V Tech impolite thoughts

Bloody Murder that what this was.
I am very disturbed about it. I have 2 daughters away at College.
No matter who you are, where you are, you can always be whacked.
Nobody will TALK about GUN CONTROL. The NRA is already out in force talking about the right to bear arms, but against one another?
These Students and Teachers they are the best and brightest (no disrespect to the troops, but the quality of the recruits we all know has dropped).
I hope these families and students from Virginia Tech become like the 911 Widows and try to get answers and change our culture.
Our culture worships death, values $$$$ over life. (So please buy a GUN and SUV today and leave your worries behind.)

•  Move along students

  Remember, it's survival of the fittest. If you aren't man enough to use a weapon in self-defense and disarm and dismember your adversary, you deserve to have your brains blown out.  

  Or to blog at RedState and pretend you are tough.  One or the other.  Something like that.

  by klw1963 on Tue Apr 17, 2007 at 05:25:56 PM PDT

•  Thought you might like my proposal

  pimping apologies, hopefully justified by relevance

  by snafubar on Tue Apr 17, 2007 at 05:39:21 PM PDT

•  yes--get tough gun control

  We need to take this tragedy and form a lobby that is stronger than the NRA and similar groups.
  See also
  http://www.reflectivepundit.com/...

  by Brigitte on Tue Apr 17, 2007 at 05:40:29 PM PDT

•  What was the point

  of that totally gratuitous shot at military recruits?

  It only serves to distract from -- and detract from -- an otherwise very valid observation.

  by jmart on Tue Apr 17, 2007 at 06:03:27 PM PDT

  •  Good Question

    I guess, my point is that these victims are just as much "sacrificial lambs as our brave men and women in the armed services. These victims could have made a difference in the world. They were learning to build things, engineers. They shouldn't have been cannon fodder like our men and women in Iraq.

    Also I get sick of the repugs when they can't rap the flag around them wrap the troops and the flag around themselves.

    by Braindead on Tue Apr 17, 2007 at 06:19:21 PM PDT

•  Focus on the victims now

  Talk about gun control later its the respectful thing to do. And keep in mind he bought the legally with a background check, he was just a monster who wanted to kill people how do we check for that?

  by SensibleDemocrat on Tue Apr 17, 2007 at 06:13:26 PM PDT

  •  Let's talk about gun control now

    Who cares about a "sane gun policy" when your feeling freakin good. Hit them when there down, so they hurt and don't forget.

    by Braindead on Tue Apr 17, 2007 at 06:21:17 PM PDT

    •  Worst. thing. dems. could. do

      Are you really serious? Why are you advocating something that will cause us to lose everything we gained in the '06 elections, and probably much more than that?

      by Kentucky Kid on Tue Apr 17, 2007 at 07:13:10 PM PDT

      •  Folks want safety, here safety

        New York City has one of the most restrictive gun laws in America and since it’s passage gun murders have gone from 2,262 to 629 per year.  Consequently, NYC is one of the safest big cities in America.

        by Braindead on Tue Apr 17, 2007 at 07:25:24 PM PDT

  •  Good point

    We can do background checks and waiting periods and all that. Won't help. It's been pointed out that, in fact, VA Tech is a gun-free zone under state law. Our shooter doesn't seem to have cared.

    At the end of the day, I reserve the right to defend myself. If I were, gods forbid, being attacked or in danger of being attacked, I have a hard time understanding what right anyone else has to deprive me of the means of defense.

    Our problem is with our mental-health infrastructure, and our social prejudices about the whole issue of mental health. This guy was creeping teachers out long before this. He had clear and visible problems, and his community didn't have the resources to address them before he went over the edge. It shouldn't be an excuse for people who don't like guns start a political melee. If he'd stolen a beer truck and driven it into an elementary school cafeteria instead, I somehow doubt they'd be shouting about truck control.

    by Jaxpagan on Tue Apr 17, 2007 at 06:56:25 PM PDT

    •  "Clear and visible problems."

      My problem with warning signs is that when something does happen, we always find them in retrospect -- and we never notice when something doesn't happen, even though someone clearly has exhibited them.

      I was in high school during Columbine.  Wearing black could have meant you were a member of the 'trenchcoat mafia' ... or it could have been a sign of protest, like it was for one of my friends.

      In college, I knew plenty of people who might have exhibited 'warning signs' of potentially violent behavior.  Hell, I might have been seen as doing so myself: I had no life until the very end of my second year of college -- until that point, I was a complete loner.  Violent video games?  My friends and I spent dozens -- if not hundreds -- of hours playing first-person shooters and Grand Theft Auto.  Disturbing creative works?  I had a friend who wrote a magnum opus which involved Aztec sacrifices.  I knew three guys who -- in one of the most classic examples of bad taste I know of -- submitted a video of one of them beating the corpse of a pig into a bloody pulp to the yearly student film festival.  I don't know of any way that video couldn't have been construed as a warning sign ... unless you knew these people, and realized that one of the reasons they did it was for the shock value.  As far as I know, none of them has snapped yet.

      As a result of this, I've seen people call for gun control.  I've seen other people call for better mental health services.  In one of the worst ideas to have sprung from this tragedy, I've even see one person call for a combination of the two: we should refuse to sell guns to anyone who has ever been on anti-depressants.  (Yeah, that'll eliminate social stigma for you.)  I've yet to see a proposal that seems to offer any chance of succeeding.

      With regards to your beer truck analogy ... after 9/11, one of the subjects brought up -- and dismissed, unfairly -- was that of locked cockpit doors.  We perhaps shouldn't restrict people from boarding airplanes ... but we should prevent them from being able to easily access the controls.

      by lemming22 on Tue Apr 17, 2007 at 07:52:37 PM PDT

•  More guns aren't the solution.

  Folks keep saying "if only the students had had guns"...

  Bad, bad idea.

  We need fewer guns, not more.

  by Diaries on Tue Apr 17, 2007 at 06:20:41 PM PDT

  •  Exactly

    I always feel safer when caught in a cross fire.

    I presume you do too.

    by Braindead on Tue Apr 17, 2007 at 06:22:55 PM PDT

  •  AMEN! nt

    by AggieDemocrat on Tue Apr 17, 2007 at 06:45:57 PM PDT

•  Best comment I heard today was if students are

  allowed to carry a gun for self-protection, as some NRA types advocate, who do you shoot first if you hear a gunshot coming from a building, run inside, and several other people have their weapons drawn?

  by skrekk on Tue Apr 17, 2007 at 06:31:39 PM PDT

  •  Normally I go around in a T and jeans...

    ...I couldn't conceal a weapon in that.  

    What you would get is a Mexican standoff.  Happens in Gangfighs all the time. Mainly innocent people get cut down.

    by Salo on Tue Apr 17, 2007 at 06:37:40 PM PDT

•  NRA brainwashed most of the country

  They are the de facto PR arm of the gun industry and they've been doing an excellent good job.  That's why the rest of the world looks at us and goes WTF?! when they see these things happen over and over here and see gun control legislation not even being discussed!  Let's also take a moment to remember those who earn their luxuries by flooding our country with these instruments of death.  The gun industry doesn't even need to advocate for themselves, the gun-rights crowd does it for free, it doesn't even occur to them that they are being manipulated! It's all right to bear arms blah blah blah right on script. The people at the top, whoever they are, make a living out of others dying, just like the tobacco execs. What a bloody set-up. Thank you Braindead for diary that speaks the simple truth.

  by arcana on Tue Apr 17, 2007 at 07:49:50 PM PDT