Contrary to the information that was available at the time of my posting earlier this week about the VT shooter, it turns out that the guy did, in fact, have a history that should have barred him from being able to purchase guns. In 2005, a judge ruled him mentally ill and a danger to himself. In spite of this, he was able to walk into a gun shop and purchase a 9mm pistol, and order another online.
So it seems that in this particular case, a simple background check should have raised red flags. A few moderate, sane gun laws – or perhaps merely the enforcement of existing statutes – could very likely have saved over thirty lives.
Yet still the NRA would have us believe that .50 caliber sniper rifles are perfectly valid purchases for hunting or home defense.
My favorite post and follow-up discussion (with good points made by both sides, highlighting what a difficult topic this is to deal with) on the subject so far is from Elayne Boosler over at HuffPo – “We are getting tired of prying your guns out of your cold, dead hands”.
Oh, and in my list of People Who Need to Shut Up about VA Tech in the last post, I missed the obvious: The Jack “Virginia Tech is Bill Gates’ Fault” Thompsons and the Dr. “How The Hell Did I Get a Doctorate” Phil who lay the blame squarely on video games (despite the fact that apparently Cho had no violent games on his PC and apparently hadn’t played them in years). I also missed the news of the Scientologists who are swooping in to prey on the grieving students, and the debate on good ‘ol FUlly Unbalanced Fox News (beacon of reason that it is) over whether Cho was possessed by Satan.
Incidentally, while at a wake yesterday I met a guy who’s got a daughter attending V-Tech who knew at least one of the victims and coached the child of one of the teachers who was killed. He seemed a little shaken just from talking about it, even though he knew his own daughter was unhurt. To have any sort of personal stake in an event like this must be stressful and nerve-wracking in the extreme.
(Of course, shortly after this conversation I got to experience some minor stress and wracking of nerves myself when my youngest daughter fell face-first on the glass ice cream bowl she was carrying and we had to take her in to get a bone-deep gash over her eye sewn up. Yeah, eight stitches on an eyebrow is a far cry from wondering if your child is alive, but I’ve been fortunate in that for the most part my life has been boring enough that a nasty cut is what passes for a crisis.)