-By Warner Todd Huston
With UPDATE
What happened at Virginia Tech today is not a “tragedy”– a word you will see much used to describe this incident — it is a crime. Murder in cold blood is no “tragic” accident. But, the criminal action at Virginia Tech had barely finished before news sources began their meme against guns, those “permissive laws” controlling them and the “easy access” to them. All are common phrases used to attack gun rights and this incident is being used as a platform to launch that line of attack everywhere. It’s as if, before the last victim was even cold, every anti-gun advocate in the country hurriedly warmed up their cars to race to their local media source to call for more gun control.
CBS news gives us the claim that it is “…much too easy to get guns in the state of Virginia”. And they assure us this crime happened because “…there’s no gun registration, no mandatory waiting period to purchase weapons. The only major restriction: a limit of one gun purchase per month.” And, the CBS report is echoed all across the news media.
Unsurprisingly, the foreign press immediately jumped on the anti-gun bandwagon, as well. In the UK for instance, The Independent said in one piece, “But it would be vain to hope that even so destructive a crime as this will cool the American ardour for guns.”
Even Chicago’s Mayor Daley was blasted all across local Chicago TV speaking out against guns.
The stories like this are too numerous to chronicle and all woefully the same. (Brent Baker also has more: http://newsbusters.org/node/12075)
Things not considered
But, in the rush to the TV screens to clamor for more gun control, the media talking heads and every writer in the MSM will likely ignore several questions this crime raises.
Now, it has been revealed that the killer is a Chinese national here under the student visa program to study in the USA. So this fact raises a question that I’ll bet you won’t see talked about… why are student visas so easily handed out to foreign students from one of our ostensible enemies, China? Will there be a drumbeat to stop unbalanced foreign killers from entering the USA?
I doubt it.
(Update: The student has been named and he is a South Korean by birth and has been here for a long time as a resident alien. My point, however, remains similar in that Americans often do not have the same opportunities at education as foreign nationals. Again, the point was not his particular nationality, but the juxtaposition of “bad” visa laws compared to the gun control argument. If we can stop things like this by outlawing guns, why can’t we also stop it by outlawing visas. Just illustrating an absurdity with an absurd example.)
Here is another point that I’ll guarantee you won’t see much discussion of: schools are supposedly “gun free zones” but this foreign killer easily brought a gun into the school and, with no opposition, deliberately killed over 30 people. Some “gun free zone” that is.
But, there is no escaping the common sense realization that if some of the other students there were armed, this murderer might not have been able to take out 30 some people without some response to his actions. At least some of the others would have been able to defend themselves instead of having that natural right to self-defense summarily removed by the fantasy of the school’s “gun free zone” policy.
This disgusting, horrific action proves that if gun laws remove guns from the hands of sane, law abiding citizens, only lunatics and criminals will have them and only lunatics and murderers will be able to use them with no opposition.
This event is no tragedy. It is a crime, the kind of crime that can never be stopped by a mere law. If someone is going to lose their sanity like this, no law written on paper will make them miraculously calm down. But if anti-gun laws preventing a person from being able to defend themselves prevail, it is sure that incidents such as this will never see an opportunity to be limited as much as possible in damage and scope. Anti-gun laws don’t make anyone safer, they only limit the victims to the number of bullets a murderer decides to bring along on his next spree. Anti-gun laws are laws that assure the deaths of innocents that other wise might live should they be able to defend themselves.
The “tragedy” is in the anti-gun laws that prevented those students in Virginia Tech from defending themselves.
No, on second thought, that is a crime, too.
4-17-07-UPDATE: The Vir. legislature nixed a law that would have let these Vir. Tech students defend themselves…
Gun bill gets shot down by panel
HB 1572, which would have allowed handguns on college campuses, died in subcommittee.
A bill that would have given college students and employees the right to carry handguns on campus died with nary a shot being fired in the General Assembly.
House Bill 1572 didn’t get through the House Committee on Militia, Police and Public Safety. It died Monday in the subcommittee stage, the first of several hurdles bills must overcome before becoming laws.
Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker was happy to hear the bill was defeated. “I’m sure the university community is appreciative of the General Assembly’s actions because this will help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on our campus.”
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How happy is Larry now?
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Warner Todd Huston’s thoughtful commentary, sometimes irreverent often historically based, is featured on many websites such as newsbusters.org, townhall.com, men’snewsdaily.com and americandaily.com among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a guest on several radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of publiusforum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston