The Virginia Tech Betrayal

[groovedaddy]

Richmond lawmakers have callously rejected a gun control proposal sought as a memorial to the 32 students slain in the Virginia Tech massacre. Once more, state senators proved more beholden to the gun lobby’s propaganda and campaign money than to public safety.

The measure, sought by Gov. Tim Kaine after the 2007 campus spree, would have reined in the unfettered sales of lethal weaponry — from backwoods to battlefield guns — at weekend “sportsmen’s shows.”

With no background checks required on customers, the dealers present convicted felons and sociopaths an enormous loophole for mayhem. A federal study traced half of the crime guns in Washington, D.C., to Virginia. They move along the “Iron Pipeline” of weaponry infecting states along Interstate 95.

Governor Kaine resolved to impose background checks after the public agony of Virginia Tech laid bare the state’s porous gun laws. In the post-mortem, officials theorized that the suicidal shooter, suffering mental illness, could have been turned away from a licensed gun dealer. But Mr. Kaine properly reasoned that the shooter could turn to the unlicensed dealers to buy unlimited assault weapons and ammunition for his campus atrocity.

The Senate’s retreat from gun controls was compounded by its repeal of another worthy Kaine priority — a ban on people swaggering into bars with concealed weapons and make-my-day fantasies. Bereft of courage as public servants, the Richmond senators made clear their crocodile tears about “closure,” shed in the immediate horror of students gunned down. They also made clear the need for a federal law to bypass cowardly statehouses and to close gun-show loopholes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/08/opinion/08sun3.html?th&emc=th

[Name removed]

1. Deleted sub-thread

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[11 Bravo]

2. I live in VA and have a carry concealed permit. I have never "swaggered into a bar" in my life, nor

do I harbor any "make my day" fantasies. I have seen too much death in real life to romanticize its reality. Having said that, I totally support closing the gun show loophole. I simply object to being turned into a cartoon character by someone who has never met me. Not all gun owners are whack-jobs with delusions of Rambo.

[iverglas]

10. was there some reason you thought the NYT was talking about you?

Do you take your firearm(s) along when you go to bars?

No?

Then it wasn't talking about you.

Yes?

Well, maybe it was, then.

[midnight]

3. Their is a more important issue here. Why is the American

Psyche being overloaded on a diet of violence. The gun issue is the last straw. Why are Americans feed commercials for T.V. and movies that display inhumane behavior as entertainment. If we really went for the root issue of why Americans are addicted to violence those other problems might eradicate themselves.

[patriotvoice]

4. Let's see: unhappiness in work, feeling unlistened to by 'powers that be', inability to...

pursue hobbies and interests due to lack of resources (time, money, etc), irrational banning of recreational substances, and so on. Unhappiness blossoms into resentment. Resentment fruits into anger. Anger falls as violence.

Listen to people, address their fundamental needs, restrict them only in the interest of the common welfare -- not the majority mores -- and you will see a decrease in violence.

[SteveM]

11. I bet more deaths by "assault rifles" on T.V. drama than in real life...

When people turn away from the hard work of trying to reduce violence and crime by addressing the causes (poverty, unemployment, bad family life, discrimination, etc.), they usually turn to prohibition of a thing or behavior. It's a way of saying: "my morals are more moral than your morals, and I'm going to punish you for that."

Curiously, some networks try to sneak into their shoot-'em-up dramas some kind of anti-gun message; sort of like getting paid by the ONDCP to sneak in anti-drug messages while the show is suffused in a cloud of reefer. They must know something about the lurid, pop-up morality of their viewers. So much of the T.V. crime show stuff is foreign to my experience, esp. with regard guns. I go to the range a few times a year, hunt frequently and keep one gun for self-protection; yet my world is rather quaint and boring compared to C.S.I., Law & Order, etc.

[razors edge]

5. So now a pistol is an assault weapon?

Cho was one fucked up individual but that doesn't give anyone the right to accuse all CC gun owners of being one step shy of a mass murderer.

Whoever wrote this crap is a drama queen and an idiot.

[michreject]

6. If this law was in place

It wouldn't have stopped the slaughter at VT. The shooter passed a national background check when he bought the guns.

[slackmaster]

7. It's illegal for a gun dealer (who is by definition federally licensed) to sell to prohibited people

No matter where the transaction occurs.

There's a serious logical disconnect between how the VT shooter acquired his weapons, and the issue of unregulated private transfers of used firearms.

[jody]

8. Such actions prove gun-grabber beetles are a determined lot.

[Name removed]

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