Fufilling the Asian overachiever stereotype in the most tragic way possible, South Korean student Cho Seng-Hui committed the worst killing spree in American history at Virginia Tech yesterday. His weapon of mass destruction? A common semiautomatic pistol, which in Virginia can be bought by anyone off the street. Virginia, in fact, has long been held up as the sort of state with lax gun-control laws that lets criminals from DC and New York waltz in, stock up on artillery, and bring the weapons home to momma. (All you need is a computerized background check and two forms of ID—no waiting period.)
And what did President Bush have to say? Our dear leader, who killed more people with a pen as governor of Texas than Cho did with a pistol, sent out his press officer, Dana Perino, for the daily press briefing. In response to reporters asking whether this will change White House gun-control policy all Perino had to say was that "As far as policy, the President believes that there is a right for people to bear arms." She then proceeded to duck all further critical inquiries like a fundie confronted with a trilobite fossil.
This, in our learned opinion, is bullshit. The NRA may be withholding their statement now (having learned their lesson when Columbine happened around the time of their national convention eight years ago—also in an election year), but they're not going to let this slip, especially with the presidential race heating up. There are a lot of people who vote with their trigger fingers, and the Republicans specialize in pandering to them. The NRA gives an assload of campaign money to congressional and presidential candidates that promise a semiautomatic rifle above every mantle. However, the Virginia Tech Massacre highlights our need for a comprehensive, rationalized, national gun-control policy—no matter what the political cost. And, in this election year, it's doubtful that even Moses himself can keep up the political will that lets states like Virginia have such lax gun-control lawa.
You can read our opinion about Why Liberals Don't Like Guns here, but the fact is that, unlike, say, slavery, our so-called "gun culture" is not part of American history and heritage. Rather, it was a marketing creation of arms manufacturers who feared a business downturn after the halcyon days of the Civil War. Today, gun manufacturers still do a booming business—almost 812,000 pistols were produced in 2003.
Gun manufacturers tell us that the solution to gun crime is for everyone to carry one. Our answer is that gun manufacturers should be put on trial as accessories to murder.