Larry, I left this comment to your post over at Booman but thought I'd add it here:

An absolutely horrible, horrible tragedy.

How many mainstream media outlets do you think will point out the fact that this is exactly what is happening every day in Baghdad. That answer is, depressingly, too obvious.

So why don't we have the same revulsion in this country about the body counts when they are dark skinned Middle Eastern people? The dead in Iraq every day are children, teenagers, students, mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters. Just like those that lay dead right now in Virginia. Why do we not weep every day for those innocent lives like we will weep for these innocent young people and their teachers?

Dead is dead. It is high time that the mainstream media begun to pull back the veil on the carnage that is occurring every day all over Iraq. We hear and read the words about it. We see the video of distant explosions and columns of smoke. But will we ever see anything that truly represents the bloodletting and savagery of what we have unleashed and continue to enable every day in Iraq?

How many major bombings have there been over the last year at schools in Iraq? We have probably one major incident like this for every ten that have occurred at schools in Iraq. Where is our country's humanity? Why have we allowed ourselves to become so insulated from what we, the United States, have permitted to be done to hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis?

What has happened to our country's heart and soul? Has it become too hardened to have any feelings at all for the suffering of someone other than ourselves?

I agree with all the opinions expressed above.

Sorry, Dan, to hear you have a personal connection to the place. The more personal the connection the harder it is.

Thoughts and prayers to all touched by this tragedy.

It's too early to draw conclusions since we don't even know who did it.

But let's assume for the sake of argument it's just your typical disgruntled psychotic student with easy access to guns.

Then no one will call it terrorism.

Why not?

Why is the easy access to guns for a student any different than the easy access to anthrax or to an airplane cockpit for an Islamist terrorist?

My larger point is this country lives in perpetual fear of terrorism but shrugs its collective shoulders about mass shootouts.
Oh yes there was a lot of hand-wringing after Columbine and then what? Nothing changed.

The thing is Americans look at these tragedies like tornadoes. Acts of god: nothing we can do.
When it comes to terrorism, however, they're ready to invade countries and drop the big one.

A certain inconsistency perhaps?

Noble,

for all we know we have been attacked by terrorists here since 9/11. Chemical company fires, train derailments, oil refinery blasts, E.coli spinach, E.coli scallions, poisoned pet food, forest fires, etc.

If any of these were terrorist related you can bet the Bush gang kept it secret.

It's a question of proximity rather than skin color. When there were 18 shot dead at a school in Erfurt, Germany back in 2002, did that even make the news? When the there were the train bomb attacks in Madrid and London, did that get more air play in the US than Anna Nicole Smith? I don't quite recall but I don't believe so.

Events that happen closer to home are subjectively more important. That's human nature (and a reasonable way to avoid total information overload). But that makes it all the more important to put things in perspective, like Larry did...

guns aren't the problem, people are.

when the US prohibited alcohol, people worked
around it and if guns are banned, people would
work around them with more homemade bombs
and rocket launchers.

these things aren't necessarily difficult to
build and after seeing what happened in Iraq,
the US military would probably be knocking
down our doors looking for guns if they were
banned....

Are you implying the US military is anti-American?

I thought they were defending our freedom!

On April 16, 2007 - 6:14pm ricgerace said:

I'm surprised that anyone is surprised at the VT shootings. Any minute now the NRA will come out and tell us again that guns don't kill people, people kill people.

Exactly. I once sent the NRA the following; "Earthquakes don't kill people, falling buildings kill people."

Here in Texas, where I am unfortunate enough to live, we had a nut go on a shooting rampage at a Luby's Cafeteria a few years back.

It became the rallying cry around legislation enabling concealed carry permits: If the Luby's victims had been able to take their guns into the restaurant with them, they could have defended themselves and the death toll would have been lower.

That's the problem with trying to suggest to wingnuts that guns are a problem. Their solution is to arm everyone. One is tempted to point out that both Columbine H.S. and this college are both in locales where the gun culture and second-amendmentism is prevalent.

And yes, I agree with the excellent points made in the main article above. Thirty-one students killed in one rampage is horrible and tragic. To have this happen in multiple cities on a daily basis over a period of years must be mind-numbing insanity.

As horrible as the deaths and injuries are, dozens of families will be directly effected by today's event in Virginia. Indeed, thousands of students and their families will be traumatized by it. That's the other side of every tragedy, the suffering, the grief, the sorrows without end, of the survivors and families involved.

Yet dozens of families will be directly effected by today's events in Baghdad. Indeed, thousands of families will be traumatized by today's events in Baghdad, the same way as the survivors and families in Virginia. Yet this happens again and again and again and again - endlessly year after year in Baghdad.

I wonder if we're going to hear John McCain tell us next week that he visited a Pizza Hut in Blacksburg VA and that "things are looking good" there. Yup, by next week the police will have things under control again in Blacksburg. Aint that just grand? Tell it to the families, John.

Kache
"The situation is excellent. Chaos is everywhere. Opportunity abounds" - Zhou Enlai (1932 - before the Long March)

Have we heard from the Democratic "centrists" yet? I'm sure we can rely on them to appear on Fox News to announce that only extreme leftists favor gun control.

I like Chris Rock's solution: start charging $100 per bullet!

I think you're mixing two different issues here!

The Iraq occupation was illegal and the only reason why Iraqis can hold the line against the foreign forces is because they have enough guns to fight back.

The US Constitution preserves the right to bear firearms because America "got its freedom" by using them against the oppressive British, I suppose. At some level, the right to bear arms is a metaphor for balanced power between federal (national) and state (local) interests.

the problem is, the government (federal power) has raised the bar so local militias are forced to engage in that arms esculation.

the bigger issue is that we've allowed our federal government to become more powerful to fight "our enemies" while not necessarily instituting federal (national)/state (local) safeguards on the balance of power.

I really do think that, on some levels, our founding fathers intended the "right to bear arms" to be a check and balance on federal/state power.

I don't know what you want, but I know what we've got, a culture that worships guns and believes that guns are the solution to all problems, the more efficiently and quickly used the better. From the gang bangers in the streets, to the misfits in the classroom to the utopian nutcases who got us into Iraq -- it's the same culture and it is going to destroy this country from within.

Who thinks guns are the solution to all problems?

Hyperbolic nonsense.

I simply think little is accomplished by disarming me. Law abiding citizens use firearms defensively way, way more often than criminal homicides happen. Defensive gun use far outstrips murder.

Banning guns isn't the answer. Building a better society is.

People care more about their own suffering than the suffering of others. It's an unfortunate primate tribalism. In Nemesis, Chalmers Johnson says

That Britons and Americans have proven so comfortable with the idea of forcing thousands of people to be free by slaughtering them—with Maxim machine guns in the nineteenth century, with “precision-guided munitions” today—seems to reflect a deeply felt need as well as a striking inability to imagine the lives and viewpoints of others.

Did I miss something or is the entirety of Iraq in fact occupied by American armed forces? The US was so "stymied" that it took them all of three weeks to invade Iraq.

As for the situation in Iraq now, the biggest killer of US soldiers is the IED, not a gun. Will you advocate the right to wear bomb belts too?

True, and the perspective Larry puts it in is unfortunately scarce in US media coverage. One can only hope viewers make the connection for themselves.

Having said that, I think comparisons between the shootings and Iraq are best made in conversations primarily on Iraq, than in conversations about the shootings.

On today's News Hour, the shootings coverage was just that, no comparisons.

On a conversation about Iraq, Juan Cole made the comparison in a conversation, which was appropriate. If anything he under stated it, saying Iraq has a tragedy like this every day. In fact, Iraq has several tragedies like this every day, in a nation a small fraction of the size of ours. So, adjusting for population, Iraq has something akin to the Virginia Tech shootings several times over, plus the Timothy McVeigh bombing, every day.

I'm not wild for the people kill people argument. But years ago, I knew a pretty rough kid from my high school; he was probably involved with some gang members in the U.S. He moved to a country where guns were banned, and reported that murders were generally committed in more horrific and less bannable ways.

i'd rather die by gunshot, but then again, I'd really rather die in my sleep. I don't agree with you about regulation (as a mitigating approach rather than a solution), but I do agree that that's not the kind of work that will make murderous violence less common.

And yet we're still losing. The most powerful army in the world and we're still not able to prevent the Iraqi militias from having their way with the country. I never said we'd prevent the US army from occupying us. But would make it pretty damn ugly for them...kinda like it's pretty damn ugly for us in Iraq and Vietnam. We occupied Vietnam pretty thoroughly as well...and still lost. Methinks you're not too familiar with guerrilla war.

If you really think we're "winning" in Iraq...you're on something that's probably sold in baggies in an alley.

The use of IEDs doesn't negate the use of firearms by insurgents (I'm sure the families of US soldiers killed by small arms fire aren't particularly comforted by your thoughts here). If we had to, we'd probably resort to IEDs as well.

Because guerrilla warfare includes the use of non-2A protected weapons you think the 2A doesn't apply? Nonsense.

The 2A protects weapons we'd use against tyrants. We'd also use cell phones and cars and guard dogs...so what?

The kids who shoot their classmates aren't criminals before the shootings. Once they become criminal it's too late--oops, shouldn't have given that one a gun.

As for the situation in Iraq now, the biggest killer of US soldiers is the IED, not a gun. Will you advocate the right to wear bomb belts too?

roadside explosives (IED's?) and bomb belts are two different things.

but that's how gorilla wars are fought. as rumsfeld said: "asymetric warfar." it doesn't take much, if you're lucky, to destroy a piece of hightech war apparatus.

basically, the Iraqis believe they have the right to resist and their methods are IED's and bomb belts.

war is war and I don't think, especially at this point, with Saddamm out of the picture, that either side is moral.

the whole thing is now beyond being rational.

Your right that the problem runs deeper than guns. But I still believe we should make it as difficult as possible for people to going on killing sprees, and guns make it incredibly easy.

Here's a DOJ page on deaths by firearms, age, and intent: http://www.ojp.gov/bjs/glance/tables/frmdth.htm

Private gun ownership (other than hunting rifles) is banned in many countries...

right, but prohibition showed us that laws don't necessarily regulate behavior and rome fell...

We have exported our violence and shared it with our friends and enemies in the Middle East...

saying that we've "exported violence" ignores the fact that, historically, we "imported violence" since the native americans were here first and happy until our wishes were forced upon them.

I can't even stand to hear that bullshit!

so be it... violence is as old as man...

I have no quarrel with laws that make it illegal for felons and insane people to possess or buy guns.

I just don't have any illusions that such laws will be any more effective that prohibition of booze or drugs.

Bearing that in mind, the solution to things like today is NOT disarming people like me.

you're putting words in people's mouths.

sad, but true! in biblical times, I think they burned wheat fields, etc... to impose starvation.

historically, I even think the US has been accused of bombing medicine factories in africa to enforce intellectual property claims...

this world is one scary place.

Why do you put the word crises in quotation marks, as though this were not a serious matter? In fact it's worse than a crises, it is a horrible tragedy. You are a twit.

and certainly not a way to cure those with mental illness or temporary cognitive failure.

people like myself are becoming numb as the bodies just keep piling up!

I remember the day when Saddamm died and thought: "one more body was added to the pile today."

sentimentality disappears when there's a bloodshed every day and I know that white phosperous and depleted uranium, incendiary bombs, etc... are being used in theater.

Okay, but what about keeping guns away from kids, who are still developing mentally? I realize today's shooting was on a college campus, but so many have involved adolescents (and younger). I want to see laws that actually prevent a 16 year old from obtaining an oozie that he can take to school.

a nasty gun doesn't make violence and a big diamond ring doesn't make love forever.

Everybody has their issues and mine are TV (due to violence, mindlessness and stereotypes), bad food and videogames (the violent ones).

Jan, do we have a truce on ratings?

OK, the Virginia chapter of the NRA just issued a press release that the law they are backing, to allow students to carry weapons on campus WOULD HAVE AVOIDED THIS TRAGEDY BECAUSE THE STUDENTS COULD HAVE HAD A SHOOT-OUT and avoided this tragedy! (Go back and read what I wrote about the bank scenario, and then tell me I am wrong. Never mind, you tell everyone who is not drinking your rotten kool-aid they are wrong.) You are either delusional or a disgusting liar.

You are full of baloney, and your statement that

The NRA's "dream" is that we don't vainly try to disarm criminals by disarming everyone.

I won't even dignify your absurd statement by calling it "disengenuous." The NRA's dream is simply a lie to enrich gun manufacturers as they seek to cash in on the war profiteering that they are so jealous of.

Jan Knaus

I see cville dem is going around giving our posts poor marks...too bad he/she doesn't have much to contribute other than that.

Pretty weak.

Sebastion and mscs, the truth hurts, doesn't it? I guess you probably had "other priorities" during our times of war, just like our coward-in-chief and his dick.

Jan Knaus

Yes, I was going to say this too. I think if we want to encourage people's sympathy for the Iraqi people, the time to bring VT into the conversation is a few weeks or months from now when the shock has faded a bit. To compare the two at this time, for purposes of engendering compassion for Iraqis, is going to feel crass and partisan. Which is not to say that we can't or shouldn't feel or express sympathy for Iraqis today, and tomorrow, and yesterday.

Wrong.

Getting a load on and driving is a deliberate act. Take some responsibility.

I drive an F350 diesel. I could take out a LOT of people with it I wanted to.

I could build a bomb and do the same. Guns aren't as unique as you'd like them to be.

In any event, guns aren't designed to do anything other than propel lead at high speed. When I shoot paper targets with my rifles and pistols, they're doing what they're designed to do as well.

These weapons do kill people, but they also provide an excellent means for defending myself. Guns are used to defend law abiding people far more often than they're used to kill.

Angry, jaded people will always find ways to do harm to others. Disarming ourselves won't stop them; we can't stop them all but we can be prepared for what happens when disaster strikes.

the last time I watched TV, policemen (actors) were throwing their suspects against the wall while muttering agitated dialog.

"America's Only Philospher," John Dewey was really scared about false reality replacing true reality so he wanted kids to learn from the real world instead of the abstractions which are constructed by adults.

    Wonderful post Larry.  I often forget how blessed I am to live my life in safety and health - and this is in it's degree on the shoulders of those who suffer with less.  The ideals of humanism are hard to live by - selfishness sometimes seems to be an involuntary response of survival.  

    It would be a shameful time if one day everyone sat down, and with the humanist belief that everyone has the same intrinsic value, assessed our treatment of one another.  We all know the things that pervert and misguide our behaviors - so, thanks for exposing just a bit of our hypocrisy.

You really do argue like a spoiled name calling brat.

A single armed citizen in that building and fewer people would have died. Period.

I am quite familiar with Iraq and Vietnam, and, in neither case, did small arms make a major difference. IEDs are the major problem in Iraq, and were a significantly high proportion -- I don't have the figures in front of me -- in Vietnam.

For the record, I do not believe in banning small arms from lawful citizens, but I also believe that the idea of an armed citizenry acting as a check on tyrannical government is long obsolete. Were I to take action against the government by illegal means, attacking computers and networks would be first on the list, followed by explosives or CB weapons. I'm not a bad shot, but I am quite aware of the limits of firearms against modern militaries.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

OK, You are incapable of understanding simple facts.

A car is designed to take someone from point a to point b. Because it is very big and very heavy, and also can be driven by people who do not have a great degree of skill, OR, whose judgement and agility is negatively affected by alcohol or stupidity, they can sometimes do harm to people, places or things.

Now, according to you, guns can be lots of fun. They can propel steel through paper, and when they go through the part of the paper you like the best, you feel like a big Ike. But to MOST grown-ups, Sebastian, guns are not for shooting holes in paper. They don't transport people to their jobs. There is no such thing as a gun-pool to take your kids to soccer practice. No, you just gotta admit. Guns have no purpose except to kill things. (Exception: paper)

So, if you are such a sicko that you want to mow people down with your car, I guess we will just have to wait for the headline with your name on it. But in the mean time, it can take you to your job, and maybe even someplace like a library where you might learn something. Absent that, there are always guns.

But remember that guns have no other purpose, regardless of how desperately you may wish to defend them. They only kill.

PS Do you really equate drinking and driving with sober premetitation, shooting someone with a 9 mm handgun?

Jan Knaus

yeah, Jan does that from time to time. For a while, I had fun and gave her a few low ratings, but my time isn't worth playing her game and to show that I have more class than her, I'll actually role back my ratings.

she means well but, at times, she must fell that her arguments are so weak that, without reason, she starts playing games.

The AK47 didn't play a significant role in Vietnam? You can't be very familiar with Vietnam, sir. You're simply wrong. Small arms fire was the biggest killer. You think we'd have lost in Vietnam if the enemy didn't have small arms?

The idea that the small arm isn't essential for guerrilla war is risible nonsense.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0417-02.htm

Even in Iraq...small arms fire is a significant killer, the biggest according to the liberal commondreams.org report above.

Even if we were resisting tyranny with IEDs here in the US...we'd still need small arms to resist. Why would we limit ourselves to one sort of weaponry or the other?

We'd use all of them.

From MSNBC...

Jamal Albarghouti, a graduate student, said that instead of fleeing, he began shooting video footage on his cell phone.

“I’m from the Middle East, so I’m not used to this sort of thing, but I’ve been in similar situations,” Albarghouti told MSNBC-TV.

That's just nonsense Jan.

When thousands of Americans use firearms for self defense, target shooting, sport shooting, and law enforcement every day, they're using guns for what they're designed to do.

The idea that guns ONLY kill is simply hyperbolic nonsense.

You're letting your emotions erase any semblance of rationality you ever did have.