Like Timothy Noah of Slate, I’m perfectly comfortable calling for this. I regard Noah’s piece as the definitive statement on the gun-control implications of the Virginia Tech massacre. And no, arguing for gun control after this calamity is not “playing politics” with tragedy, etc. No one argues that banning guns will stop all gun violence. But it will reduce it. I just moved to a city, Philadelphia, that is suffering from an epidemic of gun violence, so this debate is not the least bit abstract to me.
Noah shines a light on the curious logic of the pro-gun forces:
A psychopathic mass-murderer buys a gun legally. That’s an argument against gun control. A psychopathic mass-murderer buys a gun illegally. That’s an argument against gun control, too. Everything is an argument against gun control.
He continues:
This country, speaking through its government, does not favor gun control.
[…]The massacre at Virginia Tech is a logical consequence of that reality. Are we sorry that 32 people, most of them no older than 22, were killed? Of course. But we aren’t so sorry that we intend to do anything to prevent such a tragedy from happening again. We value the lives of Mary Read, Ryan Clark, Leslie Sherman, and all the rest, but we value more their killer Cho Seung Hui’s untrammeled right to purchase not only a Glock 19 and a Walther P22, but also the ammunition clips that, according to the April 18 Washington Post, would have been impossible to obtain legally had Congress not allowed President Clinton’s assault-weapon ban to expire three years ago.
[…]
There are people in this country today who, one day in the future, will be gunned down by psychopaths like Cho Seung-Hui. Future presidents will be assassinated, if the past is any guide, and probably the odd pop star, too. We could spare these lives—some of them, at least—by making it difficult or impossible to acquire a handgun in the United States. But we choose not to. Tough luck, whoever you are.
[Update: “[Cho Seung-Hui] ended up buying a load of mags from Wal-Mart and Dick’s Sporting Goods.” NY Times 4/20. Seventeen spent magazines were recovered at the crime scene. You can go to jail for a long time over a bag of weed. But you can buy all the 9-mm. ammunition you want at Wal-Mart.]
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