Radley Balko reminds the timid public that in order to keep the peace with violent, murderous psycho/sociopaths, we need to walk around on egg shells:
He's right, you know. Video games + psycho/socioppath _+ dose of rage = potential mass murderer. Here are some other recipes for potential mass murders:
Baseball card collecting + psycho/sociopath + dose of rage.
Furry fetish + psycho/sociopath + dose of rage.
Only eating orange foods + psycho/sociopath + dose of rage.
Napping + psycho/sociopath + dose of rage.
In other words, the idea that people are basically good really doesn't apply that well in real life. As I have said before, a lot of Americans are "optimism junkies." They need to believe that everyone is basically good, at least in the beginning, and that there is no such thing as a fundamentally warped, depraved human being who is as different from them psychologically as a dog or cat is from them physiologically. This is where a lot of the common support for gun control and regulation of violent media comes from. The fact is that both the violent video games that Jack Thompson and Dr. Phil are blaming for this shooting, and the guns that are being blamed by others, are enjoyed on a regular basis by millions of normal, reasonably healthy people without violent consequences for society.
These people are by definition predators in the most pejorative usage of that word. The only broadly effective method for controlling them is to appeal to their predatory instincts by making it clear to them that any serious violence on their part will result in serious injury or death.
In related news, here are a few bits of news and commentary that are, well, interesting to say the least:
- The liberal solution? More education! As we all know, more firearm training, not less, would have made this shooter less of a threat to the public. It's only a matter of time before our enlightened liberal establishment calls for mandatory moving target shooting practice for everyone who buys a gun, so that in the event they go hunting, they are more likely to hit an animal than another hunter. Everyone who buys a gun could benefit from such mandatory training!
- The Phelps Clan are going to try to protest the funeral. I think it is a testament to how reliable our culture is with weapons and the use of force that these people haven't been brutally murdered by a grieving relative gone nuts at the hateful rhetoric and protests. In fact, with the sheer number of people they have attacked at such a vulnerable time in their lives, I am really impressed that no one has gone off the deep end and shot the dead out of grief-driven rage.
*A* "liberal solution," Mike. *A.* Not *the.* And the story you link is from an anti-liberal magazine. Here's a thought? Go read actual liberal stuff. What *I* saw after the VTU shooting spree was a bunch of liberals calling for better mental health screening, because this guy had been in counseling and they had somehow decided he was fit to walk around in society. What they *also* called for was for us all to take it more seriously when a guy acts pathologically weird around women and stalks them.
But that wouldn't have made good press, would it. Wouldn't have made it as easy to bash liberals.
Well, let's see... Mayor Bloomberg came to VA to push for more gun control here. Not only that, but other liberals have fought to keep law-abiding, concealed-carry permit holders from being able to carry their weapons on campus. So, I'm not off base in saying that one of the first liberal responses was to reaffirm limits on gun rights.
As to mental health screening... the guy needed to be locked up. There simply is no mental health cure for someone like that.