VA Tech - Various Opinions

By Cernig

There's a heck of a lot of blogging punditry on the subject of the VA Tech shootings today. Memeorandum shows just how much.

As is usuual when so many are talking about one subject, I'm going to demur from adding to the hubbub to any great degree. There are so many writing about this, some of them are bound to do a better job than I could.

Some notable posts:

Shaun Mullen - "It is my view that the National Rifle Association is a terrorist organization. Not as overtly so as Al Qaeda, but the NRA shares responsibility for the slaughter from guns in America because of its extraordinary power and unflinching unwillingness to consider that the rights of gun owners occasionally have to be subsumed by others -- be they Amish schoolgirls in Pennsylvania, abused wives in rural Nebraska or colleges students in Virginia."

Dave Schuler - "For those of you who believe this is an opportunity to place tighter controls on firearms, what’s your program? How, in particular, will it incontrovertibly prevent one determined nutcase from killing a lot of people?

For those of you who believe this is an opportunity to pitch concealed carry laws, again, how would that have prevented this particular incident? IMO training and courage are the determining factors in acting in dire circumstances like this, not firepower. Most people just freeze or (prudently) flee under crisis conditions. How will you mandate training and courage?"

Iraq Slogger - "In Iraq, universities struggling to operate in the midst of a war zone have been struck repeatedly by bombings, shootings, assassinations, and abductions that have left behind hundreds of killed and wounded, victims and forced thousands of students and professors to stay away, or even leave the country."

Larry Johnson and Ron Beasley add to this parallel with "Now Do You Understand?" and "So where is all the good news?"

Meanwhile, "over the pond", even the conservative columnists usually quoted by the US Right - the ones who are pro-war, pro-Bush, anti-immigration etc. - are amazed at the American ability to let this kind of thing continue. Gerard Baker in the London Times: "why, we ask, do Americans continue to tolerate gun laws and a culture that seems to condemn thousands of innocents to death every year, when presumably, tougher restrictions, such as those in force in European countries, could at least reduce the number?"

For me, there's an important logical misstep in the thinking of those who say "criminals will get guns anyway" in response to calls for gun laws. It's that, if guns are illegal, only criminals with the right kind of contacts will be able to get guns. You can't then just drive up to a gun show and buy a gun, no questions asked. That limits the field considerably. It excludes, for instance, high school and college kids. It excludes those who suddenly just flip-out or have a moment of blind rage in a domestic dispute. It probably excludes many of the dime-store robbers too.

Seatbelt laws don't stop people driving without wearing a seatbelt either. Health and safety at work laws don't stop people ignoring them. Food safety laws don't stop all cases of fatal food poisoning. But they limit the carnage.