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Gun Control After Virginia Tech

The blame game begins. It was the easy availability of guns. It was gun-free zones. It was violence in media. It was a host of internal demons that plagued the shooter. There is evil in the world and evil things happen. Perhaps it is all of these things and more. If he hadn’t been able to get a gun, he couldn’t have done the shooting. If others had been armed, perhaps they could have stopped him. He was obviously a troubled young man. Terrible things happen in this world that defy rational explanation.

Based on the above explanations, crimes such as this could be avoided by making all of the guns magically disappear (and all other types of weapons), abolishing all gun-free zones, putting Ozzie and Harriet back on the air, and removing all psychological disturbance and human evil from the population. See, that wasn’t so hard. I’ll just wave my magic wand…

You can rest assured that this tragedy will result in calls for more gun control. If one aspirin doesn’t work, take a hundred; that will surely cure the headache. The gun controllers equate the weakness of the Bush administration with support for gun control and assume that because the Republicans are weak, there will be greater support for their failed agenda. This is, of course, flawed reasoning, but that has never stopped them before. Now, they have a new Columbine to fuel emotional pleas to ban more guns and pass more laws which only restrict those who obey the law.

But, does gun control really help to reduce mass murders?

“In any case, there is no connection between recent mass murder events and gun restrictions. As Quebec economist Pierre Lemieux noted yesterday, “Mass killings were rare when guns were easily available, while they have been increasing as guns have become more controlled.” The 1996 murders in the Scottish town of Dunblane–17 killed–occurred despite far more restrictive gun laws than America’s.” The Wall Street Journal

“…a laundry list of new gun regulations would be an absurd response to this crime. Liberal editorialists, such as the ones at the New York Daily News, are already tsk-tsking Virginia for having permissive gun laws. The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence has criticized Virginia in the past for not requiring gun-safety training, not having a child-safety-lock requirement, not having background checks for gun shows, and not demanding pre-sale ballistic fingerprinting.

All these supposed deficiencies are irrelevant to what happened at Virginia Tech. Cho Seung-Hui obviously knew how to use a gun all too well, wouldn’t have cared about child safety locks, and didn’t buy his guns at gun shows. Since there was no difficulty linking the rounds he fired to his guns, the ballistic fingerprinting would have been of no use. His guns weren’t “assault weapons,” but extremely common semi-automatic pistols that no one seriously proposes banning. The unfortunate fact is that mass murderers aren’t going to abide by gun laws, as Cho Seung-Hui demonstrated by having his guns on campus in the first place, a violation of school policy. He may not have had a permit to carry a concealed handgun, and he obliterated the serial numbers on his gun — a felony under federal law.” The National Review

Already, the “mainstream media” is beginning its drumbeat for more gun control. The Brady Campaign, with a blood-thirsty lack of sensitivity that has come to characterize that organization, has already begun to exploit the VA Tech tragedy for their fundraising campaign. I see the VA Tech Massacre as being inversely analogous to the Parker decision – an energizing event upon which to mount a crusade, and with which to churn out reams of propaganda. Unfortunately, that propaganda may be quite persuasive to those who haven’t thought very deeply about this issue.

The enormity of this crime coupled with the political weakness of the conservatives may combine to produce a “perfect storm” of gun control. In a very articulate statement, Xavier said:

“In the coming months, the events at Virginia Tech will no doubt be used by many for the advancement of political agendas. Gun rights will be assaulted by misguided legislation designed to protect the citizenry. Gun owners may begin to feel assaulted as well. Just as others will use the tragedy at Virginia Tech for the advancement of agendas, gun owners must stand resolute in their constitutional rights. Indeed, we must stand resolute in the rights of those who died at Virginia Tech, rights to self preservation that were stripped away in a Machiavellian move towards a Socialist society.” Xavier

Whenever a terrible tragedy occurs, there is a natural response to want to do something about it. This is normal and reasonable, even healthy. It’s a way of coming to grips with what has happened, grieving and getting a sense of control over unruly and chaotic nature. It becomes more difficult when the real object of our urge to do something about it is out of reach – the gunman is dead and we can neither punish him nor take away his gun. Then we focus our need to do something about it on surrogates and proxies and the impulse ceases to be quite so healthy. When our rage and grief gets displaced in this way, we can begin to do some very irrational things. Our healthy coping can become an unhealthy transference.

The proponents of gun control are adept at facilitating this unhealthy transference. They take the righteous rage and grief and transmute it into support for their agenda, irrational and irrelevant gun control policies which do nothing to solve the problems, and at times even make it worse.

Given the enormity of the crime at Virginia Tech, I expect that the exploitation will be equally enormous. The gun grabbers think they have a golden opportunity handed to them on a silver platter. I suspect that they are wrong, but it’s going to take some work to prove that to them.

So, what should we be looking for in terms of future gun control efforts?

• First of all, a resurrection of the Assault Weapons Ban. This is a favorite hobby horse of the gun grabbers and they have been frustrated to death that it was allowed to sunset. And when it returns, it will be more comprehensive than the first. It will include many more guns – virtually anything that isn’t a bolt action or a revolver – and it will certainly include a high-cap magazine ban for handguns.
• We may see efforts to ban all semiautomatic firearms, be they rifles or pistols. Candidate Barak Obama has already expressed support for such a ban.
• We should expect to see renewed efforts to create a national-level firearms registry.
• In light of the troubled mental history of the Virginia Tech shooter, there will be renewed impetus to integrate mental health records into the National Instant Check (NIC) computer system.
• “One Gun A Month” schemes will continue to be popular and pushed at more state legislatures.
• Efforts will continue to ban .50 caliber rifles, even though they simply aren’t crime guns.
• Efforts will continue to “close the gun show loophole,” another favorite of the gun grabbers. It is irrelevant to them that only an infinitesimal number of crime guns are actually purchased at gun shows.
• We also may see taxes on bullets, and legislation to mandate “microstamping” schemes which are supposed to stamp an ID number on an expended case, but only serve in reality to drive up the price of guns.

Those are some of the things we’re going to have to fight. But what should we be working for? First, and foremost, we should be crusading to abolish “gun free zones.” History has shown us time and again that, rather than protecting children, gun free zones actually endanger them. They endanger them by creating a magnet for homicidal psychopaths who know they will meet no resistance, and they endanger them by preventing responsible adults from deploying the means to defend the innocent and counter the threat of the evil.

If we really want to honor the memory of the slain at Virginia Tech and so many other schools, let’s do it by abolishing the malevolent fiction that took their lives – the “gun free zone.”