The responsibility rests with one man

So far, I've seen the Virginia Tech massacre blamed on not enough gun control; too much gun control; university administrators; local police; the Bush Administration; violent video games; immigration officials; the killer's religion (back when we only knew he was "of Asian descent" and therefore possibly Muslim); and anti-American indoctrination in South Korean schools. I haven't seen the "Korean culture," "racism" or "presence of American troops in South Korea" arguments yet, but give it time.

To make a long story short, conservatives are trying to divert attention away from the ease with which American residents can obtain guns (hoo boy, I'm going to get some angry comments for this one) while lefties are chomping at the bit to blame the evils of American society, especially its President. The Scientology people, I'm sure, are looking for evidence that the shooter was prescribed Paxil at some point. [Update: told ya.]

How about this radical suggestion, made by Jack Dunphy in National Review Online: that the killer is ultimately responsible for this horrendous crime. Not that the issues listed above shouldn't be discussed and debated (some of them, anyway), but this frantic scramble to find excuses that just happen to coincide with our previously held political beliefs - barely 24 hours after the massacre occurred - absolves and excuses the killer, intentionally or otherwise.

Orin Kerr gets it exactly right:

...in my view, the problem with responding to news of tragedy with policy ideas right away is that we tend not to realize in such situations how often our "proposals" are really expressions of psychological need. It's human nature to respond to tragedy by fitting it into our preexisting worldviews; we instinctively restore order by construing the tragic event as a confirmation of our sense of the world rather than a threat to it.

This means that often we won't pay a lot of attention to the details of tragedies and what caused them. We'll just know deep down inside what happened, and what caused it, and how to stop it next time. Take [yesterday's] tragic events at VA Tech. If you're committed to gun control, the tragedy probably proves to you that there are too many guns; if you're against gun control, the tragedy probably proves the exact opposite. Given that people will tend to see in events what they want to see, turning to policy right away will come off as rudely "playing politics" to those who don't share your worldview. And obviously this doesn't foster a helpful environment for policymaking, either.

Damian P.

Posted by damian at April 17, 2007 12:43 PM