The Economist Newpaper again goes where most American Media will not.

The tragedy in Virginia Tech is such a shockingly gruesome crime that has had me feeling very disturbed for days.

But perhaps what has most surprised me about it is the incredibly idiotic “discussion” that has been heard in the media about it. In the first few hours after the incident, I came across “analysis” blaming this incident on Islamic terrorism, Pakistani culture, Korean military ruthlessness, Korean “male anger”, “militant Christianity”, “capitalism’s excesses”, bullying in school and countless other phenomena too stupid to even mention. None of these explanations deserve to expound on and refute.

But, as expected, the Economist offers one of a very few voices of reason on American issues.

While everyone is discussing every single aspect of issues that have nothing to do with this crime, the most important point is missed: Every society has deranged people like this criminal; only in America can he walk into a gun store with a history of stalking, instability and violence, and purchase semi-automatic weapons with the same ease with which he purchased the tapes he used to film himself; the same tapes that got thousands of hours of play in the media, while no one even discussed where he might have gotten his guns from.

How convenient it is for the NRA that everyone is talking about other issues and avoiding the issue of guns. And the few voices that have mentioned this issue (on Fox News) have criticized the university for not allowing teachers to carry guns in class. Indeed, what an intelligent idea: a fully-militarized society is the answer to gun-crime.

As pro-Palestine activists in America know all too well, when there are powerful special interest groups, open debate becomes an impossibility. On this issue as well, let’s try and not fall into this trap.

After the Virginia Tech massacre America’s tragedy: Its politicians are still running away from a debate about guns
Apr 19th 2007
From The Economist Newspaper print edition

In the aftermath of the massacre at Virginia Tech university on April 16th, as the nation mourned a fresh springtime crop of young lives cut short by a psychopath’s bullets, President George Bush and those vying for his job offered their prayers and condolences. They spoke eloquently of their shock and sadness and horror at the tragedy (see article). The Democratic speaker of the House of Representatives called for a “moment of silence”. Only two candidates said anything about guns, and that was to support the right to have them.

Cho Seung-hui does not stand for America’s students, any more than Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris did when they slaughtered 13 of their fellow high-school students at Columbine in 1999. Such disturbed people exist in every society. The difference, as everyone knows but no one in authority was saying this week, is that in America such individuals have easy access to weapons of terrible destructive power. Cho killed his victims with two guns, one of them a Glock 9mm semi-automatic pistol, a rapid-fire weapon that is available only to police in virtually every other country, but which can legally be bought over the counter in thousands of gun-shops in America. There are estimated to be some 240m guns in America, considerably more than there are adults, and around a third of them are handguns, easy to conceal and use. Had powerful guns not been available to him, the deranged Cho would have killed fewer people, and perhaps none at all.

But the tragedies of Virginia Tech—and Columbine, and Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, where five girls were shot at an Amish school last year—are not the full measure of the curse of guns. More bleakly terrible is America’s annual harvest of gun deaths that are not mass murders: some 14,000 routine killings committed in 2005 with guns, to which must be added 16,000 suicides by firearm and 650 fatal accidents (2004 figures). Many of these, especially the suicides, would have happened anyway: but guns make them much easier. Since the killing of John Kennedy in 1963, more Americans have died by American gunfire than perished on foreign battlefields in the whole of the 20th century. In 2005 more than 400 children were murdered with guns.

The trigger and the damage done

The news is not uniformly bad: gun crime fell steadily throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. But it is still at dreadful levels, and it rose sharply again in 2005. Police report that in many cities it rose even faster in 2006. William Bratton, the police chief of Los Angeles (and formerly of New York), speaks of a “gathering storm of crime”. Politicians on both sides, he says, have been “captured” by the vocal National Rifle Association (NRA). The silence over Virginia Tech shows he has a point.

The Democrats have been the most disappointing, because until recently they had been the party of gun control. In 1994 President Bill Clinton approved a bill banning assault weapons (covering semi-automatic rifles plus high-capacity magazines for handguns) and the year before that a bill imposing a requirement for background checks. But Democrats believe they paid a high price for their courage: losing the House of Representatives in 1994 shortly after the assault-weapons ban, and then losing the presidency in 2000. Had Al Gore held Arkansas or West Virginia or his own Tennessee, all strongly pro-gun, he would have won the election. These days, with hopes for a victory in 2008 dependent on the South and the mountain West, it is a brave Democrat who will talk about gun control. Some of them dismiss the very idea as “insensitive”.

Mr Bush however, has done active damage. On his watch the assault-weapons ban was allowed to lapse in 2004. New laws make it much harder to trace illegal weapons and require the destruction after 24 hours of information gathered during checks of would-be gun-buyers. The administration has also reopened debate on the second amendment, which enshrines the right to bear arms. Last month an appeals court in Washington, DC, overturned the capital’s prohibition on handguns, declaring that it violates the second amendment. The case will probably go to the newly conservative Supreme Court, which might end most state and local efforts at gun control.

Freedom yes, but which one?

No phrase is bandied around more in the gun debate than “freedom of the individual”. When it comes to most dangerous products—be they drugs, cigarettes or fast cars—this newspaper advocates a more liberal approach than the American government does. But when it comes to handguns, automatic weapons and other things specifically designed to kill people, we believe control is necessary, not least because the failure to deal with such violent devices often means that other freedoms must be curtailed. Instead of a debate about guns, America is now having a debate about campus security.

Americans are in fact queasier about guns than the national debate might suggest. Only a third of households now have guns, down from 54% in 1977. In poll after poll a clear majority has supported tightening controls. Very few Americans support a complete ban, even of handguns—there are too many out there already, and many people reasonably feel that they need to be able to protect themselves. But much could still be done without really infringing that right.

The assault-weapons ban should be renewed, with its egregious loopholes removed. No civilian needs an AK-47 for a legitimate purpose, but you can buy one online for $379.99. Guns could be made much safer, with the mandatory fitting of child-proof locks. A system of registration for guns and gun-owners, as exists in all other rich countries, threatens no one but the criminal. Cooling-off periods, a much more open flow of intelligence, tighter rules on the trading of guns and a wider blacklist of those ineligible to buy them would all help.

Many of these things are being done by cities or states, and have worked fairly well. But jurisdictions with tough rules are undermined by neighbours with weak ones. Only an effort at the federal level will work. Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, has put together a coalition of no fewer than 180 mayors to fight for just that. Good luck to him.

Gun Myth #2: Gun control caused the Virginia Tech Shootings

That comment might make sense if the Virginia Tech shootings occurred in Massachusetts, New Jersey, or California.

But they didn't.

It happened in Virgina, a state with liberal gun laws. It was pretty high up there on the NRA good state scale. Brady gives it a grade of 18 out of 100. Virginia must be doing something correct from a "gun rights" standpoint. So, Just how did gun control cause the Virgnina Tech Massacre?

Virginia has shall issue concealed carry. Heck, you can strap on a holster and carry openly in the part of Virginia where the shootings happened. It's not unusual to walk into a gun store in Virgina and see machineguns for sale.

According to the RKBA crowd beliefs, this kind of gun culture should have prevented the shootings.

But would an armed citizen have stopped a lunatic intent on committing suicide on a grand scale? I mean Klebold and Harris engaged in a shoot-out with an armed Sheriff at Columbine. That's a real trained Law enforcement agent.

Didn't stop them from killing 13 people besides themselves.

What would some armed citizen do to stop the violence if a trained cop couldn't?

First off, a private citizen does not have all the legal advantages a policeman does when he engaging in his official duties. The private citizen can legally only protect himself if he, or his family is faced with immediate bodily harm. That harm must be resisted with the least amount of force necessary to stop the attack.

So, if someone is coming at you and you could stop that person with somehting less than deadly force, use of deadly force makes the victim the aggressor!

Not to mention if Rambo with the gun there mistakenly hits someone besides the gun toting maniac. Bimbo with the gun has just added to the chaos, confusion, and carnage. Think of the liability there!

Hero to zero in nothing flat.

Anyway, I've seen in posts that Cho Seung-Hui wasn't a US citizen (in gun groups where this is a thread no less). Not to mention the guy had psychological problems.

Now, shouldn't that have disqualified him from owning a gun?

Nope, Cho Seung-Hui plunked down the money and passed the instant checks to walk away with a Walther P22 and Glock 9 mm handguns, not to mention how many rounds of ammunition.

Now, does that sound like gun control contributed to those shootings to you?