School shootings are a chronic disease of modern American society, and each time one occurs a lot of people try to figure out what they mean. As an inevitable part of this process, some people try to exploit the event, and others complain bitterly about that exploitation. My friend Chad at CCK has this:
The reaction from conservative circles (pundits and webloggers) to the tragedy at Virginia Tech has largely been themed around the idea that we need more guns. Students should be able to carry guns on campus, they say. Our gun laws are too restrictive when it comes to college campuses, they proclaim. This basic theme is coupled with proclamations that we need to promote the idea of "self defense" and "fighting back."
And in a very interesting post, my colleague Emeritus, Professor David Newquist, has this:
Such occasions must be unbearable for the families and friends of those who have been killed. They affect the nation, indeed the world, so adversely. So it is a particularly offensive and egregious and unforgiveable matter when the NRA and its loonies turn it into an occasion for its cause by saying that if other students had been carrying weapons, the shooter would not have taken so many lives. I am a gun owner. As I write this, I can look at the wall to my left and see a rack of shotguns and a rifle. And behind me are two black powder muskets. I enjoy shooting sports, I respect firearms, but I do not think they have a place in moderating the factional and personal issues that exist in society. There are problems that need to be solved, but their best chance of being solved is at Virginia Tech and all the places that try to apply human knowledge and understanding to human concerns.
Chad and Professor Newquist are right, of course; some pro-gun folks did make the arguments present above. See that amazing man, Ted Nugent. But as usual, my blogosphere brothers see only what the half of the story that they want to see. Anti-gun folks were just as quick to yell "I told you so." This from Michael Daly at the New York Daily News:
Still love those guns, Virginia? Ready to admit that it's madness for any psycho to be able to saunter into a gun shop and acquire firepower capable of killing 32 innocents?
I am no big advocate of gun control, though I admit I am less heavily armed that Professor Newquist. I would have to admit, however, that making it harder for psychopaths to get handguns seems like a better precaution against school shootings than arming all the coeds. I would point out that most of us see such an event as the Virginia Tech massacre through the lens of political bias. Moreover, Shulte and Newquist are exploiting the massacre just as much as Ted Nugent is.
The awful truth is that the Virginia Tech mass murder doesn't mean anything. Seung-hui Cho was probably not insane in any technical sense. He very deliberately planned what he did, and surely was able to know that it was wrong. But Cho occupied a spot on that extreme end of the human bell curve with others who are mad as Hell and have no civilized inhibitions. Such people exist in every society, regardless of its gun control or housing policies. Maybe gun control is a good idea, and maybe not, but the Chos will always be out there. We are fooling ourselves if we pretend otherwise.
Recent Comments