Tilting with Political Hobbyhorses

Virginia Governor Tim Kaine this evening, April 17, angrily denounced gun lobbyists who have said the murders might not have happened if more students were armed.

"People who want to take this 24 hours after the event and make it their political hobbyhorse— I have nothing but loathing."

Well, Mr. Governor, should we 2nd Amendment supporters wait until the mass media and the liberal politicians complete their framing of the issue instead? The moment this tragedy unfolded, you could nearly hear the giddyness of the Left being given yet another opportunity to trash the 2nd Amendment. Where's the loathing for their making it a political hobbyhorse, Governor?

And what if this South Korean student had driven an automobile into a crowd of fellow students, killing 32 of them and injuring 17 more? Would your friends on the Left be calling for more restrictive automobile ownership laws? Banning certain classes of automobiles?

We live in an imperfect world filled by imperfect people. In a perfect world, there would be no need to defend oneself because there would be no violence. But, the reality is, there are evil people committing heinous acts such as the one perpetrated yesterday at Virginia Tech.

Supposing that there had been enough time to dial 911 before the first shot had been fired, how long do you suppose that it would take law enforcement to arrive at the scene? Unlike Superman in the movies, law enforcement must obey the laws of physics. Statistics show that it takes several minutes from the initiation of the the 911 call to the time law enforcement arrives.

That was plenty of time for Cho to kill his two victims at West AJ hall and depart the scene. The scenario that we gun owners would rather have seen play out was that an armed student at West AJ would have thwarted Cho before his killing spree could commence. In fact, had Cho known that some of his fellow students were potentially carrying concealed weapons, would he have been as brazen? Would he have exuded the same calm that eye-witnesses reported? Doubtful.

In much the same fashion as Cold War adversaries with their nuclear arsenals at the ready, armed citizens keep armed criminals at bay. Unarmed citizens are defenseless victims. Armed citizens are safe from cowardly criminals. We have hindsight on our side in this matter. Gun ownership saves lives. Gun control kills people.

Mr. Governor, why is this so hard for you to understand? This isn't political. This is reality. This is our right. Rights are not political and are not subject to negotiation. What happened to all your pro-gun rhetoric from your election campaign? That's political - running a campaign that claims to favor gun ownership (or even running one that is against it.)

I knew based on your voting record with the City of Richmond and your participation in the original class action lawsuit against the gun manufacturers that you were yet another smarmy Southern Democrat attempting to divide and conquer gun owners by telling hunters that you would never take their firearms away and that you were only interested in controlling military-style weapons. That's not really supporting 2nd Amendment rights - there's no clause in the 2nd that states "you have the right to go hunting."

But it got you elected. It got your predecessor elected and it's worked in several Southern states. But your true colors are beginning to show through. If you make ridiculous accusations about gun owners stating the obvious about this tragedy, then you were never on the side of the Constitution to begin with. I think you need to address the grandstanding by the Left as the story has been reported. The only political hay being made since yesterday has been by the non-stop piling on by every anti-gun/anti-Second Amendment pundit that the news outlets could find.

Why shouldn't we Americans be outraged that our fellow Americans are not allowed the basic right to self-defense on college campuses? We can all be outraged that this massacre happened but why should we gun owners be loathed because we have the answer to preventing future massacres? We've been trying gun control since 1934 in various forms and it hasn't worked. Gun control has never saved anyone's life except the criminal's.

6 million Jews are dead today because Nazi Germany forbid Jews from owning firearms. Hundreds of thousands of Tutsis in Rwanda are dead at the hands of machete-wielding Hutus because they lacked the right to keep and bear firearms. How many more people must die before we reverse this perverse thinking that gun control saves lives? It saves no one but criminals and dictators. Which one are you, Governor Kaine?