Matt Frei reports from the scene of the US campus killings, listens to the survivors and concludes that the only question worth asking is: where next?
Blacksburg, Virginia
The last school shooting I covered also happened in the morning. It was October 2006 and a middle-aged milkman finished his night shift, got a few hours’ sleep, kissed his wife and children and then walked into an Amish village school half a mile away in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. It was a glorious late summer day. Armed with ropes, rubber gloves and gaffer tape, he let the boys go and tied the girls together. He then shot ten of them execution-style. Five died.
On Monday this week, Cho Seung-hui began his killing spree at Virginia Tech at 7.15 in the morning. He had legally purchased the 9mm Glock pistol on 13 March from Roanoke Firearms, 30 miles from the university campus. Cho was a tidy student with an untidy mind. The police found the receipt for $516 — including ammunition — neatly folded in his rucksack.
In both cases the motives were twisted, but these were not impulsive crimes of passion. They were meticulously planned and carried out in the cold light of day, and both ended with the shooter turning the gun on himself. So what is it that makes grown men get up in the morning, slaughter innocent civilians in a place of learning and then end their own lives? We contemplated this question as we drove down to Blacksburg late on Monday. The journey happened to lead through the genteel Washington suburb of Fairfax, where the headquarters of the NRA, the National Rifle Association, glint at passing cars. The lights were on in many of the offices. Was this usual? Or were they busy working on damage control? Another 100 miles farther down the interstate you enter the upper reaches of the Bible Belt.
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