So, I’ve been preoccupied with baby and work (and the occasional nap). And since I really don’t want this blog to be about work or my private life, I haven’t had a lot to say. The shootings in VA happened while I was in a vacuum. I didn’t hear about them at all until a few days afterwards. It’s strange to read all the news articles about the aftermath without having read the ones about the actual event. And they all assume that you know what they’re talking about, of course. “The massacre at Virginia Tech.” I don’t have much to say here. The way I heard about the shootings was by turning on an AM radio station and being yelled at by a right-wing-generic-host going on about how this shows that students should be allowed to be armed. Apparently, guns are not allowed in the dorms or classes, and this guy is pissed about that. I don’t know whether it was Rush or Boortz or someone else.
Of course, every time there’s a shooting, I hear all about gun control from the right-wing. That’s fine. Those radio hosts have to make their money somehow, and I understand that it’s not interesting to just talk about sadness or horror without talking about how it’s someone’s fault beside the shooter.
I know that someone is going to say that the liberals talk about how it’s someone else’s fault (the conservatives who allow the shooter to get HIS gun). It’s just that I don’t hear that on the radio. All I hear is the right-wing saying that we need more guns on the street.
I’m sure the lefties are out there saying their thing, but I guess I don’t listen to, or read, whatever media they use to say it. They’re not saying it on NPR or the few AM stations I tune into when NPR is playing opera.
Speaking of NPR, Ira Glass, the host of “This American Life,” is coming to Atlanta to speak this Sunday. I’m going, along with a motley assortment of others, including my mother, who’s in town for the baby.
And that’s it. No main theme to this post, but I did want to check in and say something before the blog becomes TWO weeks old without being refreshed.
For light reading:
Hey, I’ll be at the Ira Glass night too….looking forward to it! maybe I’ll see you there 🙂
The first thing that runs through my mind when something like this happens is “Where’d he get the gun?”
When liberals make noise about more gun control, the inevitable response from the right is “They don’t even enforce the laws on the books! Let’s do that before we enact more laws.”
(Which is a reasonable response, I think, but one which doesn’t take into account how the world has turned out to work. You basically have to *overenact* laws in order to reach a certain level of effectiveness. So although it’s stupid, it’s probably more effective to pile laws on top of laws than try to get the current batch enforced to the letter.)
When there’s a shooting of this type, conservatives in the media don’t seem to make that argument as much. Rather, they try to pre-empt the issue by saying this would never have happened if more people had guns. So on the one hand, only good people would have guns if the current laws were enforced, and on the other hand there should be fewer laws against people having guns.
Seems pretty easy to argue for and against that set of possibilities. No wonder nothing gets done.
Still, it turns out that this guy shouldn’t have been allowed to buy guns and that the federal enforcement system truly failed. If he hadn’t been able to go to a gun store and buy weaponry, would this atrocity have occurred?
I think it probably still would have occurred in some way or other. He just would have had to work harder to get a gun.
The Columbine murderers weren’t legally able to get guns. I have to suspect (without even bothering to look it up) that the nutcase who shot Ford (Squeaky Fromme?) didn’t have the legal right to a firearm. Laws are to control the lawful. It may not have even been very hard for the VA murderer to get an illegal gun. FWIW, I was breaking a law just a little while ago. I was doing 37 in a 30 zone, on two wheels.
Great to hear from you again, though also great to know you’re so busy with the important stuff.
Bruce, I don’t understand your point. Are you talking to me or to JB? If you’re talking to me, then you might have misunderstood my post.
I was responding to your post—essentially agreeing and extending with examples. As it turns out, the VA killer went through the legal motions to get his gun, but if he couldn’t have, I think he’d have got one anyway.
Some of the gun control advocates I’ve read have suggested that longer waiting periods for handguns would have prevented this crime. He waited much longer than most propose between buying and killing, so I don’t buy that, either. Sometimes, there isn’t a good legal answer.