It’s been established here in the past that I fall a bit to the right ideologically. Actually, I consider myself a Libertarian, but lately if you’re not on the left, you’re nothing.
(Seriously…I hear such hateful anti-Republican speech at work anymore. Not everyone’s James Dobson, peeps.)
So about Virginia Tech…here’s an approximation of a conversation I had today:
Person: I’m amazed that the gun nuts haven’t weighed in on the Virginia Tech incident. They have no defense there so they’re keeping quiet.
Me: Like…if one of those hundreds of students at VT had been armed, things may have turned out differently?
Person: (haughty chuckle) Yeah…there’d have been over 50 dead.
Me: Or fewer than 32. Depending on when the shooter finally came across an armed student.
Person: …
Me: I’m no gun nut, but if I were in a classroom being shot at, I’d have reallllly wanted one of my classmates or teachers to have been armed and firing back.
And that’s 100% true. I’m not a gun nut, but that freak-on-a-leash in Virginia was shooting fish in a barrel. Helpless fish in a barrel.
For generations now, we’ve been taught to sit back and take it. Let the mugger take your wallet. Let the rapist have his way, as long as you scratch at him to get some DNA. Ignore the bully at school and he’ll go away. Don’t give the hijackers any trouble, and they’ll just take the plane where they want to go.
If a shooter comes to school, shut the door and basically wait for him to show up.
All of the gun control laws in the world would have never stopped what happened today. If he couldn’t get the guns legally, he’d have found a way.
I know in my heart of hearts there was at least one student there who hunted, or went skeet shooting or was an ROTC cadet. At least one student with a steady arm and true aim. Virgina may have been mourning fewer casualties tonight.
I think the problem is… ubiquitous gun ownership would RAISE the number of isolated incidents where someone gets a little too angry or has a little too much to drink, and, Oh Look! What’s this in my pocket?!
It’s like Henry Rollins says… “A gun in your hand makes a fool outta you (oh yeah). A gun in your hand makes a target outta me…”
Our whole society is based on the assumption that most people don’t do this sort of thing, and 99.9999% of the time it works. Yes it’s a tragedy that 32 people died yesterday, but its also a tragedy that more than 100 people were killed in car accidents yesterday. Only one of these facts demands 48 hours of constant news coverage, though. The concentration of the violence stuns us, but it is not necessarily a signal of something larger. We are still, by and large, safe. Safe on campus, safe on the subway, safe on a dark street. Fear + firearms may be a gut reaction, but it is not a logical one.
I’m new to commenting, although I read your site when I get a chance. I just wanted to say that I couldn’t have said it better myself. Hello, my name is Minnie, and I’m a Republican….
Isn’t it a shame when folks who lean to the right have to feel like they should hide that? My father recently called me a “war mongering fool” for my support of the situation in Iraq – that coming from a guy that I remember telling me when I was a kid that everyone shot at Kent State deserved it…
I actually started heavily on the left, but as I got older, I realized that money was leaving my wallet much more quickly every year and I was beginning to have little say in how it was spent. I’m tired of paying for pork barrel politics from which I get very little benefit. But if you try and tell a liberal that money is being wasted, they think you want to stop all government programs and give all the money to the “rich”.
There are many great programs out there, but there is far too much being wasted. The “Government class” is running too many things in this country. The “Government class” feels that it knows best for the citizens of this country – how we should think, feel and spend our money.
And for this motherly attitude of the “Government class” makes them feel they deserve better benefits than the rest of us. They feel that they can spend money like it’s they’re own hard earned cash.
Maybe there are alot of folks that need to have their hands out and hands held all of the time, but I’m not one of them.