Things I Learned From The Virginia Tech Shootings

First of all, it is all our fault. Every freedom that you have is to blame for the shooting spree, with the exception of the freedom to bear arms. How do I know? Why, serial adulterer Newt Gingrich said so yesterday. From The Carpetbagger Report:

GINGRICH: Yes, I think the fact is, if you look at the amount of violence we have in games that young people play at 7, 8, 10, 12, 15 years of age, if you look at the dehumanization, if you look at the fact that we refuse to say that we are, in fact, endowed by our creator, that our rights come from God, that if you kill somebody, you’re committing an act of evil.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But what does that have to do with liberalism?

GINGRICH: “Well, who has created a situation ethics, essentially, zone of not being willing to talk about any of these things. Let me carry another example. I strongly supported Imus being dismissed, but I also think the very thing he was dismissed for, which is the use of language which is stunningly degrading of women — the fact, for example, that one of the Halloween costumes this last year was being able to be either a prostitute or a pimp at 10, 11, 12 years of age, buying a costume, and we don’t have any discussion about what’s happened to our culture because while we’re restricting political free speech under McCain-Feingold, we say it’s impossible to restrict vulgar and vicious and anti-human speech. And I would argue that that’s a major component of what’s happened to our culture in the last 40 years.”

Whoa, Newt must go to a lot of Halloween parties given his track record. In 1977, was Ann Manning wearing a sexy nurses outfit when she blew him while his wife laid in the hospital recovering from cancer? Maybe he just thought he deserved to get as much tail as the guys on Starsky & Hutch.

Was Congressional staffer Callista Bisek coming to work in sexy vampire outfits when Newt was tapping her while married to another woman as he decried Clinton for the same thing?

I've got to move somewhere that they have Halloween every day.

As ludicrous as that statement is, others went farther. The American Family Association is selling this distasteful video at its web site.



Who knew Jesus wanted you to beat your kids? Also, didn't that guy keep referencing Jesus Christ in his manifesto?

Virginia Tech And The NRA

First, let me explain to you what probably happened at the NRA's headquarters on Monday. Oh shit, a bunch of white kids got shot up in a quaint little college town. Gee, I hope it isn't a white guy who shot them up. What? He was Oriental? Good, now we can go on the attack. Let's blame it on the Virginia Tech's zero tolerance policy with regards to firearms.

And so it begins. TV appearances, radio appearances, op-eds, anything to push the heat off of themselves. They send every fucking tout they have out to say that if there were more guns on campus the scope of this tragedy would have been limited. But you have to ask yourself, even if this tragedy would have been slightly muted by a greater prevalence of handguns on college campuses, how many more individual tragedies would occur. The answer is many. It would be a net negative.

You have to look at what goes on at our universities. There are young people with little experience in the world indulging in drugs, binge-drinking, and the fights that are usually fueled by the previous two things. Does anybody rationally believe that handguns belong in that mix. I would say Virginia Tech had their policy exactly correct.

I am not advocating nationwide gun control, I believe it is a home rule issue. It is why I support the 180 mayors nationwide in their Mayors Against Illegal Guns campaign. Different parts of the country have different needs for controlling the arsenals roaming their streets. It is just a matter of fact, gun violence increases directly proportional to population density. If you live in a rural environment where it takes the county Sheriff fifteen to twenty minutes to get to your house you'd be crazy not to own a gun, but when you live in an urban environment owning a gun causes much more trouble than the limited protection they offer. For instance, did you know that in concealed carry classes they teach you that if a threat is within thirty feet of you, that threat will get to you before you get a chance to draw your gun and shoot?

But the NRA isn't interested in rational policy. No, they are forever fighting that slippery slope convinced that the end goal of reasonable people is unreasonable policy when they know damn well it isn't. So we get there touts telling us that if we outlaw guns then only outlaws will have guns. They tell us this knowing that gun violence claims four times as many victims as 9/11 every year. Only a fool would believe vast majority of those were all committed with illegally purchased weapons, yet they claim more rigorous background checks will do nothing.

There was a man on MSNBC this morning who said that this kid who shot up Virginia Tech would have never have been able to get those guns in his home state of New Jersey and that's true. All the recognizable signs were there to tell anyone with a brain that this kid had no business owning a gun. All anyone had to do is look.

Pure Derb

John Derbyshire has a ridiculous post up over at The Corner:

Spirit of Self-Defense [John Derbyshire]

As NRO's designated chickenhawk, let me be the one to ask: Where was the spirit of self-defense here? Setting aside the ludicrous campus ban on licensed conceals, why didn't anyone rush the guy? It's not like this was Rambo, hosing the place down with automatic weapons. He had two handguns for goodness' sake—one of them reportedly a .22.

At the very least, count the shots and jump him reloading or changing hands. Better yet, just jump him. Handguns aren't very accurate, even at close range. I shoot mine all the time at the range, and I still can't hit squat. I doubt this guy was any better than I am. And even if hit, a .22 needs to find something important to do real damage—your chances aren't bad.

Yes, yes, I know it's easy to say these things: but didn't the heroes of Flight 93 teach us anything? As the cliche goes—and like most cliches. It's true—none of us knows what he'd do in a dire situation like that. I hope, however, that if I thought I was going to die anyway, I'd at least take a run at the guy.

I have a couple of issues with this. First of all, as someone who has had a gun pulled on him a couple of times, I can assure you that you never know how people will react when it happens. Once I ran, as it was the practical thing to do. Once I had to make a stand. (Retreat was impossible). In the instance where I had to make a stand, even after I had frightened the gunman off, the woman I was with was still paralyzed with fear. I literally had to shove her out of the somewhat still dangerous situation.

Secondly, just because The Derb can't shoot straight, it doesn't mean that neither can anyone else. Yes, handguns are not very accurate, but you don't hit fifty people on a spree like this by randomly firing into a crowd. The guy obviously knew his way around a gun. It may even be that some did try to rush him but were unable to "run through a .22". You take a head shot and a .22 will stop you.

Deadly Shootings

At least 31 people (Source: Government official) have been killed (Including shooter, self inflicted) during a rampage at Virginia Tech University. Seventeen more injured. Terrible, terrible news.

Update: Various news agencies are putting the death toll at 31, 32, or 33 people.

Update: I wondered how long it would take. Some jackass just called in to Washington Post Radio and blamed the death toll on the school's zero tolerance gun policy. He suggested that if the students would have been armed, they could have shot back.