I wasn’t shocked. I took the day off on April 16 and was heading out to buy gas, oil and other supplies for the annual spring lawn ritual when I heard about the Virginia Tech shootings on my car radio. “Not again,” I said as I switched to a CD. It’s not the reporter way, but I don’t have a thirst for these stories. It was quenched three or four deadly tragedies ago.

Later, I couldn’t escape it. With the busywork that kept me outside on a beautiful spring day completed, I turned on the television and was greeted by what would become almost around-the-clock coverage. If some of us are desensitized to violence because of its prevalence, this 24/7 coverage in which news organizations across the country look for a different angle did little to re-sensitize us. Of course it was news, but few new facts emerged, and the newscasters filled the spaces between them with moronic chatter in what struck me as an exploitation of the tragedy – as is, I suppose, this column.

The massacre at Virginia Tech was the deadliest shooting spree in modern U.S. history, but it’s not just that. It is a symptom of a deep crevice in our society exposing something terribly wrong that can’t be fixed without civil debate.

The signs that we will engage in such a debate are not encouraging. Twenty-four hours hadn’t passed before people began pointing out that Cho Seung-Hui was a foreigner. Blame it on South Korea. That interesting lapse of memory isn’t helpful. The shooters at Columbine, at the Amish school in Pennsylvania, at a dozen other schools over the past decade were American.

There have been suggestions that if a few of the Virginia Tech students or teachers had been carrying firearms, the tragedy could have been averted before it reached such a large scale. That doesn’t seem right. The kill-or-be-killed mentality only perpetuates the violence that is so prevalent today. Americans’ access to guns and ammunition, both legal and illegal, must be part of the debate, but the ease with which Cho acquired his weapons and ammunition is only a symptom of the problem.

You can’t put this off solely on one emotionally unstable individual. Violence is spiraling out of control everywhere, on school campuses for sure, but it’s also in the “shock and awe” military strategy in Iraq, which seeks to scare adversaries into submission or kill them.

It is replicated in the video games that children play – and live to play another day, making death seem surreal.

It is found in music, in movies and television programs. You can’t turn on television without bumping into the “Law and Order” crime drama or one of its spinoffs, which make the taking of another life appear to be an acceptable manner of resolving conflicts, glamorous even. The ratings these shows receive are a sad commentary on our addiction to violence.

And it is close to home. On Des Moines’ South Side last week, five people were robbed at gunpoint in the parking lots near their residences.

Violence is everywhere. What should stun us most when we hear news like last week’s is that many of us were not stunned at all by it.

The human conscience needs a reality check.