Show some class

Dear Editor,

Show some class Mr. McPhillips ["Safety on campus" (http://www.mccook gazette.com/story/1199945.html)]. I read in complete revulsion your letter turning the tragedy at Virginia Tech into your own cause of political ideology.

At the time your letter was printed in this paper the victims hadn't even been gone a week and yet you felt the need to defile them by lamenting the fact that they were not allowed to carry a concealed weapon.

You should be utterly and completely ashamed of yourself that your first thought after the tragedy was to push your ideology (as should anyone on either side of this "issue."

Maybe you have already forgotten them, I haven't. I am a college student and the events of that day have shaken me to the core. So, for your benefit Mr. McPhilips and others who see a way to advance their political ideology, I am listing below the names of those killed.

Take a second to read their names. They were real people with real lives that were cut down by a maniac:

Ross Abdallah Alameddine

Jamie Bishop -- Faculty

Brian Bluhm -- Graduate Student

Ryan Clark -- shot while trying to protect first victim

Austin Cloyd

Jocelyne Couture-Nowak -- Faculty

Daniel Perez Cueva

Kevin Granata -- Faculty

Matthew Gwaltney-Graduate Student

Caitlin Hammaren

Jeremy Herbstritt -- Graduate Student

Rachell Hill

Emily Hilscher

Jarret Lane

Matt La Porte

Henry Lee

Liviu Librescu -- Faculty (a Holocaust survivor who barricaded the door so that his students could escape out the windows)

G.V. Loganathan -- Faculty

Partahi Lumbantoruan -- Graduate Student

Lauren Ashley McCain

Dan O'Neil -- Graduate Student

Juan Ortiz -- Graduate Student

Minal Panchal -- Graduate Student

Erin Pererson

Michael Steven Pohle, Jr.

Julia Pryde -- Graduate Student

Mary Karen Read

Reema Samaha

Waleed Shaalan -- Graduate Student

Leslie Sherman

Maxine Turner

Nicole Regina White

These are the people I think of when I think of the tragedy, maybe you should trying thinking of them too.

Michael Hendricks,

Arkansas

via e-mail