Everyone's wondering who's to blame for how the tragedy at Virginia Tech played out yesterday. Could lives have been saved if campus authorities had been more proactive in getting the word out to the 30,000+ students and faculty? Why didn't they search more thoroughly to make sure that the gunman had escaped? How does anyone--student, outsider, anyone--bring a gun onto campus so easily?
The answers will take weeks to unravel and I can smell the lawsuits cooking already, but while Virginia Tech certainly didn't do their best in heading off an awful situation, let's not lose sight of the one factor that is most important in causing this massacre:
it's too easy in America to get and own a handgun. Even a licensed handgun is much more likely to murder the innocent than to protect you from bad guys. Everyone in America takes their right to own and operate a handgun and their right to say stupid things more seriously than they do what should be their right to universal health care and guaranteeing their children the best education system possible. So guns will always be legal for U.S. citizens to carry with a license and there will undoubtedly again be some unhinged person who goes into a public place and starts firing his gun or rifle indiscriminately. It's the American way.
This may be updated later today...
Peace and my heart goes out to the family of the Virginia Tech victims.
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