Gunman

Last week I had the strangest dream:
Everything was exactly how it seemed
And there was never any mysterey
Of who shot John F. Kennedy
It was just a man with something to prove
Slightly bored and severely confused
He steadied his rifle with his target in the center
And became famous on that day in November
-Sleeping In; The Postal Service



Monday, April sixteenth, was a perfectly ordinary day for me: a bio test, a new friend, etc. But it’s already going down in history as the worst school shooting to date. Thirty Virginia Tech students and one teacher were killed before the gunman took his own life. I can’t even imagine how scared everyone there has to be. It’s scary at my own high school. Everyone walks a little faster and talks a little more quietly when they pass someone they don’t know well—do they think we’re next?

What really hits home is the story of the boy who set the whole tragedy in motion. He was a 23-year-old immigrant from Korea, and even though he’d lived in the USA for over fifteen years, it sounded like he’d never really had any friends. Eventually he stopped talking to anyone, even returning a hello; eventually he stopped talking altogether. He signed his name with a question mark. He wrote dark, gory stories for his English class. Then his girlfriend dumped him, and he let it all out that day.

Didn’t anyone notice him? Didn’t anyone even think about reaching out to him? Or were they too caught up in their own lives to notice how much this guy was hurting?
The past few days have been stuffed with all sorts of comments about him: “how could he do that?” “Couldn’t he have just killed himself and let those people live?” “What made him kill so many others?” And the worst, “He was really messed up. He deserved to die.”

What kind of sick society takes one look at a person and calls them “messed up;” condemning them to death? This guy was no different than anyone else. He had been through some tough stuff, but he had a heart, a soul, emotions. And we always hear how you have to let your emotions out—well, here’s someone who literally couldn’t. He had no one to share anything with and no one to support him. That’s what was behind all those creepy stories. He wasn’t some twisted freak, just a human with a lot of anger and only one narrow outlet.

How could anyone possibly be so angry that they would take the lives of thirty innocent people who had barely begun living? I can’t imagine that. Then again, I’ve been loved. And he hadn’t.

And now it’s too late for him.

Sure, he probably would’ve been killed for what he did, had he spared his own life. An sure, had he only killed himself, there would be so much less sorrow and fear right now. But the media doesn’t report everyday suicides.

This is a wake-up call to everyone in the world. We all know how precious and how short life is. But I think what most people have still to realize is that we have the power to protect that life. We can make sure our school isn’t next.

We can make sure everyone is loved.

There are so many people who are hurting right now—maybe not to the extent that he was, but his hurt had to start somewhere. There are plenty of people who really don’t have any friends, and probably several who don’t have anyone at all. These are the people who, given just the wrong turn of events, are going to turn out like that poor guy. They’re going to keep getting lonelier and angrier, and they’re going to look for a scapegoat.

The VA Tech killer left behind an eight-page letter about how so many people had forced him to do what he did: the “rich kids,” his girlfriend, his family… all the people who never bothered to notice him. He made them notice. He made sure his message was crystal clear. And then he made sure he would never have to face loneliness again—or he would face it for eternity.

I’m not saying what he did was justifiable, or even understandable. It’s true that he probably needed medical help. It’s just that, had any of us been through everything he had without our families and friends and gods, our reactions probably wouldn’t have been so different. No one’s would have.

In the end, everyone needs to be loved. Everyone deserves to be loved. Every person we pass on the street every day is an individual creation, and even if they mean nothing to anyone in this world, they mean everything to their Creator. No matter how little impact it may have in this wide world, it’s our duty to be friends to everyone, whether we like them or not, even if we cross their path once and never meet again. Because maybe one day it’ll come down to a moment when they’ll have to choose between taking what they have and taking what could never be theirs. Maybe you stand up for the Geoffery Georges of this world just once, and maybe they’ll be sitting down to write a note of their own, and they’ll remember that someone, somewhere, cares for them.

It may not stop them. There’s no way to prevent this from happening again until the whole world learns to care. And even if another disaster is inevitable, we have to try. Because no family deserves that pain. No student deserves that fear. No young life deserves that ending. And no gunman deserves to turn his weapon on himself—no one should have to end their life in order to make it worth something.