I keep reading about people trying to "score political points" (link via Michelle Malkin) in the wake of the Virginia Tech shooting, and once again, I am drawn to this "sound advice few will take":

"If you want to get through the aftermath of the Virginia Tech massacre in a healthier way, don't watch the news for about a week."

...Cho left a note in his dorm railing against "rich kids," "debauchery" and "deceitful charlatans" on campus.

A law enforcement official who read Cho's note described it as a typed, eight-page rant against rich kids and religion.

"You caused me to do this," the official quoted the note as saying.

Cho indicated in his letter that the end was near and that there was a deed to be done, the official said. He also expressed disappointment in his own religion and made several references to Christianity, the official said.

I can't blame anyone except the shooter, and I don't care what his eight page rant said. Millions of people have or have had problems dealing with rich kids, debauchery, deceit, and religious disappointments.

But they don't kill people, and this guy did.

Likewise, millions of people have guns.

But they don't kill people, and this guy did.

It's awful, and for years I have been tired of the cycles of blame which always emerge whenever an evil person manages to commit mass murder. Yes, murder is evil, and crazy or not, this guy did a profoundly evil thing, for which I blame him. Not Charlton Heston, Michael Moore, George W. Bush, the religious right, post-modernism, the multicultural left, the gay agenda, the educational system, anthropogenic global warming, or whatever else might come up.

While I would have preferred to see at least someone at the university in a position to defend himself, it just so happens that no one except the shooter was armed, which is in retrospect a shame. But saying that is not an attempt to score political points; it's like wishing the whole thing hadn't happened.

I blame the shooter, Cho Seung-Hui.

Beyond that, I don't have much to add.

(Unfortunately, I'm sure others will, and it might be tough to ignore them.)

MORE: Speaking of scoring political points, Dinesh D'Souza thinks this occasion calls for attacking atheism:

Notice something interesting about the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shootings? Atheists are nowhere to be found.

For scientific atheists like Dawkins, Cho's shooting of all those people can be understood in this way--molecules acting upon molecules.

If this is the best that modern science has to offer us, I think we need something more than modern science.

But I guess anyone's favorite cause can be plugged in somehow.

Violent video games seem to be a more tempting target than molecular nihilism.

But I still blame the shooter.