[neverdem]

Alex Gerber, a clinical professor of surgery, emeritus, at the University of Southern California, is a former health care consultant to the White House and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Unknown in Colonial days were rival gangs engaged in drive-by shootings, drug-related homicide, road rage gunfire and, certainly, students shooting other students.

I haven't heard much about road rage gunfire, and the first two categories are due to the profits of drug prohibition. Would the doc want to return to alcohol prohibition? Did he work for Clinton or Carter?

GWB said he would have signed a renewed, but misnamed assault weapond ban. Does anyone see this Congress passing a new ban?

[Atchafalaya]

If a Democrat is elected president, guaranteed; the only question is how far!

[Freedom_Is_Not_Free]

Actually the lead sentence should read...

April 16, the day the worst peacetime shooting in American history took place at Virginia Tech...

A GUN FREE ZONE,

YES, A ZONE PROCLAIMED TO BE GUN FREE,

WHERE ONLY THE PERP HAD A GUN BECAUSE HE VIOLATED THE LAW,

AND WERE ALL DISARMED VICTIMS WERE COMPLETELY DEFENSELESS,

IN THIS GUN FREE ZONE...

...will not be soon forgotten.

[USNBandit]

the absurd contention of the NRA gunslingers that if the Virginia Tech students had been armed there would have been far fewer victims.

I guess we'll never know, but with the situation the way it stands now the result is assured. Lots of dead students.

[oldenuff2no]

I find this article to be both stupid and comical. I put together my first rifle while in high school metal shop. Yes, my metal shop teacher taught me how to build a rifle. I not only had a firearm on a high school campus, I built it there!!!!!
Now I want to draw his attention to the fact that not one student has ever shot or killed anyone in that high school.
Lets move forward a couple decades. We will skip my twenty years of being armed with automatic weapons while in the military. I attended a gun smithing program on a college campus and I had a bunch of guns in my possession there, right on college grounds!!!! I never shot anyone there either!!!!!
I carry a concealed handgun every day. I take it to the grocery store, to the bank, and even into the local Police Station. I've never robbed a grocery store, or robbed a bank, or shot a cop.
I am just like many millions of other Americans. I am a legally armed American citizen who has never used a firearm to commit an illegal act of any kind.
I do make people like this a promise. The day they take away my second amendment right is the day I begin a campaign to take away their first amendment rights.

[Billthedrill]

Another academic who appears not particularly bright about matters outside his field of putative expertise. One may either examine these issues in detail or one may conjure up a thoroughly phony boogieman such as "gun culture" and accuse it of whatever the witch doctor doing the conjuring appears to disapprove of. It's safe enough - the thing is fake and hence can't answer back.

There is a bit more of a risk when one projects absurdities on real entities such as the NRA, who have not, to my knowledge, suggested that the answer to situations such as that at Virginia Tech is to arm students. It is revealing the the professor feels free to cast this particular slur - it isn't any more honest than his other asseverations and its target has been demonized enough for him to get away with it. But here, unfortunately, once again rhetoric displaces a respect for the truth.

[Myrddin]

How else to explain the "American gun culture" that tolerates some 14,000 firearm murders, including 400 children, in 2005 -- the last year statistics are available?

There were 16,885 alcohol-related fatalities in 2005 – 39 percent of the total traffic fatalities for the year.source. Where is the complaint about the "alcohol" culture or calls for more "alcohol control"?

1. "The leading causes of death in 2000 were tobacco (435,000 deaths; 18.1% of total US deaths), poor diet and physical inactivity (400,000 deaths; 16.6%), and alcohol consumption (85,000 deaths; 3.5%). Other actual causes of death were microbial agents (75,000), toxic agents (55,000), motor vehicle crashes (43,000), incidents involving firearms (29,000), sexual behaviors (20,000), and illicit use of drugs (17,000)." (Note: According to a correction published by the Journal on Jan. 19, 2005, "On page 1240, in Table 2, '400,000 (16.6)' deaths for 'poor diet and physical inactivity' in 2000 should be '365,000 (15.2).' A dagger symbol should be added to 'alcohol consumption' in the body of the table and a dagger footnote should be added with 'in 1990 data, deaths from alcohol-related crashes are included in alcohol consumption deaths, but not in motor vehicle deaths. In 2000 data, 16,653 deaths from alcohol-related crashes are included in both alcohol consumption and motor vehicle death categories." Source: Journal of the American Medical Association, Jan. 19, 2005, Vol. 293, No. 3, p. 298.) source

Sloppy medical practices kill 195,000 people each year. I think we need more "doctor control". source. Dare we tolerate such behavior from doctors?

[umgud]

How else to explain the "American gun culture" that tolerates some 14,000 firearm murders, including 400 children, in 2005

This guy has his facts all wrong. Just a few years ago 13 kids a day were killed with guns.

[goldstategop]

The same liberal hypocrites that bewail the widespread availability of guns are the same liberals who fight tooth and nail to keep murderers from being executed. They just want to disarm the law-abiding and allow the evil to pluck the flock as they wish with no fear of any consequences befalling them.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[HarmlessLovableFuzzball]

The real truth of the matter is, practically speaking, an incident like this cannot be avoided. This was pure and simple an act of random terrorism by a suicide shooter. This guy could have struck anywhere— at a mall, a supermarket, a parking lot — just wherever , and caused dozens of casualties. What would be the defense against that ? Carry a loaded weapon every time you leave the house ? Its not practical, just as it is not practical to carry a gun to the classroom for that one in a million chance that some wacko will randomly gun down 30 people. A random act of terror by someone who is willing to die is near impossible to prevent. The alternative is for everyone to be armed and on the lookout all the time.

[MaxMax]

including 400 children, in 2005

At what age does this idiot begin this illusive children age?
18? 19? 20? 21?

Somehow gun deaths only include the Evil Republicans
and never DemocRATS. Blame Republicans /Bush.

And then they never include the real statistics, it's all bunched together
for maximum effect in the media.

/Biased Idiots

[wastoute]

This is in the Wash Times?

[stevie_d_64]

"No civilized nation legitimizes packing a pistol while attending school.

Israel???

Thats ok, I understand the omission, the author is stupid...Simple as that...

[tiger-one]

YES. The libs are in the process of shredding the Constitution. First Amendment is already in pieces thanks to McCain / Feingold, and all this hate speech crap. I don’t have to continue, you know where all their fingers have been.

[MrBambaLaMamba]

The Socialists have a higher kill total than the Nazis, Capitalists or Royals AND they don't have to wear uniforms. Plus - It's always somebody else's fault!

Great focus points for recruiting egomaniacs, slackers, mindless robots, actors, whiners and cowards.

[mad_as_he$$]

Did anybody here see the video of the 90 years old man being pounded to the ground by a punk in Detroit? By standers just stood and watched, no cops called or any attempt to stop the assault. Hey Alex you ok with that?

[faux_hog]

It seems to me that the "American Gun Culture" referred to in this article is actually the media event that Hollywood types (yes, those anti-gun folks) and the media types (again more anti-gun types) have cooked up.

From what I can tell, the actual "American Gun Culture" consists of law-abiding people who, by and large, understand the dangers and responsibility of gun ownership as well as its privileges.

This irony should not be overlooked.

[Joe Brower]

"No civilized nation legitimizes packing a pistol while attending school."

And no civilized nation would be enabling psychotic super-predators. And no civilized nation would condone cowardice as some twisted form of virtue.

Commentary on the "gun culture" from the "coward culture"...

[facedown]

Molon labe.

[Gritty]

Unknown in Colonial days were rival gangs engaged in drive-by shootings, drug-related homicide, road rage gunfire and, certainly, students shooting other students.

Yes they did. They just called them something else, like hostile Indians and road bandits. Later on, there were Scalawags, Jayhawkers, and Bushwackers. But in those days when they caught them, they strung them up, quick.

But first came the Lobster-backs, Hessians, Tories and murderous Indian tribes allied with the British. Before that were the French and their bloodthirsty Indian allies. Before them were the dozens of smaller, pagan Indian tribes which often roamed our frontiers looking for easy loot and captives.

One can go back to the beginning of our history and see America has always been a dangerous place. Living in a lot of parts of this country, it still is!

[Atlas Sneezed]

Ours is a country, unique among industrialized societies, that has become insensitive to murder. How else to explain the “American gun culture” that tolerates some 14,000 firearm murders, including 400 children, in 2005...

---

Frankly, the “gun culture” members I know and read about are the least tolerant of violent crime, and they take real steps at significant personal cost and inconvenience to be armed in a manner that deters and prevents such crime.