Posting Date: March 10, 2008
NIU Tragedy But It’s Business as Usual
The five victims shot and killed in Cole Hall at Northern Illinois University have been laid to rest. Tears have been shed as their memories and presence are still fresh in the minds of friends and relatives.
Eric Thompson of Green Bay, Wis., does not recall how he felt when Steve Kazmierczak entered a NIU campus lecture hall on Feb. 14, Valentine’s Day, and gunned down five students in cold blood. According to a Los Angeles Times story, Thompson, 35, does remember that Seung-hui Cho killed 32 students and faculty on the campus of Virginia Tech last April.
Thompson remembers because he sold the gun that Cho used in his killing spree at Virginia Tech.
He also sold magazines and a holster to Kazmierczak, who would later create horror on the NIU campus. Both gunmen took their lives soon after spilling blood at both universities.
Thompson, married and the father of three, was quoted as saying that the NIU killings were upsetting in light of what happened at Virginia Tech. However, he reasons that he is fulfilling a need that apparently has to be quenched. After all, he is a businessman offering a product. He has to make a living and support a family.
He does not question the motives of callers requesting ammunition and firearms from his online gun dealing business. He had no reason to question Cho or Kazmierczak, he said.
In fairness to Thompson, it should be pointed out that he donated funds for the victims at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois. Perhaps this is the price of doing business. Terrible things occur everyday. Thompson will argue that the majority of gun owners are responsible citizens.
That’s why I decided not to contact Thompson. He has already fielded a lot of calls and e-mails from people across the country. His Web site has endured plenty of hits and angry calls stating that he played a role in the murders of innocent students and faculty.
Thompson appears surprisingly amiable. His ready response would be the same as many gun enthusiasts. More along the lines of people kill, guns don’t. That overused refrain has become meaningless. I’m not sure what the hell it means anyway.
But there is one aspect that I can agree with Thompson. We live in a violent society. The United States is a massive country with cultural differences. Urban lifestyles differ from Americans who have grown up in small towns or farms. Part of the rural existence includes hunting as necessity or a sport set in tradition and passed down from generation to generation.
But the urban warfare that exists on the streets of major cities today hardly passes for sport. A more responsible and constructive dialogue has to take place to eradicate the bloodshed that keeps taking innocent lives. The simple fact that guns are easily accessible cannot be denied.
These campus shootings are frightening and disturbing. The response by NIU security was quick. But it is nearly impossible to prevent mentally disturbed individuals from killing innocent people and follow that by taking their own lives.
And we disagree with Thompson that students should be armed. That’s all we need is emotionally-charged collegians taking the law into their own hands. These are heart-rendering tragedies but cooler heads have to prevail.
The day should never come that we send our sons and daughters to college with a backpack and a .38 revolver.
(Joe Boyle is the managing editor of the Southwest News-Herald newspapers on Chicago’s Southwest Side. He can be reached at vonpub@aol.com.)