Time to take a stand against violence

The News Virginian / News Virginian
Published: April 18, 2007

Built as a way to protect the citizens of the United States of America, our Constitution, and with it the Bill of Rights, has our ardent support.

But this time it hit too close to home.

Somebody knew somebody who knew somebody who was on the Blacksburg campus of Virginia Tech on Monday.

This time, some of us waited for phone calls, instead of waiting for news through the electric glow of our televisions or the crackle of our radios.

This was you. Nay, this was us. All of us.

This was people such as Stuarts Draft girls tennis coach Tom Goforth, who finally got a call from his daughter in the early afternoon. Or his younger brother, who works there. This was people such as Waynesboro Superintendent of Schools Robin Crowder, whose son Stuart attends Tech. Or Michelle Skeen, whose byline you saw in this newspaper when she was an intern here last summer, a Fort Defiance graduate who attends the Blacksburg school.

They were all OK, but 33 families weren't. Thirty-three families never got that phone call. They got the kind of phone call nobody wants to get.

The Second Amendment to our precious Bill of Rights gives us the right to bear arms. Are we supporting rescinding that- Not at all.

But we, as a country, really need to start talking about guns.
And maybe now, we the people of Virginia realize that.

Yes, we know, guns don't kill people, people kill people. The problem is, guns seem to help an awful lot. And it's time to put a stop to that.

Now.