virginia tech and a modest proposal

When I first heard about the killings at Virginia Tech, I banged out a quick, sarcastic response to what I knew would be the defense of the gun-rights fundamentalists -- that limiting access to handguns wouldn't have prevented this killing. It is true that the killer could have gotten weapons and gone on this rampage even if buying handguns were difficult in Virginia or elsewhere in the USA. But you know, the United States is not dramatically a more violent place than countries like Britain or Canada. Just that we have easy access to guns and many more handguns are floating around, so a brief flare-up of violence that might end up with somebody being knifed or beaten up in Birmingham, England can end up with one or more people actually dead in Birmingham, Alabama (not picking on Alabama here -- could also compare Versailles, Ohio to Versailles, France).

Anyway, here is the sarcastic response. Do I need to tell you that you should have your irony cap on?

Another shooting tragedy, this time at Virginia Tech University in small town Virginia. The fact that this guy was able to murder 32 people before killing himself is proof that our gun laws are badly outmoded. The important question of whether or not to possess a gun should not be left to individual citizens, without regard to the welfare of society at large. No -- gun ownership should be MANDATORY. And not only should ownership be mandatory, every person aged 14 and over should be required to actually CARRY a loaded firearm at all times.

I mean, think about it. If every one of those students -- and the professors, administrators, gardeners, janitors, tutors, and HVAC technicians -- had been armed, that murderous SOB might have been deterred from committing this outrage in the first place. And if he HAD decided to do the shooting (after all, he killed himself so I presume he was prepared to die) anyway, surely he wouldn't have shot more than 5 or 10 people tops before somebody blew his brains out. We'd just have to trust that the student self-defense shooters would practice appropriate caution with their firearms and wouldn't accidentally riddle each other with lead in a murderous crossfire.

Now naturally, there might be a few more instances of people shooting each other every time they get in an argument or something if everybody 14 and older (but we could grant birkenstock-wearing liberal peaceniks, Buddhists and girly-man cowards religious exemptions) has to carry a gun. But that is the price of liberty and autonomy. After all, we shouldn't expect our government to protect us from every little risk like being shot dead in your car for maybe cutting off some other driver or idly checking out some guy's girfriend, or from being fired from Circuit City for making too much money, or from living on a planet subject to increased floods disease, and famine due to human-caused global warming, now should we? Because that would be Godless Communism.