Empathy sometimes clouds perspective. Tragedy turns the truth sometimes.

Rarely does anyone speak the truth at funerals, for example.

Uncle Joe was a devoted husband, a eulogist might say.

What’s not said is, he was devoted to mistreating his wife and children and to generally being a not-so-nice person.

That’s an extreme example, but on target with what’s occurred last week.

When a disturbed man went on a shooting spree at Virginia Tech University, he left an ugly scar on the country’s conscious.

Americans rightfully were outraged.

But our collective reaction seems a bit misguided, led in part by the national media.

Perhaps the most precious freedom we have is to have lives uninterrupted by deranged madmen.

But some of the national media seem to be making vast leaps of judgment in their haste to keep ratings high.

First out of the gate, gun control advocaes emerged to say the solution to preventing these tragedies is tighter gun control.

Completely wrong.

Most gun control laws — like all laws — deter the law-abiding citizens, not criminals.

Trafficking drugs is against the law.

Robbery is against the law.

Shooting 32 innocent victims is also against the law.

Yet, these things happen, in spite of preventative laws.

Criminals, especially mentally deranged ones, will break laws. It’s a fact of life.

And if someone wants to harm others, they will, no matter how difficult or illegal.

A reader sent me something interesting late last week.

It was a couple of paragraphs about a radio talk show host who for years apparently has sought out a gun-control advocate who would allow a sign to be placed in their yard.

The message on the sign?

“Gun-free home.”

No takers so far.

But gun control is only one way in which society seems to have taken a misguided approach to the tragedy.

For years TV broadcasters have had the good sense to not show the idiots who strip off their clothes and streak at sporting events.

TV broadcasters avoid giving these social misfits the notoriety they want by pointing the camera elsewhere.

Yet, last week, hours and hours of airtime were given to the videos and writings of the shooter. It quickly became obvious — the guy was nuts.

Sadly, we’re all too quick to look the other way and say, “He’s just different, but that’s his right to live as he chooses.”

But in the case of the Virginia Tech shooter, he was already accused twice of stalking two female classmates.

He didn’t just snap last Monday. He was snapping each day he walked the campus.

In between replaying the shooter’s videos, the national media was busy calling the innocent dead heroes.

News channels spent what seemed like hours detailing each of their lives.

Their deaths were horribly tragic; the lives of their friends and families will never be the same again. It’s truly awful.

But to call them heroes isn’t accurate or completely fair.

A hero is someone who has shown great courage or performed noble acts. Most of the Virginia Tech students and faculty were victims, not heroes. A few were both.

But to focus massive coverage on them seems a bit unfair to true heroes. The same media outlets casually report the deaths of American troops fighting abroad.

Soldiers knowingly put themselves in harm’s way.

The Virginia Tech victims were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Virginia Tech is the worst shooting incident in modern American history. But it pales in comparison to the tragic, continuing loss of the men and women in uniform each and every day fighting overseas.

Just this month alone, 69 American soldiers have died in Iraq, most in combat. More than 310 have died this year alone.

Yes, Virginia Tech is a horrible tragedy, but it’s not the only one playing out with young American lives.

Kevin Cooper is publisher of The Natchez Democrat. He can be reached at 601-445-3539 or kevin.cooper@natchezdemocrat.com