Guns Don't Kill People, People With Guns Kill People
I have avoided much of the Virginia Tech coverage, not because it is so horrible and upsetting, which of course it is, but because I do not care to pay that evil depraved lunatic any more attention than he has already gotten. If you pay attention, then he wins, then he gets what he was after. Attention should have been paid long ago: the kind that would have helped him, and where were/are his parents in all this? Hiding in shame? Because they feel he shamed them in the eyes of the world or becase they failed him so completely? I wonder.
Anyway, I wish that the media would likewise dial it down. Yes, it's news, but it also provides yet another feeding frenzy for TV, radio and print. What, Anna Nicole getting boring? Lucky you, media people, to have a massacre to get your fangs into.
I don't stare at car crashes, either, or at people lying injured or whatever in the street (apart from a quick look to make sure they're being cared for). I don't read stories about the killers of recent note, like John Lennon's assassin or the pudgy-faced horror known as Son of Sam and oh dear GOD certainly not the Simpson creature (the one who slaughtered his wife and her friend, not the cartoon character).
I just feel that it's giving them what they want, and I don't want to.
I have nothing but sympathy and sorrow for the children lost at Virginia Tech, and for their families and friends and classmates. Light be with them and healing peace be upon them.
On the other hand, I have nothing but contempt for the State of Virgina and its redneck, NRA-ass-kissing gun laws. And I say this as a person who often feels that everybody should be armed in public, because the criminals and lunatics don't stick to the law and play by the rules, and we're all defenseless against this sort of thing.
I was the captain of the girls' rifle team in college and I've had a few memberships at shooting ranges here in New York, so I'm not unfamiliar with propulsive weaponry. I like guns, I enjoy target shooting, and I'm a very good shot. (I like bows and arrows and swords, too, and I'm good at those as well.)
And I would have NO problem shooting someone who threatened me or the people I love with grievous bodily harm. I figure if they come at you, they're asking for it, and by all means give it to them first. It's the Karma Mirror, baby...you're just the instrument of their learning.
But that's a far cry from the kind of thing Virginia is doing. That state is the biggest supplier of illegally imported guns to New York City. It's so easy to get a gun there, as we have all seen, and just drive back here with it, to keep or to sell. Unbelievably, just hours after the VT rampage, some squirrel-eating halfwit gun celebrator was laughing it up about his gun festival and how he wasn't calling it off for nothin', nohow.
Well, apparently he's singing a different tune today. But just for the moment: his little bulletfest love-in has merely been postponed a few weeks. And his mindset (he even mocked Mayor Bloomberg for the mayor's comments on the gun-lust and lucrative sales that Virginia rejoices in) is, sadly, not unique.
Still, I wonder if there's not something to be said for allowing responsible citizens easier access to well-regulated guns and the right to carry them. A number of states, including Texas, already do this, and armed citizens nationwide reportedly thwarted over a quarter million crimes last year alone. If even just a few of the teachers and students at VT had been carrying, this monster might have been stopped. His aim was to go out in a blaze of glory, so that would have happened anyway, but at least he might not have taken 30-plus people down first.
As for the utter incompetence of the VT security force, I can't even begin to discuss it...that campus should have been shut down as soon as the first shot was fired, and in my opinion the Kampus Kops are largely contributory to the ensuing horror.
Okay, maybe guns for all isn't such a good idea. How about, then, SWORDS? I love this...I can see the subway now, everybody strapped up with rapiers, broadswords, claymores. All in plain view, so no surprises. A deterrent, definitely, I would think. And unlike guns, which any thug can use to effect, swords require a certain amount of skill. And they can be defended against with ease and a really good right-hand parry.
This could work. I think I'll suggest it at the next town meeting.
I certainly don't mean to trivialize what happened in Virginia. Or at Columbine, or Pearl (I know a young woman who was there for it...) or anywhere else where madness and arrogance and murderousness have intersected with innocence and blamelessness. And I certainly don't have any more real solutions to offer than anyone else has. It's easy to say something has to be done. It does. It's just that none of us seems to know exactly what.
And to be honest, I'm only surprised this sort of thing doesn't happen ten times a day. How's that for sad commentary?
Anyway, I wish that the media would likewise dial it down. Yes, it's news, but it also provides yet another feeding frenzy for TV, radio and print. What, Anna Nicole getting boring? Lucky you, media people, to have a massacre to get your fangs into.
I don't stare at car crashes, either, or at people lying injured or whatever in the street (apart from a quick look to make sure they're being cared for). I don't read stories about the killers of recent note, like John Lennon's assassin or the pudgy-faced horror known as Son of Sam and oh dear GOD certainly not the Simpson creature (the one who slaughtered his wife and her friend, not the cartoon character).
I just feel that it's giving them what they want, and I don't want to.
I have nothing but sympathy and sorrow for the children lost at Virginia Tech, and for their families and friends and classmates. Light be with them and healing peace be upon them.
On the other hand, I have nothing but contempt for the State of Virgina and its redneck, NRA-ass-kissing gun laws. And I say this as a person who often feels that everybody should be armed in public, because the criminals and lunatics don't stick to the law and play by the rules, and we're all defenseless against this sort of thing.
I was the captain of the girls' rifle team in college and I've had a few memberships at shooting ranges here in New York, so I'm not unfamiliar with propulsive weaponry. I like guns, I enjoy target shooting, and I'm a very good shot. (I like bows and arrows and swords, too, and I'm good at those as well.)
And I would have NO problem shooting someone who threatened me or the people I love with grievous bodily harm. I figure if they come at you, they're asking for it, and by all means give it to them first. It's the Karma Mirror, baby...you're just the instrument of their learning.
But that's a far cry from the kind of thing Virginia is doing. That state is the biggest supplier of illegally imported guns to New York City. It's so easy to get a gun there, as we have all seen, and just drive back here with it, to keep or to sell. Unbelievably, just hours after the VT rampage, some squirrel-eating halfwit gun celebrator was laughing it up about his gun festival and how he wasn't calling it off for nothin', nohow.
Well, apparently he's singing a different tune today. But just for the moment: his little bulletfest love-in has merely been postponed a few weeks. And his mindset (he even mocked Mayor Bloomberg for the mayor's comments on the gun-lust and lucrative sales that Virginia rejoices in) is, sadly, not unique.
Still, I wonder if there's not something to be said for allowing responsible citizens easier access to well-regulated guns and the right to carry them. A number of states, including Texas, already do this, and armed citizens nationwide reportedly thwarted over a quarter million crimes last year alone. If even just a few of the teachers and students at VT had been carrying, this monster might have been stopped. His aim was to go out in a blaze of glory, so that would have happened anyway, but at least he might not have taken 30-plus people down first.
As for the utter incompetence of the VT security force, I can't even begin to discuss it...that campus should have been shut down as soon as the first shot was fired, and in my opinion the Kampus Kops are largely contributory to the ensuing horror.
Okay, maybe guns for all isn't such a good idea. How about, then, SWORDS? I love this...I can see the subway now, everybody strapped up with rapiers, broadswords, claymores. All in plain view, so no surprises. A deterrent, definitely, I would think. And unlike guns, which any thug can use to effect, swords require a certain amount of skill. And they can be defended against with ease and a really good right-hand parry.
This could work. I think I'll suggest it at the next town meeting.
I certainly don't mean to trivialize what happened in Virginia. Or at Columbine, or Pearl (I know a young woman who was there for it...) or anywhere else where madness and arrogance and murderousness have intersected with innocence and blamelessness. And I certainly don't have any more real solutions to offer than anyone else has. It's easy to say something has to be done. It does. It's just that none of us seems to know exactly what.
And to be honest, I'm only surprised this sort of thing doesn't happen ten times a day. How's that for sad commentary?
posted by Patricia Kennealy Morrison | 10:07 AM
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