VT Roundabout: 26 Beautiful Stories on the VT Massacre, and Three Ugly Ones

The typical BuckeyeFirearms.org's "Pro-Gun Punditry: Buckeye State Roundabout" notes that there are many more stories pertaining to our gun rights in Ohio than we could draw attention to with individual daily commentary, but that they are all worthy of mention.

This past week, the same can be said for commentary on the Virginia Tech massacre.

Click 'Read More' for this special edition, Wednesday's (VT) Roundabout...

Let's get the Ugly Ones out of the way first:

Story of a Gun - MSNBC.com

It's a lethal gun, but then all guns are. A 9mm round—romantically called a "parabellum," from the Latin slogan ("If you seek peace, prepare for war") of its original German manufacturer—weighs a little more than a quarter of an ounce, with a diameter of about three eighths of an inch. Exiting the barrel at about 1,100 feet per second, almost the speed of sound, it can kill at ranges in excess of 100 yards. But essentially, it's a weapon for short-range self-defense—a "very up-close and personal kind of weapon," says Dan Shideler, editor of the Standard Catalog of Firearms. In the hands of a novice shooter, as NEWSWEEK's Raina Kelley discovered at a Connecticut gun range last week, it delivers a fearsome kick, which leads to anticipatory flinching, causing the barrel to drop and the shot to miss low.

NBC enraged a nation by fulfilling the dying wish of the VT shooter by pimping his video. Now they decide the problem really is the Evil 9mm handgun...

Professor Fired Over Va. Tech Discussion - Associated Press

An adjunct professor was fired after leading a classroom discussion about the Virginia Tech shootings in which he pointed a marker at some students and said "pow." The five-minute demonstration at Emmanuel College on Wednesday, two days after a student killed 32 people on the Virginia Tech campus, included a discussion of gun control, whether to respond to violence with violence, and the public's "celebration of victimhood," said the professor, Nicholas Winset. During the demonstration, Winset pretended to shoot some students. Then one student pretended to shoot Winset to illustrate his point that the gunman might have been stopped had another student or faculty member been armed.

The college asked the professors to talk about this issue with their students, but this professor got fired because he didn't preach the standard "guns are evil" and "being a victim is better than fighting back with a gun" rhetoric. If you are interested in expressing your support for Professon Winset, call Emmanuel College at 617-735-9906.

Buying a handgun: Just how hard is it? - Toledo Blade

A private individual... can sell a handgun at the ever-popular gun shows around the state without paperwork or scrutiny. Federal firearms license holders and dealers at the same shows, however, do have to fill out the forms.
"It's a loophole. We do all this paperwork, but to me that is the big loophole. We're regulated to the teeth, but then we have this huge gray area where people just go out and sell them without keeping any records," Mrs. Cleland said. "It makes it look like we're controlling guns, but we're not. That's what we're dealing with, with the Virginia Tech thing. It's not the gun issue but that the system failed."

Scary stuff when a prominent outdoors writer publishes this misleading article, and scarier stuff when a gun store owner calls for the closing of the non-existent 'gun show loophole' (necessitating that every firearms transaction should go through a gun store so she can profit, of course). This is an especially nutty article, given that the VT shooter bought his guns through Federal Firearms Licensed dealers, just like Cleland is. Nothing Ms. Cleland is proposing would have stopped Seung-Hui Cho from obtaining a gun.

Following are some of the excellent articles and commentaries on the continuing discussion about the VT massacre.

War Over Firearms - Investors Business Daily

Gun Control: Left-leaning editorial boards both here and in Europe leaned so hard after the Virginia Tech shootings that they fell all over themselves making spurious arguments. It was, of course, predictable.

Michelle Malkin: Wanted: A Culture Of Self-Defense - National Review

There's no polite way or time to say it: American colleges and universities have become coddle industries, writes Michelle Malkin. Big Nanny administrators oversee speech codes, segregated dorms, politically correct academic departments, and designated safe spaces to protect students selectively from hurtful (conservative) opinions while allowing mob rule for approved leftist positions. Instead of teaching students to defend their beliefs, American educators shield them from vigorous intellectual debate. Instead of encouraging autonomy, our higher institutions of learning stoke passivity and conflict-avoidance. And as the erosion of intellectual self-defense goes, so goes the erosion of physical self-defense.

Daniel D. Polsby: The False Promise of Gun Control - NRAILA.org

Polsby explains why gun control does not prevent criminals from acquiring guns, and it diverts attention from the roots of our crime problem.

Frank Beckman: Banning guns won't stop madmen bent on killing - Detroit News

Laws are intended to deter wrongdoing with a threat of punishment. But if a killer like Cho has determined through twisted reasoning that he will carry out such an act and then take his own life, our laws have no impact. Cho was the equivalent of a suicide bomber.

Tom Knott: Gun bans? Take A Look At How Drug Laws Work - Washington Times

The urge of lawmakers amid the unthinkable is to entertain the feel-good notion of legislation that could have prevented the awfulness. The inclination to legislate the worst impulses out of the human condition is understandable in the wake of the horror at Virginia Tech that left 32 dead at the hand of a gun-toting sicko, who then shot himself. But as we know only too well, if only from anecdotal experience, laws have their limits.

FOX News Poll: Tougher Gun Laws Would Not Have Helped Stop Virginia Tech Shooting - FOX News

Americans say tougher gun laws would not be able to stop things like the Virginia Tech shooting because people who commit these kinds of acts will always find guns. The latest FOX News poll finds that a 71 percent majority believes tougher gun laws would not stop shootings like the one at Virginia Tech.

Rules Should Have Barred Weapon Purchase - Associated Press

A judge`s ruling on Cho Seung-Hui`s mental health should have barred him from purchasing the handguns he used in the Virginia Tech massacre, according to federal regulations.

James Wilson: Gun Control Isn't The Answer - Los Angeles Times

The Tragedy at Virginia Tech may tell us something about how a young man could be driven to commit terrible actions, but it does not teach us very much about gun control, writes James Q. Wilson.

Diana West: P.C. Paralysis - Washington Times

Even as the murderer`s life is scrutinized for a "motive," we also come to understand there is no "reason" to explain this supremely irrational crime. So, liberals conclude insufficient gun control is at fault. But owning guns doesn`t mean killing people. And under even the strictest gun-control laws, Cho might well have taken a page from the black book of Andrew Kehoe, who, back in 1927, perpetrated the biggest school massacre in U.S. history when he used dynamite to blow up a Michigan school. The blast killed 38 children and seven teachers.

Cal Thomas: Taking Aim - Washington Times

Inevitably, evil finds ways to break through and nothing can prevent it, but we might have a better chance against evil and the people it controls if more of us were trained in how to fight back, just in case the police are not close, as was the unfortunate case in Blacksburg, Va..

Alicia Colon: The Right Kind Of Law - New York Sun

I've always lived in neighborhoods where deadly popping noises have become commonplace, so perhaps my perspective on gun control is different from that of the elite pundits in New York City and from celebrities who can afford armed bodyguards. For all our tough gun control laws, chances are the gun fired that night was an illegal one.

Michael Reagan: Gun Laws Kill - Human Events

Thirty-two fine young men and women are dead and that is a huge tragedy. It is also, however, a tragedy that the death toll could have been substantially lower if it were not for an absurd law that kept the students and faculty from exercising their Constitutional right to protect themselves and others by bearing arms on campus.

John Lott: Bans don't deter killers - USA Today

People are beginning to notice what research has shown for years: Multiple-victim public shootings keep occurring in places where guns are already banned. Forty states have broad right-to-carry laws, but even within these states it is the "gun-free zones," not other public places, where the attacks happen. It is high time that legislatures remove these roadblocks to people protecting themselves, including at public universities.

Ted Nugent: Gun-free zones are recipe for disaster - CNN.com

Zero tolerance, huh? Gun-free zones, huh? Try this on for size: Columbine gun-free zone, New York City pizza shop gun-free zone, Luby's Cafeteria gun-free zone, Amish school in Pennsylvania gun-free zone and now Virginia Tech gun-free zone. Anybody see what the evil Brady Campaign and other anti-gun cults have created? I personally have zero tolerance for evil and denial. And America had best wake up real fast that the brain-dead celebration of unarmed helplessness will get you killed every time, and I've about had enough of it. ...Evil is as evil does, and laws disarming guaranteed victims make evil people very, very happy. Shame on us.

Massacre rekindles debate about assault-weapons ban - Toledo Blade

Two years after Columbus lost a lucrative National Rifle Association convention because it passed an assault-weapons ban, Mayor Mike Coleman said yesterday the massacre at Virginia Tech proves the city made the right choice. ... But even if the strict bans on semi-automatic assault weapons that existed in Columbus, Toledo, and other cities had survived, they apparently wouldn’t have prevented someone from obtaining or possessing the Glock 19 or Walther P22 semi-automatic pistols used Monday to kill 33 people. ...At most, the local laws that were invalidated may have slowed him down a bit to reload more frequently by denying him heavy-ammunition magazines. “It really doesn’t make a difference,” said Jim Irvine, spokesman for the Buckeye Firearms Association. “There are 45,000 to 50,000 people in car crashes every year. You can reduce the size of the gas tank to 10 gallons, but you wouldn’t see fewer crashes. You’d just stop to fill up more often. Changing the magazine capacity has nothing to do with saving lives.”

DICK FARRELL: We will never be totally free from a madman’s wrath - The Times-Reporter

Thirty-two innocent people perished at the hands of a certifiable psychopath, Cho Seung-Hui, who on cue put a bullet in his head moments before police could get to him. In the aftermath, our culture grew only more complicated and the debate was on: How do we stop these mass killings? If you listen to the Europeans, the Australians and Ohio Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Cleveland, the solution is to immediately ban all handguns in the United States. Don’t we all wish it were that simple.

For more on Dennis Kucinich, see Ten Threats To Our Ohio Gun Rights In 2007

Gun advocates find in massacre a call to arms - Cleveland Plain Dealer

Ohio State University senior Matt Green is angry and frustrated that the students at Virginia Tech died unarmed and defenseless. Since hearing news of the massacre Monday, the 22-year-old Sylvania Township man has joined hundreds of other college students across the country in calling for students to have the right to be armed on their campuses. "All these people needlessly died," the mechanical engineering student said Wednesday. "They didn't have a chance to defend themselves. If someone had been around who had been armed, who was competent, they could have stopped this guy."

( WARNING: This PD story contains false information that could get you arrested. The Plain Dealer has published a correction, but has refused to correct their erroneous story online.)

ART HOLDEN: Don't group us in with Cho! This week's shootings at Virginia Tech 'not a gun issue' - The Daily Record

"If it were permitted, and the student (or faculty) was properly trained, they very quickly could have ended what happened at Virginia Tech," said Hal Bayer of Killbuck, a licensed concealed carry permit holder. "Ohio law doesn't allow you to have a concealed gun in schools or universities and many other restricted areas ... But if a person is properly trained, they should be able to carry it wherever they go." As Bayer and many other CC advocates point out, posting "no concealed carry" signs doesn't stop bad guys from bringing a gun in, it just prohibits the legal gun owner. Ironically, hardly a day goes by somewhere that a concealed carry permit holder doesn't thwart crime.

McCain says he backs no gun control - The Huffington Post

Republican presidential candidate John McCain declared Wednesday he believes in "no gun control," making the strongest affirmation of support for gun rights in the GOP field since the Virginia Tech massacre. ... "I hope that we can find better ways of identifying people such as this sick young man so that we can prevent them from not only taking action with guns but with knives or with anything else that will harm their fellow citizens," McCain said.

Ann Coulter: Let's Make America a 'Sad-Free Zone'! - WorldNetDaily.com

It's certainly not against the law to be an unsociable loner. If it were, Ralph Nader would be behind bars right now, where he belongs. Mass murder is often the first serious crime unbalanced individuals are caught committing – as appears to be in the case of the Virginia Tech shooter. The best we can do is enact policies that will reduce the death toll when these acts of carnage occur, as they will in a free and open society of 300 million people, most of whom have cable TV. Only one policy has ever been shown to deter mass murder: concealed-carry laws.

Mark Steyn: A Culture of Passivity - "Protecting" our "children" at Virginia Tech

We do our children a disservice to raise them to entrust all to officialdom’s security blanket. Geraldo-like “protection” is a delusion: when something goes awry — whether on a September morning flight out of Logan or on a peaceful college campus — the state won’t be there to protect you. You’ll be the fellow on the scene who has to make the decision.

Ashley Herzog: Gun Free Zones - TownHall.com

Liberals stubbornly deny that concealed weapons serve any defensive
purpose, repeating tired canards such as “handguns only exist to kill
people.” True, but they came in handy at Appalachian State University in
2002, when a disgruntled student who had already killed three people
brought a gun to the School of Law Building. According to economist John
Lott, author of The Bias Against Guns, the shooter was subdued by two
students with legally registered firearms. If Appalachian State had
passed similarly useless mandates designating “gun free” zones, the
massacre at Virginia Tech might not have been the first to shock the
nation.

Pierre Lemieux: Trail of travail - Washington Times

Virginia Tech (Blacksburg), Columbine (Colorado), Polytechnique (Canada), Dunblane (Scotland), Jonesboro (Arkansas), Nickel Mines (Pennsylvania), and Dawson College (Canada). What do these tragic mass killings of students and school children have in common? The answer is not obvious. What is obvious, to those of us who look beyond the headlines, is that mass killings were rare when guns were easily available, but have increased as guns have become more controlled.

Dr. Jonathan Kellerman: Bedlam Revisited - Why the Virginia Tech shooter was not committed - Wall Street Journal

If the Virginia Tech shooter had been locked up for careful observation in a humane mental hospital, the worst-case scenario would've been a minor league civil liberties goof: an unpleasant semester break for an odd and hostile young misanthrope who might've even have learned to be more polite. Yes, it's possible confinement would've been futile or even stoked his rage. But a third outcome is also possible: Simply getting a patient through a crisis point can prevent disaster, as happens with suicidal people restrained from self-destruction who lose their enthusiasm for repeat performances.

Jay Ambrose: 4 myths of gun control shredded - Cincinnati Post

If Seung-Hui Cho hadn't gotten his hands on two semiautomatic pistols, he wouldn't have been able to slay 32 students and others, say some gun-control advocates who really ought to learn about Andrew Kehoe, who didn't stop at 32.

Poll Finds Twice as Many Blame Culture
as Guns, But ABC Spikes It - Media Research Center

ABC News polling chief Gary Langer, in a posting buried on
ABCNews.com, revealed that a poll taken Sunday discovered that
when "asked the primary cause of gun violence, far more Americans
blamed the effects of popular culture (40 percent) or the way parents
raise their children (35 percent) than the availability of guns (18
percent)." ABC's World News on Monday devoted nearly two minutes to
results of ABC's survey, but didn't get to that finding which shows
the public does not share the media assumption that gun availability
is to blame for the murders at Virginia Tech.