Letter: "The power to make a difference"
Letter to the Editor
April 20, 2007
Dear students, you have suffered horror and tragedy on a magnitude that few of us ever experience or can imagine. You have displayed more compassion, humanity, and dignity in the aftermath of that tragedy than most of us could muster.
It is a truly unfortunate sign of the times we live in that it takes a terrible event like that which occurred on your campus on April 16 to focus the public's attention on the ordinary and good people of the world. You may wish it not so, but you now have the attention of the public, the press, the congress, and the president. For the next two to three months, they won't dare to ignore you. And that gives you an opportunity and, most importantly, the POWER to make a difference; to make something happen; to help prevent yet another senseless tragedy on some high school or college campus; and to honor, in the most meaningful way possible, the lives of your friends and teachers who are gone.
Join together. Unite your voices. Then scream at the top of your lungs to everyone who will listen and even to those who turn their backs on you. Scream the only question whose answer really matters now, "Why is it possible and so easy in the United States of America for any person, even one so obviously troubled, to legally purchase guns." Who, today, would dare make the argument with any of YOU that the founding fathers contemplated the University of Texas or Columbine High School or Virginia Tech when they crafted the Second Amendment to the Constitution.
You have the power right now to start a reasoned debate about gun control in your country. Your power will be short lived, perhaps three to four months. After that, although you will not have forgotten, the country will have moved on, and you will no longer have the power to make something positive come out of the tragedy you have suffered.
If, together and quickly, you can initiate a reasoned debate about gun control, that in itself will be a significant memorial to those whose lives were taken on April 16. If, as a result, measures are taken to have reasonable controls placed on access to guns in America, there is no greater honor you could have bestowed upon your lost friends and teachers. Don't let it happen again. Please.
David McCrabb
Amissville, VA