I keep mostly quiet here, but I live in Blacksburg, VA, within sight of Norris Hall, where the bulk of the worst shooting incident in US history took place this morning.
A terrible, terrible, thing happened here today, and it only took three hours for Glenn Reynolds to try to score a cheap political point about gun control.
Instapundit won't take comments, so I'm going to call him out here below the fold.
...reader John Lucas, who works with a Virginia law firm, emails that Va. Tech is a "gun-free zone." Well, for those who follow the law. There was an effort to change that but it failed: "A bill that would have given college students and employees the right to carry handguns on campus died with nary a shot being fired in the General Assembly." That's unfortunate. Had the bill passed, things might have turned out differently, though we'll never know now.
(definitly not linking to this trash)
Now, for those who may not know, Blacksburg sits in the Appalachian Mountains, prime hunting country. I wonder, Glenn... do you mind if I call you Glenn? I didn't think so. Glen, I wonder, did you stop for a second and think that maybe, just maybe, this rural town, up in the mountains, just three hours from the capitol of the Confederacy is thick with gun owners? Because it is. And it made not one lick of difference.
Maybe, Glenn, if you HAD stopped to think for a second, you would have realized that.
And maybe, if you'd thought for two seconds, you would have figured out that even the most fervent gun owner probably wouldn't think to take their gun to their morning ENGINEERING CLASS.
And maybe, Glenn, if you'd thought any longer than that, you would have realized that we don't live in a video game or a Clint Eastwood movie and that even a skilled and responsible gun owner who just happened to think, "Wow, maybe I'll take my gun to class just in case some crazy guy bursts in and unloads two clips into the crowd," who just happened to have that gun sitting in their lap and not packed in their bag, and who just happened to be staring directly at the door and not taking notes or listening to the lecture when some crazy guy did, in fact, burst in with both barrels blazing would still probably have been too busy hiding behind his or her desk and/or bleeding to death to do any good.
But you didn't stop to think, did you Glenn, because you don't give a rat's ass for Blacksburg and you don't give even half a rat's ass for the dead and wounded. You just wanted to score a cheap point. You saw the news that upwards of twenty young students had been killed and thought, "What a PERFECT time to say something stupid!"
I know we on the left get a lot of flak for bad language here on the left. And I know we've got a reputation for being angry, but there's only one thing to say here.
Fuck you Glenn Reynolds. Fuck you.
And stay the fuck out of my town.
UPDATE
I want to reiterate something here, because I'm not sure it came across originally.
I would estimate that at least half of the adult male population of Blacksburg owns a gun. When I was in high School, there was a big ongoing fight between school administrators who were tasked with keeping guns off school gounds and students, who often kept pistols and rifles in their cars so they could go out shooting or hunting in the afternoons. The rules about where you can and can't carry guns couldn't even be enforced with minors; I can't imagine this "gun free campus" thing carries much weight.
So my point is that there almost definitly WERE people with guns around while this was unfolding, people with real skill handling guns. This is a real world situation where a nut pulled out a gun in a town full of gun owners, including some with CCPs, and it didn't change the outcome one bit.
That's why it's particularly fucked up to use this as an argument against gun control, and why you can tell Glenn and the rest of his fuckhead friends who are going to do just that don't care about the actual real people involved.
Just out of curiosity, I'm adding a poll.
UDPATED AGAIN
I'm commenting here because I don't really feel like getting any mojo (Karma? What are we calling it these days?) off of this.
I've been reading through the comments and was struck by what a great group of people there are at DailyKos. There are friendly disagreements, intelligent discussions, and some nicely gleeful mockery down there. It's all heartfelt and respectful (even the mockery!) and completely unlike the examples of bile and hatred we often see in comment threads from sites on the other side of the aisle.
It's wonderful, after such a tragedy, and then being mad at Instapundit and Malkin and all, to read comments by such thoughtful and well-meaning people.
Thanks.