Editorial: Deadly day in Virginia

Tuesday, April 17, 2007 | 7:03 a.m.

Virginia Tech President Charles Steger said Monday he was "at a loss for words to explain or understand the carnage that has visited our campus." We believe he was also speaking for the whole country.

A gunman had killed at least 32 people and wounded at least 30 others on the campus Monday morning before killing himself, the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.

The deliberate, sweeping act of violence elicits memories of past gun-related tragedies. In October a man armed with three guns killed five girls and wounded five others in a Pennsylvania Amish school. In August 1999 a gunman armed with five assault rifles and two pistols killed a mail carrier and wounded four children and one adult in a California Jewish community center.

Few people probably will forget the April 1999 massacre at Colorado's Columbine High School, in which two teens armed with four guns killed 12 students and a teacher before killing themselves. Monday's shooting also reminds us of a June morning in 1999, when a man wielding a shotgun killed four people in an Albertson s Food & Drug store on West Sahara Avenue.

Authorities investigating Monday's Virginia Tech tragedy told the Associated Press that two pistols were found next to the gunman's body. Figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that in 2004, the most recent year for which data were available, firearms were involved in 81 percent of the violent deaths among people ages 15 to 24 .

Our society has become increasingly violent, and our government has made it far too easy to obtain guns.

Words to adequately describe the scope and magnitude of our sorrow escape us. Still, we offer our prayers and condolences to the families and members of the Virginia Tech community whose lives and futures have been irrevocably and tragically altered.