Guns, Controls and Loonies

Good editorial in the Wall St. Journal with regard to the VTech murders and gun control:

How can a society that wants to maintain its own individual freedoms stop such a man? The reflexive answer in some quarters, especially overseas, is to blame any killing on America's "lax" guns laws. Reading a summary of European editorials yesterday, we couldn't help but wonder if they all got the same New York Times memo, so uniform was their cultural disdain and their demand for new gun restrictions.

Yet Virginia Tech had banned guns on campus, using a provision in Virginia law allowing universities to become exceptions to the state's concealed carry pistol permits. Virginia is also known for its strict enforcement of gun violations, having implemented a program known as Project Exile that has imposed stiffer penalties and expedited gun cases.

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.

You could more persuasively argue, as David Kopel does in The Wall Street Journal today, that the presence of more guns on campus might have stopped Cho sooner. But as a general rule we are not among those who think college students, of all people, should be advised to add guns to the books in their backpacks.

A better response than gun control would be to restore some of the cultural taboos that once served as restraints on antisocial behavior. These columns long ago noted the collapse of such social and moral restraints in a widely debated editorial called "No Guardrails." Instead, after Columbine, there was a rush to blame violent videogames. But videogames or other larger media influences don't inspire mass murder when there are countervailing restraints and values instilled by families, teachers, coaches and pastors. Two generations ago, colleges felt an obligation to act in loco parentis. Today, the concept is considered as archaic as the Latin--and would probably inspire a lawsuit.

However, even those benevolent influences--were it possible to restore them--might not have made a difference in the case of Cho Seung-Hui, whose madness can't be explained by reason.

The blame game: I could see it all unfolding as I watched Keith Olbermann on the news the evening the murders happened.  I could see the cogs turning as he grasped at straws, searching for an angle, a hook, an attention-getter, and who to blame  no, HOW to blame conservatives, Republicans, and the Bush administration. 

A nutcase is a nutcase is a nutcase.  In the end, there's nothing you can do to heal every brain and psyche, and until we can, these kinds of incidents are going to happen - - and they've always happened.  It's not as if mental breakdown is a new concept.  There's no way to prevent certain people from breaking and going berserk.  In their psychosis, they will find a way to murder others - either mass murder all at once, or serial killing.  Let's work on research with regard to figuring out how to discover them earlier, and in figuring out how to help them or take them out of society.

The conservative argument: Where are the men?  Are we raising wimps and kitty cats?  Why didn't anyone take the killer down when he stopped to reload his weapon?  The only person who seemed to show courage was a Holocaust survivor of the WW2 generation. 

Our kids have the concept "responding to provocation is wrong" drummed into them in school.  A personal example: When my oldest son was in 9th grade, he was attacked by a bully whose friends circled around him so he could not leave the fight.  He had no choice but to fight back.  He was suspended for a day as a result. I went to school and let the assistant principal have it. Honestly, I don't believe in fighting battles for my children - I have always encouraged them to fight for themselves - but I was incensed in this case.  She would not listen to me and kept repeating over and over that my son should have run away and gotten a teacher to help - though it was explained to her that he couldn't. (Where were the teachers, anyway?  Why weren't they keeping an eye out on the hallway?) She said they had a no-tolerance policy.  And I said to her, "Do you really mean to tell me that my son should have just sat there and not thrown a punch while some idiot tried to beat the crud out of him?"

She shrugged.

We supported our son 100% and told him that if he were ever in that situation again to do exactly what he did. He fought the bully and won, and the kid eventually apologizing to him a week or so later.  But my son ended up with a black mark on his spotless record.  He was not a fighter and never would have started up with anyone.

Grrrr. I am still mad!

I don't know what the answer is - I don't like fighting in school anymore than that assistant principal did - but I think we are going too far in teaching our kids that violence is wrong.  Yes it's wrong, but not when it's in self-defense from a bully, a psychopath or an irrational human in the midst of a mental breakdown. 

This classroom microcosm is now playing out on the world stage, and we see on a large scale what happens when bullies and nutcases are allowed to run amok - - smashing planes into buildings, suicide murdering and rallying others to their hateful cause.

And half of our population wants to run and hide and allow it to happen.