What to make of 32 dead at Virginia Tech?
Those of us who know that all the laws in the world will not prevent criminals from being–well, you know, criminals–keep wondering why we are continually denied the right to protect ourselves from criminals. (And note the date on that article–2006.) I hope “Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker ” is still happy that the bill was defeated. One gun wielded by the right hand could have cut this short. Instead, the killer was able to go to a 2600 acre shooting gallery, where he knew that all the law-abiding would be disarmed.
Those of us who have had any involvement in security procedures wonder why the hell the emergency communication plan seemed to consist of sending email. And what about the 2 hours elapsed between the first shooting and the second? Last fall, a convicted convict who wasn’t even on the campus caused a lock down. You have an actual shooting and you don’t call one? I’m not a big fan of lock downs; viewing them as simply gathering the sheep for the slaughter, but this time it might have actually done some good–if anyone had bothered to call it.
Those of us who have kids ache for the loss that these families have suffered, and we wonder if we could survive this kind of loss.
Those of us who own guns know that the sanctimonious anti-gun fanatics would waste no time trying to spin a tragedy to their own advantage. (Ick, I feel unclean even linking to it.)
What to make of this?
Edit 4/17/2007 2149: Reduced the death toll to 32. Who gives a crap about the killer?