Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Man, watching the fevered reactions to the Virginia Tech shootings just reminds me anew of how ridiculous our political discourse has become in this country. It's a feeding frenzy of demagogues and frauds from all sides, rushing like ambulance chasing attorneys to find some way to blame the tragedy on whatever they already hated the day before the tragedy. The gun lobby is screaming about the Virginia legislature voting not to allow students to carry guns to class. The gun control advocates are throwing a fit because the shooter was able to buy a gun. The creationists are blaming it on evolution. One nut at the Huffington Post blames it on the Iraq War. Fred Phelps' gang of lunatics, predictably, says it's God's judgment for buggery. No doubt the nanny staters are just warming up to blame it on rap music, violent video games or the internet. Surely someone is going to suggest that global warming is the culprit, or that the Clintons are somehow behind it all. And if my disconnects keep happening, I'm probably gonna find a way to blame it all on Charter Cable.
Let me tell you who is to blame for this: the guy pulling the trigger. That's it. End of discussion. One crazed psychotic who decides it's time to go postal is going to find a clock tower to shoot from and people to shoot at, and it doesn't matter how many laws we pass against it. Anyone who thinks otherwise needs to visit the clue store.
Comments
That was spot on Ed.
Posted by: GH | April 18, 2007 10:00 AM
Ya sure it wasn't Google? I know you have a problem with Charter, but I have a problem with Google. So here goes:
The kid got the idea by using the Google to search the internets and that is where he got the idea. Therefore, if the Google was banned, then none of this would have happened.
Now that I have an insane opinion, can I get on TV?
Posted by: mess | April 18, 2007 10:01 AM
Thank you, finally someone has some god damn sense (and of course it's you).
Posted by: Stuart Coleman | April 18, 2007 10:23 AM
You forgot cell phones.
Posted by: Monado | April 18, 2007 10:29 AM
Sadly, your irony meter is a few hours too late:
Posted by: Jeff Hebert | April 18, 2007 10:37 AM
Actually, Ed, video games were blamed the day of the shooting: http://kotaku.com/gaming/virginia-tech/breaking-idiot-blames-va-shooting-on-games-252702.php" rel="nofollow
Posted by: llDayo | April 18, 2007 10:46 AM
Ed says: Let me tell you who is to blame for this: the guy pulling the trigger. That's it. End of discussion.
Come on now. The fact that everyone is pointing their finger at their favorite external cause does not mean there is no external cause.
I live in Japan right now, a country with no shortage of violence in its history, with pathetic treatment for the mentally ill, and with social pressures unknown in the US. Last year there were 53 shooting incidents in Japan. Fifty-three, in a country of 125 million people.
It's called gun control, folks. To look at Virginia Tech and say that it's about nothing but one crazy guy is the definition of willed blindness.
Posted by: beibanjin | April 18, 2007 10:54 AM
Beibanjin said:
And yet, guns were banned at Virginia Tech. Ironic.
Plus, the last time I checked Japan was an island smaller than most single states in the US with no tradition of gun use in its past. To use an Ed-ism, "I'll take 'Apples to Oranges' for $1000, Alex".
Posted by: Jeff Hebert | April 18, 2007 11:04 AM
I'm hearing that this shooter showed plenty of warning signs long before he went postal -- including one arson incident, which should have been considered grounds for expulsion in itself. From what I've read so far, lots of teachers and administrators saw a serious problem, but none had, or felt they had, the authority to intervene. Perhaps, if he'd been expelled or suspended, he and his family would have been jolted awake and been more motivated to get help.
So that's what I'm blaming today (in addition to the shooter himself, of course), subject to change without notice: a disregard for education, and educational authorities in particular, that has led us to weaken the power of teachers and administrators to take significant action in response to students who pose visible threats.
Oh, and, I'm kinda pro-gun-control, but in regards to this case, we don't need new gun laws; we need to enforce the ones we have. VA Tech already had a rule against guns on campus (rightly so); they just didn't do what they had to do to enforce it.
Posted by: Raging Bee | April 18, 2007 11:11 AM
Raging Bee: "VA Tech already had a rule against guns on campus (rightly so); they just didn't do what they had to do to enforce it."
How exactly was Virginia Tech supposed to enforce their regulations in this situation? Metal detectors? Law-abiding students would be informed of the regulations and respect them. There is no way to enforce a "no weapons allowed" regulation on a college campus. They're too big and too open to make any enforcement possible.
Posted by: Pokerwolf | April 18, 2007 11:21 AM
"Let me tell you who is to blame for this: the guy pulling the trigger. That's it. End of discussion."
And THAT is why 'Dispatches' is the first blog I read every morning. Thanks, Ed.
Rt
Posted by: Roadtripper | April 18, 2007 11:24 AM
Was wondering when ol' Phelpsie was gonna open his yap, 'cause it seemed like all the other dumbass demagogues had beaten him to the punch, which just don't seem his style at all. Guess old age is finally slowing his ass down.
As for games, yeah, both Jack Thompson and Dr Phil have put in their 2c on that.
Yay, pontificating dumbassery all around!
Posted by: G Barnett | April 18, 2007 11:28 AM
There's blame, and then there's cause. Sure, the guy was fully to blame for his own actions. But he didn't exist in a vacuum-- no killer does, and in order to prevent future deaths it is always worth examining the multiplicity of factors which made it possible for murder to happen. A person who says "Gun availability/guns being banned/poor home life/bad genes/mental instability caused this to happen" and a person who says "No, he's at fault for what he did" are speaking at cross purposes.
Posted by: Gretchen | April 18, 2007 11:29 AM
Ed,
I can't agree with you more about where to lay the blame for the attack at Virginia Tech. However, saying that "the gun lobby" is blaming the law for the tragedy may be incorrect. All of the discussion that I've seen from gun owners and their groups in the past few days is that they're frustrated that the students and faculty at Virginia Tech did not have the option to defend themselves. Having the option to defend myself will not prevent a tragedy of this caliber or even may not save any lives (an armed individual may flee the scene of the attack versus standing their ground), but there is a chance that an armed individual (if not more than one) will prevent an armed assailant from causing the amount of damage and loss of life that occurred at Virginia Tech.
Posted by: Pokerwolf | April 18, 2007 11:29 AM
"Pontificating dumbassery" may be my new favorite phrase. Even better than "slapping the puppy" (and by the way, my favorite euphemism for masturbation is "roughing up the suspect."
Posted by: Ed Brayton | April 18, 2007 11:32 AM
All of the discussion that I've seen from gun owners and their groups in the past few days is that they're frustrated that the students and faculty at Virginia Tech did not have the option to defend themselves. Having the option to defend myself will not prevent a tragedy of this caliber or even may not save any lives (an armed individual may flee the scene of the attack versus standing their ground), but there is a chance that an armed individual (if not more than one) will prevent an armed assailant from causing the amount of damage and loss of life that occurred at Virginia Tech.
I think this might happen in an idealized situation. However, I am convinced that this would not happen in the real world.
Posted by: gwangung | April 18, 2007 11:35 AM
Gretchen-
My point is this: let every single person who is using this situation to point the finger at all the things they were already convinced of before it happened get their way - stricter gun control (or guns for everyone), violent video games, ban being gay, teach creationism instead of evolution, etc - and crazed lunatics are still crazed lunatics and they're still going to go postal once in a while.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | April 18, 2007 11:35 AM
Strangely enough, one voice of seeming reason against these reactionaries has been...
Rush Limbaugh.
I know, it's hard to believe. But read this: http://kotaku.com/gaming/rush-limbaugh/limbaugh-games-arent-to-blame-253132.php
Posted by: John F | April 18, 2007 11:44 AM
I definitely agree with your point, Ed, about the blame game. But I'm still stuck with the question of whether some of the warning signs (and it appears that there were many...extremely disturbing and violent plays written for an English class, the fact that so many students felt like they had to drop out of a class that he was in because of the disturbing poetry that he wrote) could have been used to at least lessen the chances of this happening. Whether or not the chances could have been lessened is impossible to know and yes, of course, hindsight is 20/20.
But the point here is that, based on what we are starting to learn about this guy, if we see obvious signs of someone who is absolutely obsessed with violence (this isn't just some kid that listens to violent music or obsessed with violent video games...he wrote horrifying plays and poetry and had virtually no social contact), can anything be done to prevent him/her from taking the next step and committing a massacre?
There is no right or wrong answer to this question but I would at least like it to be discussed more.
Posted by: egbooth | April 18, 2007 11:45 AM
The guy at HuffPo wasn't blaming the Iraq war at all. He was illustrating how ridiculous it was to blame violent movies and video games, saying that if the Right can blame those, then we may as well also blame the Iraq war for all the violent coverage reported out of there. (If anything, he was blaming the NRA).
Posted by: Carlo | April 18, 2007 11:56 AM
Raging Bee said:
I have not yet been able to find anything on the arson charge from a credible source, but for the rest of it: thousands of kids and young adults show "warning signs" every year. And very few of them end up being violent. Dealing effectively with all of them without massive violations of civil rights is very difficult. For a good discussion of the problem, see Ben Goldacre's take here.Posted by: Alan B. | April 18, 2007 12:14 PM
Ed said:
Maybe so, but there are still many factors potentially standing in the way between a crazed lunatic and causing an infinite amount of damage (besides running out of ammo), and we can control those factors to some extent. That being the case, I think how to control them is worth talking about.
Of course, every factor you listed (except guns for everyone) involves limiting freedom in some way. I think pointing out that the guy was a lunatic is definitely a damn good reason why any such solution is a bad idea. After all, there's no particular reason for lunatics to obey the law, so only non-lunatics would be affected.
Posted by: Gretchen | April 18, 2007 12:17 PM
beibanjin, as someone who also lives outside of the US, I think I understand your point of view. I've lived all my life across the river from Detroit, Michigan; close enough to be able to hear the gunshots while laying in my bed at night during the riots in 1967. This whole thing with the American murder-by-gun epidemic; it's perplexing and horrifying, and oh so tempting to those of us who love to analyze everything. Sure, if nobody had guns, nobody would get shot. It's hard to kill 33 people quickly with a filet knife, so probably the number of homicides would go down.
But Canada has some fairly strict gun laws, too. Our murder rate is low, though we don't hold a candle to Japan that way; Stats Canada says that in 2005, we had 222 people killed by guns, out of 658 total murders. (We had lots of gang violence the last few years; our murder rate is the highest it's been in a decade, I think). Yes, Japan has a very low murder rate, but I understand that Japan also has a long history of dealing with a large population in a small space, and of being very careful of each other's dignity and sense of entitlement. Am I wrong?
The world might be a better place without guns, period, but there is something deeper going on here that can't be solved by simply forcing people to use other weapons. It feels to me, (and I say 'feels' because I have no evidence, only observation and lots of pondering) that there is something of desperation at work, and a sense of futility when ANYONE picks up a gun. When I have a voice that I feel free to use, and a sense that I can affect my circumstances with methods that are non-violent, I don't need to go postal, with a gun or a filet knife.
I've heard many people say they don't vote anymore because they don't think their vote counts, that their voice isn't being heard. Maybe this is a wider phenomenon than just political; maybe some people are so desperate to be heard that picking up a gun is their way of tapping the world on the shoulder and saying "Listen to me!". A really really inexcusably bad way, mind you.
I don't have a degree in sociology or psychology, so I don't have a leg to stand on here; I'm perfectly willing to admit I'm full of shit on this, and I'm happy to be educated by anyone who knows better. I just think there's more to it than just who's got the guns.
Posted by: Lorri Talley | April 18, 2007 12:30 PM
...There is no way to enforce a "no weapons allowed" regulation on a college campus. They're too big and too open to make any enforcement possible.
Excuse me? If they're bigger than a bag of weed, they should be easier to spot.
Metal detectors at building entrances would help. So would more cops. Not to mention the old practice of acting on tips, getting warrants, and searching persons and rooms.
...but there is a chance that an armed individual (if not more than one) will prevent an armed assailant from causing the amount of damage and loss of life that occurred at Virginia Tech.
Not much of a chance. Given that the crazed shooter will me most likely to pull his gun first ('cause he's the one who WANTS to shoot people); and given that once he's pulled his gun, no one else will have a realistic chance of pulling theirs; it really doesn't look like a policy of "guns for all students" will do anything more than replace shooting incidents like this with room-to-room gunfights between untrained students (some of whom won't know which shooter is the bad guy). Is this really anyone's idea of a good security policy? I'm amazed that anyone would advocate such a policy without any trace of shame or irony.
Those gun-rights wackos really need to stop romanticizing guns and start looking at tactical realities. This isn't a bad cops-and-robbers movie where only the good guys have good aim.
After all, there's no particular reason for lunatics to obey the law, so only non-lunatics would be affected.
Ever heard of something called "law enforcement?" It's how we keep an eye on the loonies, and stop them when we see them breaking the laws.
Posted by: Raging Bee | April 18, 2007 12:52 PM
...thousands of kids and young adults show "warning signs" every year. And very few of them end up being violent.
In this case, the warning signs included other students feeling so threatened by this one guy that they skipped classes to avoid him. That alone demands action, actual violence or no actual violence. The threat of expulsion, or at least of being dropped from a class, may have woken this kid up to the fact that his actins were having real consequences, and may have encouraged him to get help.
Posted by: Raging Bee | April 18, 2007 12:57 PM
Raging Bee said:
Yeah! And we should start tapping student phones, too, to make sure they're not plotting to bring guns on campus. Maybe keep a running personnel file on all suspicious students, starting with any that question the administration (they're usually the first to snap). Recording all conversations in classrooms to look for potential "whackos" is a good idea, too, maybe even carrying that onto their dorm rooms and gathering places. Probably some sort of wall around campus, surmounted by razor wire, would help as well. I wonder if we could get Building Maintenance to construct some towers along that wall so Campus Security could put watchers up there to spot potentially lethal intruders. And hey, if searching people doesn't get you anywhere, probably we should render them to some other university with less squeamish presidents (like Regent Law School!) where we can, ah "question" them more aggressively until we learn where the weapons are hidden.
I bet Alberto Gonzales is going to be needing a new job soon, I think he's the perfect guy to institute the "Safe University Plan"! After all, there's no price too high to pay for being Super Safe!
Posted by: Jeff Hebert | April 18, 2007 1:01 PM
I'm not sure how cridible Opi and Anthony are, but I heard on the radio that the shooter had called in several threats in the weeks prior to the shooting. This would serve 2 purposes.
1. Testing the response to these threats by the school and the police.
2. To create a "boy who cried wolf" effect, in which the police and other authorities lose alertness and don't take threats as seriously as they should.
Posted by: Jim | April 18, 2007 1:06 PM
Raging Bee said:
Gee, thanks. Is pre-cognition a new development in law enforcement these days, so they can grab people with mental problems and throw them in prison before they kill anyone?
Posted by: Gretchen | April 18, 2007 1:10 PM
Left off your list is perhaps the sleaziest of the opportunists, the Church of Scientology. Not only are they providing "grief counselors to Virginia Tech" but their front group CCHR has blamed the killings on anti-depressants the shooter was allegedly taking (even though there is more evidence to the contrary).
Posted by: scott pilutik | April 18, 2007 1:15 PM
The sad part is that we are all going to lose some of our freedom over this, just so that people can delude themselves into thinking the world is a safe place.
Next week/month/year some poor kid is going to be harassed and isolated even more then he currently is, because he listens to violent music/plays violent video games/writes violent stories (and if writing violent stories is indicative that someone will go postal, why hasn't Stephen King?).
You don't think it will happen? I still vividly remember the looks and comments I got after Columbine, just because I sometimes wear a trench coat and I look scary. One time, a friend of mine and myself were asked to leave a Walmart, just because we were wearing all black and looked 'scary'. And no, I am not kidding.
Colleges around the country will spend money on metal detectors. They will lockdown campuses for false alarms. People will be inconveniced, perhaps even harmed.
Laws will be passed that will restrict people who obey the laws, but will do nothing to stop the people who don't care about the law.
Why? For the delusion that it will somehow make us safer. Because people do not want to face the fact that we live in a scary, scary world. That nothing would have stopped this. That even if we do all of these things, that someone will just find another way.
It might suck that the world is scary, but we shouldn't punish people because of it. But of course, we will.
Posted by: Dexceus | April 18, 2007 1:23 PM
The reaction most offensive to me is the impulse to blame the victim, which is starting to come out a bit now (that didn't take long, did it?). Pundit-types are criticizing the students for not running at the shooter, or throwing their books at him, and things like that. In effect, they're criticizing the students for trying to save their own lives. It wasn't at the expense of someone else's life, mind you, as they weren't trapping other students in the building or anything like that by escaping; they were simply trying to save their own lives. That is now worthy of criticism, apparently.
At worst, they're comparing the students to the Holocaust survivor professor who held off the gunman and was killed while his students escaped. Apparently, the students were cowards because professor was a hero.
Let's remember who is actually responsible for all these dead men and women: the guy pulling the trigger.
Posted by: THobbes | April 18, 2007 1:30 PM
Raging Bee said:
If he was, in fact, taking anti-depressants that would indicate that he was already getting help, but it didn't "help." I have no objection to offering people like this help, even pushing them into it a bit. Giving them that help was my job for over 20 years. But having been in the field, I'm very aware of how simplistic and unrealistic some of the suggestions coming out of this are.Posted by: Alan B. | April 18, 2007 1:34 PM
beibanjin, I'm all for more gun control, but I'm not buying your argument in this specific case.
If this guy had been in Japan, there would have been 54 shootings. (Uh, analogically, of course, since your statistics are from *last* year and Virginia Tech is not in Japan, etc.) Ahem, the point is, those must have been 53 people who *really* wanted to shoot people. This Cho guy would be among them.
I do posit, however, that if every student had a gun, there would have been far more than 33 shooting murders this year at Virginia Tech -- they just wouldn't all have happened at the same time.
Posted by: itchy | April 18, 2007 1:38 PM
I worry when I read about some of the "warning signs". Sure, setting fire to things and writing over-violent plays are legitimate warnings, but I'm always seeing people making a big deal out of being a loner, having no friends, not talking to people, etc.
Pretty much a description of my school years. I'm a bit better now, but not so much that I couldn't see people still describing me that way.
Back in school, I used to hear people saying things like, "You know Michael will clean out a McDonalds one day", referencing the San Ysidro massacre. Not the kind of thing that really encourages one to be anything other than a loner, really.
We need to be careful that we're looking at actual warning signs, not stereotypes associated with warning signs.
Posted by: Michael Suttkus, II | April 18, 2007 1:42 PM
"Stats Canada says that in 2005, we had 222 people killed by guns, out of 658 total murders . . . our murder rate is the highest it's been in a decade, I think)"
We've had (at least)almost half that many here in Philadelphia just so far in '07, and over 400 total homicides last year (also the highest in about a decade - iirc, there's been a U.S.-wide spike in gun violence and homicides as well.
Posted by: Dan S. | April 18, 2007 1:50 PM
Jeff: are you trying to imply that advocating legal and police action of any sort makes me some sort of fascist? You're the one talking about walls and watch-towers, not me; all I did was advocate actions that are already standard in the US. One need not lead to the other, except in the minds of knee-jerk nay-sayers like you, who offer no constructive solutions of your own and then wonder why people stop looking to you for solutions.
Did it ever occur to you that all-or-nothing attitudes like yours may have contributed to the VT administrators' feeling that they had no leeway to act on the warning signs they saw?
Posted by: Raging Bee | April 18, 2007 1:54 PM
I do posit, however, that if every student had a gun, there would have been far more than 33 shooting murders this year at Virginia Tech -- they just wouldn't all have happened at the same time.
Right, just like everyone who owns a sports car is a threat to the road because they always drive as fast as possible, swerve through traffic to test their suspension systems, and are a danger on the road.
Does the fact that most people own knives mean there are a large number of deaths due knife attack? No, it doesn't.
Posted by: Pokerwolf | April 18, 2007 1:57 PM
Gretchen: I know that you know that you have deliberately misrepresented my statements. Go back and try again.
Posted by: Raging Bee | April 18, 2007 1:58 PM
Pokerwolf: guns are not the same as sports cars. Your comparison is nonsense, and you know it.
Posted by: Raging Bee | April 18, 2007 2:00 PM
Raging Bee, you didn't even make an argument. You just made a condescending remark that the police exist, as if that somehow means that they're going to be able to stop lunatics who have never broken the law before and then snap one day. What did you expect?
Posted by: Gretchen | April 18, 2007 2:02 PM
Pokerwolf: guns are not the same as sports cars. Your comparison is nonsense, and you know it.
How so?
Both are tools. Both are used by a large number of people. Both, when they are not used responsibly, result in accidental death.
The difference that you want to point out, I'm betting, is something similar to "guns are made to kill", correct?
I have to disagree. Guns are simply manufactured, just like cars are manufactured. How a tool is used is based on the intent of the user.
Posted by: Pokerwolf | April 18, 2007 2:11 PM
Raging Bee, I'm also interested in your opinion on my gun/knife comparison. I included both examples because they both use the same logic.
Posted by: Pokerwolf | April 18, 2007 2:13 PM
Shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles are also tools that have legitimate uses but when misused can result in accidental death.
Let's let everyone own all the shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles they want!
Posted by: Eveningsun | April 18, 2007 2:21 PM
No, not just like that. Everyone does not have to be a threat for the number of deaths to go up. The total number of threats just has to increase.
I believe there are many responsible gun owners; most of those guns will never be used to kill people. There also are irresponsible ones (or irresponsible ones waiting to happen). But if everyone was a gun owner, there'd be far more irresponsible ones, and far more shootings.
Because, yes, the more sports cars, the more sports-car related deaths. And I like sports cars.
Why, when you can get a gun?
But there are far more zucchinis cut than would be without knives.
(Oh, and I believe the Second Amendment gives Americans the right to own guns. I don't like it, but I think that's what it says.)
Posted by: itchy | April 18, 2007 2:22 PM
why is that a given? and if it's really given, isn't it then pointless to send the police in to stop him with their guns?
Posted by: Nomen Nescio | April 18, 2007 2:38 PM
And this just came out from the AP, regarding the shooter's final note:
A "rant against religion?" Uh oh. If so, guess what they're going to blame.
Posted by: Sastra | April 18, 2007 2:43 PM
No, it gives us the right to bear arms. The problem is that it doesn't specify whether or not the arms of endangered bears, such as polar bears, are allowed.
Posted by: Luxury Yacht | April 18, 2007 2:49 PM
Nomen: unlike untrained, unprepared students, the police tend to be better trained, better prepared, and, when called, have the numbers to outgun and outflank their suspect.
Pokerwolf: itchy seems to have answered your question for me.
...You just made a condescending remark that the police exist, as if that somehow means that they're going to be able to stop lunatics who have never broken the law before...
You made that "logical" leap, not me.
Posted by: Raging Bee | April 18, 2007 3:27 PM
Washington: Guys, I dont like this second amendment.
Jefferson: Whats the problem? It clearly states that you can mount bear arms over your fireplace! *points to mounted bear arm next to him*
Posted by: Baratos | April 18, 2007 3:29 PM
Both are tools. Both are used by a large number of people. Both, when they are not used responsibly, result in accidental death.
The difference that you want to point out, I'm betting, is something similar to "guns are made to kill", correct?
The real difference is the PRIMARY PURPOSE of a gun vs. a car. The primary purpose of a car is to transport things (people being a thing) from one place to another. The primary purpose of a gun is to kill animals (people being a type of animal). If you can show me a race car designed with killing things as it's primary purpose then I will be able to buy into your argument. Same thing if you can show me a gun (not a grenade launcher or the like, a standard hand gun, rifle, shotgun, automatic rifle, etc.) that's primary purpose is not to kill. Until then you might want to re-consider arguing by analogy.
Posted by: Kate | April 18, 2007 3:45 PM
Raging Bee said:
Oh, so now I'm to blame! Where on Ed's List of The Blamed do I fit? I hope I go in between the video-gamers and the creationists, I think that's a nice spot.
It's pointless to engage you in any kind of rational debate, Bee, because you so quickly veer off the deep end into this kind of nonsensical drivel, so I'll leave this by reposting the last paragraph of Ed's original remarks. It's needed, because this entire thread has devolved into exactly the kind of pointless blame-fest it was intended to lampoon (apparently humanity's ability to be ludicrous is outpacing Ed's ability to mock it):
Posted by: Jeff Hebert | April 18, 2007 4:58 PM
That's a scary thought indeed.
Posted by: Jason I. | April 18, 2007 5:22 PM
Just a thought, but here's how I see the reality of an armed student populace in reaction to this incident.
Let us assume that out of whatever percentage of the VT student populace was actually carrying a gun, perhaps 3 or 4 might have been close enough to hear the shots and respond.
Let's go further and assume all are selfless Dean Koontz-style heros, who would run towards danger rather than away.
Hero Number One arrives, sees a mandman blazing away -- screaming students and blood and the usual chaos. He whips out his gun and starts firing.
Maybe he gets lucky and kills the shooter. More likely, he misses.
Hero Number Two arrives, and sees two people shooting at each other -- and a lot of dead, wounded, or terrified students everywhere. Who is he going to shoot?
Hero Number Three arrives -- now there are four gunmen out. You see where this is going, right?
Even if they arrive staggered, I know if I'd just shot a bad guy and someone else comes running in, with a gun out, I'm pretty sure I'd seriously consider shooting him because, you know, there were TWO Columbine killers.
I'm of the mind that, in reality, the presence of even a handful of armed -- but law-abiding -- students would probably get more people killed than fewer. Sometimes I'm sure it'd work out.
But I suspect that most of the time, it'd cause a lot more chaos.
Heck, you only need to watch the police -- men and women supposedly trained to use guns, trained in threat assesment, and often with years of experience. They get it wrong a lot. I'm not so sure I want a hungover 21 year old who has had Rambo fantasizies for years running around with a gun. Things were already dangerous enough.
Posted by: Morat20 | April 18, 2007 6:07 PM
I hope none of those people ever finds out automobile accidents kill 100 Americans every day. I can only imagine the uproar that would cause.
Posted by: llewelly | April 18, 2007 6:42 PM
Surprised no-one has quoted this yet (originally from here - http://tinyurl.com/33s2nh) :
"Many people will use this terrible tragedy as an excuse to put through a political agenda other than my own. This tawdry abuse of human suffering for political gain sickens me to the core of my being. Those people who have different political views from me ought to be ashamed of themselves for thinking of cheap partisan point-scoring at a time like this. In any case, what this tragedy really shows us is that, so far from putting into practice political views other than my own, it is precisely my political agenda which ought to be advanced.
Not only are my political views vindicated by this terrible tragedy, but also the status of my profession. Furthermore, it is only in the context of a national and international tragedy like this that we are reminded of the very special status of my hobby, and its particular claim to legislative protection. My religious and spiritual views also have much to teach us about the appropriate reaction to these truly terrible events.
Countries which I like seem to never suffer such tragedies, while countries which, for one reason or another, I dislike, suffer them all the time. The one common factor which seems to explain this has to do with my political views, and it suggests that my political views should be implemented as a matter of urgency, even though they are, as a matter of fact, not implemented in the countries which I like.
Of course the Virginia Tech massacre attacks are a uniquely tragic event, and it is vital that we never lose sight of the human tragedy involved. But we must also not lose sight of the fact that I am right on every significant moral and political issue, and everybody ought to agree with me. Please, I ask you as fellow human beings, vote for the political party which I support, and ask your legislators to support policies endorsed by me, as a matter of urgency.
It would be a fitting memorial. "
Posted by: David Durant | April 18, 2007 6:44 PM
I said that last year there were 53 shootings in Japan, to which itchy replied, "If this guy had been in Japan, there would have been 54 shootings." No, there wouldn't have, because he would have been unable to get a gun. Spend some time here and try and find yourself one. There are murders virtually every day in Japan--it's not the utopia of harmony that people think--but people simply don't have the means to spread indiscriminate mayhem.
I knew that when I brought out Japan as an example I would get apples-and-oranges dismissals. Fine, compare America's rate of gun violence with the Western democracy of your choice. Try and find another advanced, civilized nation where public figures will suggest with a straight face that society would be much safer if only everyone was packing heat.
What I'd like to hear from Ed is why he takes issue with the gun lobby's position here. If you believe (as we Americans, uniquely in the word, seem to do) that everyone's ready access to firearms is truly not the problem, then why not agree with the NRA that the other students should have been able to whip out their Saturday Night Specials and take the guy out? The death toll would definitely have been lower, no?
Posted by: beibanjin | April 18, 2007 7:21 PM
Lorri Talley,
I'm late responding to your post but it's morning here and I'm just getting up. Your country is a less extreme example of a non-American perspective than the one where I live, but maybe a better one, since its history and geography are so much more similar to America's. Lots of hunting, a frontier past, and yet far fewer gun killings. I suspect that a large proportion of those that do happen are because of the porous border between the two countries; until America gets serious about gun control (which I suspect will never happen) Canada will be a little like the Virginia Tech campus in that respect.
To answer your questions, yes, there are other factors in Japan that mitigate violent crime. Homogeneity leads to everyone understanding the rules and seeing them from the same cultural perspective; also (though this is changing) people don't move around as much, and transience does tend to lead to crime. But there IS crime here; there are brutal murders in the papers virtually every day. It's just that since virtually none are committed with guns, the death toll stays very low.
One thing that living abroad has taught me is that ineradicable evils are often not ineradicable at all. In Japan (where living harmoniously is supposed to be the paramount virtue) gangs of punks ride around on motorcycles at night with the express purpose of keeping the stressed-out populace from getting any sleep. Everyone I've talked to about it, including a police officer, seems to believe there is no solution to this. And yet they've managed to remove guns from society without the "jackbooted-thug" reign of terror predicted by the NRA. I guess every national has its cultural blind spots. I'll take a few sleepless nights for the guarantee that the campus where I work isn't going to turn into a war zone.
Posted by: beibanjin | April 18, 2007 7:47 PM
I fail to see the sense in the argument about "if one kid in the class was packing, then he/she could defend the class." What about a real world situation? How many kids, even with a permit, are going to bring their .45 to class? On the outside chance he/she did, then what? A guy busts into the class and starts shooting. You duck behind some desks and fire away? Ok, so you miss, but the shooter runs out. You chase him into the hallway where there is a campus cop. He sees the defender student but not the shooter. It gets complicated.
Posted by: Jesus | April 18, 2007 9:22 PM
Excuse me, Jeff, but you're the one who suggested comical police-state measures in response to what I, at least, considered standard, reasonable and common preventive measures. For you to ridicule a standard police action as the first step toward Apartheid or something, and then to accuse me of "veering off the deep end," is both hypocritical and silly.
Posted by: Raging Bee | April 18, 2007 9:23 PM
Oh, yeah. I agree with Ed that there is no "solution" to these types of things. Not realistically anyway. You can't ban guns in America and you can't have every college kid with a sidearm in class.
It sucks, but there are just some things you can't control.
Posted by: Jesus | April 18, 2007 9:24 PM
And in 2001 a guy in Osaka Japan lost his mind, went to a school where he killed eight children, seriously injured thirteen others and two teachers with a kitchen knife.
Do you want kitchen knife control as well? Perhaps a two week cool down period and a background check on all cutlery?
Posted by: Troy Britain | April 18, 2007 9:38 PM
Wow... it sure is a good thing he didn't have access to a gun. There probably would have been, say, 32 casualties followed by a suicide?
In other words, Troy, you can't prevent every tragedy, but there are things that can be done to minimize them.
Posted by: doctorgoo | April 18, 2007 9:43 PM
Exactly, doctorgoo. Thank you.
Posted by: beibanjin | April 18, 2007 10:20 PM
Ed's right to point out that everyone blames their favorite nemesis for events at VT. At the moment, however, it does seem clear that Cho is the one who pulled the trigger, multiple times, killing an assortment of people few of whom he knew. But what larger lesson can we learn from this? That remains for cooler heads to sort out and persuade the public that something should be done, if that turns out to be the case. However, on the side of some kind of tighter gun control, Virginia is notorious as a veritable fount of weaponry for use on the Eastern Seaboard. Ask any cop in NYC, which has very strict gun control laws, where the guns they face come from and the answer is invariably "Virginia." They are shipped in by the truckload and sold out of cars, trucks and basements. Another source in the East is Pennsylvania, whose gun laws are also notoriously lax.
In Virginia anyone witih a drivers license can purchase a lethal pistol like the Glock Cho bought a month ago. Along with it one can readily buy hollow point cartridges whose sole purpose is to kill people. He also bought clips that can hold 33 cartridges, illegal under Federal law until 2004, when Bush and Congress happily let the 12 year-old ban lapse.
Last year a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer went out and bought guns (concealable pistols in fact) in Pennsylvania and across the Delaware in NJ. He was able to walk into a gun shop in Philly (a near suburb to be precise) and pick up a pistol and hollow point shells in one afternoon, no questions asked, other than a cursory look at his ID. In NJ, however, he had to apply for a pistol license first and then wait nearly six months while the police ran down his references--landlords, former employers, former neighbors, and so on--and looked into his police record (none) and military experience. And the police really grilled his references; it was no charade with his hearing it from people he hadn't seen in a decade. If another Cho is running around loose, where would you like to be located? In NYC and NJ? Or in Virginia and Pennsylvania? I know how I'd answer.
I should also add that like beibanjin's Japan no other developed nation in the world has the gun violence and murders that we experience. We have more than all the rest of the world combined. Is that being civilized? I don't think do. Is it protecting US citizens and residents (the reason Dubya led us into Iraq, if he's to be believed)? Think again. Yes, one can find fights and stabbings elsewhere, but on a comparative basis, murders just don't happen elsewhere. They are phenomena unique to the US. We should be proud being able to stand up for our manly rights.
Posted by: Keanus | April 18, 2007 10:30 PM
What is your view (or the correct view) on the 2nd Amendment? It's hard to tell from that post.
Posted by: Ted | April 18, 2007 10:42 PM
I've been reading this blog for quite a while but not saying much, which is how I feel more comfortable. So one more post from me and I'll shut up.
I lived in the US when Columbine happened. As a hopelessly idealistic twentysomething I hoped it would be the catalyst for some real action on guns, though I was willing to imagine that not much would change. But the backslide that's happened since then? Never would I have imagined that in 2007 someone as generally sensible as Ed would be lumping gun-control advocates in with Answers in Genesis. I love your blog, man, but on this one it's you who needs a visit to the clue store.
Posted by: beibanjin | April 18, 2007 11:00 PM
I do posit, however, that if every student had a gun, there would have been far more than 33 shooting murders this year at Virginia Tech -- they just wouldn't all have happened at the same time.
Oh, I don't know about that, Everyone strapped in class and on campus? A shooter loose?
That sounds like a situation that could have resulted in a lot more carnage. Everyone waving their personal protector and shooting at "the guy with the gun", yeah, I don't think I want to be on that campus.
Posted by: Lettuce | April 18, 2007 11:52 PM
"Let me tell you who is to blame for this: the guy pulling the trigger. That's it. End of discussion. One crazed psychotic who decides it's time to go postal is going to find a clock tower to shoot from and people to shoot at, and it doesn't matter how many laws we pass against it. Anyone who thinks otherwise needs to visit the clue store."
There must be ways to head off behavior as extreme as this, and the thought processes that lead someone to it. Perhaps, in the future, we'll be able to correctly identify what dominoes have to fall--and in what order--to get some individual to commit a crime as terrible as this. Until that day, perhaps we came devise a more accurate and detailed method of looking for warning signs among high risk individuals.
I've been thinking about this massacre quite a bit over the last few days, and I've come to wonder: has the fact that these shooters always take their own lives slowed down our understanding of their mental processes? It would be nice if these killers could be caught. Studying them might prove to be the key to unraveling the processes that let--nay, motivate--someone to "go postal" in the worst and most vicious way possible.
I also find it ironic that the phrase to describe this behavior--"going postal"--originates from people working as cogs in a vast communication and information machine like the post office. Systems with the ability to gather and process vast amounts of information from many arenas might hold the key to stopping this nonsense and senselessness once and for all. After all, no one wakes up in the morning and decides to shoot up the place. If we can identify the momentum of an individual taking them in that direction we can stop it.
End rant.
Posted by: MikeQ | April 19, 2007 12:39 AM
The media frenzy around tragic events like this is a very serious problem. The 24 hour news channels are always on the hunt for the next OJ type story. They want a single dramatic event that they allows for wall to wall coverage for as many days, weeks or months as possible. Television has an enormous impact on our culture. But the impact is that much more profound on a troubled mind. CNN/Fox News etc hold out a very attractive proposition to someone who is toying with a revenge fantasy. The message is.......attention all dangerous lunatics....if you step up to the plate here and start shooting up your school...we at CNN will bring you fame and notoriety beyond your wildest dreams. The whole "blame game" nonsense that follows is really just a twisted way to keep the story alive. They do have to fill up 24hours of air time after all.
Posted by: Cheddar | April 19, 2007 12:50 AM
MikeQ:
I do not share your optimism. Personally I do not beleive it is possible to stop people commitng crimes when they are willing to die to carry them out (implications for the "War on Terror" are intended).
Gun control might reduce the damage caused by these nutters, but it would probably take an outright ban. Now here's where I ask the unspeakable question - would it be worth it? As llewelly alluded to, these kinds of killings are an insignificant proportion of all deaths and perhaps the loss of liberty isn't worth the few lives a gun ban would save. Again, the implications for the "War on Terror" are intended.
Just the thoughts of one non-american, non-gun owner.
Posted by: James | April 19, 2007 1:38 AM
The mystery is solved, Ed. He killed them for Jesus:
"Thanks to you, I die like Jesus Christ, to inspire generations of the weak and the defenseless people."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18169776/
That's from the package he sent to NBC news between the first two murders and the subsequent full-tilt rampage.
I have to disagree with you on this line, though: "Let me tell you who is to blame for this: the guy pulling the trigger."
He's to blame, but I also blame the slave owners that blackmailed the second amendment into the Constitution to guarantee that their slave patrols would always be armed and all the people that have fought for the 2nd amendment ever since.
In fact, I give them much more of the blame. Thanks to them, every nut can find a gun and put his demented thoughts into deadly action.
Without the second amendment, Cho Seung-Hui would have been just been one more nut babbling about Jesus and other people's morals.
Posted by: Dave Mullenix | April 19, 2007 4:27 AM
Ed is absolutely right. The only thing that would have prevented this would have been for someone to not only notice that Cho was mentally ill, but actively treat and intensively monitor his progress. The college professors who noticed his tendencies, especially his creative writing teacher, referred him to officials for treatment, but there are rules restricting how much teachers can do (informing parents is a no-no, for one, and doctor/patient confidentiality is another) so that was the end of it. Doctors are human, and crazy people can very often pull the wool over their eyes. If they can fool doctors, fooling gun shop owners should be a piece of cake.
In this case, I feel one of the biggest ironies is that children in the K-12 public school levels have been expelled for pointing their fingers and saying "bang". . .
Posted by: Alison | April 19, 2007 8:41 AM
beibanjin:
Doesn't "53 shootings" imply that 53 people were able to get guns? Why would Cho have not, legally or illegally?
I fully agree with your general argument that gun-related deaths are minimized due to the difficulty in acquiring guns, but "minimized" is not the same as "eliminated" -- as you said yourself, citing 53 instances. I contend that this example is more like one of the 53.
If your argument is that America is screwy and violent and would be safer if it controlled weapons in an effective way, I'm on board. I'm just disputing that this is an example supporting that.
Posted by: itchy | April 19, 2007 9:31 AM
Oh, and Luxury Yacht, I'm still laughing at that!
Posted by: itchy | April 19, 2007 9:34 AM
Alison,
You're complete right but I'd add that the saddest thing in all of this is that he didn't have a single close friend who questioned his increasingly bizarre actions over time.
How many readers sit in class or work with someone who never speaks to anyone unless they have to, never comes out to socials, etc? On of my colleagues recently had a nervous breakdown and the first we knew of it was when he started showing serious symptoms - none of us knew him well enough to see the early signs...
Posted by: David Durant | April 19, 2007 10:43 AM
Gun shop owners have absolutely ZERO conscience. Nic Cage's character in "Lord of War" pretty much sums up their ethic. I remember reading about a reporter who conducted an (admittedly unscientific) experiment with about 150 gun shops in the DC-MD-VA area: he would go in mumbling about getting fired and wanting to "get even" with his boss, and ask what weapons the guys at the counter would recommend.
Number of gun shops visited: ~150
Number of gun shops that refused to business with someone who seemed irrational and intent on committing murder: 3
And these are the people who, along with loopy anti-social frontiersmen-wannabees, dominate the NRA, and use it to turn the entire guns-and-crime debate into an ongoing meltdown of raw fear, bigotry, and sheer cluelessness.
I also read an article by a woman who wanted to kill her husband. She tried to buy a gun, but because her state had a waiting period, she was able to think, cool off, and change her mind by the time the gun was delivered. So that's at least one life saved by a mandatory waiting period. (When did Cho buy his guns?)
Posted by: Raging Bee | April 19, 2007 11:17 AM
Who do you trust more, government or individuals? Reasonable minds can disagree.
Many individuals should not have guns. Nobody will seriosly argue that it is a good idea to randomly pick someone off the street and give them a handgun. They might argue that such a course of action is better than government knocking on every door to take away all guns that can be found.
Then you have a government that supposedly doesn't "trust" its citizens to own guns. Of course many people generally don't trust the government with anything (and everyone doesn't trust the government on some issue.) Even so, perhaps, the government should be the only entity to have guns.
Severe gun control, to the point of approaching total gun prohibition, does work in other countries, usually the more developed countries. Lets not pretend it doesn't "work" anywhere. And as much as people dislike the government, they usually are upset because they are holding it to a pretty high standard. For instance, they trust it enough to not move to another country, rely on many services it provides, and drive over the bridges it builds and the tunnels it digs. So maybe putting a lot of trust into the government as the only entity to have guns is better than trusting every wack job with a gun.
However, in a worst case scenario, the government could turn against a huge portion of the population who is now totally defenseless because they don't have guns. Governments are currently doing this all over the world, the former Eastern European countries did it, and America is no stranger to persecuting, imprisoning and/or massacering its own citizens, minorities especially. Granted, government might be able to do it even when citizens have guns, but arguably citizens having guns makes it harder for government to enslave, massacre or otherise mistreat it citizens.
Assume for the sake of argument that we could totally or near totally ban citizens from having firearms, and that we continue this policy past the intial stages (which could last years), where criminals with guns would arguably face a more vulnerable populace, it seems that the following question is all that remains.
What horse to bet on?
Will you gamble that the government can control itself against gross abuse (you have to allow for some "minor abuse."), keep citizens reasonably safe from one another and from foreign armies?
Or, will you gamble that you as a citizen, and depending on your way of thinking, all other citizens, are better off on a whole with absolutely anybody, meaning the craziest and meanest among us, having relatively easy access to guns?
Then throw in the largely philisophical (but still very important) consideration of personal liberty to have a gun with personal liberty to be exposed to decreased probability of gun violence. (Include in this whether having more guns available means you're more or less safe)
Reasonable minds can disagree. But reasonable minds should also be able to agree on some amount of gun control. Both sides can still want two totally different things and reach a compromise that leaves them both wanting more, but it better than the worst of their alternatives. Gun vending machines aren't a good idea. Neither is a surgically implanted GPS chip/bomb in every gun and its owner. Its not much, but its a start. There is no practical alternative but to meet somewhere in the middle.
Posted by: Bill | April 19, 2007 3:27 PM
Ah, so occasional murder of eight children (and serious injuries inflicted on 15 others) is an acceptable loss to you to maintain the completely unregulated right to own knives, got it.
Meanwhile two thousand college kids die every year because of alcohol, and yet there is no cry to re-institute prohibition, 32 die because of a mad man and we must amend the Constitution.
Your children are far, far, more likely to die in a car accident while being driven to school than to be shot while in school, and no one questions the wide spread use of automobiles. But let a statistically rare event like this (tragic as it is) happen and people come unglued and want to take rights away from everyone.
It's time to let the roaches have the planet...
Posted by: Troy Britain | April 19, 2007 9:57 PM
Nice strawman you're beating up Troy. I never said the murder of 8 kids is "an acceptable loss" or that "we must amend the Constitution" to minimize the number of tragedies like this in the future.
My position is that laws can most certainly be created to better filter out the law-abiding gun owners from the crazies.
But I certainly agree with you that we (as a country) shouldn't have a knee-jerk reaction to this tragedy and pass laws while still in a period of mourning over this... whether to limit OR to extent gun rights (or any of the other blame-games that Ed pointed out in this post). Such decisions shouldn't proceed from the impulse of the moment, but from the result of dedicated study.
But after the lawmakers (hopefully) go through some careful consideration of all the issues, I would think they might be able to think of some ways to further limit the access of guns to those, like Cho, who showed such a history of and propensity for anti-social and psychotic behavior.
After all, if he only had knives instead of guns, we'd probably only have 8 student murdered (like in the Osaka example) instead of 32.
Posted by: doctorgoo | April 19, 2007 10:27 PM
I didn't think you actually did thinks so, I was making a rhetorical point. Partly that it is somewhat narrow minded to focus on guns as if they are somehow magically different than other tools. Some people loose all ability to think rationally when it comes to guns. My mother gets nervous if one is in the same room as she is like she expects it to get up and start doing things of its own accord.
I also take issue with the use of the particular scale of this crime as it was somehow magical. Yes 32 people dead is worse than 8, but 8 isn't "acceptable" either and that was a crime committed with something as commonplace as a kitchen knife, but no one calls for knife control. Seriously how many would have to die by knife before someone would call for that? 8 we let it slide, 10 we implement legislation? How about 15? Are gun deaths somehow inherently worse that any other? You would think so by the way some people talk about it.
And what about cars and booze? If the deaths happen all at once like in this case people start jumping up and down screaming for legislation, but spread them out over a little more time and you would think there wasn't any problem at all.
Why are people afraid to send their children to school out of fear they'll be shot by a nut-job, when they are statistically far more likely to die in the car while being driven to school?
Fair enough, you didn't do this, but there are many that do.
I don't have a problem with that, as long as it is something that actually makes sense. In this particular case the fact that he was forcibly institutionalized as a possible danger to himself or others only 2 years ago (or so) should, I would think, have disallowed his being able to buy a firearm. I think Virginia needs to think about amending how they do things somewhat.
However I also see nonsense being spewed all over the media in the aftermath of this tragedy. For example I saw a Congresswoman being interviewed who was big on gun control and one of her bright ideas was to limit pistol clips to only ten rounds. Now, if you know anything about semi-automatic pistols then you know that the only difference this would have made at Virginia Tech is that Cho would have had to have stretch his killing spree maybe 10-20 seconds longer than he did to make up the difference between 10 and a 14 round clips.
Frankly, horrible as it is to imagine I think a determine nut could kill a lot more than 8 even with just a knife. A resourceful nut like McVeigh can kill a lot more with a U-haul full of fertilizer. And let us never forget what sort of damage can be done by a small gang of nuts armed with nothing more that box-cutters.
Posted by: Troy Britain | April 20, 2007 3:50 AM
Gun shop owners have absolutely ZERO conscience. Nic Cage's character in "Lord of War" pretty much sums up their ethic.
Wow. You are using a Nic Cage character as supporting evidence for a ludicrously broad claim? Can I play?
Let's skip democracy and change into a chemistocray. Chemists have abolutely AMAZING conscience. Nic Cage's character in "The Rock" pretty much sums up their ethic. Ok, got the sarcasm out of my system. Will try to make more substantive comments from this point forward.
I have known several gun shop owners. To my knowledge, they have all been men of integrity and personal conviction. To my knowledge, none have ever taken candy from babies nor eaten kittens. To my knowledge, one has (in at least one instance) alerted the county sheriff to an apparently unstable individual whose behavior warranted legal intervention.
Are there unscrupulous gun shop owners? Most certainly. They are humans after all. I, however, tend to not associate with individuals of low integrity no matter what their chosen profession. So I reckon my perfect track record with gun shop owners are taken from a preselected sample pool, but is enough to refute your mile wide generalization based on a movie character and memories of a reporter's experiment.
And these are the people who, along with loopy anti-social frontiersmen-wannabees, dominate the NRA, and use it to turn the entire guns-and-crime debate into an ongoing meltdown of raw fear, bigotry, and sheer cluelessness.
Between your first paragraph and this one, I must ask, do you engage in mutual discourse or simply demonize and stereotype those on the opposite side of your opinions?
I often tell creationists that they should actually try meeting with and talking to some of these scientists of whom they slander so. They may just find that these scientists are not amoral monsters participating in a dogmatic and irrational exercise to drag our nation downward. Might I suggest you try meeting with and talking to some NRA members of whom you slander so? We are mostly regular folk.
I also read an article by a woman who wanted to kill her husband. She tried to buy a gun, but because her state had a waiting period, she was able to think, cool off, and change her mind by the time the gun was delivered. So that's at least one life saved by a mandatory waiting period.
I also read an article by a woman's next of kin about a woman who wanted to protect herself from her ex. She tried to buy a gun, but because her state had a waiting period, she was forced to go home emptied handed, be tracked down, and be beaten to death by the time the gun was delivered. So that's at least one life lost by a mandatory waiting period.
Hey look! I told a detail-free cliched story that counterpoints yours! Now I will tell the one about the home intruding maniac who was shot the homeowner. Then you can counter with the one about the child sneaking in late who was shot by the homeowner. Then at least one of us can go to bed content with the knowledge that a stock story supports our world view.
(When did Cho buy his guns?)
Smidgen over a month before for the 9mm and a smidgen over two months for the .22 according to most acounts. Does not appear that any waiting period would have affected Cho. Does not appear that the criminal background check affected Cho. Does not appear that the campus ban on firearms affected Cho. Does not appear that the national ban on murder affected Cho. Do you have any suggestions?
Posted by: Sean | April 20, 2007 5:34 AM
Troy...
Indeed. This is the point of Ed's post here. But I would say that you're doing some knee-jerk reacting too. I point out the obvious flaw in your Osaka example and you automatically get uber-defensive about it and assume that I wanna do away with the 2nd Amendment.
You seem to be quite concerned that politicians will get trigger-happy (ahem) about gun laws. You wrote:
This is a nonsensical analogy. You might as well of said heavy pipes or screwdrivers. The difference is that kitchen knives, pipes and the like are all necessary tools when used correctly. Should they be restricted in certain (but very limited) instances? Yes, of course (eg. bringing a knive on a plane is a no-no).
But a gun for the most part is a luxury item. Most gun owners these days don't require them as much as they want them. Even hunters who eat what they shoot... for the most part it's a hobby with an upside (free meat), but if they didn't hunt, they wouldn't starve... they'd just end up buying food at the supermarket like everyone else.
Now I'm not saying that guns shouldn't be prohibited just because it isn't necessary for your average citizen to own them... I'm just saying that comparisons to knives or car accidents on the way to school make for terrible analogies.
I'm glad that you recognize that gun control laws can and should be made stronger. There are way too many gun owners who see any new gun restrictions as an affront to their 2nd amendment rights. They usually use the 'slippery slope' argument of "first it's a minor restriction... but we all know that if they (gun opponents) get what they want on this issue, then they won't stop until they take away every gun from every law-abiding citizen".
Troy, I'm glad to see that you are able to take a more nuanced approach than that.
Posted by: doctorgoo | April 20, 2007 8:20 AM
Except in this case while I might have misread your intent, there really are lots of people who do want to do away with the 2nd Amendment.
You're not being paranoid if they really are out to get you... :)
As a libertarian (note the small "L") I am quite concerned about politicians doing (and not doing) lots of things.The point was that people who are crazy and want to kill lots of other people are going to find a way and you cannot realistically stop them. Guns are an easy scapegoat but they are just one possible tool to be used by nuts (one statistically rarely used in this particular manner).
Did you happen to catch Penn and Teller's Bullshit episode on gun control? Here's a snippet.
One might argue the same for firearms.
So my right to self defense is a luxury? I guess it depends on what neighborhood you live in. Then there is the fact that something being a "luxury" doesn't lessen my right to own it.
That would be unnecessary in your (not so) humble opinion.
I'm sure someone killed with a knife or run over by a car would take great comfort in knowing you think so.
I would probably say smarter rather than stronger, your mileage may vary. Much of what passes for gun control is just nonsense that puts limits on law abiding citizens and does little or nothing about criminal gun use.
Yeah some gun people no doubt go too far the other way but as I said you're not being paranoid if they really are out to get you and there really are people out to eliminate the right to own firearms.
Posted by: Troy Britain | April 20, 2007 10:20 PM
Yep... you're right... I used a double negative. Just get rid of the n't in shouldn't and the sentence reads correctly.
With all due respect Troy, you've already conceded that you wish gun laws were stronger in this instance (you wanna say smarter? ... it's just arguing semantics... kinda pointless). And if you think he'd have murdered all those last 30 people with just a knife, then I'd say you're just kidding yourself here.
A valid point. If you feel safer having access to a gun, then you might feel gun ownership is necessary. I just don't happen to share your apparent mistrust of the goverment. I happen to feel rather secure trusting law enforcement for my family's protection.
Give it a break Troy. Take off the foil hat, you're better than that. You, yourself support new (smarter) gun restrictions. I would hope that you'd try to influence your fellow gun people to support such legislation to keep guns out of the hands of people like Cho.
Just don't try to deny ALL gun laws because some gun control advocates want to take away all your guns.
Posted by: doctorgoo | April 20, 2007 11:30 PM
I happen to feel rather secure trusting law enforcement for my family's protection.
You shouldn't be. I have yet to have a police response measured in less than half an hour. That includes two incidents where there existed an immediate physical risk.
I would hope that you'd try to influence your fellow gun people to support such legislation to keep guns out of the hands of people like Cho.
Could you please then try to influence your fellow antigun people to tone down the legislation to keep guns out of the hands of all people?
Just don't try to deny ALL gun laws because some gun control advocates want to take away all your guns.
Ok, so specifically what new gun laws do you advocate for? Do you believe that every tragedy requires a targetted legislative response?
Posted by: Sean | April 21, 2007 1:38 PM