Some members of the Virginia Tech community were outraged on Thursday night after some pictures of a controversial Halloween costume were posted on the Internet. The pictures displayed on the social networking site Facebook showed two Penn State students dressed as the Virginia Tech shooting victims.

In the photos, the students are wearing Virginia Tech T-shirts, have bullet holes in their clothes and are wearing elaborate makeup.

The students said the costumes were worn to a small Halloween party and were meant to be private.

I'd want to say that too if it got national attention and people were outraged.

In an interview with Roanoke's WSLS-TV, one of the students in the pictures called the costumes "crazy controversial" and said they were trying "to push the envelope just for shock value."

That sounds accurate. Which leads us to the question: is there a point where it's too much?

"The thing is, everybody's making a big stink about Virginia Tech. Virginia Tech was 32 deaths out of the 26,000 that happen in America every day," he said.

"That's the problem with college students," he continued. "They all live in an ivory tower of privilege. They don't understand, when it all boils down to it, it's someone wearing a costume."

I think the one lacking understanding is the one who has opened his mouth. If the student *really* believes this: that it's only a costume, don't get worked up, then why was the earlier excuse that it was meant for a private party? You *know* when you wear something like this that it's controversial. Don't dress it up to look like something neutral.

After seeing the pictures, a Virginia Tech student created a Facebook group for people against the costumes. Some of the upset members have left threatening statements to the Penn State students.

This is just as unfortunate as the costumes in the first place.

"This is a group of college students who now think it's trendy to be upset about their friends being killed," the student in the photos told WSLS-TV.

Trendy? If by trend you mean it's a regular occurrence for people to be heartbroken, angry, mournful etc. then yes, it is a trend. Although trend usually means it's relatively new. Mourning has been going on for a long time now.

Penn State officials said they are appalled by the students' actions.

As they should be.

"We are appalled that these individuals would display this level of insensitivity, indifference and lack of common decency and sense by dressing up in this manner," officials told the Roanoke station. "These two people do not represent 90,000 Penn State students. They represent themselves."