The old NRA bumper sticker has it right: Guns don’t kill people; people kill people. The gun phobics, and those who should but don’t understand that America is different than the rest of the world, will insist that there should be more restrictions on guns.
There will be the usual hue and cry from the usual suspects about our “gun culture” and isn’t it terrible how easy it was for the Hokie madman Cho to have gotten his hands on two weapons. However, before we set to and further complicate the lives of honest Americans who wish only to claim their rights under the Constitution, we should consider this from the Wall Street Journal’s Review and Outlook for today:
…Virginia Tech had banned guns on campus, using a provision in Virginia law allowing universities to become exceptions to the state’s concealed carry pistol permits. Virginia is also known for its strict enforcement of gun violations, having implemented a program known as Project Exile that has imposed stiffer penalties and expedited gun cases.In any case, there is no connection between recent mass murder events and gun restrictions. As Quebec economist Pierre Lemieux noted yesterday, “Mass killings were rare when guns were easily available, while they have been increasing as guns have become more controlled.” The 1996 murders in the Scottish town of Dunblane–17 killed–occurred despite far more restrictive gun laws than America’s.
Facts can be so annoying, and we can only hope that we don’t do something hasty is attempting to stop another once-in-231 year event (it being 231 years since we declared our independence from England).
Then there is this bit of ancient wisdom from that august Virginian, Thomas Jefferson, as relayed at WSJ:
The founder of the University of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson, understood the harms resulting from the type of policy created at Virginia Tech [gun-free]. In his “Commonplace Book,” Jefferson copied a passage from Cesare Beccaria, the founder of criminology, which was as true on Monday as it always has been:“Laws that forbid the carrying of arms . . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes . . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”
Since this has the unalloyed ring of common sense, it’s sure to be attacked. Meanwhile, we’ve got to be doing something. And, wouldn’t you know it, into the breach steps a politician.
Perhaps Gov. Kaine is onto something with his “independent investigation.” Rather than worry about guns, perhaps we can beat to death the Watergate legacy of “what did he know and when did he know it?” In this case, applied to the various police forces that would have responsibility for campus safety at Tech.
We mustn’t blame Gov. Kaine; he is simply being true to form. He is merely doing what most politicians do when faced with something as momentous as 32 innocents killed. It makes them appear to be in control, if only of the after-the-fact “investigation.”
