On shameless explotation of tragedy, later on heroes

In the wake of what happened at Virginia Tech, there have been many outpourings of sympathy, condolences, brotherhood, and all that is decent and admirable about people. And as sure as the sun rises, the yin of all that is good in human nature is being countered by the yang of craven opportunism. Read this post from John Derbyshire . I suppose in his own world, every American is a Rambo in sheep’s clothing, able to spring into action at a moment’s notice, and immediately tackle the gunman firing the two semiautomatics. And Rambettes, of course. No need to be sexist. But it imagines that it is the easiest thing in the world to charge at a guy with a gun and disarm them. After all, “It's not like this was Rambo, hosing the place down with automatic weapons. He had two handguns for goodness' sake—one of them reportedly a .22.” In his mind, the people failed because someone should have made a suicidal charge, rushed this guy, because he only had a couple of small caliber handguns. How much damage could they have done? There are 32 people that could tell this jackass how much. Not that I’ve ever been in this situation, but a big wad of money says that John Derbyshire hasn’t either. He’s just someone who writes inflammatory stuff for the National review, so people will talk about him. After all, this is the same douche bag that advocated the execution of the British sailors who were captured in Iran (on grounds of treason) because they cooperated with their AK-47-wielding captors, rather than be summarily executed. I suppose that they should have just rushed them. I suppose that I’m not sure I would expect better of him, really.

Not only that, but it’s incredible that there are so many people that are exploiting this tragedy just to raise their own profile. this is discounting the many, many people who will use this incident to make a point either for gun control or against it. That is at least tangibly relevant, though both are still taking inappropriate advantage of a terrible tragedy. I suppose that if something good can come out of it, that would be good.

I see two possible outcomes from this tragedy. Really, 3, but only the first two are funny. The third will probably happen.

1. All guns are banned, except for those carried by law enforcement agents. Anyone owning or carrying a gun gets jail time, and their gun taken away. Good luck with that. Let me know how that goes for you.

2. Following the opinions of Ron Paul, former libertarian presidential candidate, to their logical conclusion: this would have been prevented if everyone had been allowed to carry a weapon, because someone would have shot him. So, to prevent crime, EVERYONE gets a gun. Probably something like a .22, that can’t do that much damage. And must carry it, and be accountable for the ammunition spent. Ideally, the bullets are tagged with the holder’s DNA or some other way of identifying them, so that if a bullet goes into someone, the cops know who to ask first. this would work, but bear with it, because in the first couple of years, a lot of people are going to get shot.

3. Nothing of any significance will happen. Whee! bills will be introduced making gun laws get slightly tougher, and the NRA will shoot them down in committee, because any sort of controls on the fully automatic weapons that people need to hunt dangerous or delicious animals, and defend themselves from the rapists and murderers that surround them everywhere will NEVER be accepted.

Look, it’s not that I’m against guns. They’re tools, like any other tool, that can be used for good or bad purposes. I agree that guns don’t kill people, people do. But, the gun does help. I’m just saying it’s a lot harder to kill 32 people with a crossbow, an axe, a knife, or a sword. Unless you’re in a Ninja movie.

At least the gun control people have a stake in this issue. But there are plenty of people who are exploiting this for reasons of fame. Derbyshire isn’t the only craven opportunist. There’s Jack Thompson (anti-video game crusader), who on the day of the shooting, while the situation was still being reported (okay, about 1:15pm, but still shamelessly exploitative of the dead) blamed video games for previous shootings, and opined that the shooter had to be motivated by video games, as well. (For a point by point analysis of why he’s either saying things that can’t be proven, or lying, look at this.) But that’s hardly the point. He was on TV hours after the shooting, and hours before we knew anything about the shooter. His opinions were based entirely on his own conjecture, which happened to fit perfectly into his own biases and viewpoints. He had to be playing video games. Why else would he be violent? there were no murders, ever, before video games, and since video games have been introduced, murders have increased tenfold, in every country that has them. right!? Right?! But that’s what Thompson and his ilk do. they tie their favorite cause into the tragedy of the day, regardless of how tenuous the link is.

There’s even Dr. Phil, who blames the violence on video games and mass media. I don’t know about you, and I know that the plural of anecdotes is not data, but I watched a lot of violent media, and I play video games. I’ve never killed anyone in my life. Neither have any of my friends, who play video games, and have even occasionally participated in insidious murder simulators like Laser Tag. There are always going to be people who want to act out what they see on the screen. But 99.9999% don’t ever do it. and for those who do, violent images are not the only warning sign. No one snaps without warning. Those people are crazy, and ideally should be detected and helped before they kill people. Much like guns killing people, violent media doesn’t kill people. People kill people. But violent media doesn’t make it easier to kill. It doesn’t cause people to kill.

On the other hand, Rush Limbaugh downplayed the effect of games in this shooting. Never thought I’d have respect for the way that Rush didn’t come to preconcieved concusions, and told his audience to do the same.

In short, was there anything that could have been done to prevent this guy from acting like he did? Yeah. Most mass murderers plan their crimes months in advance, and there were warning signs, apparently. But sometimes, people just snap without enough warning. As Chris Rock said “Whatever happened to crazy?” This guy was obviously disturbed, and there were signs. But no one caught it in time. There will always be tragedies that we can’t prevent. Not because we have too many guns, or not enough guns, or because or civil liberties haven’t been restricted enough, or because people weren’t brave enough to make a suicidal charge. But because some people are just crazy. So is there any hope?

For me, I hope that if I am ever in that sort of situation, I would be able to be even a tenth as brave and selfless as Liviu Librescu, the 76-year old Israeli who taught at Virginia Tech for 20 years; and was internationally known for his work in aeronautical engineering. He escaped the holocaust, and then later escaped from communist Romania. The gunman shot him as he used his body to hold the door at his lecture hall entrance so that his students could escape. He was a renowned scientist, a respected teacher, a survivor of tragedies and troubled times, and in the end, he died saving his student’s lives. He died doing what was right.

John Derbyshire is wholly wrong. he bemoans the fact that no one fought back, tried to rush the gunman. He wonders where the heroes are, who will step up and protect us from harm when need arises. I can tell him that one is currently on a plane, being sent back to Israel for burial. And I don’t doubt that there other similar stories from that day. And as long as heroes like that exist, there is hope for all of us, even in the darkest of days.