I spent some time recently talking about the Virginia Tech Massacre with a friend who lost a family member to Seung-Hui Cho's rampage. I only met her about a year ago and didn't know about what happened until she mentioned it off-handedly, as if she thought I already knew. She really doesn't like guns, and given the anguish she still feels it was hard to listen to her talk about the killings.

Following a catastrophe, people often look for someone (or something) to blame and then fixate on the conditions that made the incident possible. Perhaps because Cho is not around to be held responsible, many people who lost loved ones at Virginia Tech are still combing through records to determine who knew what, what errors were made, why a crazy person was able to purchase firearms, etc.

Certainly I take a different view when it concerns shootings, home invasions and other crimes. I accept that there are bad people in the world and I know that I am personally responsible for thwarting their efforts to do me harm. At other times, though, I have felt differently: Islam's role in the 9/11 attacks has angered me for a long time and probably will for the rest of my life. As my friend dislikes guns, I dislike Islam. Much as some Virginia Tech family members study reports about the massacre, I once memorized Quranic suras that encouraged Muslims to kill, mutilate or enslave non-Muslims, so that I could cite them to others as evidence of Islam's role.

I can't know how I would feel if I'd lost someone at Virginia Tech, but my decision to purchase my first gun and learn to shoot was in no small way motivated by the massacre and the earlier murders of the Harvey Family in Richmond. I didn't know the Harveys, but I know people who knew them. The anguish Bryan Harvey must have gone through, knowing full well what was about to happen to his family but being completely unable to stop it, is nearly the worse thing I can imagine.

The bottom line is that we don't live in a world that is perfect or perfectible, and we can choose either to be helpless or prepared when confronted by evil. It's a mistake to attempt to micro-manage the risks, or to entrust other people to manage the risks for us. Life is risk, and if you choose to live you must accept responsibility for your own well-being and personal defense. And that's why I purchased guns and have strived to become proficient with them.