It’s long past time to have a serious national conversation about gun violence. It’s past time for us to agree that something is wrong when an individual with such obvious signs of instability can legally arm himself with the extraordinary firepower necessary to murder so many innocent people. Something is wrong when thirty-two people die from gun violence inflicted by others, not just at Virginia Tech on April 16, but every day in this country. Obviously, what we’re doing now is not working.
A Walther P22 is extraordinary firepower? A Glock 19 is extraordinary firepower?  These are common guns. The Glock 19 is probably the second most common police sidearm (after the Glock 17). It fires a 9mm cartridge, which is so powerful the military wants to go back to the .45ACP because it lacks stopping power. The P22 is a target pistol, firing the .22LR cartridge, the most common cartridge in the world. Guns the Brady’s swear up and down they don’t want to ban.
Some people don’t want to have this conversation. They’re content to repeat platitudes, make excuses, nitpick proposals, and postpone taking action. They accuse the rest of us of “politicizing†the issue, while they hide behind the gun lobby’s talking points.
I don’t blame you for politicizing, as we were all doing that. I blame you for trying to cash in on it.
It is not “politicizing†the tragedy to ask what we can do to make ourselves and our families safe from gun violence. When politicians and pundits deny that a problem exists and that is susceptible to policy revisions and cling to their ideological fenceposts instead of coming to the table with honest ideas, it is they who must stop the political posturing. They have to ask themselves how they can help keep our communities and our schools safe.
So Brady’s what is your honest idea? What prescription would have stopped this? The killer had no previous criminal record. Background checks did not stop him. A waiting period would not have stopped him, he obtained his guns a month ago. Virginia’s one gun a month law did not stop him. Virginia Tech’s prohibition of weapons on campus did not stop him. What do you think would have? It’s not honest to just declare you’re not “politicizing” and others are.  I ask again: What gun control law do you propose would have stopped this deranged killer?
The old joke holds true, if you ask a surgeon for an opinion he suggests surgery…
You ask a gun banner, he suggests prohibition.
I don’t think that an unbiased word ever leaks from the man’s mouth or keyboard. He is a one note song.
I am a student and I am banned from being armed on my campus. I resent that law, because it makes me a sitting duck. The Brady’s like to stick their head in the sand and make up more superficial and useless laws.
He makes a legitimate point, as the killer neatly evaded all of Virginia’s gun control laws that are supposed to prevent this sort of thing. It forces the question that backs a gun banner into the corner.