Posted on 08/30/2007 5:47:57 AM PDT by Clive
BLACKSBURG, Va. -- Days of debate have produced no rational explanation for the Virginia Tech massacre other than the fact the gunman began by placing no value on his own life. Someone who is prepared to die is lethal, as suicide bombers have proven too often.
But while government policy throughout the Western world has been turned upside down to combat terrorism, many of us react to the carnage unleashed on Monday by throwing up our hands in despair.
That's because doing something about mentally disturbed people such as Cho Seung-hui before they commit a serious crime is unacceptable to those on the left who ignore the threat a person may present when arguing for his or her civil liberties.
The shock and scale of what occurred on a single day -- Sept. 11, 2001 -- allowed saner heads to overrule that kind of thinking when responding to the threat posed by terrorists.
Yet the drip, drip, drip of one "crazed-shooter" attack after another arguably makes this sort of violence the greater threat to people living outside such obvious terrorist targets as New York or London.
While there has been no terrorist attack in North America since 9/11, there appears to be an increase in random shootings that kill people whose only crime is being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
In February, a gunman opened fire in a Utah shopping mall. There was the Amish school massacre last year. Names like Columbine in Colorado, Dunblane in Scotland and Erfurt in Germany will forever be associated with the massacres that occurred there. Montreal's Ecole Polytechnique saw Canada's worst mass shooting in 1989.
Because most attacks have occurred in the United States, many on the left have blamed lax U.S. gun laws. Not only does that fail to get to the root of the problem (which is the insanity or simple evil of the attacker), tightening them is impractical and a political non-starter.
Gun culture is so entrenched in rural America that advocating gun control would be political suicide for politicians of all stripes.
It's more than an attachment based on hunting traditions. On the night of the Virginia Tech shooting, a blue-collar crowd at a local all-night waffle restaurant was just as eager to discuss Cho's marksmanship skills in hitting more than 60 of his human targets as the tragedy of the shooting spree.
"He was just popping them off," James Osborne, a former U.S. Army paratrooper, said as he raised his hands, thumbs and forefingers cocked to simulate a pair of guns. "That was some fine shooting."
A bounty hunter called Wayne marvelled at Cho's "success" rate with bondsman Bob Carver and
his buddies as they tucked into steak.
It's not that they weren't grieved and disgusted at what Cho had done. There's just a certain respect for the independence a gun gives -- and an outsider can only assume they see that independence as being part of the American way.
Their view is apparently shared by the political class in Virginia, where last month U.S. Senator Jim Webb, a Democrat, defended an aide who had taken a loaded gun into the Capitol.
"I believe that wherever you see laws that allow people to carry weapons, generally the violence goes down," he said. If local talk radio is any indication of the community mindset, guns should be made available to more people, not fewer, so the good can protect the public from the bad.
Those stations not advocating mass arming were portraying Cho's mass killing as an act of Satan, in line with the fundamentalist Christian attachment that is common throughout much of rural America.
Any attempt to restrict gun access is impractical simply because of the number of weapons already in private hands in the United States --about 200 million.
While tougher gun laws might have stopped Cho from obtaining the two pistols he easily acquired, there have been enough shooting massacres in countries where gun control is strict to negate it as a panacea.
What failed the 32 victims of Virginia Tech -- and Cho himself -- was modern liberal society's reluctance to act on the myriad warning signs of the 23-year-old's psychotic descent. They included a 2005 Virginia court ruling that he posed an "imminent danger to himself or others."
But how could anyone act after a half-century of lawsuits brought by the likes of the American Civil Liberties Union to entrench the "deinstitutionalization" of people considered treatable with drugs? Deinstitutionalization has been taken to such extremes that people who shouldn't be walking the streets are.
These days, unless you commit a crime, the only sure way you will have to account for your behaviour is if you utter a racial slur or a sexist comment.
How many more Virginia Techs will it take before the civil liberties crowd is told this is a problem that -- like the war on terror -- requires some freedoms to be rolled back?
-
A better compare/contrast argument would be when a soldier started killing unarmed soldiers going PT at Ft. Bragg about 10 years ago. A group of UNARMED Special Forces soldiers rushed him and got him (without taking a casualty). I know VT students are not SF soldiers - but 60 getting shot - what if only 10 of them did something???
Several months ago I stopped someone who was trying to pick my deadbolt lock by whipping the door open and aiming my shotgun at him. When the local police can respond that quickly, I’ll MAYBE consider giving up my weapons.
And, I might need to call BS on this quote. I've talked to a lot of former military (in person and on FR) and not a one of them mentioned what a great shot this kid was. In fact, all of them expressed various degrees of disgust and horror.
The other quotes sound a little out of line, as well.
911: Government sponsored dial-a-prayer.
By all reports this killer was already on psychiatric drugs, drugs with a known propensity to create homicidal mania.
http://www.mmdnewswire.com/psychiatric-drugs-behind-virginia-tech-shootings-1588-2.html
Bang
"I've talked to a lot of former military (in person and on FR) and not a one of them mentioned what a great shot this kid was. In fact, all of them expressed various degrees of disgust and horror."
Not to mention the dismay at how no one fought back to subdue the attacker.
Nothing like a completely unverifiable anecdote....
I disagree. Liberal society did act. It acted by imposing a victim-disarmament, free-fire, purportedly gun-free zone upon the staff and students at Virginia Tech.
What? You find it unusual that an ex-paratrooper, a bounty hunter, and a bondsman (all gun nuts, no doubt) were in an all-night waffle house making light of the shootings? Actually, so do I. :=)
“What? You find it unusual that an ex-paratrooper, a bounty hunter, and a bondsman (all gun nuts, no doubt) were in an all-night waffle house”
Actually, this sounds like the start of a good joke...
My thoughts exactly.
I find it unusual as well. But to the writer’s point - Cho’s marksmanship skills? Give me a break. It doesn’t take much skill to shoot unarmed victims. If Cho had to dodge a few rounds coming back his way, he wouldn’t have been nearly as “successful”. Reminds me of a line in the movie “Days of Thunder”, where Rowdy Gaines, after watching Cole Trickle take laps in Rowdy’s car says “Let’s see how you do in a crowd”.
You forgot the barf alert.
Well, it sure beats "A priest, a minister, and a rabbi...". :=)
No can do. This matter had to be handled by the professionals. You are supposed to call the police - they are trained to deal with these situations. How do I know? That's what they tell me on TV, in newspapers and in school. Government always knows best.
Truer words were never spoken.
In February, a gunman opened fire in a Utah shopping mall. There was the Amish school massacre last year. Names like Columbine in Colorado, Dunblane in Scotland and Erfurt in Germany will forever be associated with the massacres that occurred there. Montreal's Ecole Polytechnique saw Canada's worst mass shooting in 1989.
Another piece of bulls*** rhetoric, he has to go back to 1989 to get the 'increase', and in each one of those cases, one armed individual could have stopped the whole thing. Just one.
Rolling back what freedoms? the fact that school zones are gun-free already has rolled back the basic freedom and right to defend ones self by any means necessary, including firearms. Like this.
You forgot to "freeze" and put your hands up so the gunman knows you're not a threat....
Sure, if yer an old guy. :o)
Glock if you prefer the point and click interface!
old guy? heck, i’m still under 30 :)
i just can’t seem to get comfortable around a glock- or any DAO for that matter. never use the DA on my revolver or sig either.
Yep. Then get on your knees, face down. Now that you've demonstrated your good intentions to the perp, rest assured he won't hurt you.
Oh, and the police will be there any second to sort it all out.
Aw hell, you know I was yankin’ yer chain.
There IS NO more “comfortable” handgun than a 1911.
I just carry the Glock cause it’s the “sippy cup” of firearms.
well, i don’t know about *no* more comfortable gun.. i absolootely ADORE my birds head single six in .32h&r :)
I’ll bet the quote is a flat out lie. Besides, how much marksmanship does it take to shoot people who are offering no resistance at 8 feet?
The liberals have worked hard at cultivating a society of sheep. The result is 60 people shot while no one had the guts to charge him and bring him down.
OK, I'm an idiot. What do you mean by “sippy cup” of firearms?
BTW, My 1911 and I are very comfortable, together. My wife feels the same about hers, too, so we make a very relaxed foursome.
True, true. Far too many people, even here on FReep, have excused those young, strapping boys who bravely jumped out windows and ran away like Sir Robin by saying "well, they're not Rangers or SEALs, you know...they're college students." To them I ask, do we have to send 300 million people to Ranger School so's we can have a nation of people with backbones once again?
With the exception of those with the guts to serve our nation or their communities in uniform, Generation.com is a generation of worthless cowards. And we Xers, their parents, aren't any better.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
since the new left took over american universities,
appearances and
“what would others think” (or emote, actually)
dominates universities.
“...While there has been no terrorist attack in North America since 9/11, there appears to be an increase in random shootings that kill people whose only crime is being in the wrong place at the wrong time...”
Nonsense.
The Mall shooting was jihad and so have others been. Personally, I believe this Cho clown was handled by Muzzies and was probably a convert.
The killer was also suffering from a critical mineral deficience, and his condition could easily have been cured by a simple injection of 230 grains of lead, preferably cranially.
You do not develop a backbone during the three phases of Ranger school, nor are you issued one there upon completion of the course. You have to have a pretty good one to even consider attending in the first place.
Requiring attendence would not only severely increase the washout rate but would completely defeat the instruction's purpose. See for yourself.
In point of fact, Matthew *Turtle* LaPorte, one of the murdered VT students was a motivated young troop in their Air Force ROTC program and in the school's Air Force Special Operations Prep Team, and had received the Corps of Cadets Emerging Leader Scholarship. His body was found at the door of Room 211, the room in which Cho finally killed himself. Survivors reported that LaPorte attempted to take Cho from behind but took a bullet to his head in the process, that distraction probably saving the lives of the seven others in that room who made it. Another, the daughter of a US Marshal, was herself shot when she managed to prevent Cho from returning into one of the classrooms he had previously entered and had then left, probably to reload.
Considering their minimal experience, lack of training and situational unawareness, those kids- and at least two of their instructors- did all right.
Sure, if yer an old guy. :o)
Nah. Us really old guys go for sixguns, Rewhallopers, mate!
But not "A fat lady walks into a bar with a duck on top of her head...."
Well, I guess that leaves me with just the wind chimes...
The demographics of liberalism is shrinking rapidly. The chicken run began years ago, and with liberalism reduced in part to homo, and racial grievance gun control has fallen off the front seat.
LOL - but it would have had to be a preventative dose of lead to be effective.
Not to mention the dismay at how no one fought back to subdue the attacker
Deacon Ellerbrock, a professor of natural resources and economics education at the university, told The Catholic Virginian, Richmond diocesan newspaper, that he walked to Squires Student Center "and watched it all unfold on TV" along with students.As soon as the shooting stopped he went to Norris, where he was met outside by state trooper Andy Mitro. Mitro, a parishioner from St. Mary, knew him as a deacon and allowed him to get information from law enforcement officers on the scene.
"One officer told me an ROTC student grabbed (Cho) from behind and got a bullet right to the head," Deacon Ellerbrock said recalling the awe that struck him in the first minutes afterward as he stood on the lawn of the classroom building where the massacre took place. "It's beyond comprehension how one person could kill so many with just two guns."
He added that another officer described the scene inside to him: "He said, 'It's a slaughterhouse in there.'"
Please tell me you know what a “sippy cup” is...
I would guess that 10 did. But he was using two guns. They couldn’t rush him when he was reloading.
Kevin Granata left the 3rd floor and tried to stop him.
He only fired half of his ammo.
Of course, for every student who chose to counterattack or at least defend, there were hundreds who simply stampeded or cowered. Not a good ratio.
They're called *sipsters* in my neck of the woods.
But I presume you mean the spillproof [well, pretty much, until the kid pitches it into a wall] baby cups with the offset lids. My own kid used something of larger capacity, but also fitted with a lid.
It appears that once he'd emptied his 9mm Glock inside a room, he'd use his .22 to deal with anyone who attempted to interfere with his withdrawal to the hallway, where he'd reload in relative seclusion without much concern about being interrupted...and then, if he felt he had more to do, would re-enter the room and continue. That was his procedure in room 206 and 207 of Norris Hall, where most of the killings took place.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.