The Virginia Tech Massacre: Will We Ever Learn?

..
My heart goes out to the victims, their families, friends and loved ones.

I am working on a comprehensive post that will address this tragedy.

But as I have been watching the MSM coverage, and the hysterical calls for further disarmament of law-abiding Americans --- especially those who were (and are) in a position to react after a carnage like this erupts --- a quote by one of my favorite thinkers came to mind:

“The necessary consequence of man’s right to life is his right to self-defense. In a civilized society, force may be used only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use. All the reasons which make the initiation of physical force an evil, make the retaliatory use of force a moral imperative. If some ‘pacifist’ society renounced the retaliatory use of force, it would be left helplessly at the mercy of the first thug who decided to be immoral. Such a society would achieve the opposite of its intention: instead of abolishing evil, it would encourage and reward it."
.
- Ayn Rand, “The Nature Of Government,” Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (1967)

Freedom most certainly is not free.

Vigilant defense of our lives and our freedoms is incumbent on any self-respecting (rational) being --- or nation.

But what happens when a culture's intellectual, legal and governmental guardians convince its population that that this principle is wrong --- that a carnage like this must be allowed to run its course, until law enforcement arrives (almost invariably, after the bulk of the murder has transpired)?

What happens is: uninterrupted carnage.

I do not blame the Virginia Tech administration for this tragedy.

I blame the ideas that unquestionably enabled it to happen, unabated, through the legal, forcible disarmament of victims and those who have been entrusted to protect them --- ideas which have been, and are at this very moment being drummed into our heads with almost uninterrupted continuity, in some of the many places that Americans turn to for news and perspectives on tragedies like this (here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here).

Ideas that have been demolished time and time again, including by a Virginia Tech student who forewarned of the consequence of this disarmament... and an exhaustive study of how concealed-carry laws reduce violent crime.

Somehow, the mainstream media never quite seems to get around to giving these voices air- or print-time. Instead, as noted above, we are subjeced to near-militant(!) uniformity of thought: potential victims must be legally disarmed, to ensure peace and tranquility.

Will we never learn?

Have there not been quite enough warnings?

The Columbine massacre.

The Belsan massacre.

The Amish school massacre.

Al Quada's threat/promise/religious sanction to murder 2 million U.S. schoolchildren.

Floor plans for schools in Virginia, Texas and New Jersey in possession of militant Islamists in Iraq.

Videotapes confiscated in Afghanistan show al Quada terrorists practicing the takeover of a school.

Nondescript "extremists" seeking to become U.S. school bus drivers (FBI: "Nothing to fear").

The Minnesota mall shooting.

WILL WE EVER LEARN!?

=======================================

UPDATE, APRIL 20: FRED THOMPSON NAILS IT

In this article at National Review Online, former Senator & prospective presidential candidate Fred Thompson scores a bullseye. Excerpt:

"One of the things that's got to be going through a lot of peoples' minds now is how one man with two handguns, that he had to reload time and time again, could go from classroom to classroom on the Virginia Tech campus without being stopped. Much of the answer can be found in policies put in place by the university itself...

"The statistics are clear. Communities that recognize and grant Second Amendment rights to responsible adults have a significantly lower incidence of violent crime than those that do not. More to the point, incarcerated criminals tell criminologists that they consider local gun laws when they decide what sort of crime they will commit, and where they will do so...

"Whenever I've seen one of those 'Gun-free Zone' signs, especially outside of a school filled with our youngest and most vulnerable citizens, I've always wondered exactly who these signs are directed at. Obviously, they don't mean much to the sort of man who murdered 32 people just a few days ago."

Read it all. Soon.

UPDATE: I continued my blogging on the VA Tech massacre, and NBC's decision to grant the murderer's last request, here.

UPDATE APRIL 30: TWO PROFOUNDLY DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO SOLVING THE PROBLEM OF SCHOOL VIOLENCE

1) Airline pilot Tracy Price explains why "gun-free school zones" are actually "defenseless zones" in a Washington Times editorial, HERE. Price defends the right to bear arms to enable students, teachers and administrators to fight back the next time a psychopathic mass murderer goes on a killing spree.

2) Acclaimed Filmmaker David Lynch commits millions of dollars to solving school violence problem --- through transcendental meditation (not a joke): HERE, to "to transform schools from breeding grounds of stress and violence into centers of creativity and peace."

A time for choosing, indeed.

Original content is © Copyright 2007 by Jon Quixote. Email to jonquix@hotmail.com