A Monumental Tragedy At Virginia Tech
By now it’s all over the news, and the news just keeps getting worse:
Thirty-two people have reportedly been killed and more than two dozen others injured during a shooting rampage this morning at Virginia Tech, making it the deadliest shooting spree in U.S. history, according to law enforcement sources.
This is all that will be talked about on the news tonight, and probably discussed here and elsewhere in the days to come I’m sure. There is an obvious gun control/right to keep and bear arms discussion that will probably develop out of this story, but, for now, I would like it if everyone just followed Radley Balko’s advice:
I guess all I have to say is that what happened at Virginia Tech today is horrible and heartbreaking. Now’s not the time for debates about gun control or campus access, or security. Now’s the time for sympathy and grieving. What a terrible story.
There will be enough grieving across Virginia, and across the nation, in the days to come. Let’s leave the political debate for another time.
For those interested, I’m updating when I can with information from Virginia bloggers over at Below The Beltway.
Update: Similar thoughts from Rick Moran:
In a perfect world, gun control laws would have kept the weapons out of the shooter’s hands. Also in a perfect world, one of his potential victims would have been armed and cut short his quest for glory. Despite the fact we don’t live in a perfect world and there’s no sign of one emerging any time soon, we can count on the idiots in Congress and the media to start the political posturing, dying to make speeches and write columns telling us about how wrong the opposition is and how this shooting proves this or that about America, or Americans with guns, or violence in America, or how our schools are screwed up, or even blame the victims for not dodging the bullet that killed them.
I’m not near a television right now, and don’t have access to CNN, Fox or MSNBC, I’m sure that’s what’s happening already and that, tonight, Anderson Cooper, Larry King, Nancy Grace, Bill O’Reilly, Keith Olberman, and Sean Hannity, will all be using this tragedy to advance their particular positions.
I’m not saying that there isn’t a time and a place for a gun control debate, I’m just saying that perhaps we should wait for more than a day to pass before it starts.