...it's not dark yet, but it's gettin' there...
Here are some more random thoughts on the shooting, which occurred to me throughout the day.
The touchy-feely methods of preventing this type of violence failed miserably yesterday. For instance, one oft-cited preventive measure is for faculty members to watch for signs of a troubled loner with possible violent tendencies, then send him to counseling. This was done in Cho's case, by one of his English professors, to no avail.
After Columbine there was no end to the re-education and awareness-raising on the dangers of bullying. Kids were taught not to make fun of outcasts, but to be nice to them. Again, in Cho's case, members of his peer group tried to befriend the loner during sophomore year. One said they invited him to lunch, tried to get him to laugh and come out of his "funk." Again, this was done, to no avail. He apparently did laugh during the lunch, but it didn't change anything.
Time Magazine, perhaps the most ridiculously out-of-touch major news source in America today, professes to know "how to make campuses safer." Frikkin joke. Here's the best they came up with:
Some schools like Princeton train professors how to spot signs of depression, and access to mental-health services is a big part of preventive efforts on many campuses. Students, faculty and staff are encouraged to tell someone if they see suspicious or troubling activity. Says Gene Burton, public safety director at Ball State University: "You need to get everyone on board." But as colleges and universities learned on Monday, it often takes a tragedy to expose just how many weaknesses there are in the system.As I wrote above, they did that! It didn't work! Time Magazine... clueless fukkin idiots.
More: OMG, not to be outdone, CNN is just about as clueless as Time Magazine. No wonder they're joined at the hip.
Watch this video, which contains the absolutely hilarious warning that a semi-automatic handgun can fire bullets "as fast as you can pull the trigger!"
Dun-dun-dun duuuunnnh!
If anyone knows of a gun on the market that does not shoot bullets "as fast as you can pull the trigger," please let me know. I will make sure I don't have any of the manufacturer's stock in my portfolio.
Update: The anti-American New York Times reports that "officers also found several knives on Mr. Cho’s body." Will there be calls for stricter knife control? It's not unheard of.
Doesn't it seem like there's more vocal support to respond to mass shootings by allowing people to defend themselves than there has been in the past?
I mean, it's a little different this time around. Columbine was kids. But even looking around at the leftist media around D.C., I get the feeling that people who may not have been in favor of concealed carry laws might be getting sick of the touchie-feelie response and looking for something a bit more sensible. Is it just me?
Posted by: taxlawmax on Apr. 18, 2007As is usually the case with such tragedies, the media can't resist to latch on to the "loner" label while ignoring the fact that serial killers like Gacy, Bundy, and Manson, were/are gregarious extroverts. By definition, loners are merely people who prefer to avoid large amounts of stimulation, who aren't bothered by solitude, who tend to be overwhelmed by crowds and noise, but the media associates it with "serial killer with no sex life."
Posted by: Mark on Apr. 18, 2007The best commentary I've seen so far is Michelle Malkin's (and I'm not a huge Malkin fan): http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MichelleMalkin/2007/04/18/wanted_a_culture_of_self-defense
But she's really just cribbing Jeffrey Snyder's classic, "A Nation of Cowards": http://www.rkba.org/comment/cowards.html
Posted by: Matt` on Apr. 18, 2007This post is being considered for The Sacramento Bee's roundup of regional blogs, which appears Sunday in Forum.
The Blog Watch column is limited to about 800 words. Blog posts included in the column are often trimmed to fit. The blog's main address will appear in The Bee, and the online copy of the article will contain links to the actual blog post.
If you have questions (or you DON'T want your blog post considered for inclusion in the newspaper column), contact me at greed@sacbee.com"
Gary Reed
Forum Editor
The logic is inescapable. (1) there is no way to really predict or stop a whacko. (2) there is no way to stop whacko from getting guns in a nation that can't even keep humans out of its borders.
(3)therefore either a policeman on every block, or an armed citizenry is necessary to keep death tolls down from either this, or other criminal actions.
Now, I am sure that the campus had several older students, many might have been ex-military. What if they had been authorized to carry firearms? Maybe the death count would not have been so high.
Of course I don't expect this or any other logic to work on leftoids.
Posted by: kyle N on Apr. 19, 2007