Bloodless Coup

I should say that the proper object of my annoyance might well be the reporter and/or editor who decided to end the piece on that incredibly vague note.

Looks like we cross-posted.

in fairness, his might be more of an existential lament than a complaint about the inadequacy of the response as a matter of policy. he probably knows as well as anyone that there's really very little to be done, as a matter of policy, about this sort of arbitrary violence, short of getting every gun off the street . . . which probably would at most delay, rather than prevent, the next one of these anyway.

it's so sad, though, that someone is so broken inside that he would end and ruin so many lives on the way to ending his own.

Would 'gun control is a good thing - no really!' be a lesson (not) leaned?

I'm stunned at the people who have some vested identity interest (or other interest) in guns being either limited or handed out to babies at birth to rush to make statements about yesterday's events and their pet cause. I mean we don't know the motivations of the killer, we don't have a clear timeline of events, we don't know the history of the weapons used. Drawing any lessons from an N of 1 is dangerous enough to start with. But when we don't even understand that 1 case yet ... premature seems too inadequate a word.

i was especially astonished -- sorry, apalled -- that bush managed to tuck a pro-gun sentiment into his same-day statement. and to be clear, i wouldn't have felt any, or at least much, better had a dem president included in his obligatory sympathies a call for greater gun control.

it's entirely plausible, as you hint armand, that this gun not only was owned and registered legally by the laws as they are. it's also plausible that it was held by someone who would have qualified by pretty much any sort of moderate legislation the electorate might ever be persuaded to accept.

none of which prevents someone from taking a legally-held gun from dad, from a friend, from whomever. and of course, if the lesson is let's enact more rules, it's worth noting that Tech, as is true on most large college campuses i imagine, prohibits firearms on campus across the board, with the presumption that security staff are excluded (as they probably should be these days). the rules were already there, that is to say -- and they didn't make any difference at all.

i'm fine with fairly stringent gun control, but no matter what sort of control we get, outbursts like these will continue to be the prices we pay for an open society.

and in any event, politicizing a tragedy like this for partisan gain, on either side of the aisle, is disgusting. and not just because there's so little information available as to the circumstances of the killings. it's disgusting because it's unseemly. not one of the people mouthing off yesterday would walk into any of the thirty two funerals this shotting will prompt and have the temerity to spout slogans and bromides pro or con gun control under the heavy gazes of the families of the dead; i don't see how they couldn't observe the same courtesy on tv the day of the killings.

The Boston Globe this morning called -- in passing -- for bans on pretty much everything but hunting shotguns, while the WaPo suggested -- again, in passing -- that the fact that the school was a "gun-free zone" might have exacerbated the damage because nobody was equipped to shoot back. I'm sure the Brady folks and the NRA flew to their phones and fax machines the instant the first reports hit the wires, just as they did after Columbine.

It's just the way this stupid debate goes.

not the most reliable source, but still:

One law enforcement official said Cho's backpack contained a receipt for a March purchase of a Glock 9 mm pistol. Cho held a green card, meaning he was a legal, permanent resident, federal officials said. That meant he was eligible to buy a handgun unless he had been convicted of a felony.

then there's this:

"There was some concern about him," [Creative writing instructor] Rude said. "Sometimes, in creative writing, people reveal things and you never know if it's creative or if they're describing things, if they're imagining things or just how real it might be. But we're all alert to not ignore things like this."

guess it just got a lot harder to be an angsty post-adolescent who chooses not to wear that year's uniform from american apparel or abercrombie. look for the same spate of round-'em-up-just-in-case behavior in creative writing classes we saw in the year's following columbine.

I was just talking to a friend from Ireland. He said, you know, when we go crazy the worst we can do is punch somebody, yeah we had the IRA but regular people just can't get guns and do this kind of stuff. His comment really underlines the whole "if guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns" thing... yeah, you get the IRA types, but not the civilian shootings.

The UK's draconian gun control has had some rather disturbing unintended consequences.

Hey, you can take it up with the Irishman if you want. They still think we're nuts.