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?
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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...". :=)
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