N.R.A. SETS UP SHOP IN BLACKSBURG, VA-- 33 PEOPLE SHOT

Early this morning one of the right-wing kook bloggers wrote something about how the problem is that there aren't enough guns around. His argument was that if all the students were packing, they could have shot the gunman. I just rolled my eyes. This evening my friend Roland got home from the school where he teaches and started complaining about two things: a)- the whole world is looking at us with a sense of horror and, b)- everyone should be armed.

I've often thought that Grover Norquist has had his dreams fulfilled on the ashes of the worst presidency in history. Norquist and his extremist cohorts distrust and hate government; you remember him, right?-- the one who wants to shrink it so it can be drowned in a bathtub. Anyway, the unmitigated disaster of the Bush Regime, which will certainly derail the Republican Party's quest for complete monopoly on political power, seems to also be turning people against government in general. The Bush Regime represents "government" and the gross incompetence, malfeasance, malevolence and catastrophes at the heart of the regime make people think government just sucks. It takes a slightly more subtle mind to think Republicangovernment is what sucks.

Having lived most of my life in big cities like New York, Amsterdam, San Francisco and Los Angeles-- where social cooperation and civility are essential for post-barbaric life-- I've always been a big proponent of gun control, especially after the shooting death of President Kennedy. But the Bush Regime has made me question that. Do I want to be unarmed in the face of Bush's tyrannically-oriented government? Bush's illegitimate and lawless regime is exactly why the Founding Father's wrote the Second Amendment. Before Bush and his cabal seized power in 2000 I couldn't have imagined shooting a gun. In 2001 I started going to target practice.

Obama replaced the front of his website with a statement:

The top of Hillary's website has a similar statement and John and Elizabeth Edwards have replaced the front page of his website with another one. Maybe it'll change but right now, McCain, Giuliani and Romney have nothing. I don't know why the 3 top Democratic contenders have statements up and the 3 top Republican contenders-- is McCain still a contender?-- have chosen to not put anything up. Perhaps it's because the discussion, logically only leads to one conclusion-- and it isn't the conclusion the right-wing kook blogger or Roland came to. Its a conclusion the rest of the civilized world came to long ago: gun control.

Brain Ross at ABC and Robin Toner at the NY Times kicked off the discussion this evening:

Leaders in both parties voiced their sympathies, their outrage and their prayers in the aftermath of the shootings at Virginia Tech. Advocates of gun control legislation said they are hoping for something more – a reopening of the legislative debate over regulating guns.

Many of them had expected that the shootings at Columbine High School in 1999 would transform the politics of gun control; in May 2000, the Million Mom March rallied in the nation’s capital with a message of “enough is enough.”

But after the 2000 election, in which Vice President Al Gore’s support for new gun regulations was widely thought to have hurt his candidacy, many Democrats showed little appetite for challenging the gun lobby.

Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said, “The politicians are afraid to address this issue.” In September 2004, gun control advocates lost ground when a federal ban on the sale of 19 kinds of semiautomatic weapons was allowed to expire, after intense lobbying by the National Rifle Association.

“I think after today, what we’re doing and what we want the American people to do is start asking our elected officials: ‘What are we going to do about this?’ ” Mr. Helmke said. The N.R.A. said its “thoughts and prayers are with the families,’’ but declined further comment.

Ross has something to say about Bush's former rubberstamp Congress and their role in this: "High capacity ammo clips became widely available for sale when Congress failed to renew a law that banned assault weapons. Web sites now advertise overnight UPS delivery of the clips, which carry up to 40 rounds for both semi-automatic rifles, including 9mm pistols, and handguns. 'High capacity magazines read extreme firepower and gusto. Stock Up!' is the headline of one of many gun shop Web sites."

Well Bush doesn't have a rubber stamp Congress anymore, right? Right?


UPDATE: GUN NUTS HIDE UNDER THEIR BEDS WHILE PEOPLE DEMAND STRICTER GUN CONTROL LAWS

But the gun nuts have the money, the organization and the political muscle. So they'll just wait out the storm and then shoot down the brouhaha-caused barrage that follows. Today's L.A. Times calls the debate "one-sided."

Gun control advocates said the shootings pointed to the need for tougher laws, while supporters of gun rights generally kept their heads down. And leaders of both major political parties expressed sympathy for victims and their families, while avoiding comment on gun control... Virginia's gun laws make it easy to buy and own firearms, including handguns, and the state often has been criticized as the source of guns used in crimes in the Washington area and other East Coast cities. But it is not known what role, if any, state laws may have played in the Blacksburg killings.

Far right extremists and neo-fascists would rather make this an opportunity to bash immigrants and display their racism. And, of course, political hacks pandering to the paranoid right are immediately screaming about gun rights.