Right now, the shrinks and the talking heads are formulating their questions: Who bears responsibility for the massacre? Why did it happen? What can we do to make sure it never happens again? They'll talk about the killer's emotional state, they'll talk about the "Gun Culture" and the dangers inherent to violent videogames and Tarantino movies.
It's all sound and fury, signifying absolutely nothing. The Boomtown Rats had it right twentysome years ago: 'You can see no reasons cause there ARE no reasons.' Furthermore? I don't give a flying fig newton for what the shooter thought or felt. Why? Because I don't think EVIL can ever really be comprehended by ordinary men. What matters to me is that last question, the whole "How do we ensure it doesn't happen again?"
The answer to that seems so obvious to me that I can't imagine why anyone else cannot see it. Simply put, no one has as vested an interest in your own well being as you do. Ergo, enable everyone to protect themselves, and the problem solves itself.
I'm sure it's not a new idea to anyone. But watching the news, all I can think is, "If only some of them had been armed." But no, VA Tech was a "Gun Free Zone" for the safety and security of its students. Everyone felt soo much safer after concealed carry was banned from campus, I'm sure. Right up until the shooter chained the doors, lined people up, and started mowing them down like paper targets at the gun range.
The bad guys will get weapons. There isn't a damn thing anyone can do about that; if they can't get them legally then they will get them ILLEGALLY. But bad guys don't respect "Gun Free Zones" or anything else. If you don't mind killing people then you don't mind breaking a few arbitrary rules. Hell, in the case of Gun-Free Campus rules, you RELY on them to make your murder easier to commit. ARMED people make bad victims. They don't do what you tell them to, and they have this nasty habit of SHOOTING BACK.
An armed society is not only a polite society, it is a safer society. No matter how loudly the antigun zealots protest, the logic cannot be denied: Unarmed people are just easier to murder than people who can fight back.
