Bless you for blogging this. I live in Virginia and am, indeed, horrified.
In Virginia, it is sinfully easy to purchase a gun, and you are permitted to bring your gun almost anywhere, even inside county recreation centers and to city council meetings.
Which a bunch of gun-toting, second amendment loving folks did in the City of Falls Church a few years back, because the City was trying to make it illegal to bring your gun to, you know, city council meetings and such.
NRA Headquarters is about 10 minutes from here. I can almost hear the screeching of tires as the leadership pulls into the parking lot to run upstairs and form their press release about how this never would have happened if every single student at Va Tech had a gun. Because an armed society is a polite society, y'know.
Sigh.
Boys, beer, and guns on a college campus ... I can't imagine how anyone would feel safe.
It is always a learning experience for me to follow the conversations after something like this happens, because the American viewpoint is unique in the world, given the Second Amendment and what it might mean. I don't see how a "well-regulated militia" came to mean the right for anyone to carry guns.
"...the right of the people to keep and bear Arms...."
The "people." That means you and I. I wish even one of those teachers/students had possessed a gun. We'd be talking about one or two dead now, instead of 33.
Ralph Vienna, someone pointed at Eschaton that other amendments specifically state "persons", not "people", and that it is not clear what the founders meant by this set of statements. Note that the "well-regulated militia" is part of the whole statement, and it is hard for me to see how the current situation has any resemblance to "well-regulated militia".
As to your argument that arming everybody would have cut back on the losses of life, perhaps. But it is also possible that in the confusion which usually follows someone starting to shoot randomly many other people would have also started shooting randomly and then the police would have had a lot of difficulty knowing who the culprit is and might have started shooting randomly, too.
The people have the right to own guns only insofar as it benefits militias. Any other reading of the Second Amendment makes the "militia" clause meaningless.
This is one of only two places in the Constitution where the framers give us the intent of a provision. (The other is the clause giving Congress the power to issue patents, to "promote the progress of science and useful arts".) So I'd say the restriction to militias was quite uppermost in their minds.
It's pretty much irrelevant; barking lunatics can get guns pretty much everywhere. If the USA gutted the second amendment (not likely; the NRA is nothing if not a reliable source of sheep that pull the R lever every election) and went on a gun-banning spree, a determined kook will still be able to get a gun.
(And as for the utterly contemptable NRA propaganda line that Ralph the NRA shill has been putting up on every weblog that comments on this massacre: Someone already *had* a gun, as 30-odd people would be happy to testify to if they weren't, you know, dead. And if the NRA is planning on trying to legislate mandatory carry, I'll cheerfully abandon my support for the Lone Eagle version of the second amendment and go over to the Repeal It Now! side in a hurry. One of the benefits of a civilized society is that I *don't* have to carry, and I'm already pretty annoyed with the NRA's constant yapping that we should attempt to be as well armed as the paragon of freedom that was Saddam Hussein's Iraq.)
Guns don't kill people. People with guns kill people. . .
Very, very sad. I agree it's too soon for analysis.
Honestly, I see no reason why guns should be banned or get further controls on them. All it does is punish law abiding gun owners for the actions of criminals.
These folks will get firearms regardless of whatever barriers you put in their way thanks to the global trade of these items through various channels.
What happened today was more the fault of the police not handling this correctly. This doesn't reassure students or the community of their ability to protect them from folks like the gunman. To top this off, it'll likely drive people to buy their own guns to protect themselves while the help is on the way, as is happening in NO with the rampant crime driving weapon sales up.
Either way, looking at what we know now, this is a tragedy that could've been averted.
Tinfoilhattie...I am also about ten minutes from NRA HQ. Methinks we live in the same place! I go to school here.
A Symptom of our "Chain Letter Society"?
Read an analysis of the influences in our "Chain Letter Society" that may be precipitating events like the tragedy at Virginia Tech and how our focus on winning and being number one may be fostering a generation of children with fully inadequate coping skills who have a misguided sense of self-worth...here:
www.thoughttheater.com
Obviously, there is no gun-related problem that cannot be solved with even more guns.
I "shoot" wildlife with a camera. I do not possess a gun and have no intentions of ever possessing a gun. I do not understand the gun culture in this country, nor do I understand how the "right to bear arms" within the context of a militia translates into a "personal" right to bear arms. And even if one were to concede the right of gun ownership for purposes of hunting or protecting a farm, how does one rationalize the right own assault rifles?
In Florida, there is a so-called "make-my-day-law." To me, it has the appearances of a marketing ploy by the NRA to convince/coerce/co-opt more people into accepting gun ownership and break down public resistance. The day will come when someone abuses this law and uses it as an excuse to kill with impunity.
As you may surmise, I favor gun control. I see no purpose in carrying firearms whatsoever. In 2007, I find it disturbing and distressing that America seems hell-bent on preserving its frontier mentality.
I got this sudden image of me going to the grocery store with daggers stuck in my hair and a semi-automatic propped up in the cart while I peruse the fresh fruit...
Please. He could've just as easily made a pipe bomb. This guy intended to kill people whether or not he had access to guns. Pure and simple.
Fun fact: Virginia Tech does not allow guns on campus. Obviously, that didn't stop him.
Please. He could've just as easily made a pipe bomb. This guy intended to kill people whether or not he had access to guns. Pure and simple.
Now I have to add a pipe bomb to my shopping cart...
If you have been in an episode of violence, you know too well that by the time you could have responded to an attack by unpacking your firearm from the holster, purse, knapsack, or wherever you are keeping it, chambered a round, and flipped off the safety--
you would already be dead
or it was not a deadly attack after all, and a lethal response was not called for.
You could shorten your response time by keeping the weapon free and to hand, with a round chambered and the safety off . . . aiming costs precious time you can't afford: maybe if your gun is an automatic rifle . . .
. . . just nuts! This is how you are going to drop your kids off at school, go grocery shopping, and say "hi" to your neighbors!? You cannot live life that way. What possesses you to even consider it?
Firearms are tools of attack only, not defense.
Honestly, if we really want to stop anyone from obtaining firearms further restricting guns or banning them outright isn't going to be enough. We'd have to go after the industry itself as well as the need/market it's supplying. That way we nip things in the bud, though the problem with this is that I doubt we can stop the military industrial complex from demanding more weapons/ammunition.
The mere existence of these things, their power and our tendency to abuse it means they'd end up being sold or traded.
BTW, echidne, don't joke about the pipe bomb possibility. He could've easily killed far more people in the dorm with them than he did.
Mark my words, within 24 hours some wingnut will be blaming the massacre on the co-ed dormitory. That and/or women getting university educations, which totally threatens men and causes fragile male egos to undergo violent psychotic breaks...
Of course, we've already gotten an earful from the haters looking for an excuse to bash immigrants. Preliminary reports suggest that the shooter had a legal student visa. So, it's just a short hop in wingnut conceptual space
from that unconfirmed rumor to the "fact" that illegals are slaughtering all-American kids en masse.
I'll be relieved if the fallout is mostly confined to gun control.
BTW, echidne, don't joke about the pipe bomb possibility. He could've easily killed far more people in the dorm with them than he did.
I joked about the guns, too. Sometimes joking is the only thing that keeps me from crying, you know.
Mark my words, within 24 hours some wingnut will be blaming the massacre on the co-ed dormitory. That and/or women getting university educations, which totally threatens men and causes fragile male egos to undergo violent psychotic breaks...
I wouldn't bet against that. It may have already been published somewhere.
Gabbi:
"He could have made a pipe bomb. This guy intended to kill people pure and simple."
We don't know that. And we'll never know that. What I heard was that a Va. Tech student had broken up with him and he went to her dorm with the intent of killing her. When she wasn't there, he killed her roommate and her RA. And then, when classes started, he again was looking for her.
Whatever kind of emotional state this man was in, I think it's facile to say that he was simply an evil killing machine. Certainly he was enraged but we have no evidence suggesting that he went to campus with the premeditation to carry out a slaughter a la Columbine. It could well have been a spontaneous decision based on his inability to find his ex-girlfriend.
This is part of my problem with the argument that "an armed society is a safe society". After all, Baltimore is an armed society, but it's not terribly safe. Nor is DC. Somehow, when people are crowded together and have access to a lot of weapons, they end up shooting each other.
After all, Baltimore is an armed society, but it's not terribly safe. Nor is DC.
There are an awful lot of guns in Iraq, but it's as safe as an open-air market in Indiana. Or something.
Gabbi, Rex, Parsons:
I suppose if the guy had killed people by plowing them over in a car, you'd be saying there's no point in having driver education classes, DMV tests, driving tests, or any of the other things we make people go through to get a driver's license. Any nut can get his hands on a car, right?
How are guns different -- unless you engage in a misreading of the Second Amendment?
Shorter gun-nuts:
There's no point having laws, as criminals will break them anway.
So, gun control didn't stop the rampage so you want more gun control? Makse sense.
And you might want to read the D.C. Circuit's latest decision on gun control bans. They seem to have found the most intelligent interpretation of the 2d Amendment we've seen.
*seconds echidne* Odd how walmart doesn't sell pipe bombs even though they are just as effective as guns.
Whispers: He went to the dorm with the intention of killing his exgirlfriend, then killed 30 people when he couldn't find her, and he's NOT an evil killing machine?
Because the only one he _planned_ on killing was a woman he was formerly attached to, so he's understanably upset. Disgusting. Just like noone bothered to warn the campus because it was a _domestic_ murder, an _understandable_ murder, and they thought the murderer would stick to understandable targets. Gods, this makes me want to vomit.
Pipe bombs aren't very useful for hunting.
Okay, it's been twenty four hours and I've had a chance to calm down, so now I can say calmly, dispassionately, politely:
Shut. The. Fuck. Up.
All of you.
Seriously, we *know* practically NOTHING about who this killer (or killers) was, his motivations, how he had access to his weapons, etc. Yet I have had to endure hours of speculation and pontifications about What It All Means, and how we should adjust our society, policies, laws, and behavior in response.
There are good and bad arguments to be made about gun control, about immigration, about contempt for women, about safety vs. freedom, and so forth.
But to piggy back on this tragedy -- to use the deaths of over thirty people -- as a rhetorical weapon in your blog posts and pissing matches is contemptible.
(It's not like the USA has any shortage of pointless massacres that we have actual FACTS about that y'all can draw upon, after all...)
Somehow, when people are crowded together and have access to a lot of weapons, they end up shooting each other.
Whispers
It's funny that you mention that, Whispers...I learned that in my high school Sociology class. The experiment was with mice who were crowded together in a small space. After a time, they began to turn on one another and cannibalism ensued.
It's an interesting point that these school shootings began within a decade after they began consolidating schools--taking them out of the neighborhood and creating these McSchools where several hundred children are crammed in together.
Then, they've got cameras on them everywhere they go...you know, in case there's a terrorist lurking about...
...how is a child with this kind of atmosphere supposed to have any hope?
«Gabbi, Rex, Parsons:
[nonsensical NRA propaganda deleted]»
There must be some secret NRA codeword out there. Apparently it's not enough to support the second amendment, but I've got to do it while hopping up and down on one foot or something?
Sheesh. We're a pretty violent society, even compared with other first world countries where lots of people carry. Everyone knows that. But is it too much to ask for for us to be a literate society as well?
If the newspaper reports are accurate, this particular evil gunman went out and bought his guns and bulletproof vest /before/ he (surprise!) broke up with his girlfriend. It's really hard to think of a gun control law that can compensate for that degree of premeditation.
And this was someone plotting to murder his ex-girlfriend. If you want this sort of thing to stop, mandatory carry won't help; breaking the patriarchy might be a good first step, or putting prozac in the water supply, or anything to break the all too common attitude that being dumped (or even being treated as anything other than the King Of The World) is a mortal insult that requires some sort of revenge.
Fifty people died in Iraq yesterday. And Juan Cole reports that late in February a suicide bomber killed 41 students and faculty members and injured a similar number at a university in Iraq. Blood and body parts were scattered everywhere. THIS OUTRAGE HAPPENS EVERY DAY IN IRAQ! Would they have died if the US hadn't invaded? Can you spare a few tears for those kids and their parents? Where are their "grief counselors"? Who speaks in a voice choked with sorrow for all the innocents who die every day in Iraq?
God is a Republican. I am an atheist.
But to piggy back on this tragedy -- to use the deaths of over thirty people -- as a rhetorical weapon in your blog posts and pissing matches is contemptible.
Of course it is. But would it be more contemptible to write nothing about the event? I'm asking, because that was my first decision. Then that seemed contemptible to me, too, because ignoring something like that seemed wrong as well. Then I though just writing a post hoping that the families find peace. And that seemed wrong as it isn't my grief, except peripherally.
I went around in circles, made worse by the memories this evoked in me about something similar in which I lost a distant relative.
I don't know what the right thing to do is. Everything seems wrong.
Echidne, most of my anger isn't directed at you, but at other posters on various blogs, at all ends of the political spectrum. It reminds me of the horrible killings at the Amish schoolhouse, which didn't take more than a half hour to become the bloody shirt waved in all sorts of causes.
I don't know anyone at Va Tech, any I don't know anymore about the case than I hear on the news. I do have a beloved spouse who receives death threats at least once a semester as a (somewhat) controversial university professor. We usually laugh these off, but I don't think we will ever be able to again.
Personally, I think that Jon Stewart struck EXACTLY the right note last night.
Personally, I think that Jon Stewart struck EXACTLY the right note last night.
I didn't watch him but I will look for a video.
We usually laugh these off, but I don't think we will ever be able to again.
Always take these things seriously and involve the correct authorities, please. Snakes protect you and your spouse.
What do you mean we know "practically nothing" about the killer's motive? Where have you been?
That motive is very much worth blogging about. Sheesh.
hapax: Just because you have not been following it does not mean nothing is known. I am not intruding in any way on the families' grief. I am not a vulture reporting for some television station. And I am not going to shut the fuck up to preserve your sense of civility.
I am talking about what caused this in hopes of getting at what stops this. If you are so uncomfortable with the shootings as to tell people to shut the fuck up about them regardless of what they are saying, you shouldn't be participating in the conversation. You can stop playing defender of the families of the dead and close your browser anytime.
But the shooter's 'girlfriend'? That's who I fear being, what I fear for every woman I know. And I'm not going to shut up about it, despite how comforting it is to many to think of the shooting as a non preventable catastophe, something to ignore like the possibility of a lightning strike.
Gun control and contempt for women IS death and sirens and mourning, not just some topic for a rhetoric class.
swampcracker, no beer involved as far as anyone knows.
Kerlyssa, none of the people shot are known to be the shooter's girlfield or ex-girlfriend (as of 10ish p.m. last night). Confusion started concerning that because for the initial shooting they were investigating the first female victim's boyfriend.
Even if that had been the case (her boyfriend having killed her and the RA), as they were not "living together" or any other way a "family unit", I do not see how the incident could then be termed demestic nor that such a desiganation should indicate to law enforcement that such a person would not be a danger to anyone else nor why such a shooting should be a different category than regular 1st degree murder/attempted murder. (Unless it increases the penalty since one should feel safe in one's own space. Notice should, not always do.)
There are two forces at work in this world: love/empathy, and heirarchy/pack dog mentality/I'm gonna show my girlfriend that I'm way too big a fish to let her treat me like that 'cause I got a lot of guns.
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