Viginia Tech
An awful thing happened at VT this week. A clearly unhinged person murdered more than 30 people, and in that act, demonstrated once again the inanity of the notion that policies against guns at schools, or banning guns in general, do nothing to prevent those who flout the law from committing heinous acts.
Of course, there's no guarantee that if someone at the scene had been armed they would have been able to stop this madman, but can anyone doubt it would have improved the odds? This VT grad student sure seems to think so.
Meanwhile, John Derbyshire, on NRO's The Corner, wonders why none of the victims appears to have tried to take down the shooter, despite his having been armed only with pistols. While potentially opening himself up to accusations of blaming the victims, I think he has a point. Have we managed to raise a generation of Americans who don't understand that if someone points a gun in your face, you need to assume that they plan to use it?
Just as 9/11 taught us the folly of assuming that if you just cooperated with hijackers they'd let everyone go once their demands were met, one would hope that the horrific attack at VT would teach us that following the typical advice...cooperate with a gun-wielding attacker and don't resist...is no longer an acceptable option. It's understandable that if you have little time to react and have been told over and over that it's dangerous to resist an armed assailant you would tend to submit. Is that what happened here? I don't know. But it's hard to explain how this happened otherwise.
In the wake of this terrible event, I hope that we look carefully at the cost of both policies that leave potential victims defenseless, as well as at advice that tells us not to resist someone who may have less interest in taking our possessions than in simply taking our life for unknown (and perhaps unknowable) reasons.
My prayers go out to the victims and their families. Regardless of how or why this happened, none of them deserved this fate. May they rest in peace, and may their friends and loved ones be comforted in their loss.
Of course, there's no guarantee that if someone at the scene had been armed they would have been able to stop this madman, but can anyone doubt it would have improved the odds? This VT grad student sure seems to think so.
Meanwhile, John Derbyshire, on NRO's The Corner, wonders why none of the victims appears to have tried to take down the shooter, despite his having been armed only with pistols. While potentially opening himself up to accusations of blaming the victims, I think he has a point. Have we managed to raise a generation of Americans who don't understand that if someone points a gun in your face, you need to assume that they plan to use it?
Just as 9/11 taught us the folly of assuming that if you just cooperated with hijackers they'd let everyone go once their demands were met, one would hope that the horrific attack at VT would teach us that following the typical advice...cooperate with a gun-wielding attacker and don't resist...is no longer an acceptable option. It's understandable that if you have little time to react and have been told over and over that it's dangerous to resist an armed assailant you would tend to submit. Is that what happened here? I don't know. But it's hard to explain how this happened otherwise.
In the wake of this terrible event, I hope that we look carefully at the cost of both policies that leave potential victims defenseless, as well as at advice that tells us not to resist someone who may have less interest in taking our possessions than in simply taking our life for unknown (and perhaps unknowable) reasons.
My prayers go out to the victims and their families. Regardless of how or why this happened, none of them deserved this fate. May they rest in peace, and may their friends and loved ones be comforted in their loss.