes, it takes a lot to wake us from our lethargy. For those who don’t believe, I can only say that I don’t consider walking with the Lord a burden, the benefits far outweigh the sacrifice. Even if I were wrong, Jesus Christ has changed my life for the better and I would never regret the path I’ve taken.

This guy who shot the class in DeKalb had discontinued his meds. The meds are problematic in and of themselves - one of the misunderstandings being that one can take these synthesized-in-the-(for profit)-lab chemicals, and they somehow can be enough - too many doctors actually prescribe psychiatric meds without also arranging appropriate counseling - and because conseling methods vary so much and therapists have so little support in matching clients to their most appropriate counselor or counseling - well, that's clearly a failure on all our parts, even before you consider the still rampant stigma of diagnosis, which effects millions daily.
To bring sanity to an insane system, coordinating the many agencies and educational institutions and trainings, while also correcting so many biased perceptions, this is a most daunting challenge, faced by everyone in the psychological field, and the challenge has yet to be properly taken up...

Every loss of life to such violance is more then tragic. But as I told myself post 9/11, post Virginia Tech, and post any other event like these, I can not let this KO me, I will not let this defeat me, BECAUSE I AM STRONGER!!! Grief and sorrow are good and needed parts of our lives, but only in so far as in the end if we know in our hearts we are stronger and will never let these events become mere footnotes in history but events that changed the course of it.

How about an in-depth analysis of the perpetrator's religion and how it is inherently violent - or is that only reserved for situations where the accused is of those who practice the Islamic faith?

How about an in-depth analysis of the perpetrator's religion and how it is inherently violent - or is that only reserved for situations where the accused is of those who practice the Islamic faith?

You wear a gun ? You get killed with a gun !!

As long as Americans love their right to bear Glocks and semi-automatic pistols more than their family members, this will continue.

This was a horrible event and my heart goes out to all who are still suffering from the shock.

I worked my way through college by working at a convenience store in a large mental health facility, selling candy, soda, cigarettes and snacks to employees, visitors and patients who were safe to be outside. Many of these people were retarded, not mentally ill, and were shuttled between the hospital and a nearby 'training school' as state finances dictated. There were killers there, too.

That was the 1960's. A lot has changed since then.
People like this killer were once locked up so they could scream all they wanted to within locked confines, kept safe from risk of harm to themselves and others.

Now, we put these people out on the streets, hoping that they are capable of maintaining themselves.

There is recidivism, however.

Many mentally unstable people now frequent clinics and hospitals for brief visits to stabilize their treatments, then are released to begin the next cycle.

I wonder, especially as this much parallels the similar problem with the killer at Virginia Tech whether there is any way to toughen our laws regarding mental health, especially when these people repeatedly demonstrate that they cannot be trusted to maintain their medications and counseling, even when it is court ordered, as was the case with the Virginia Tech killer.

Recently, a man killed his father in an altercation prompted by his refusal to take his medications.

This refusal was a repeated event, with his 'freaking out' in his paranoid schizophrenic delusional world and going to a hospital for brief times.

I believe this repetition should have prompted legal action to force-administer his medications and mandate further counseling. It is my understanding that his violence was noted by his employer, who was forced keep all sharp instruments locked up at the workplace after at least one episode of assault with a knife. Without his medications, he was a threat to himself and others.

With time, the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction, and we now have the reverse problem of putting the mentally ill in prisons. That system does not work, either, inasmuch as there is a problem with suicides at these facilities, especially as cited by a recent series in the Boston Globe ( http://www.boston.com/news/specials/prisons/ ).

"PEOPLE WITH mental illnesses tell painful stories about hospital emergency rooms. They say they have been stripped, restrained, isolated, mocked by hospital staff, or treated by doctors who paid more attention to their mental illness than to the physical ailment for which they sought care. The state Department of Public Health has verified cases of patients who have suffered excessive physical harm or been poorly monitored while placed in restraints." (Boston Globe "Abused in the ER" http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2007/12/09/abused_in_the_er/ )

For the majority of the mentally ill, this loose, dysfunctional system works; for others a more stringent approach is necessary. As with the debate over gun control and civil liberties, I hope we can someday strike a 'middle ground' that will keep these killers off the streets.

To answer your question about 'Where is God?' during a time like this...
My pastor's sermon after the VT massacre.

click on or copy & paste link below into your address line.

http://www.walnutgrovebaptist.com/Sermons/2007/2007-04-22.htm

The only thing missing from these situations is more guns - guns in the hands of trained, professional people who know how and are willing to use them to defend the helpless.

The writers of this and the Slate column overlook the basic fact that evildoers will get guns no matter how many laws we put in place or how we intensify the loathing and hate for guns. No matter what, gun control will simply put more guns in the criminals hands, and fewer in the hands of the helpless and the innocent. All these situations do is stamp each event with a bright red "I chose this location and this setting because there were no guns there!" The same thing happened in Canada within a year or so ago, where there are far more gun laws. All a political ban on guns does is drive up the black market for weapons. Dylan Klebold and Erik Harris said it themselves in their own video - they obtained their guns illegally, and more gun laws wouldn't have made any difference in their motivations or goals.

These writers act as if there is social evil being committed - as if they see more wrong in society somehow not being able to control these monsters, vs. pointing to the fact that these monsters have evil in their hearts and are executing it at will. The violent hatred, revenge, bloodlust, and selfishness that drives any one of these people is far stronger than any gun law. Weed is illegal too, but everyone seems to know how easy it is to get.

The real questions are, why has society come to a place where there are so many angry people? So many empty people? If you combine the lies of medicated conditional responsibility, the amount of anger in our society, and the amount of emptiness, the fact shows that the real void is not control of weapons, but an emptiness of the heart. These reflect the fact that as the tree goes, so does the apple - as our society has abandoned God and His ways and His laws in more and more ways, evil is given an open door to act unfettered. The deeper question is what can we do to change hearts and to root out the evil within the human heart so things like this truly stop? The first time that one of these shooters meets the early end of a bullet instead of a shocked, naked, helpless classroom, or every time one of these poor people learns to find hope and repent instead of depending on drugs, will do more to deter these kinds of events than any more band-aid patching, freedom-denying, Constitution-defying laws will do. I fear that our country will simply continue to slide deeper and deeper into moral morass, events like this will only increase, guns may be outlawed, but nothing at all will have changed - the parameters will only be heightened in their original rottenness.

Maybe it is the Christian God's will that this kind of thing happen over and over and over again everywhere in the world.

After all, Christian God is famous for creating dismay and punish innocent people who do not believe in him. (kind of selfish and childish)

May our Blessed Lord Bless all of those affected by this tragedy... When God was removed from the Classrooms, Hell's fury was born.. May we all pray that all nations will once more worship the Lord always!!

In Christ's Love

"Sad to say, but the most effective way to stop this is to get a permit, get a gun, arm yourself and be prepared to fight fire with fire. These "Gun Free Zones" like NIU do nothing but provide notice to the deranged that the defensless gather here. Eliminate those too."

It's easy to have a gun. Easy to hold it, easy to shoot it.

Not so easy to learn to not-think-with it.

Which would seem to be our recent problem.

Certainly, this sort of thing is not so clear cut as a notion guns only come out when it sure would be nice to have one.

I've encountered plenty of people mad enough to shoot me: they said so in so many words, ...and blows, and with other implements. Been faced with the choice whether or not to kill someone who'd actually, well, forget about that.

Things have a way of escalating.

This romance of the gun is a big part of the *problem,* here, and it's not a solution.

Even in trained hands, it's at best an ending. And not a happy one.

You can't have a gun or a gun law or a religious law, or a threat of Hell, that will make you safe. This is about our humanity.

You know, that thing that we have with an instinct about it not to turn aggression into war, or anger into murder. It's there.

Just more than a little battered and terrorized, just lately.

We are some very smart primates having a certain amount of difficulty reconciling old instincts to our own modern abundances.

But we have social skills and language. These have a better track-record than more and bigger bang-bang.

But really, what can you do to stop this? How do you stop crazy people from doing stuff like this? Words on paper won't stop it. Illegal drugs are, well, illegal, but plenty of people get their hands on them. Likewise, making handguns illegal won't all of a sudden stop this sort of thing.

We've reached such a saturation point in this country with firearms that absent outright confiscation, no law can prevent this from happening again. And outright confiscation would only happen in this country over rioting in the streets, if it was ever attempted.

Sad to say, but the most effective way to stop this is to get a permit, get a gun, arm yourself and be prepared to fight fire with fire. These "Gun Free Zones" like NIU do nothing but provide notice to the deranged that the defensless gather here. Eliminate those too. Perhaps after a few nut jobs get taken down quickly by an armed citizen before they can continue to wreak havoc, then the nut jobs won't target schools. When is the last time a nut job went on a shooting spree inside a shooting range or inside a gun shop? They know where they can score the most victims, a place where none will be armed...

I've read that he was on meds and recently stopped taking them. It didn't say how strong of a problem he had. We've had many stories of people who became violent when they went off medication. Maybe anti-psychotic medications shouldn't be in pill form, but one of those under the skin slow release things. There should also be a speedy follow-up when the patient doesn't come in for their next prescription.

Maybe, Phil.

Course, I'm suspecting that this 'Compassionate faith-based conservatism' approach to mental health care might just be showing up a few glitches.

Go figure.

It's sad but people will get over it. Maybe we should make it a little tougher for people to buy guns in the US?

how can we see the replay of all the campus and school shootings time after time and blithely ignore the underlying free and easy access to murder weapons that are the centerpiece of all these tragedies?

VT '58

how can we see the replay of all the campus and school shootings time after time and blithely ignore the underlying free and easy access to murder weapons that are the centerpiece of all these tragedies?

VT '58

"Gee-
Where was your god when the nutbar trained his sight on the innocents?

(golfing in heaven with Falwell, I suppose)"

Newsflash, Its not "my" God's duty to make sure we all die of old age (and even if He did do that, there would be whining about how we should be living forever, and if we live forever we'd whine about how it sucks...)

"
And don't give me that "fewer victims would have died if they were all armed" B.S., either -- because if everyone walked around armed, there'd be shootings like that on an hourly basis."

How about a common sense tactic like armed security guards on campus?

Too right-wing? No, lets medicate everyone constantly to prevent violent outbursts. Yep, that'll work.

Brother...

Gee-
Where was your god when the nutbar trained his sight on the innocents?

(golfing in heaven with Falwell, I suppose)

Thank you, David, for your article. I am am also a VT student and had a terrible time putting my feelings into words yesterday when I heard the news. It has been an incredible help to read your words and realize my emotions.

Not everyone who reads this understands what it's really about. It's not something anyone really understands, it's just something that affects a group of people and, until it's happened to you, you have no idea. No idea.

NIU, may you find peace in the chaos. And no matter what people tell you, you don't have to "get over it" or "move on" - ever. Just know that this is now part of your life's story and you can learn to live with it and rise above it.

Well, Rich, while philosophically I agree with the sentiment that it's *not actually the guns,* I think that the point isn't to make it *harder* to get guns, which enrages gun-hobbyists to the end of opposing any regulation, or, really, any candidate supporting any regulation, at *all...*

It's used as a bargaining-chip issue, and the result is usually the most stupid and inefficient procedure possible, so that conservatives can point and scream how unreasonable it is to not put assault weapons on the streets, when somehow in all their gun-literacy, they never pointed out that some banned things are actually the same as some unbanned things, just with a different stock on em.

It's not about making it *harder,* it's about occasionally, and effectively, saying, 'No, sorry.'

In the meantime, we have massacres perpetrated by people who legally-bought weapons they probably shouldn't have had while on or about to go off certain medications, particularly while the mental health system in this country is not very good at actually taking care of people... and, frankly, plenty of people are out there willing to substitute fire-and-brimstone theology *for* proper mental health care.

Not to turn around and predictably-politicize *those* issues, myself... Rather to say that the usual tug-of-war isn't cutting it.

Certainly, in terms of 'consoling victims' it hardly pays to assume that 'If you believe in Jesus in my way, you're worth comforting, otherwise you'll be associated with 'sinning college students,'

...When, for all we know at this point, what snapped in that shooter's head when he went off his meds was in fact the idea that college students were sinful and deserving of some punishment, or maybe that he was already so damned for this or that that he must be 'evil' and therefore may as well act it out... which may well be what we saw at VA Tech.

Maybe, even, the families of the victims this fellow proposes to console think their kid might not have been pure as the driven snow... and he's just convinced them their kid's in Hell or something.

We don't know.

This is the sort of thing that challenges us to *come together* as a community, and even as a nation... People of diverse faiths... equally not-bulletproof, equally heartsick at these sorts of horrors that seem to have only grown in the all-too-common department in recent years.

We can blame this, blame that, decry our own civilization, maybe even humanity, as somehow totally-hopeless... wondering how, how, how, we can exert control enough to make something like this never happen again.

Maybe it's not about control... Maybe it's not about some one thing that went wrong to precipitate this horror... Maybe it's about the hundreds of things that could have gone right, somewhere down the line.

And one thing I know is that isolation, division, and for that matter, assumption, is never on the side of such things going right.

As for effective writing, I do suggest it helps to occasionally-attribute a pronoun, Mr. Westfall. :) Keeping an eye on the curriculum, you see.

Remember, guns don't kill people; whackos with guns kill people.

And don't give me that "fewer victims would have died if they were all armed" B.S., either -- because if everyone walked around armed, there'd be shootings like that on an hourly basis.

How many more have to die before we try to make it at least a *little* harder for people to get guns?

You are an extremely good writer. Your message is clear. Anyone that doesn't understand hasn't the heart and/or the mind to do so. I pray our pain passes slow, so that we may remember these events.

Mr professor is having us read this in my Editing Print Media class. Just thought you'd like to know that you're teaching.

~Thom

Hrm, well, Chicago news reported that some claim the shooter went off some medication, recently. Maybe in the resulting state he decided college students were 'immoral' and needed to die or something.

Now, Carl, I happen to have what I consider a great deal of faith, myself, just not of a Christian sort. Calling any potentially non-Christian (or non-conservative) victims of this horror 'unsaved' or whatever, certainly wouldn't be of 'comfort' to their families.

My faith, (and, frankly, experience helping people during and after messed-up situations) say to me that it's not a time to go crowing about the 'superiority' of your belief, or, in fact, necessarily what it *is.*

I see it all the time, but I *just don't get it.*

People have died, been hurt, are grieving, and from you we get 'College students have public group sex, and Christians are the majority, therefore it's the fault of not-Christianity that the country is materialistic and violent. '

I agree that violence is too-glorified in this country... and too often-excused by people who spread hate and scream bloody murder... not at bloody murder, but when someone on antipsychotics can't buy and carry concealed handguns without a few regulatory speedbumps.

It is easy to wail 'decadence and a fallen, sinful world, obey me!' ...but frankly, I think that sort of thing is exactly why this sort of thing keeps getting worse: you present young people with a world that makes no sense, offers little hope in the face of a government that will condemn people for not being Christian enough... while of course demanding people borrow and spend lest failed policies crash the economy too soon... Here, here's a tax rebate for more consumer spending, while we of course outsource the manufacturing that this is spent on.... And, what, do something about our excesses of consumption and the economic and global warming threats that come of them? What are you, some kind of commie atheist sexual libertine?"

Not helping, that.

You're practically *teaching* that your Jesus hates college students, then wondering why, why, why when someone misfiring in the brainpan gets the idea to act it out. Then try to capitalize on the tragedy to push more of the same.

You want to comfort people, get comforting.

It's not that hard if you pay attention to the situation.

I was at Va Tech when the school shootings happened. I graduated the following month and now live in Washington, D.C.

When I heard about the shootings at Northern Ill. I got chills down my body. Schools were supposed to be more secure since the Va Tech tragedy and this is an example of how they are not.

I am attending a school in the district now studying journalism and I wrote a story comparing the safety of Va Tech to the school I now attend and even though its smaller than Tech, it still is just as unsafe, in my opinion.

This is a sad sad tragedy and I want everyone to know that Va Tech is here for you...

I'm curious, Mr. FaithfulRollins.

Why do your comments, particularly at the beginning, remind me of those in 2001 who said that we deserved to have airplanes fly into buildings because we're gay and perverted and hedonistic and violent?

Why is it so difficult just to say that this really hurts, that you can't imagine how much more it must hurt on another campus that has experienced something just plain heinous, and that you just plain don't know what to say?

Several people just got murdered and a gunman took his own life.

From the looks of the responses:

1. The gunman did this, and the dead are with him and better off. (If this is the Active Jesus, someone should get a restraining order on him.)

2. People in college drink and have sex, therefore we are murderous creatures.

3. We listen to iPods, therefore we are murderous creatures. (Hey, what about people listening to Christian music on an iPod. Still bad?)

I know shootings like these are horrible, terrible things. It's hard to make sense of them. But please don't try to wrap it up in a tidy religious belief or social diagnosis before we know the facts.

I teach at a university and am disturbed by these kinds of shootings, but at the same time, each one has its own unique situation and explanation.

Believing in any of the above simple explanations might give one comfort, but the truths of the these tragic situations are much more complicated.

Just in case you missed it, I am Carl Rollins.

I have great faith. The vast majority of people in this country believe in God. To those who don't, fine, that's your decision.

The comfort that believers find during times of trouble is one of the things that makes God real, for them. Their feelings validate the word, their experiences validate the word, life validates the word, and it is fact to us.

Now, I am speaking primarily to those who already have some faith. Jesus Christ reserved His criticism to those that believe, unlike most evangelical Christians who demonize those outside of the body of Christ (just look what's said of Muslims on this site).

And it's not just college students who have strayed from the path, it's all of us.

We selfishly glorify the consumption of material things and killing is glorified (just look at the monuments in my town Washington, DC, the gun culture and video games).

We waste our time listening to jokes that put down other people so we can feel better about ourselves, watching movies and TV shows that promote immorality. We spend our time focusing on celebrity lives or sporting events that have no meaning whether you believe in heaven or not.

If life in America is so good why must we be distracted with electronic device for every waking hour for entertainment? Are we not comfortable in our own skin?

It is better to give than to receive, but the world is upside down.

I believe in an active God who makes Himself known. For those with ears to hear let them hear.

Goddess. This came at one of those times when I was taking a bit of a break from the news... All I could think this morning was, "Again? Oh, no, not again."

My deepest sympathies to all involved, and, please, folks. Lay off the proselytizing like that, ...we don't know the religious beliefs of the victims or their families, and this growing problem can't be waved away with more blamings of some past 'sexual immorality' or even more of the polarization.

And it's time to take some real steps to deal with this problem, in the form of better mental health care, and promoting some alternatives to violence. Fact is, waving Bibles at issues for these past years does not seem to have done much good, and in particular, I'm not terribly-impressed with the practice of trying to demonize and shame people more about sexuality than gun violence.

Re: Faithfulservant3

You wrote:

"Why?

I don't presume to know; but I do know that when I was in college excessive alcohol, drug abuse and insensitivity were rampant. Much worse; sexual immorality, group sex, and semi-public sex were not uncommon. It's probably worse now."

I don't presume to know either, but I'd be willing to bet that a better way to prevent things like this from happening in the future. Free, comprehensive health care (including psychological care) and finding ways to keep guns, especially handguns, away from people who would do harm to others would be a lot more successful than crusading against sex practices you personally find distasteful.

In fact, I find it abhorent that you would use a tragedy like this to advance your specific religious dogma and social agenda. You may not like drugs, alcohol, and sex but they have nothing to do with the horror that was visited on NIU. Trying to connect group sex and school shootings to 'score points' for your personal religio-social vision is sickening.

faithfulservant3 wrote:

"I don't presume to know; but I do know that when I was in college excessive alcohol, drug abuse and insensitivity were rampant. Much worse; sexual immorality, group sex, and semi-public sex were not uncommon. It's probably worse now."

So, are you saying that you believe that this shooting was due to the percieved debauchery that you once observed when you were in college? If so, you have a very distorted view of reality, and should probably seek therapy as soon as possible.

faithfulservant3,

Maybe it's not all about you, Honey?

I'm at VT, and this sort of justification didn't sit well with me last year, either, but it was of enormous comfort to the great majority of friends and families of the slain. I do not begrudge them their comfort, and you should not either. Can it, please.

faithfulservant3,

Maybe it's not all about you, Honey?

I'm at VT, and this sort of justification didn't sit well with me last year, either, but it was of enormous comfort to the great majority of friends and families of the slain. I do not begrudge them their comfort, and you should not either. Can it, please.

Here are a few short articles written after the Virginia Tech shooting:

http://traces-cl.com/2007E/05/reasoninthe.html

Thank you for your very honest contributions. The same questions remain. Why is it so difficult for even those who were not at one of these universities? Because we all find ourselves nursing this 'personal wound' and striving for the answer to that question "what can possibly fill this void?" If we do not find God (or Christ, who is God incarnate in reality) as part of every moment of reality, we have no hope for something that will fill this void, and will remain in this tragedy of not being able to face reality.

FaithfulServant:

In the same way as when the Bible was written, it is today.

The text is there to control. It is there to maintain power for those who have it by ensuring those who do not have will not question.

If the good is from God, so is the ill. To see it any other way is to twist logic and reality.

The problem is the news media have made this type of thing socially acceptable by broadcasting every instance to the world. Not far behind is the gun itself, which allows for impersonal slaying and an easy out. The ultimate expression of power this is.

It is so sad that the economic philosophy of this country, capitalism, combined with the first two amendments to the most important document in our history, freedom of the press and the right to bear arms, have all combined to make this not a one-time occurrence, but instead something that is becoming way too common. For something like this, annually is too common. Biannually is too common. Once a generation is too common. Yet, the press needs ratings to attract advertisers. Carnage sells. No right is more abused than the right to bear arms.

I'm convinced the only reason we don't see suicide bombers here (not from Islamofascists as some like to call them, but from disgruntled Americans) is that it doesn't make the news in this country.

faithfulservant3:

"Jesus loves all of us; the people who died are with Him, and better off."

Really? How do you know that? Many Christians believe that only Born-Again Christians go to heaven. It is unlikely that all the victims qualify under those terms. How can anyone know if they are better off? Not if they went to hell because they weren't saved. Statements like this may make people feel better, but seem morally bankrupt to me.

More than 40. You're forgetting (or perhaps not aware of) the shooting at Louisiana Technical College just a week ago today. A student at the college walked into a class, fired six rounds, killing two students, then reloaded and killed herself.

David:

Don't lose faith!

Jesus loves all of us; the people who died are with Him, and better off.

Remember Job: bad things happen to good people.

There's a reaon. You said it: Social wrong.

America. Wake up not just to your own suffering but have compassion for all. Iraqis blown up in markets, women raped in the Sudan, Haitians eating dirt, Untouchables in India cleaning up human waste with bare hands, Bangladeshis picking up their lives after a monsoon wipes out their thatch hut,a sick child etc.

Why?

I don't presume to know; but I do know that when I was in college excessive alcohol, drug abuse and insensitivity were rampant. Much worse; sexual immorality, group sex, and semi-public sex were not uncommon. It's probably worse now.

What to do?

Love, "do not be conformed to this world."

"Preach the gospel at all times; when necessary use words."

As an NIU alum, thank you all for thoughts and prayers. Our sleepy little cornfield appreciates them.

David, thank you for your deep, moving words. I also read your piece from Jordan. I appreciate your sharing your attempt to process that shattering experience. I don't know what we could do to change the society that breeds these events, but you are right when you say, as it was said in the movie Saving Private Ryan, make this sacrifice worth it. Be worthy of being one of those who survived. Do something with your life.