I sort of said this before of Malkin, but they have to push hard for this to be the fault of any standard bogeyman, lest they start looking at themselves for devaluing human life in american culture over the last half decade.
In the end, he’s the ultimate conservative pundit; blaming his victims as a means of seeking fame and dodging responsibility and guilt.
We make them do it, it’s not their fault they’re so hateful.

I’m waiting to hear from Bill Crozier, Oklahoma Republican candidate, who suggested that students use thick text books as self defense in the event of the crazed gunman scenario.

Still think that’s a good idea, Bill?

Linky

I’m gonna go the other way, Brad. It really doesn’t bother me they get paid and published, it just tells you how low the bar is and what the lowest common denominator truly is.

Nope, the truly ugly thing is simply that they think these things. That with essentially the same bioprocessor as you or me, they come to these foul conclusions. That they have no compassion, no empathy, that they have to even pretend to have the slightest of human emotions in order to not be shunned by regular people.

They give us a glimpse into their sheet-soaked fever dreams of bloodletting on an industrial scale, of Rambo’s CAR-60 working through a 50 round belt in sexual slow motion, the rounds mowing down the brown muslims, saving the blonde women and setting things right in the world.

The thing that’s so hard for me is that they WANT these things they say they want. It sounds wrong, a joke, madness. But they routinely hope and pray for more, bloodier wars. Bombing Iran, harsher treatment for Iraqis, putting the Syrian leadership to death. And they are serious. And you know they lie when they say they want to make the world a better place, because common sense tells us that everything they want and dream about will only increase the hatred, contribute to the bloodshed. They don’t want peace. They want eternal warfare – as long as they feel like they have the military advantage and the killing won’t be visited on them or their families…

mikey

Wow, I can’t wait to fashion my own armor made of overlapping textbooks. As a professor, I can get ‘m for free!

And I’d really like to see my students shuffling around with fifty or a hundred pounds of textbooks strapped to their bodies so that we might all be protected by the raging maniacs of the world that so often burst into our classrooms.

And then we could get in the deepest mineshafts! Nuclear powerplants could provide power almost indefinitely! Animals could be bred and slaughtered! … We can’t allow a mineshaft gap!

I believe it was Derbyshire (now safely back in Britland) who lambasted the students for not “counting the shots” and rushing Cho while he was reloading.
Because, in Derbyshire Fantasy Land, all guns are six round revolvers that take 10 seconds to reload.

I’d like to add to Sir Bradtholomew’s grievance that the sad part is that such blindingly, obviously un-knowing and ignorant people are paid to have bad opinions.

Also, to people who think the solution to this is, “let’s add more guns.”
http://files.xboxic.com/xbox/reservoir-dogs/thumbs/reservoir-dogs.jpg
Taste the improvement!

Meanwhile in Japan, two passersby disarmed a pistol-armed gangster after he shot the Nagasaki mayor at point blank range. Obviously those Japanese in their society which completely bans guns haven`t had their balls cut off. Is it Americans who are too piss-weak to disarm a crazy man? Or is it the free access to guns which makes Americans too scared to go near an armed man?

Pardon me but when I went to the John Derbyshire post and did a search for pussy or any variant of that word i was unable to find it. Same can be said about the Malkin post. I was wondering if you could be so kind as to point out to me where the actual word is used.

The reason i ask is because when i first read your post I laughed out loud when i saw what those people said. But was sorely disappointed when i went to their actual site to see them uses those words and found out they said nothing even close to what was posted.

Also I found it interesting that you have a post about what conservatives say but then you link to blogs that characterize those conservatives posts. Why not just link directly to the conservative blogs if your post is about what conservatives are saying?

Just for posterity’s sake, let’s sum up Brad’s research with the collective findings of what I shall call the ‘Ur-Wingnut’ on all things Virginia Tech over the past few days:

“Evil liberal dhimmis, who in their cowardice and perversity cannot see the benefits of allowing adolescents packing concealed firearms to roam college campuses, and in so doing have created a generation of girly-men whose pansy flesh does not repel hollow-point bullets, summoned Satan to Virginia Tech in the form of an Islamofascist illegal alien permanent resident Paki-Chinese-South Korean liberal arts major killer who found inspiration for his jihadist rampage in the Koranic verses of Herman Melville and who was secretly controlled and later filmed by the Hamas-trained 20th-cousin of a Palestinian parliamentarian who then became the darling of the stooges in the MSM … and if I had been there, why, I totally would have knocked the gun out of the killer’s hand and saved the day and been a total hero and rescued a kitten and all those co-eds would have been like, ‘Derb, do tell us the tale of Brave Tommy Atkins and the savage Hindoos while we take of our bras!’ … oh yeah … c’mon now … *fwap fwap fwap fwap* yessss * fwapfwapfwapfwapfwap* oh yes oh yes OH YESSSSSS! … um. oh. ourfatherwhoartinheavenhallowedbethyname …”

Not the wingnutosphere’s finest hour. Not their finest decade, really.

But, but, but…..

How could you forget Mark Noonan?

Yay, new trolls. To bad they don’t seem much better then the usual batch…

If you can’t tell the difference between what happened in Tokyo and at VT, and why those two scenarios are different, really, just stay quiet.

“Pardon me but when I went to the John Derbyshire post and did a search for pussy or any variant of that word i was unable to find it. Same can be said about the Malkin post. I was wondering if you could be so kind as to point out to me where the actual word is used.”

Derbyshire sez:
“Where was the spirit of self-defense here?… It’s not like this was Rambo, hosing the place down with automatic weapons. He had two handguns for goodness’ sake … And even if hit, a .22 needs to find something important to do real damage — your chances aren’t bad. … It’s true — none of us knows what he’d do in a dire situation like that. I hope, however, that if I thought I was going to die anyway, I’d at least take a run at the guy.”

To wit, I never said you were incestuous, i just said you enjoy having sex with your mother.

Also, the link to the original post can be found at the links from S,N! They’re cleverly disguised as HTML linking text, but they’re there, trust me.

*stops feeding now*

You referring to me, Some Guy? `Cause it happened in Nagasaki, not Tokyo. And I was employing irony, as if to suggest that in fact banning guns from society does not in fact lead to all the men becoming “pussies”. Therefore the problem was like, you know, that the guy was armed. Not that the students have been rendered piss weak by the nanny state.

Or is the problem that comparisons are not allowed between American suffering and overseas suffering, because your special American suffering is holy and special, and not to be sullied by comparison with other, unimportant people?

Yes, it’s time for Trapper Keeper to introduce their Kevlar line…

What?

D. Aristophanes said it best.

I can only add that since the raving loony Reagan days of killing Nicaraguans over there so that we wouldn’t have to fight them in Harlingen, Texas, and then re-energized to a whole weirder level with the absolutely raving loony anti-Clinton campaign, and then smashing the entire notion of levels of raving looniness after 9/11/2001, these right wing freaktards have just gotten used to exclaiming any collection of nightmarishly anti-logical thoughts which bubbled into their heads.

I noticed that they were happy to speculate at length about a nonexistent Muslim gunman’s hypothetical motives.

But when it came out that one of the victims was a Muslim who died saving another student’s life, silence. I haven’t seen any of them mention his heroism, as of the last time I could walk in the muck of their blogs. A quick google finds them listing his name, but not his actions (but that’s from a really quick search).

Waleed Shaalan was an engineering graduate student, with a wife and baby in Egypt that he’d hoped to bring to the US before he got his PhD. He’d already been shot when the gunman came back into the room. Waleed deliberately drew attention to himself and away from another student in the room, saving that student’s life (according to that student, as reported to that student’s professor).

(I noticed that there’s a fund being set up for Waleed’s family: I plan to donate.)

Why do the wingnuts think that “What would Rambo do?” is a viable public policy alternative for pretty much anything?

Disabusive Sophist- you obviously aren’t accustomed to the “shorter” format we like to use. When I say Michelle Malkin called the victims “pussies,” I don’t mean she literally said it. Rather, it’s the shorter gist of what she said. Look at this paragraph from Malkin:

So basically, Michelle is saying that America’s colleges and universities are churning out a bunch of pathetic wimps who can’t stand up for themselves. Because of this, she says, they won’t attack a gunman who’s firing on them in class. In other words, THEY’RE PUSSIES.

See how this works? The point of humor and satire, sir, is to use comical exaggerations of the points your opponents are making in order to expose the flaws in their thinking. The fact that you laughed out loud as a first reaction shows just how effective I was.

Also, I link to lefty blogs ’cause I love givin’ link-love to my peeps. But I’ll be happy to provide you with the original links if you wish.

Dump the Obama-mania, read the statement that Richardson issued, he’s good.

Actually, the guy on the bus who thinks he’s the Invisible Man used to be a tenured Poli Sci prof until his college decided it needed a new football stadium more than it needed him, so if you were to give him a laptop, four Po’Boys a day, and a warm clean place to sleep, he’d probably be able to put out stuff that would rival Charles Pierce’s and Molly Ivins’ writings in terms of clarity, wit and common sense.

Flashheart — just a guess here — but I’d say Some Guy shot an arrow over Disabusive Sophist’s house and hit his brother. So to speak.

Brad:

My advice is, don’t let the wingnuts get you down. They are just gonna get crazier and crazier, in the near term at least, so don’t take it personally. Practice detatchment. Lets see how it shakes out.

The NY Times today makes note of some of this stuff on talk radio in an article by Jacques Sternberg, which, oddly, thinks that some of it is “humor.” But the fact that the Times is paying attention and may lead others to do so may start the rejection of this idiocy. At least the talk radio guys have advertisers to whom we might complain.

Yes, but supposedly on our side, Feministe, Broadsheet, and NTodd are saying it happened because men hate women.

“-Dinesh D’Souza claims that atheists don’t care if people get murdered.”

Feministe and Broadsheet say it’s because cops and society doesn’t care if women get murdered.

NYT today has an article on this, believe it or not. This is where I got to read the douchebage Neil Boortz’s inspirational comments on the incident: He said we had “25 students standing meekly waiting for this guy to execute them. Waiting for what? The government to come save them.â€? Ah, that must make the families feel SO GOOD about their lost loved ones. Thanks, Neil! You’re Mr. Sensitivity today!

Is that the same invisible guy as the one on the 57 bus out of Kenmore?

Now if I could just get the Yankee fans to be invisible (or at least silent) this weekend…

see the problem is you started with the 60 minute IPAs. You need to hit up the 120 minute to deal with that sort of stupidity.

Now if I could just get the Yankee fans to be invisible (or at least silent) this weekend…

Not gonna happen:

Rodriguez has 10 home runs in his team’s first 14 games. He is the first player in American League history to do that. He has 26 runs batted in, 10 more than he had last April.

Brief outbreak of sanity at NRO from John Podhoretz. (As noted by Wolcott.) Isn’t he already on his final written warning there for using his brain without permission?

The 39 bus in Boston! I used to take that all the time! My roommates and I used to call it the loony bin.

Wow, I can’t wait to fashion my own armor made of overlapping textbooks.

And then you can duke it out with the teddy-bear in Akira. Dude, that would be so cool!
.

As I take the 86 bus through Harvard Square, I’m too busy plotting the Left Commuslimunazi takeover of the local Star Market to interview the crazies. Except the guy who won’t get on the new CNG buses. Sapping his vital essences, etc.

Anyhoo, Brad, don’t let this get you down. Along with the Imus thing, a lot of indivuduals (wingtard and MSM) showed their true colors recently. So there’s that. Bah.

Julia Gorin brings the discussion back to the real issue: scary Muslims.

Newsmax posits that the Va. Tech murderer learned to kill from violent video games. If he did, it means there is no Islamic connection, since Muslim killers learn to play violent video games from killing actual people.

Textbooks are too expensive for that. I can’t sell them back if they have bullet holes!

What depresses me is that they are paid money to express them.

Could there be a bright side to this – that people wouldn’t express opinions like these if they weren’t being paid so much?

I doubt it myself, but I think it does take effort to get people to be so willfully, consistently destructive. The gibberers who parrot this stuff for free are followers, and would find something else to imitate if the highly paid ringleaders weren’t out there.

They are paid six figures to deflect attention from the idea that if the Bush administration’s Justice Department had been enforcing the gun laws as zealously as they were persuing non-existant “voter fraud” cases, then the shooter, who had been adjudicated as mentally unstable, never would have been able to buy a gun.

Surely you understand how much money it is worth to them to deflect their reader’s attention away from that thought?

[…] ban.  Jeremy notices disparities in news coverage of mass killings.   Also, Sadly, No! tracks some depraved commentary of the VTech tragedy.  This along with the Gonzo hearing on CSPAN 3 are enough to give me an […]

Surely you understand how much money it is worth to them to deflect their reader’s attention away from that thought?

Yes, I understand how much it’s worth to them. And stop calling me Shirley.

How could you forget Mark Noonan?

Thank you!

I’ve been trying for days to figure out how pornography links to the Va Tech shootings. “Wow, that centerfold sure looks hot! I should shoot some people with a 9mm pistol!”

How could you possibly miss Alex Jones?

He thinks its a government black-op:

http://infowars.com/articles/us/va_tech_massacre_another_gov_black_op.htm

Oh… and the victims were pussies too.

Mr. Rocket O’Braddy — Let us remember this same ilk to which you refer also blamed all of the suffering and death in New Orleans on the dead themselves as being “too stupid” to take a first class air flight to the polo grounds at the Myopia Hunt Club in Hamilton, Massachusetts well in advance of Hurricane Katrina — as all intelligent people did. The fact that many dead were brown skinned was simply bonus humor points.

You could find more informed and enlightened commentary by interviewing the guy on the 39 Bus in Boston who thinks he’s the Invisible Man. Why isn’t he being paid six figures to write weekly columns for the National Review?

‘Cause the guy on bus 39 doesn’t have anything to offer politicians? He’s not part of the political-media complex, nor is he employed by a conglomerate more interested in raitings through sensationalizing news than upholding journalistic practices? Pick up a copy of McChesney’s Rich Media, Poor Democracy.

It annoys and amuses me no end that these uberpatriots never fail to find Americans and America ultimately at fault, for pretty much everything. Didn’t I used to be the blame-America-firster? It’s all too confusing.

Okay, I checked Derb’s post. I couldn’t find the ‘pussy’ quote. Do you make this stuff up?

Let me ask you this: who’s job is it to protect you? Are you okay with the cops never being more than 5 minutes away? What can happen in 5 minutes? Well, let me suggest that 50 rounds via 5 magazines are less than 5 minutes away any time some nut decides you are too much for him to take.

I suggest that you turn yourself into a human buzz saw who wants to live or help someone else live by stopping the bad man. Now who’s the pussy?

Well we know who’s the troll, at least. And that you didn’t read the comment thread before asking an answered question. Good day. /feeding

Is that the same invisible guy as the one on the 57 bus out of Kenmore?

How would one be able to tell?

Good one, Lar, you monumental douchebag. Not that it matters but people were heroic in this tragedy and they’re dead too, human buzz saw or no.

Look, loser, you can try and put yourself in their shoes, but that would require some kind of empathy or experience that you plainly can’t muster. No, I fear that the only solution left open for you to prove your hypothetical tough guy approach is to ship you over to Iraq, STAT. There, we can all find out if you are as tough with a gun in your face as you are blaming other people for getting shot by a madman.

You are a disgusting excuse for humanity.

How would one be able to tell?

The eye can be deceived, but the nose knows.

[…] the state of punditry as illustrated by the Virginia Tech shootings Jump to Comments From Sadly, no: What depresses me about this isn’t that these people have such terrible opinions. What depresses […]

Jay, my friend, I’ve been to the sandbox and other places that would fill your pants. I’ve also had the gun in my face, as you say. I’m still here.

Is this what passes for discussion here? The question is: Who is responsible for defending you children? Do you have an interest? Or do you always farm it out?

It’s you or it’s someone else, in which case sometimes it will be no one. As at VT.

The gun nuts at a site I hang out at (I’m a free thinker) are of the opinion that the VT shootings were staged, presumably by the powers that be who want to take away our gun rights (or maybe the Jews).

John Derbyshire knows what he is talking about, actually. Check out the evidence:

http://johnderbyshirejr.blogspot.com/

Come on, people. I’m offering you a discussion. Are your beliefs so fragile you can’t afford to haul them out for inspection? Or to defend them? (Intelligently, please, so let’s forgo the fringe conspiracy theories regarding our Overlords and the Jews.)

What I want to know is: What are YOUR rules of engagement?

Here’s an example: Professor Liviu Librescu. Can you figure out what his were?

Larry said,
April 20, 2007 at 19:14
Now who’s the pussy?

I believe that would be you. though I prefer ‘cobag’, but since you asked specifically…

Larry- a couple of things about Professor Liviu Librescu:

a.) he’s dead
b.) his death, while noble, did nothing to stop more people from being killed.

So to answer your question, I think kids that tried to flee did the best they could under the circumstances.

Hon. Rev., Re. #2: you’re wrong. Reports that you should read from people in the classroom indicate a large number of individuals exited from Professor Librescu’s class via the windows while he laid his warm body in front of the door. And, yes, he is dead. But other live because of him. I’ve wondered whether one reason he did this was because he recognized the shots for what they were when others only heard construction noises.

That indicates conscious choice, and leads me to believe that I understand a part of his ROE. What are yours? I get the sense that you believe that running away to live another day is always the only choice of the day. The Piled Higher, etc: would you sacrifice for the children in your class? Under any circs?

Yeah, bullshit.

And if you did go through war then I’d assume that you’d be able to tell the difference in training and survival techniques between soldiers and civilians. But since you apparently can’t, I’m forced to think you’re a stunted human being, tough guy.

Is yours what passes for “thought” among conservatives? That some butch should have stood up and made a big play? Well, guess what buzzsaw, they did. And now they’ve left widows and families.

Here’s something from a front page story from the Post:

Kevin Granata had heard the commotion in his third-floor office and ran downstairs. He was a military veteran, very protective of his students. He was gunned down trying to confront the shooter. His brother-in-law worked on the floor below him and is married to Granata’s wife’s twin sister.

Oh, there were more? Sadly, yes.

Liviu Librescu, was shot in the head trying to prevent the lunatic from coming inside. He was 76 and survived the Holocaust.

Another person, Ryan Clark, an RA, reportedly tried to stop him too. He’s dead as well.

The point is, hero, the arguments are moot. They all ended with a bullet. The heroic approach, the passive one.

But maybe you’re right. Maybe the best protective approach isn’t to leave it to the people whose job it is to protect you. Maybe the best way is legislatvely. Maybe the best way most of us in society can protect ourselves is to outlaw guns altogether so no one will get them, criminals included. After all, gun violence claims 30,000 folks a year in the US. Maybe that will be a more successful approach than your idiotic “human buzz saw” theory which protected no one.

I get the sense that you believe that running away to live another day is always the only choice of the day.

In an ideal world, where everyone had time to prepare for a nutcase gunman coming into their classroom and shooting people, I’m certain more people would, given time to think about it, opt to try to take the guy down. and there’s nothing wrong with that.

What I object to is negatively judging people who tried to escape being shot. It’s a natural goddamn reaction to a quite unexpected phenomenon. This tends to be what happens whenever some random nut decides to start shooting at people- they run away. This is what most people do.

It’s fine to play hero. It’s noble to play hero. But I take zero issue with people who, in a shocking situation in which their lives are unexpectedly threatened, try to escape. That’s a perfectly normal reaction, and it would happen in any goddamn country in the world.

the level of testosterone-fueled stupidity that you and Derb display in this latest round of victim-blaming is astonishing. Imagine that your child had been one of the kids shot to death by this monster. Would you appreciate having some snooty twerps over at NRO calling your dead child weak because he didn’t try to take out the gunman? What the hell, man? Use some goddamned sense.

Also- remember those wimps on that plane who let their plane get crashed into the World Trade Center? Man, what were they thinking? And what about those Jews who just let the Nazis put them into gas chambers? That’s the culture of passivity at work right there! Oh, oh, oh, and those silly Africans who let themselves be enslaved. What WERE they thinking?

You can go on and on and on and on like this. I don’t know why you get such enjoyment attacking those whose lives have just been ruined, but that’s sadly typical of the type of thought routinely put on display at NRO.com

I guess they just believe that the way things happen on teevee is how they really work. Ergo, “24.”

Do they have any idea how long all of that shooting took? Do they have any sense of how quickly real life happens?

My niece was in the middle of one of those High School shootings we had a few years ago, and there was nothing she could have done while it was happening to change events, except move in a different direction from what she did move, and get shot by the stupid sick asshole perhaps.

You ever been in a car crash, a real one? They call them accidents because once they “start” there’s no changing the results.

Jay, ‘Maybe the best way most of us in society can protect ourselves is to outlaw guns altogether so no one will get them, criminals included.’ I like that. How are you going to get the ‘criminals’ i.e. the guys who ignore laws to go along? I don’t want to be obvious but guns WERE outlawed on VT.

And, HRev, don’t skirt the question: We don’t live in an ideal world, so it’s unimportant what you would do there. What would you do here? I think you did hit an important point tho: trying to escape is a natural reaction. And I agree that characterizing this ‘negatively’ is sometimes hateful.

But maybe it’s still an important question to find out how to get out of a locked room with an armed madman at the door when you don’t have your own personal protective device. Do you rush the guy or just wait your turn?

Another example of the locked room mystery and another answer: United 93.

And please let’s get past talking about ‘playing hero’. That’s so third grade. This is a topic worthy of a serious discussion.

And, HRev, don’t skirt the question: We don’t live in an ideal world, so it’s unimportant what you would do there. What would you do here?

I’ll never know unless it happens to me, and I hope it never does. Most people don’t know how they’ll react in such situations because they’re so unexpected. If some guy had, say, been armed and had shot Cho, then I’d say more power to him. Most people don’t think of bringing guns to class, though, because they don’t expect that some maniac will start shooting anyone.

My primary pbjection is when Derb wrote, “Where was the spirit of self-defense here? Setting aside the ludicrous campus ban on licensed conceals, why didn’t anyone rush the guy? 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.”

Again, he’s essentially calling the kids cowards for not rushing the guy. That shit pisses me off because, as I said, none of us knows how we’ll react in such a shocking situation until is actually happens.

And of course, Mark Steyn: “Murderous misfit loners are mercifully rare. But this awful corrosive passivity is far more pervasive, and, unlike the psycho killer, is an existential threat to a functioning society.”

Although you can never guess how someone would react, if I had to bet, if Steyn were actually in such a horrific situation, he’d wet his pants. Of course, I wouldn’t write a 1,000-word column calling him a symbol of Western Civilization’s Decline if such a horrible thing occurred.

I don’t want to be obvious but guns WERE outlawed on VT.

Or, if you’re convinced that the lack of guns on campus was the cause of this tragedy, let’s compare at how well anti-gun policies have worked at campuses across the country where guns haven’t caused mass murders. I’d say the empirical evidence (college students who haven’t been killed by gun fire on campus) is on my side.

So Librescu is a hero but the students he died to save are cowards? Everyone should sacrifice themselves to save no one? The whole point of one person sacrificing themselves is that they believe a greater good is achieved, that greater good being that more people survive. If maximizing survivors is the goal, judging survivors because they survived is ludicrous, and judging those who were killed because they were killed is vile.

This is a topic worthy of a serious discussion

And actually, it’s not. The actual number of these kind of events are so rare, it’s like talking about wearing lighting armor to stave off a strike. That’s not to denigrate the tragedy or minimize the grief — but the vastly more important discusson is why do 30,000 people (not 33) people die from gun violence. Is it because there are too few guns out there, or too many?

That’s a serious discussion. One I’d like to see you engage.

And I’m done for now. It’s too beautiful a day. Thanks for the discussion, though, even though you’re wrong 🙂

Why are we so soft on our children? I believe Jimmy Carter’s hateful message of peace is to blame, not to mention the fact that he founded radical Islam, practically. I ask you, here are today’s Lycurguses?! Why are our boys not real men?

“So seriously did the Lacedaemonian children go about their stealing, that a youth, having stolen a young fox and hid it under his coat, suffered it to tear out his very bowels with its teeth and claws and died upon the place, rather than let it be seen. What is practised to this very day in Lacedaemon is enough to gain credit to this story, for I myself have seen several of the youths endure whipping to death at the foot of the altar of Diana surnamed Orthia.�
-Plutarch

It worked for Sparta—the root of all Western Civilization—why not for us?

�Their discipline continued still after they were full-grown men. No one was allowed to live after his own fancy; but the city was a sort of camp, in which every man had his share of provisions and business set out, and looked upon himself not so much born to serve his own ends as the interest of his country.�
-Plutarch

Were they passive?

“I, for my part, see no sign of injustice or want of equity in the laws of Lycurgus: …. the magistrates despatched privately some of the ablest of the young men into the country, from time to time, armed only with their daggers, and taking a little necessary provision with them; in the daytime, they hid themselves in out-of-the-way places, and there lay close, but in the night issued out into the highways, and killed all the Helots they could light upon.�
-Plutarch

And they were ready for action, those Spartan youth. If illegal immigrants could be substituted for Helots today, we’ve killed two birds with one stone. I’m reminded of another great Italian writer, who once said about the strength of the nation:

“War alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have courage to meet it. All other trials are substitutes, which never really put men into the position where they have to make the great decision — the alternative of life or death….The Fascist accepts life and loves it, knowing nothing of and despising suicide: he rather conceives of life as duty and struggle and conquest, …. the growth of empire, that is to say the expansion of the nation, is an essential manifestation of vitality, and its opposite a sign of decadence.â€?

©2007 S. T. D. Hanson

Jay, first you: if you like empirical evidence you’ll love this. Concealed carry laws are in effect in 39 of 50 states. Check the stats and see what the effect on crime (and criminals) has been since they were enacted.

tigrismus: the prof is a hero. You misread Derb. The students are victims, and like all true victims, blameless. But what’s your preference–a condition of blameless-ness or survival or posthumous heroism? I choose to run when I can, fight when I must.

And thanks to you Hon Rev. I like your points. Here’s a final thought: what changed the minds of the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto? At some point, most people decide to quit playing by the rules of the guy whose only offering is terror and death.

Or, if you’re convinced that the lack of guns on campus was the cause of this tragedy, let’s compare at how well anti-gun policies have worked at campuses across the country where guns haven’t caused mass murders. I’d say the empirical evidence (college students who haven’t been killed by gun fire on campus)

Or what about all those crazed library killers?

Flies:Shit::Gun-wielding Maniacs::Those Crazy Gun-Free-Zone Public LIbraries

Seriously, I don’t dare step into a library these days without my textbook armor.

STD, I hope you’re kidding. I agree that humans are capable of incredible acts of self-sacrifice in spite of pain and trial, but the articles of philosophy you quote are extrapolated perversions of what is sometimes a necessary act of preservation.

Jay, just caught this: ‘The actual number of these kind of events are so rare, it’s like talking about wearing lighting armor to stave off a strike.”

Are you suggesting that if the losses are small, then nothing need be done? If so, please tell me where, in numbers, your lower threshold lies for the number of acceptable murders on a given campus, city block, etc?

Smotes, the library at VT was only a few hundred yards from the engineering building. A slight turn aside and all in a days work.

If you want to join seriously in conversation, then what’re your rules of engagement?

Having read the damn thing, I don’t think I do. “why didn’t anyone rush the guy or count the shots” is a judgment against the living and the dead, and a fucking ignorant one. How many people were shot before they even knew what was happening? How many people were in fact shot rising to face a guy firing two guns, or shielding someone else? How many were shot trying to help others, or just trying to save themselves? Nobody knows, but what does it matter, really? NONE of these are blameworthy responses.

I’ve just added “What are your rules of engagement?” to my little book of conversation starters and pick-up lines. It comes right after “So what about the global jihad?”

J, those two may go together better than you know.

tig, you’re right, we don’t know. I’m sure some never knew what hit them. I hope at least a few were rising and in the act of trying to fight back or shielding their neighbors. If so, thank god for their humanity. For that is what makes them votes in favor of continuing the human experiment as opposed to the shooter who is an argument in favor of STD’s Spartan exposure routine. Assuming you could find a way to pick him out. Oh, wait, he had been picked out. Damn the bureaucratic bad luck.

But, you’re also wrong: it does matter. Or don’t you believe that history contains at least a few lessons to guide us? If not, what does? Was this act sui generis?

Maybe you’re locked into the blame aspect or maybe you just like to throw up the old hands when the frontal lobe starts to ache a little. Oh well.

Jay, first you: if you like empirical evidence you’ll love this. Concealed carry laws are in effect in 39 of 50 states. Check the stats and see what the effect on crime (and criminals) has been since they were enacted.

Larry, it’s generally incumbent on the proponent of an assertion to provide data, or pointers to the data, to support the assertion. In written materials, such data is generally presented via a bibliography. In speeches, one can often slide by without, but when presenting assertions of fact, it’s customary to provide citations or at least attribution. Here in the depths of the Intertoobz, we generally look for links to source material. So given your implicit assertion, which I will characterize as “concealed carry laws have affected crime and criminals in the states in which they have been enacted,” I would ask that you provide “the stats” you would like us to check. Thanks.

What lesson, that if some people get shot, quite possibly before they have any opportunity for heroism, someone will cluck his tongue and play Monday morning quarterback? And someone else will pretend it’s an important conversation to hold? Christ almighty, lesson learned.

Dan, I’ll assume you’re new to the Internet. Try Google, enter ‘effects of concealed carry laws’. You’ll get a good cross-section. Don’t forget to be skeptical.

One fairly balanced summary is at:
http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/hrd/pubs/concarry.pdf

This document points out flaws in the original Lott and Mustard study, but even a re-evaluation pointed to fewer murders. Note that folks who carry are not without flaws themselves, but this is not about perfect solutions. There aren’t any that make use of human material.

Almost dinner time at my house. Thanks for all the good backandforth.

Are you suggesting that if the losses are small, then nothing need be done? If so, please tell me where, in numbers, your lower threshold lies for the number of acceptable murders on a given campus, city block, etc?

No and your disingenuousness is tellling. I’m saying that you’re “serious discussion” is to talk in definitive terms over something that’s a fluke. An anamoly that, while tragic, is ultimately so freak an occurance as to render ‘preventive measures’ moot. In other words, I’d bet that something like this will never happen at VT again, no matter what they do. Choosing to arm the campus will have the same net effect as if they do nothing — no one will have another shooting spree on that campus for decades.

Or do you think there’s an epidemic of shooting sprees on college campuses? If so, the media’s shown admirable restraint hiding them from us.

The far, far larger tragedy is that guns kill people everyday — and the vast majority of these victims aren’t in the ‘justifiable homicide’ self-protection category. According to the the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, on average, 8 kids under the age of 19 died from gunshot wounds every day in 2004.

So what are your numbers, hero? You’re a war-hardened veteran, how many kids is acceptible for you? More kids are killled by guns in a week, than in the worst spree in US history.

So, again, what’s the biggest issue here — access to guns or the lack of them?

This document points out flaws in the original Lott and Mustard study, but even a re-evaluation pointed to fewer murders.

You are reading a different document than the one you linked to then.

First, this notorious Lott study has been charred and buried by far smarter people than me — and the document points to a number of studies that reject the findings of Lott and Mustard’s study and call into question the premise. The only ‘re-evaluation’ that pointed to fewer murders was confined to a set of numbers from Florida, specifically Miami and is statistically suspect (indeed, it gets invalidated) when the population numbers are increased to their norm.

Jay B., tigrismus, et.al. – you are wrong and Larry is right.

As a parent concerned for the health and security of my two boys, I will no longer be wasting my time with things like balanced meals and taking them to the park. Instead, we will spend several hours a day in simulated shooting spree dramas to prepare them for heroic martyrdom should they ever find ourselves in such a situation.

Also, we are stocking up on several tons of sunblock to help us survive a freak supernova in our solar system.

What the hell.

The hell, Rev, is that they’re no longer trying to talk to the public at large anymore. Nope, that bus up and left after George Bush shredded Reagan’s legacy like John Major shredded Iron Maggie’s. Americans just aren’t buying the bull#### anymore.

So, no, they’re not talking to us, or Joe Average anymore, they’re marketing towards readers like REMF Larry the Internet Tough Guy. The debased base is all they’ve got left, and that’s all who they’ll talk to these days.

Well, John Amato called that wanker Derbyshit a coward.

He is a much better man than I am because I would call them much worse.

These pussies are scared of their own shadow.

Just dress like a Muslim and cover your face like the thugs that hung Saddam and watch those pussies run for their ignorant ,hate filled, pathetic lives.

So, I do think it is a natural human activity to seek out reasons why some other person’s actions were wrong and not “what you would have done”tm.

I also think that depending on the circumstances it’s really takes an asshole to do that anywhere else than in a bar, or around a water cooler.

If the people in the classrooms had known ahead of time there was just one shooter and had time for a vote I think they would have taken other actions.

However what they knew was there was gunfire and that was about it.

I can’t fault their actions.

I will say I do believe the Holocaust survivor’s death saved other lives, apparently he gave other people time to jump out a window and supposedly his fallen body blocked the door.

In light of Kurt Vonnegut’s death, I think what happened at VT was bad chemicals. I don’t think it was atheism or grade inflation or lack of guns and unlike ntodd and many feminists, I don’t think it was because men hate women.

Meanwhile in Japan, two passersby disarmed a pistol-armed gangster after he shot the Nagasaki mayor

It was two police officers.

And at VT, there were at least two people who tried to stop the shooter, or hold him back until others could get away — they were shot for their courage.

Here’s what I can’t figure out about these “tough guy conservatives.” They run their mouths about how people should react with violence, but I have many first hand experiences where physically confronting them will cause them to sic the cops on you.

Also, when people of color use physical force to get their points across, these tough guy conservatives start howling and whining about us being thugs and animals.

St. Brad*,

You have an Invisible Man guy? You’re lucky! On the Orange Line out of Sullivan Square most evenings I get Smoker-With-Invisible-Cell-Phone Guy.

He even ‘hangs up’ on the people at whom he’s yelling into his hand. Tonight, he was quite considerate and had pinched the end of his cigarette to extinguish it — and save the remaining tobacco — instead of actually smoking it inside the car. Nice.

* I guess you didn’t get your sainthood for patience, eh?

One night in June of 1970 they asked (asked. Hah) my understrength company to hold a perimeter against an NVA regiment. They hit up and down the line all night. We held against three different attacks, doing hand-to-hand in the dark under Illum rounds with arty falling danger close. We had all kinds of fucking guns. That was close to 40 years ago, and it still wakes me up in sweat. All I wanted, all I ever fucking wanted, was to run. But my friends, hell, people I didn’t even like but were in my unit were in holes on both sides. And those little brown fuckers kept coming. I shot them, I stabbed them, I blew them up, hell, I strangled one with my hands and shot two with my pistol.

One night. One clear night in asia. I’ve never been the same. My world changed. I sat in the red dirt and cried that morning. Let’s not go into any details, but they gave me some bling for that night. Fuckers. They can shove it up their ass.

Larry. You can take your ROE bullshit and shove it up your ass. People aren’t built for this shit. I don’t know what you’d do, or what I’d do. I do know this. In combat, I had lots of chances to sacrifice my life for my fellows. I chose not to. Oh, I risked it a few times, but I wouldn’t spend it for my brothers. No hopping on a ChiCom for this grunt.

I killed some people and I still see their faces. I lost some friends and, yep, I still see their faces. You don’t sound like somebody who has learned a great deal. You say you’ve seen combat, but you seem oddly enamored of warfare. Maybe you’re just a better man than I am. But let me say this to you, youngster. Fuck You…

mikey

Everything The Hon. Dr. St. Rev. Bradley S. Rocket, Esq, PhD, MD said, in his post and in comments.

Yes, but supposedly on our side, Feministe, Broadsheet, and NTodd are saying it happened because men hate women.

mmmmm…..not so much, spanky.

How could you possibly miss Alex Jones?

He thinks its a government black-op:

sadly, so does the frequently readable kurt nimmo.

Cal Thomas said in an op-ed that if just one student had brought a gun to class…. I thought, “Well, one student did. Purchased legally even.”

I mean, really, Cal, do you want your 20-year-old daughter going to a college where students are encouraged to carry guns????

And I guess it never occurs to these guys that if a bunch of students were actually carrying guns, there would have probably been plenty of shootings earlier– the kid who gets p-o’ed about something at the bursar’s office decides to shoot the clerk… and just imagine how many of those pistol-packing students would be driven crazy by registration.

What’s clear is none of these people calling for students to be armed actually teach or work at a university. Trust me, professors do not want to face a room full of students and hand back their failing exams and wonder which are carrying a gun “for self-defense”.

Larry’s allusions to United 93 not only are odious in that they insult the hundreds of students and faculty for the wholly understandable desire to save their own lives, they are insipid and fallacious as well.
1) The passengers aboard United 93 had full cognizance of their attackers from the moment the attack began and thus had time to observe their attackers’ behavior and respond to it coherently. Cho went from room to room and only when he was at a particular room did anyone have an idea what they were up against. We already know of a number of acts of individual heroism which in themselves render Larry’s slanders ridiculous. We will doubtless hear of more as time goes by and a full reconstruction of the events is accomplished.
2) United 93 passengers were in a confined space with the attackers, which gave them tactical options once their counterattack began. This was patently not the case at Virginia Tech.
3) They were not facing a fusillade of fire, as the death of individuals was not on the minds of the 9/11 attackers. Damage to the plane was also not an option for the hijackers. Their relationship to the passengers was subsidiary to their desire to use the plane itself to inflict a great deal more pain and suffering through an attack on, most likely, the White House. Cho’s intent was to kill as many students and faculty as quickly as he could. He had no subsidiary intent.
3) Watch the excellent movie “United 93,” reread the literature and reports about United 93 passengers and you will see they had time to conspire, to work up a plan, to assign roles in the plan and to execute the plan. Only a simple-minded ass could imagine that Virginia Tech students and faculty had more than seconds to react to Cho’s roving assault, let alone find the time to conspire to make a plan, assign roles and execute a plan.
4) In all probability, United 93 passengers were able to deduce that the chief imminent threat against them as a whole — detonation of a bomb attached to one of the hijackers — was itself a hollow threat, a fake. Therefore, their counterattack — a hugely heroic act by any measure — could be seen to have an honest chance and no doubt buoyed their courage enough to give it a try. The only thing hollow in Cho’s attack was the hollow-point bullets he used.

You know, you liberal pansies have John Derbyshire all wrong. I’ll have you know that the Derb is a man of the world. A real man. Just like Larry, he’s been places that would fill your pants (and shoes, probably). Here he is mixing it up with the late, great Bruce Lee [he’s hard to miss, even though a lot younger and with long, dirty hippy hair. Check out the (rather unforgettable) expression on his face]:

Enter the Dragon 1

So, how many of you tofu eaters have faced down somebody like Bruce? I mean, yeah, sure, four or five of his buddies got his back, but I’m sure Big John could have handled the situation just fine all by his lonesome. What about you? Yeah, you, I’m talkin’ to you! Come get some, wimp!

Here’s more of the Derb in action:

Enter the Dragon II

Oh. Well, he didn’t do so well there, getting kicked over the chair like that. But I’m sure you lib wusses could have done better, right? I’m sure he got right back up and gave ‘ol Brucie what for. He’s just too modest to put that particular clip up on the web, and all.

So don’t tell me my man Derb would have wimped out in the face of a crazed gunman. No effing way. And don’t make me come back here again to straighten your asses out. Remember, I’m a tough guy, just like Larry and my man Derb. And us real men don’t take shit from nobody. Except Mark Steyn, of course.

*Snark field generator deactivated*

Yeah, it really is him. He writes about it here, in the inimitable (that is to say, interminable) Derb prose style. After his little dissertation on bravery the other day, I thought that those clips would be flying all over the web by now, but they weren’t even on YouTube.

By the way, if I screwed up the links to the clips (PREVIEW BUTTON!), go here

Those weenies should have used their bibles to protect them.

I hope at least a few were rising and in the act of trying to fight back or shielding their neighbors. If so, thank god for their humanity.

Larry, what a prime fucking asshole you are to bestow “humanity” selectively to those you think deserve it.

All the victims embodied humanity, even the ones who were dozing with their IPod earbuds in their ears. Even the ones who didn’t have a clue what was happening. Even the ones who might have gotten shot while running for cover. Even the ones who died frightened.

Thanks for a valuable (and disturbing) round-up.

What depresses me about this isn’t that these people have such terrible opinions. What depresses me is that they are paid money to express them.

Yeah… As I commented on another blog, the conservative movement benefits from promoting stupid and disingenuous people. The country does not. Funny, that.

Is that prick Derbyshire an Australian? I’m so sorry.

No, he’s veddy English, and a lover of all things Brit. Most especially the British Empire.

Probably not enough to revive this thread, but related anyway.

Quote:

Students wrested a gun away from a University of Southern California student who had been asked to leave an off-campus party after threatening a young woman, police said Tuesday. Zao Xing Yang, 19, was arrested early Sunday and is being held without bail, Chief William Bratton said at a news conference.

Some students at the party, held at a student’s home, overheard Yang making intimidating statements to the woman and threatening her with violence about 3 a.m. Sunday, Bratton said.

Yang began arguing with the host, who noticed Yang was holding a gun, he said.

“Several students wrestled the gun away from Yang and held him until campus security and then LAPD officers arrived,” Bratton said.