Tech-Nine

Okay, since everyone's been talking about Virginia Tech all day, I do have a thing or two to say about this. Actually, I also want to mention that a coworker of mine--a VT alumnus--was wearing his nice VT shirt at work yesterday, which caused me to lol'ed.

Anyway, the articles about foreign governments responding to this thing made me sick. Here's a particularly vile one. Oh, yes, Mr. Howard, tell us how you think our country should be run. Everybody knows that getting rid of guns prevents gun crime. Right? So...Australia is unfit to be lecturing us. Who else?

Ahh, the British press has decided to cry its own crocodile tears. Says Gerard Butler of The 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?"

You're right, Mr. Baker; eliminating gun ownership also eliminates gun crime, doesn't it? Yeah, that's the ticket. I didn't even mention England's hilarious knife amnesty program, introduced in response to the surge in knife-based violence in response to their gun ban.

Let's see...oh, then China chips in. The article points out that nobody in China is allowed to own guns. That probably explains why China is such a utopian paradise.

Then Italy comes aboard and chips in their two lire. Gun ownership is restricted in Italy, too, making it impossible to commit any acts of violence.

Clearly, these nations are leading the way in making the world a safer, better place. As I see it, there are two appropriate responses to all this schadenfreude:

1) There will always be crazed people who decide that the best way to deal with their situation is to kill a lot of people. It's unfortunate, and it's scary, but it's unavoidable. These kinds of attacks are the price of a free society. Until our government has the entire populace sedated, or under constant surveillance, there simply is no way to guarantee that this madness won't be repeated. I saw a headline crawl on CNN yesterday that said "ARE ANY OF OUR STUDENTS SAFE??" No joke. And, well, no; there isn't any way to assure that this kind of thing will not happen again. Really, none of us are safe from random acts of senseless violence. But is it sensible to panic and hide in the corner?

2) This simply isn't the time to point fingers and say "I told you so." Mr. Howard, Mr. Baker, et al., please just take your condolences and cram 'em. There will be an appropriate time and place to analyze this event and find ways to mitigate such risks in the future, but can we please wait until these kids and teachers are in the ground before you vultures of opportunity begin to circle?

There is one more point I wish to make, and I hope I don't belabor it too much...but consider what must have gone through this prick shooter kid's mind as he began to plan his attack. Once he secured his weaponry, loaded up all his extra magazines and found a way to secret them around his person, he had to choose a place to go where there would be a lot of people he could attack. He chose his school. One can assume that he wanted to choose a fairly high-profile target, so that he could get his name in the newspapers--the fact that he left a note backs up this assumption. So...why not a police station? Why not drive up to DC and storm any of a number of government targets?

I'd like to suggest that, among other reasons, it's because people in police stations are armed. Government buildings are protected by people who are armed. Carrying a weapon on Virginia Tech campus is illegal...yet imagine how this would have turned out had one or more of his victims had been packing.

Just saying.