Words – and Prohibitions – Fail

My prayers go out to everyone involved in the massacre at Virginia Tech

Politics have no place in this horrific tragedy and ghastly crime  (As a personal aside; the shooter is reportedly dead.  I sincerely hope it was a cop that fired that last fatal bullet. I’m sick of these mass-murdering animals destroying dozens of lives and then checking out on their own).

But amid the shock, horror and (soon) grief, it’s worth noting that, according to the school’s policies and procedures guide, Virginia Tech is a safe zone for mass murderers “gun-free” school (emphasis added):

 2.2 Prohibition of Weapons

The university’s employees, students, and volunteers, or any visitor or other third party attending a sporting, entertainment, or educational event, or visiting an academic or administrative office building or residence hall, are further prohibited from carrying, maintaining, or storing a firearm or weapon on any university facility, even if the owner has a valid permit, when it is not required by the individual’s job, or in accordance with the relevant University Student Life Policies.  

 Any such individual who is reported or discovered to possess a firearm or weapon on university property will ked to remove it immediately.  Failure to comply may result in a student judicial referral and/or arrest, or an employee disciplinary action and/or arrest.

As Joel Rosenberg notes, a bill to allow law abiding permit-holders to carry guns on Virginia university campuses died in committee.

It’d be the depth of tastelessness to try to capitalize on this horror for political gain.  But when the shock wears off, it might be worth noting that disarming the law abiding doesn’t protect anyone.

One professor with a gun in his desk, one girl with a .38 in her purse, one student with a legal, permitted handgun, and this tragedy could have turned out very different.  Goodness knows obeying the University’s rules didn’t do anyone a damn bit of good.

50 thoughts on “Words – and Prohibitions – Fail

  1. Recall that is how the law school shooting from about 6 years ago ended. Two students went out to their cars, retrieved their legal guns, pointed them at the shooter, who then dropped his weapon.

    I also recall that the St Paul Pioneer Press story on it (wire service) said the shooting ended “when two students tackled the gunman”. They couldn’t bring themselves to print what really happened.

  2. Or the Pearl, Mississipi shooting (which claimed four junior high kids). Hardly a mention in the mainstream media that it was ended when an assistant principal ran and got his gun from his car and apprehended the shooter.

  3. Just between me, thee, and anybody reading this, my own guess — and it’s not much more than a guess — is that Joel Myrick, the hero of the whole Pearl MS thing, didn’t get his gun from his car, but sensibly had long before decided to disobey the law and be able to protect his kids.

    More than fifty shot; more than thirty murdered today . . . it breaks my heart.

  4. This is from supposedly right wing Fox News:

    “—Jan. 16, 2002: Graduate student Peter Odighizuwa, 42, recently dismissed from Virginia’s Appalachian School of Law, returns to campus and kills the dean, a professor and a student before being tackled by students. The attack also wounds three female students.”

    My guess is that they went back to original news reports from the time. The reports that refused to print that it was two legal guns that stopped the killer.

  5. Yep. I remember that – I blogged about that shortly after it happened. It was one of the incidents that spurred me to start the blog in the first place.

  6. At the front door of the Red Lake school was a police officer that was on a disability leave because of some injury. He was fully trained to handle a firearm, was assigned to guard a school entrance and man a metal detection machine, but was UNARMED. He died while trying to delay the shooter long enough so the other guard could run off to sound the alarm. One weapon in the hands of a trained police officer would have easily prevented a slaughter.

  7. “It’d be the depth of tastelessness to try to capitalize on this horror for political gain.”

    It was.

  8. Oh eternally dim one. I didn’t politicize anything.

    I spoke up for the HUMAN RIGHT of self-defense.

    That SHOULDN’T be a Democrat or Republican issue.

    But you’ve turned it into one.

    Sadly, I not only expected no better from you, but figured you’d be the first to dive into the tank full of shit.

  9. Rick is back on the path of truth and righteousness, Mitch. You said it would be tasteless. You were right. It was tasteless.

  10. “It’d be the depth of tastelessness to try to capitalize on this horror for political gain.”

    ABC is already running a poll on gun control.

  11. Rick is back on the path of truth and righteousness, Mitch. You said it would be tasteless. You were right. It was tasteless.

    The phlox he is – unless you consider the very topic of self-defense distasteful, which isn’t my problem.

    Defending ones self and others isn’t remotely political – although Rick apparently chooses to make it so. Again, his problem, not mine.

    Whether you find it distasteful or not, I’m right.

  12. Now it is you who are confused. Everyone Angryclown considers worthy of listening to agrees that defending oneself and others is a good thing. Not everyone agrees that allowing – even forcing – everyone to carry firearms at all times is a good idea. Actually, it’s mostly gun nuts who think that.

    In any case, it’s highly comical that, immediately after intoning “Politics have no place in this horrific tragedy and ghastly crime ” you use the horrific crime to advance your own divisive political views.

  13. The concept that one carefully placed .38 hollowpoint could have saved dozens of lives is a “divisive political view”?
    God help you.

  14. Everyone Angryclown considers worthy of listening to agrees that defending oneself and others is a good thing. Not everyone agrees that allowing – even forcing – everyone to carry firearms at all times is a good idea. Actually, it’s mostly gun nuts who think that.

    I know “not everyone” agrees; agreement from “everyone” isn’t really the issue, here.

    The question is, for those who disagree – why? What is the empirical basis for their disagreement?

    The problem is, with all due respect to your beliefs, AC ,that there really is none. The ideal that disarming the law-abiding will reduce crime has no empirical basis – indeed, there is plenty of evidence it’s false. It has all of the worst elements of religion – blind faith – without the whole “going to heaven” thing on the upside.

    In any case, it’s highly comical that, immediately after intoning “Politics have no place in this horrific tragedy and ghastly crime ” you use the horrific crime to advance your own divisive political views.

    And again, saving the lives of real people – as has, indeed, happened many thousands of times – is not political.

    If you find it “divisive” that I suggest a means of dealing with such senseless violence – a means that has been adopted by a bipartisan array of states making up the majoriity of the US, including many large, left-leaning cities – then I suggest that I”m not the one being divisive.

  15. allowing – even forcing – everyone to carry firearms at all times is a good idea.

    Strawclown! Nobody with a right to an opinion says any such thing. It’s a common media scare-quote.

  16. I agree with your position, Mitch, but give the clown his due.

    You open with the declaration that “Politics have no place in this horrific tragedy and ghastly crime”, and start your next paragraph with “But…”

    Following a paragraph (with two links for emphasis) that bemoans the failure of the VA legislature to pass a bill you would support, you give us “It’d be the depth of tastelessness to try to capitalize on this horror for political gain”.

    I support your core premise, re: the ineffectiveness of gun control laws . I also think you’re guilty of doing exactly that which you have pre-emptively, and without evidence, assisgned to others.

    The clown is correct to call you on it.

  17. Apparently, it’s wrong for Mitch to call attention to legislative efforts that prevented VTech students from arming themselves in self-defense on campus, but there’s nothing wrong about the New York Times yapping about gun control:

    Yesterday’s mass shooting at Virginia Tech — the worst in American history — is another horrifying reminder that some of the gravest dangers Americans face come from killers at home armed with guns that are frighteningly easy to obtain…

    …Our hearts and the hearts of all Americans go out to the victims and their families. Sympathy was not enough at the time of Columbine, and eight years later it is not enough. What is needed, urgently, is stronger controls over the lethal weapons that cause such wasteful carnage and such unbearable loss.

    That is their lead editorial one day after the shooting.

    That’s your paper, Mr. Clown.

  18. I will deal with you quickly, Paul: you are an idiot. Angryclown takes no more responsibility for what is printed in the New York Times than for your loony ravings.

    Angryclown’s point is that Mitch piously disclaimed any intention of using yesterday’s shooting for political purposes, while in the same breath using it to advance a political argument. RickDFL, followed by Angryclown and Mike, correctly called him on it.

    Mitch’s fallback is to assert that, since he’s 100% right, there’s no political issue here at all – a transparently silly argument.

    Angryclown doesn’t expect you wingnuts to follow his simple logic, but is cheered that several of Mitch’s readers remain in the reality-based community.

  19. Paul,

    There’s nothing wrong with Mitch calling attention to legislative efforts he supports. There’s nothing wrong with criticizing a misquided University policy. There is a problem with doing so, and then accusing others of using this tragedy to make “political points”. Nobody in this thread defended, or even mentioned, the NYT, but to turn your argument around, why is it wrong for the NYT, but OK for Mitch?

    Mitch has made many, many posts concerning gun ownership rights. It is obviously an important issues for him. He has a long history of commenting on legislation and encouraging activism – of making political points, with which I largely agree. How is he doing anything different in this post?

  20. Name-calling has no place in this horrific tragedy and ghastly crime. However it just goes to show that Kermit is a poopy-head.

  21. Mitch’s fallback is to assert that, since he’s 100% right, there’s no political issue here at all – a transparently silly argument.

    Another straw clown. I didn’t say it’s non-political because I’m right. I say it because protecting human life is above politics.

    Or should be.

  22. Whether people are better protected by strict gun control or the gun-nut-friendly laws you favor is very much a political issue – one that you used the Virginia Tech shootings to introduce. Why so reluctant to admit it?

  23. Whether people are better protected by strict gun control or the gun-nut-friendly laws you favor is very much a political issue

    Which is a shame, since actual facts speak fairly clearly.

    In 2002, a would-be mass-murderer at the Appalachian School of Law was taken out by a couple of students…with ther permitted handguns.

    Much better deal, all in all.

    I don’t know that it matters if the students were Republican or Democrat.

  24. Hey, Rick – you intellectually-defective little jagoff – if you ever feel the need to call me a “coward”, do it to my face.

    Or apologize.

    One or the other. Now. Do not post anything else until you’ve addressed this.

    I expect this will be your last comment in this space.

    I don’t “admit” to Clown’s question, because it’s irrelevant. Self-defense SHOULD NOT be political.

  25. “Self-defense SHOULD NOT be political.”

    Fine. Agree. SHOULD NOT be.

    But it is. And you’ve had no problem treating it as such on this blog.

    Your archives list 20 posts filed under “Victim Disarmament”, which highlight legislation, offer advice to candidates and encourage others to participate in activism.

    You’ve offered advice such as:

    “This past election was a setback for gun rights supporters – but it doesn’t have to be a fatal one. And it’s at get-togethers like this that we lay the real groundwork for keeping it that way.

    I hope to see you there.”

    …in support of a Second Amendment Rally. And reported on the results:

    “I think we drew right around fifty people to Stub ‘n Herb’s last night for “The New Thing”, the big get-together of local concealed-carry activists. I spent about three hours there, talking with a dizzying variety of people.

    PART OF THE RATIONALE FOR THE PARTY WAS TO TROLL FOR IDEAS OF THINGS TO DO TO HELP HOLD THE LINE FOR GUN RIGHTS IN THE UPCOMING, INTENSELY HOSTILE LEGISLATURES. The other part, of course, was to meet fellow Right to Keep and Bear Arms supporters for a fun evening out. Both succeeded.”

    I share in the frustration that follows events like the VT shootings. I share your concerns vis-a-vis gun rights. And I don’t think anyone can read through your previous posts on the topic and not see an overt political tone.

    You’re the one who has offered:

    “I repeat: Any gun owners who claim to be vigilant Second Amendment activists, who nonetheless voted Democrat in this past election, have only themselves to blame.

    And yes, I will pile on.”

    You issue calls for grass roots activism. You repeatedly link to Joel Rosenberg (including in this post) who does the same. If you wanted to assert that you have been Non Partisan on the issue (despite the last quote cited) you could point to many posts critical of Republicans as well. But Non Political? No way.

    Not that any of this should be taken to dismiss the usual boorishness of Rick, Clown, etal.

  26. Mike,

    I take your points. And maybe my approach is a bit pointillistic in that while I see the GOP as the party of gun rights, I don’t think that the concept of defending oneself – which is what is the issue here – is a party issue.

  27. Boorishness? Here’s what RickDFL posted that made all the wingnuts pile on:

    “It’d be the depth of tastelessness to try to capitalize on this horror for political gain.”

    It was.

    Wow. “It was.” You must be really thick-skinned to take that kind of abuse, Mitch!

  28. “Usual boorishness”

    Usual.

    I happen to think you, Doug, and others made a valid point in this instance, Clown.

    Blind squirrel, and all that, perhaps.

    Hence the word. Usual.

  29. Mitch:
    You want to ban me from this blog. Go ahead. You can not threaten someone with a consequence towards which they are indifferent.

    It would be a fitting way for you to defend your intellectual bravery.

  30. Rick,

    Banning wasn’t the consequence I had in mind for calling me a “coward” to my face, and you know it.

    Talk to us about “intellectual bravery” when you can cash in person the rhetorical checks you’re bouncing in my blog.

  31. Tell you what guys (and RickDFL): Call it “polticizing” if you want. Hinderaker’s right: “In general, there is nothing wrong with “politicizing” an issue. This is a democracy, and politics is the process we use to resolve conflicts. Important issues of legitimate public concern should be “politicized.” When a political group says that an issue shouldn’t be “politicized,” it generally means that they are on the losing side of the political argument.

    He’s right. Screw it. I’m politicizing it.

    Thanks to all! Except Rick; you’re still a gutless jagoff.

  32. Angryclown said: “I will deal with you quickly, Paul: you are an idiot. Angryclown takes no more responsibility for what is printed in the New York Times than for your loony ravings.”

    Woo-hoo! I pissed off the Clown!

    My point is, O Clueless Grease-Painted Dullard (pay attention, Mike) is that the leftist New York Times editorial board wasted no time politicizing the issue for calling for gun control. I find you logically inconsistent (as well as the rest of the Left) to pile on Mitch for “politicizing ” an issue while ignoring similar actions on your own side, within your own city.

    In short, Clown, you’re a hypocrite.

  33. Paul,

    Let me see if I can clarify for you. I have absolutely no problem with either Mitch or the NYT using this occation to make political points. The quote Mitch provided from Powerline sums up my reasoning better than I can.

    In the Times op-ed you mention, they stated that “it is premature to draw too many lessons from this tragedy”, and then proceded to go right ahead and draw them anyway.

    Mitch pointedly criticized those who would “politicize” this tragedy, and then, in my opinion, did exactly that. That’s why I joined in an unholy alliance to call him on it.

    Mitch and the Times committed similar “sins”, namely ignoring their own advice.

  34. What Mike said. That’s why you’re an idiot, Paul. You’ll have to be a little more quick-witted to “piss off” Angryclown, you silly little person.

  35. Now, we can tone it down a bit here, guys. Mike has a point, and I’ll cop to it – while I dislike politicizing things like this, it’s frankly the only thing (besides prayer for the survivors and the odd contribution to survivors’ groups) that I can contribute. And in this case, it IS a contribution, IMO. Plus one needs to get out ahead of the politicization that’s going to come from the other side.

    It’s pragmatic.

    By the way, the only REAL way to piss off the Clown is to point out that New York has gotten kinda boring lately; they’ve sanded off so many rough spots, Manhattan’s become basically a playground for yuppies. Call it “NewYorkLand”, maybe. Manhattan’s become almost as anal-retentive as Minneapolis.

  36. Dunno, Clown. It’s tough to be a conservative in this campaign so far. The best REAL conservative so far is that Thompson guy who’s been the New York DA all these years.

  37. In the Republican Party, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the right wing, who lose wars and let major cities fall into the sea, and the far-right wing, who say it’s all God’s will. These are their stories.

  38. That could be one depressing show, but you could rip episodes from the headlines in the Onion, the New York Times, or some other tabloid.

    Would it be set in from New Atlantis, or would they call it NewAtlantisLand?

  39. Mike: “Mitch and the Times committed similar “sins”, namely ignoring their own advice.”

    Which was exactly my point, Mike. There has to be consistency, or you’re engaging in hypocracy, like:

    angryclown: “That’s why you’re an idiot, Paul.”

    And you are still a hypocrite, you facist little pig.

  40. Paul,

    Here’s what you said:

    “Apparently, it’s wrong for Mitch to call attention to legislative efforts that prevented VTech students from arming themselves in self-defense on campus, but there’s nothing wrong about the New York Times yapping about gun control.”

    I don’t read anything in that comment that addresses my complaint – that Mitch, like the NYT, was not practicing what they were preaching. You weren’t making that charge either. You were claiming that posters were trying “to pile on Mitch for “politicizing ” an issue while ignoring similar actions (by the NYT)”.

    But nobody was making that charge.

    Read the thread again. Mitch was seen as contradicting himself after making a strongly worded assertion, that “It’d be the depth of tastelessness to try to capitalize on this horror for political gain.” He was challenged on the perceived contradiction, not for the politicization.

    You offered a false scenario – one in which Mitch made one argument, and the Times offered another, and only one side was then criticized for being “political”. That was never the case. That’s why the claims of hypocrasy make no sense.

    If you were trying to argue that Mitch was being slammed for being inconsistent, and wanted to point out that the NYT had done the same thing, I certainly didn’t get that impression from your posts.

  41. Kudos on the clarity of your argument, mike. I think everyone but Paul gets it by now. Penetrating that particular skull may be a bridge too far.

    Paul: when insulting someone you perceive to be on your political left, the standard hyperbolic slur is to call him a “Stalinist.”

    “Fascist” doesn’t mean “really bad uncool guy,” the way you think it does, Paul, but rather refers to a person who subscribes to a specific collection of ideological positions on the far right of the political spectrum. Stalinism, by contrast, is a totalitarian manifestation of far-left ideology.

    So when slagging Angryclown you should consider “you Stalinist little pig.” That way you can align Angryclown rhetorically with a discredited totalitarian movement, while delivering a bonus punch with the Orwell ref. (See: “Animal Farm.”) Plus it’s not as transparentlly stupid. (You could also feel free to call Angryclown a “Maoist,” if you were feeling particularly saucy.)

    You’ll have to be just a little sharper to actually vex Angryclown, Paul, but keep working on it!

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