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In the midst of the Virginia Tech tragedy, where grieving, reflection, and healing should happen, instead is found media glamour and political debate.
The limelight that the rekindled, age-old gun-control dispute is receiving drives home the fact that America's problem with gun violence is not caused by lenient gun-control laws at all. Rather, it is society's callous disregard toward our fellow man that is at the root of this problem.
Before anguished victims' families could even begin to absorb this monstrous crime, hungry media tycoons from around the country were planning profit from others' great losses.
Just behind them followed politicians demanding stricter gun control--all before the first of the dead had even been laid to rest.
We are all left wondering how something like this could have happened, but the answer is quite clear. The negative, egocentric example our society sets via media and politics is the exact model it condemns.
Perhaps one day Americans' value systems will change in a way that personal agendas can be put aside to allow empathy for another to govern our thoughts, thus preventing tragedies like this one. But where would that leave our media giants and valued politicians?
Elizabeth Johnson Fredericksburg