The Politicization of a Tragedy
There’s no proper adjective that can really describe the tragedy that took place at Virginia Tech. Words like terrible, awful, and horrible all seem to fall short. It’s shocking and troublesome
There is one aspect of this that I don’t have any trouble finding a word for: disgusting. That’s the near instant political reaction to this. Before the blood had even dried, the gun control debate had reignited, with both sides trying to score points off the still warm bodies of the victims.
Lives were tragically and suddenly cut short. Families destroyed. Communities scarred. People hurt in ways unfathomable to me. It’s a time for grieving, support, and reflection. Using this to advance a political agenda just strikes me as the height of vileness.
I do believe that we must analyze what happened, learn from this, and take appropriate steps to prevent similar events from happening in the future. But as I write this, they haven’t even identified all the victims - is it really too much to ask that we know their names before politicizing their deaths?
