I Mourn

Drug-Free Zones... aren't.

Smoke-Free Zones... aren't.

No-Wake Zones... nope.



Gun-Free Zones... sigh. Sadly, no.

In all cases, people violate the law. Laws have always been violated, thus the need for police.

The Massacre at Virginia Tech is a tragedy. It is a tragedy for the lives lost. I mourn for them. Young folks cut down in their prime. Dreams unfulfilled. The repercussions rippling throughout familes, friends, fellow students... the nation.

It is another tragedy. We have rendered ourselves meek. There are a few notable stories where people resisted.

I wonder what the story would have been like if one other person had had a gun. You know the headlines: "Hero Stops Mad Gunman." Part of our society cries out for gun control, yet when the example of an armed populace is demonstrated by a criminal being stopped... we all applaud.

Mr. Cho violated the Gun-Free Zone. He will not be punished, as he is dead. Those students who abided by the Gun-Free Zone were punished, with their deaths.

We remove from ourselves not just the ability, but the will to self-defend. That's the true insidious nature of such bans on guns. It's because, as a society, we are collectively giving over our defense, in toto, to someone else. We surrender before the first shot is fired.

And the ultimate fallacy is that a criminal will violate the law anyway, so the only ones affected by the bans are those who end up dead because they were disarmed.


And because we've removed our will to self-defend, we don't even try. Look around your office, your home... how many weapons do you see? (Those of you in the police or military, it's no fair counting your side-arms.) I count quite a few, without walking into the kitchen - which is a veritable bazaar of weapons - and I can imagine that if properly motivated, I could come up with a few more.

But we have removed the will to self-defend, and so we don't try so hard. A bullet in the back of Mr. Cho's skull would have done wonders. So would a fire extinguisher, lots of big heavy textbooks, desks, whatever. Not deriding those who died or were wounded... their loss is a tragedy.

I mourn. I mourn for all the loss. The senselessness of it all.

I mourn that there wasn't one more gun