Threats to Civil Liberties arising from the fallout of the Virginia Tech Forcible-disarmament Frenzy

May 1, 2007 4:51 pm

<b><i>An article from a new contributor:
Loren Bliss</i></b>

<b>THERE ARE TWO EXCEPTIONALLY</b> grave dangers to American liberty arising from the present, post-Virginia-Tech forcible-disarmament frenzy. These are:

(1)-The criminalization of even the mildest forms of mental illness, as proposed by Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY), in HR 297.

(2)-The criminalization of political protest and dissent, as proposed by Sen. Frank Lautenberg, (D-NJ), in S 1237.

Each of these measures is enthusiastically supported by the Bush Regime. The Lautenberg bill was written at White House/Justice Department request — a leading Democratic senator serving as the mouthpiece for a despised Republican administration — an unprecedented act of collaboration with the most corrupt regime in U.S. history. Once again, opposition to the Second Amendment is being used as a diversion behind which to conceal an all-out, bipartisan attack on the entire Bill of Rights- including, via S 1237, repeal of the presumption of innocence that is the cornerstone of all English-language jurisprudence.

Meanwhile, welcome to the New American Reich, where (if McCarthy, Lautenberg and Bush have their way), anybody deemed a mental case, an effective labor activist or a disruptive political nonconformist will soon be forcibly disarmed, denied all rational means of self defense and thereby condemned to perpetual victimhood.

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Modern efforts to criminalize mental dysfunction have a long history dating back to Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany and are typically part of a broader right-wing agenda of oppression and euthanasia. But in the United States, the primary advocates of criminalization are the forcible disarmament cult and the Communitarian movement, members of which universally (and often vehemently) claim to be leftists and/or "progressives."

The Communitarians have argued for at least two decades that diagnosis of mental illness should instantly terminate not only all one&#39;s civil rights but also strip one of all privileges as well, driver&#39;s licenses included, after which the victim of such determination could then theoretically earn back the abolished rights and privileges in carefully supervised increments. Toward this end the Communitarians — who despite their leftist disguise and innocuous-sounding name are radical Skinnerian fascists of the harshest sort — are demanding creation of a national registry of mental patients. Deliberately established and maintained as a powerfully oppressive tool of social control, this roster of official pariahdom would include the names of anyone now or ever in any form of mental health treatment, regardless of the relative mildness or severity of the condition for which they are being treated. (Google "communitarians" and scroll at will for additional information.)

<i>Despite its huge contempt for the Constitution, the Communitarian faction is but one small portion of the forcible disarmament cult, but it is probably disproportionately powerful. Its intellectual prowess is considerable, and it often assumes a behind-the-scenes leadership role, focusing on the development of strategy, tactics and ideology. Another venue of profound Communitarian influence is the Hillary Clinton wing of the Democratic Party. It was the Communitarians who provided the Clintons and their cronies with the ideological justification for the Democratic Party&#39;s abandonment of New Deal principles and its subsequent wholesale betrayal of the working class. The Communitarians&#39; grasp of Orwellian principles is also very evident in the present-day effort to redefine forcible disarmament as "gun safety" and the present tactic of concealing disarmament schemes behind apparently friendly but patently false gestures toward firearms owners.</i>

All this dovetails neatly with the broader forcible-disarmament-cult agenda of reducing legal firearms ownership by any means possible. Since it is credibly estimated as many as 50 percent of all U.S. citizens will at some time require some form of mental health treatment ("treatment" defined in the broadest sense, to include grief counseling, post-divorce therapy and even self-esteem classes or remedial reading for dyslexics), a favorite ploy of forcible disarmament fanatics is to demand closure of "the mental health loophole" in such a way that participation in any treatment process is penalized by automatic forcible disarmament: either turn in your guns before you see the professional caregiver, or the police will soon be there to kick in your front door, shoot your dogs, wreck the interior of your house by violent search and terrorize your spouse and children into lifelong bouts of shivering catatonia.

Typically — and the forcible disarmament advocates make no secret of the fact they are obscenely aroused by the prospect of unleashing such police brutality against firearms owners — this means criminalizing all forms of mental illness or mental dysfunction and thereby forcibly disarming anyone who is or ever has been in any sort of therapy or formalized healing, permanently abolishing their gun rights, no appeal allowed. This is already the law in New York City — if you consult a mental health professional even once in NYC (no matter the nature of your problem), your name is reported to the police and you lose your gun rights forever. Indeed, the Democrats attempted to impose a similar restriction on Washington state residents in 1994, but it was vigorously resisted there by a coalition of mental health professionals, who recognize in such criminalization a huge disincentive to voluntary treatment.

Which brings us to the present "mental health loophole" bill pending in Congress. As originally written, it was called the "Our Lady of Peace Act" (Google for details), and it would have permanently denied firearms ownership to anyone "adjudicated as a mental defective or committed to a mental institution," which is further defined as occurring whenever "a court, board, commission, or other lawful authority determines that an individual is mentally retarded or of marked subnormal intelligence, mentally ill, or mentally incompetent" (HR 4757, 2002, Sec. 103 and 103:c). By including the phrase "other lawful authority," the measure would have empowered any psychiatrist, psychologist or even guidance counselor to deny someone their gun rights forever, merely by declaring that person "mentally ill" — a designation that covers everything from definitively murderous Andrea Yates/Cho Seung Hui psychosis to the mildest cases of neurotic nail-biting and low-self-esteem fidgets.

<i>The generic designation "mentally ill" would also have allowed the forcible disarmament of anyone ever found to be "mentally disabled" — never mind that "mental disability" is a very specifically focused evaluation of one&#39;s employability or lack thereof, typically for purposes of granting welfare stipends or Social Security disability payments. Thus a finding of "mental disability" has absolutely nothing to do with one&#39;s suitability to own firearms, vote or exercise any other Constitutional right.

But the Our Lady of Peace Act, which McCarthy has introduced in every Congress since 2002, would nevertheless require the Social Security Administration and every state welfare agency to add to the federal government&#39;s computerized catalogue of criminals the name and dossier of every individual who had ever been found to be even temporarily "mentally disabled" — resulting in a permanent loss of Second Amendment rights against which there would be no possibility of defense or appeal.

Thus criminalizing "mental disability" (or any other mental disorder in even the mildest forms) would clearly further the forcible disarmament cult&#39;s long range objective of making the requirements for legal firearms ownership increasingly prohibitive — ultimately reducing the number of legal firearms owners by the aforementioned 50 percent. The cult&#39;s triumph would be all the greater for the fact the imposition of "prohibited person" status would allow disarmament by outright seizure, thereby exempting government from any compensatory (buy-back) costs.</i>

Under extreme pressure from mental health professionals, McCarthy has slightly modified her present proposal, HR 297, so that those denied their Second Amendment rights on the basis of mental health considerations would be specifically limited to persons who have been "adjudicated as mentally defective or...committed to mental institutions." Alas, the term "mental defective" remains undefined — leaving unanswered whether it includes those who have been found to be "mentally disabled." It also leaves a number of other questions as to its scope, such as whether a child diagnosed as suffering from attention deficit disorder is to be branded "mentally defective" and therefore — after reaching adulthood — denied firearms ownership for life.

Apparently — though this is not clear either — McCarthy has meanwhile broadened the term "committed" to make it as prohibitive as possible: that is, to permanently deny gun rights to anyone formally committed to a mental institution of any kind (including out-patient clinics) regardless of whether the commitment was mandatory (court ordered) or voluntary. (Present federal law allows those who undergo voluntary commitment to retain their Second Amendment rights unless other specific prohibitions apply.)

Furthermore, McCarthy — who formerly made no secret of her froth-at-the-mouth hatred of firearms and firearms owners but now (in service to the Democrats&#39; new deception policy) speaks much more softly — recently told ABC News that in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings, she would amend the bill back to its original, criminalize-all-mental-disorder wording except for the fact "the NRA...is holding everybody hostage." Given that the National Rifle Association has supported the Our Lady of Peace Act from the very beginning, HR 297 included, McCarthy&#39;s accusation is not only false but is an especially misleading, hypocritical and even malicious claim: no surprise given the infinite maliciousness that is the forcible disarmament hysteric&#39;s most notorious characteristic.

<i>But on the HR 297 issue, the NRA (to which I have belonged since 1951) is equally treacherous and hypocritical, especially given its demonstrably false claim to be a defender of the entire Bill of Rights. Indeed the NRA&#39;s opposition to the civil rights of mental patients reveals the frustrating extent to which the organization has deteriorated into nothing more than an instrument of the Republican Party. (And the Republican Party — especially since Big Business America&#39;s 1930s alliance with Hitler, Mussolini and Franco — is itself the U.S. equivalent of the fascist parties that formerly dominated Europe.)

Thus the NRA implicitly embraces the right wing position that "mental defectives" should be savagely oppressed if not actually euthanized. Not that the NRA is out of step with American opinion: most U.S. citizens — though they are loathe to admit it — emphatically agree that "mental defectives" deserve the harshest treatment possible. As a consequence, the U.S. has long been infamous for the industrial world&#39;s most superstitiously ignorant fear of mental affliction and its most violent rejection of anyone so afflicted, attitudes that have been credibly traced to the enduring influence of Abrahamic religion and the grave extent to which our society remains a defacto theocracy. (Anyone who doubts this assessment of our national values need look no further than our officially murderous hatred of those who are homeless.)

Meanwhile other Second Amendment advocacy groups remain stonily silent on the patient-rights implications of forcible disarmament,* understandably (given these selfsame U.S. attitudes) terrified they will be accused of supporting "guns for crazies." Never mind that study after study proves mental patients are statistically no more dangerous than any other group of Americans — and far less dangerous than some.</i>

_________

*Gun Owners of America has vehemently opposed the Our Lady of Peace Act and HR 297, and it has done so for the very best of reasons: these measures could "bar mentally stable people from buying guns" merely because they had sought mental health treatment, and it is "morally and constitutionally wrong to require law-abiding citizens to first prove their innocence to the government before they can exercise their rights — whether it&#39;s Second Amendment rights, First Amendment rights, or any other right."

Alas, GOA — which based on its rhetoric seems to be very closely tied to the Christian Theocracy faction of the Republican Party — also opposes such legislation for the very worst of reasons: it echoes the traditional Jewish/Christian/Islamic stance that the husband is god&#39;s representative in the household and, as god&#39;s enforcer, has unlimited god-given right to beat his wife and children. Thus GOA protests that denying guns to family patriarchs convicted of domestic violence is inflicting punishment for "very minor offenses that include pushing, shoving or...merely yelling at a family member" — never mind the bloody testimony of Crystal Brame&#39;s death and far too many other murders just as bad or worse.

*********

The criminalization of labor activism, political agitation and effective dissent is not the stated purpose of Lautenberg&#39;s newly introduced S 1237, which was dropped in the Senate hopper very late Friday 27 April 2007, the introduction obviously timed to minimize public disclosure and avoid press scrutiny. But given that the Republicans now and for a long while have condemned anyone who opposes Führer George Bush and his New American Reich, denouncing each opponent as a "terrorist" or "terrorist sympathizer," the impact of the measure is made obvious by its stated purpose: "to increase public safety by permitting the Attorney General to deny the transfer of firearms or the issuance of firearms and explosives licenses to known or suspected dangerous terrorists." Predictably, Bush himself has already demanded S 1237&#39;s immediate enactment. Just as predictably, Lautenberg — perhaps even more fanatical a forcible disarmament advocate than McCarthy — lauds its unprecedented subversion of the Constitutionally implied principle of presumed innocence as "too long" overdue.

Absolute proof of the calculated political malevolence embodied in the Lautenberg proposal — proof too of how the Democrats have finally abandoned any pretense of being civil libertarians and now (in the name of forcible disarmament) fully and even gleefully embrace the Bush Regime&#39;s agenda of totally nullifying the Bill of Rights — is found in the federal government&#39;s post-9/11 redefinition of the term "terrorism" to include any form of political protest that is genuinely disruptive. Participants in a legitimate strike or a protest that blocks or even slows vehicular traffic could thus be persecuted as "terrorists."

Quoth the American Civil Liberties Union in an analysis disseminated on 6 December 2002: "The definition of domestic terrorism is broad enough to encompass the activities of several prominent activist campaigns and organizations. Greenpeace, Operation Rescue, Vieques Island and World Trade Organization protesters and the Environmental Liberation Front have all recently engaged in activities that could subject them to being investigated as engaging in domestic terrorism."

Meanwhile Reason magazine, the official journal of the Libertarian Party, has repeatedly noted that in the eyes of the Bush Regime, "terrorist" and "enemy combatant" are synonymous

In other words, any member of any labor union that participated in the Seattle WTO protests could be labeled a "terrorist" merely based on the union&#39;s presence there and — under Lautenberg&#39;s S 1237 — he or she could be forcibly disarmed forever. But the reality is far more chilling: given the criteria of disruptiveness, the participants in any effective strike or job action can now be subjugated as "terrorists."

And given the Third Reich cloak of secrecy that now hides all U.S. security matters from judicial scrutiny, such subjugation could never be appealed. Indeed it is conceivable a labor activist (or any other opponent of the status quo) could be disappeared forever into the gulag of Guantanamo merely on the basis of the spurious argument that the (denied) attempt to purchase a firearm is absolute proof of "enemy combatant" intent.

The law that would enable such outrages should more properly be labeled the Lautenberg/Bush/Alberto Gonzales Bill of Rights Nullification Act of 2007 because it would not only subject all future U.S. firearms ownership to the tyrannical whims of the modern-day incarnation of the dread Reich Security Service (RSHA), but it would but it would repeal the presumption of innocence that is the great wellspring of the American legal system.

Thus, with active Democratic party collaboration, at the very least the Bush Regime is laying the groundwork to forcibly disarm every labor activist in the United States — and anyone else it chooses to put on its (secret) enemies list. Thus too another advance for the modern-day variant of fascism — not marching forward on hobnailed jackboots but sneaking past us on politically correct rubber soles.

Note also how McCarthy&#39;s HR 297 undeniably anticipates enactment of S 1237: "The Secretary of Homeland Security shall make available to the Attorney General...records, updated not less than quarterly, which are relevant to a determination of whether a person is disqualified from possessing or receiving a firearm..."(Sec. 101:b.1.A). Now the relationship between the two measures comes into sharp focus: Lautenberg abolishes the presumption of innocence and grants the government the unprecedented power to rule on our political reliability while McCarthy provides the infrastructure to make sure the secret police get every possible scrap of information.

Suddenly I wonder if closing the alleged "mental health loophole" — though no doubt an egregious blow to our freedom — isn&#39;t maybe just another red herring to distract us from the genuinely fatal wound that would be dealt our liberty by Lautenberg&#39;s coup-de-grace against due process.

*********

Predictions past and future: as some of you may remember, before I was booted off Progressive Independent for speaking tactless truth to tacky tyranny, I predicted that the Democrats would take back Congress in 2006, would founder pathetically in their efforts to accomplish any meaningful socioeconomic change, and would then cut a win-win deal with the Bush Regime to impose forcible disarmament and further subvert the Bill of Rights in general, thereby enabling each side to claim accomplishments dearest to its ideologues&#39; alleged hearts.

Though the onslaught is not developing exactly the way I imagined it would, there is no doubt such an offensive is underway. But just as I foresaw the betrayal of our electoral hopes for Medicare reform and the restoration of labor rights, I can no longer doubt this new Democrat/Republican collaboration to abolish the presumption of innocence and grant the Homeland Security apparatus the ultimate power of approval or disapproval over all individual civilian firearms purchases is (A) the beginning of the final assault on the Constitution by representatives of the corporate ruling class and (B) the beginning of a Bush Regime effort to co-opt public reaction to the Virginia Tech massacre and thus rehabilitate its public image by launching its own forcible disarmament campaign — not out of the craven hoplophobia that so agitates the Democrats and alienates so many voters, but in the name of the same self-proclaimed robust patriotism that seduced us into cheering the (failed) conquest of Iraq. I can hear it now: "if y&#39;all love your country, you&#39;ll give us the common-sense power to determine who&#39;s politically reliable enough to have a gun." The last time the politicians said something like that, the language was German.

*********

NOTES:
The text of HR 297 and the unfolding details of S 1237 are available through the excellent and superbly useful Thomas legislative search engine: <a href="http://thomas.loc.gov/">http://thomas.loc.gov/</a>

I am posting this same essay on my blog, Wolfgang von Skeptik, <a href="http://wolfgangvonskeptik.mu.nu/">http://wolfgangvonskeptik.mu.nu/ </a>

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Original Source: <a href="http://www.midwest-populistamerica.com/articles/threats-to-civil-liberties-arising-from-virginia-tech/">http://www.midwest-populistamerica.com/articles/threats-to-civil-liberties-arising-from-virginia-tech/</a>

Licensed under <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/">Creative Commons Attribution 2.5</a>.

Loren Bliss

2007-08-09

Brent Jesiek

Creative Commons Attribution 2.5

eng

Acts of bravery amid the horror

Letters

<b>Wednesday April 18, 2007</b>
<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/">The Guardian</a>

We have heard the arguments for years regarding the modern-day relevance or not of the second amendment, which engrains the right to bears arms into the American constitution and psyche, and they need not be rehashed now. I am sure all readers are intelligent and well-informed enough to realise and accept that although they may have strong views on the rights of people to own guns, many others do not share that view.

But this argument should not be the focus of today&#39;s editorials, columns and letters. Nathaniel Hawthorne said that "A hero cannot be a hero unless in a heroic world", so let us today for once become a world that celebrates heroism rather than focusing on the acts of the wicked few. The bravery of students to carry their friends, their classmates and people they didn&#39;t even know to safety and help while under fire shows the acts of heroism that are still required in our world. Today it is them and their fallen colleagues that we should be focusing on, not the evil act of one person. We will focus on how to turn heroic acts into unnecessary acts tomorrow, but for today let&#39;s celebrate the lives of those who have once again been taken by the winds of fate and those who were willing to risk their lives simply because it was the right thing to do.

Let us tomorrow reignite the debate over gun ownership, and this time have a full and frank debate rather than the shouting match that has developed in past decades and led to a stalemate which only allows further acts of terror to plague our society, but just for one day we can put our differences aside and immortalise the all too soon forgotten heroes of our world.
<b>Michael Hunter</b>
Glasgow

It&#39;s really very simple. If you permit people to buy firearms they will buy firearms. If a person owns any kind of tool they are likely to use that tool for the purpose intended. Firearms have only one use: they are designed to shoot and to kill.

Don&#39;t quote in defence "the constitutional right to bear arms"; the constitution was written centuries ago, in a different world with different values. What about the constitutional right not to be murdered?

If an individual has a breakdown in response to the pressures they find themselves under, they could kill themselves. Give that person a gun and time after time we see a trail of corpses - Dunblane, Columbine, Hungerford, Pennsylvania, etc, and now Virginia Tech.

Personal ownership of lethal weapons has no place in a civilised society.
<b>Andrew Harris</b>
Hitchin, Hertfordshire

The second amendment reads: "Congress must not deny the states a militia. A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." The context was the "critical period" when the states were concerned over the possible tyranny of the federal government.
<b>Eric Liggett</b>
Carnforth, Lancashire

Neither the president of Virginia Tech nor President Bush even mentioned unrestricted gun ownership as a factor in this carnage in their public statements. The latter suggested prayer as a remedy instead. Maybe there is no connection between the availability and the use of weapons in Virginia.
<b>Laurence Mann</b>
London

Jackie Ashley would not have wanted her thesis on the media numbing-down of the daily carnage in Iraq (What matters is the blood in the sand, not Des Browne, April 16) to have been instantly proved in such a stark fashion. But the blanket media coverage of the killing of 32 students on a Virginia university campus does, by contrast, demonstrate perfectly her cry of pain for Iraq, where the daily death toll surpasses that of the American tragedy. What is, in the 21st century, the insane pioneer attitude to carrying and using guns - to protect yourself in a wild, unknown world - has also been translated to Iraq, where young, frightened American soldiers have been, on average, responsible for up to a third of Iraqi civilian deaths daily, according to Iraq&#39;s ministry of health.
<b>Dr David Lowry</b>
Stoneleigh, Surrey

<b>Special report</b>
<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/0,,759893,00.html">United States</a>

<b>Related articles</b>
25.10.2002: <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,819054,00.html">Captured in their sniper&#39;s nest</a>
25.10.2002: <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,818956,00.html">Dropped clues that led police to sniper</a>
25.10.2002: <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,819087,00.html">Rifle costs just $800</a>

<b>Useful links</b>
<a href="http://www.nra.org/">National Rifle Association</a>
<a href="http://www.vpc.org/">Violence Policy Centre</a>
<a href="http://www.handguncontrol.org/">Brady Campaign</a>
<a href="http://www.atf.treas.gov/">Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms</a>

Copyright Guardian News & Media Ltd 2007.
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Original Source: Guardian Unlimited
<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/usguns/Story/0,,2059479,00.html">http://www.guardian.co.uk/usguns/Story/0,,2059479,00.html</a>

Guardian News & Media Limited

2007-08-09

Adriana Seagle

Eve Thompson-Acting Permissions Executive Syndication;permissions.syndication@guardian.co.uk

eng

Editorial: The necessary right of self-defense

From the <a href="http://www.californiapatriot.org/magazine/issue/8/8">May 2007 Print Edition</a>

Respectfully observing tragedy is never easy. Tempering a respect for the deceased and their families with a desire to draw upon lessons from the tragedy to prevent future occurrences is touchy. Indeed, allegations have already been levied that some have exploited the Virginia Tech shootings for political gain. Within hours of the attack, gun-control advocates began a full-fledged campaign against gun-rights politicians, as many in the media were quick to call for increased regulation of guns, ostensibly to prevent future tragedies.

We at the <em>Patriot</em> give our condolences to the families of the deceased, and pray for a quick recovery of those affected by the attack. At the same time, we take a firm stand against gun-control advocates who attempt to offensively use the recent tragedy to silence other voices.

The aftermath of Columbine was no different. Second Amendment advocates were branded "insensitive" and politicians seized the opportunity to put gun-control measures on the table. However, Virginia Tech bears little resemblance to Columbine.

Though the first two student deaths in the dormitory were unexpected, the subsequent slayings in Norris Hall could have been prevented with adequate campus security and warnings. The issue at question should be the shoddy campus security and an administration&#39;s apparent complacency in the face of red flags; campus officials issued only an e-mail warning to students after the first two victims were found murdered.

Virginia Tech&#39;s administration is not unique.

UC Berkeley&#39;s own stance on security is laughable, in the face of a locus of crime around People&#39;s Park. Vagrancy exists as a catalyst for crime, yet is permitted to continue. Admittedly, muggings and university shootings are on separate planes, but the complacency about student safety is the same. Unfortunately, it takes a tragedy before bureaucratic and disconnected administrations get serious about student safety.

Despite the fact that the Virginia Tech administration could have done more to secure the campus, gun-control advocates nonetheless spuriously seized the opportunity to make the Second Amendment the primary culprit. However, existing gun-control laws outlawed the killer from having guns. Even <em>The New York Times</em> pointed out that existing laws "made the killer ineligible to purchase guns" since law "prohibits anyone who has been &#39;adjudicated as a mental defective ...&#39; from buying a gun." The killer slipped through existing statues because enforcement of such laws is spotty. Local mental-health records are often not synchronized with national records, which let killer Seung-Hui Cho slip through.

Gun-control advocates shouldn&#39;t be championing more legislation, but instead should be focusing their efforts on enforcing existing laws. Even if one philosophically supports additional gun-control laws, they would only serve to stretch existing enforcement budgets thinner, and result in a net decrease in enforcement.

Yet reasons to oppose gun control aren&#39;t just pragmatic. Freedom is often confused as the philosophical justification for the Second Amendment. However, the philosophical base for the right to bear arms is much more profound. Such a right empowers individuals to defend themselves, so they don&#39;t have to leap out of windows when threatened by mentally defective maniacs. It gives individuals the ability to defend themselves when a government or administration does not take the adequate steps to protect them. During the rampage, students were at the mercy of the killer and the Virginia Tech administration. Were even one mentally stable student, instructor, or janitor armed, the outcome would have likely been much different.

Far from demonstrating a need for extensive gun control, the Virginia Tech tragedy demonstrated the dangers of relying heavily on a bureaucratic entity for protection. It&#39;s true that enforcement of existing laws could have helped prevent the tragedy, and a more vigilant administration could have prevented two deaths from turning into 32. The underlying lesson to take from the tragedy, however, is markedly different. At the end of the day, neither a university administration nor government can ever be trusted to safeguard an individual&#39;s safety, because such amorphous bodies lack the direct accountability to do so.

The university president and security force may lose their jobs over the tragedy, and that may compel future officers to be vigilant. Yet the students who barricaded themselves into classrooms won&#39;t forget that they owe their lives to their own abilities to save themselves, not to a university administration, police force, or government.

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Original Source: California Patriot Online
<a href="http://californiapatriot.org/magazine/issue/8/8/editorial">http://californiapatriot.org/magazine/issue/8/8/editorial</a>

Licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.5/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License</a>.

California Patriot

2007-08-05

Brent Jesiek

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License

eng

The forest for the trees

Letters to the Editor
The forest for the trees

Tragedy struck at Virginia Tech Monday. Unfortunately, the sadness of events is not only in the actions themselves, but also in the reactions. I want to assert that we still need to keep an eye on the forest while inspecting the trees.

Reporter after reporter fired questions, and I use the term fired here for a reason, at Virginia Tech Police Chief Flinchum, about security policy. The officer looked visibly shaken, dismayed, saddened and reporters piled on frustration as he tried to deal with the condescending questions from the gallery.

Now, let&#39;s be clear. Was the reaction as good as it could have been? Of course not. Was it even good? It doesn&#39;t appear that it was. But let me say this. I&#39;ll bet that if you poll anyone who went to college after1999 (Columbine), you&#39;ll find that over 85 percent of the students have or had no idea of any kind of "lockdown policy." As a recent University graduate, I can&#39;t even tell you what the school&#39;s hurricane policy is. But here is where we&#39;re missing the point yet again. The problem here isn&#39;t campussecurity. Chief Flinchum didn&#39;t kill anyone. The Virginia Tech police didn&#39;t harm anyone. The problem yet again is gun control.

As we approach the eight year anniversary of the tragedy at Columbine, what has happened since? To truncate the depressingly long list of school shootings, I&#39;ll just focus on Virginia colleges. In 2002, the Appalachian School of Law was the site of a tragedy where a dean and fellow student were killed by a student. Two of these shootings in five years in the same state at college campuses exemplifies the problem we&#39;re facing as a nation.

So what&#39;s the real problem here? Is it security? Is it emergency response? Of course not. If people want to commit crimes, people will commit crimes. The problem is that when they want to commit these crimes, access to weapons with which to commit these crimes is tragic.

What&#39;s the answer? If we continue missing the forest for these trees, we&#39;ll never get to the real problem.

Aaron Schmidt
CLASS 2005

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Original Source:<a href=http://www.cavalierdaily.com/letters.asp?pid=1583>The Cavalier Daily - April 18, 2007</a>

Aaron Schmidt

The Cavalier Daily

2007-07-31

Sara Hood

Meggie Bonner <meggiebonner@gmail.com>

eng

Gun Control Back on the Agenda

By Guo Qiang (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2007-04-18 15:27

The world was shaken by the news that a 23-year-old South Korean killed 32 students at Virginia Tech in the deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history.

The bloody massacre began at about 7:15 a.m. when two people were killed in a dormitory. Two hours later, the gunman reloaded his handgun, shooting another 30 dead.

American President George W. Bush said his nation is "shocked" and "saddened" and his administration "would do everything possible to assist with the investigation".

The shootings sent the whole nation into a panic, despite many reported incidents of shooting sprees on campuses in a country where owning guns is considered a right.

There was no confirmed motive for the shootings. People around the world should observe silence for the 32 innocent victims of the gunman who was purported to vent his pent-up anger because he suspected his girlfriend had a date with a student at the same school.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao expressed China&#39;s condemnation of the killings and sent condolences to the victims&#39; families.

And what did gunman Cho Seung-Hui achieve in the end? Spurned love is not entitled to end 32 lives unexpectedly from the earth although romantic poets say &#39;Life is dear, love is dearer&#39;.

Now it&#39;s time to focus on U.S. gun regulation. Cho is a South Korean immigrant who had lived in the U.S. since 1992 and had a green card, which makes it legal for him to obtain guns at a gun shop. Reports said Cho paid US$571 for his weapons and a box of ammunition.

Gun control should be on the agenda of the Bush administration. According to reports, America is one of the most heavily armed societies in the developed world, with 40% of households owning guns. U.S. homicide rates are two to 10 times higher than in other developed countries.

It was during the American War of Independence in the late 1700s that guns and firearms were necessities for the American people to fight for their independence against Britain.

The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed", enabling its citizens to legitimately own firearms. As a legal permanent US resident, Cho had the same rights as any other American citizen to buy guns.

Currently, the Democrats support gun control while the Republicans do not. The differing attitudes make it difficult to come to a consensus on gun control. This issue will be a hot topic in next year&#39;s presidential elections.

Chinese online commentators quickly weighed in on the issue, with many blaming the school for lax safety regulations.

Students also complained the school did not react quickly enough to the deadly situation, saying they only received an e-mail from the university that urged them to be cautious about a shooting.

However, Virginia Tech President Charles Steger defended the college&#39;s response by saying, "We had no reason to suspect any other incident was going to occur."

In covering this horrific tragedy, it is necessary to question the media ethics of some news websites. Without confirmation from outside sources, some influential websites, like Sina.com.cn posted a story translated from the Chicago Sun-Times, saying the murderer was likely to be a Chinese immigrant from Shanghai.

Chinese media should confirm the facts before releasing stories, which is a basic standard for media outlets. Some websites are so concerned by the number of page hits that they forget their credibility is at stake.

Meanwhile, local media outlets should bear the responsiblity for hurting a guy who was wrongly accused as a suspect.

Wayne Chiang, 23, an Asian-American student at Virginia Tech University has become the subject of fevered speculation on the internet after the killings.

"I am not the shooter. Through this experience, I have received numerous death threats, slanderous accusations, and my phone is out of charge from the barrage of calls. Local police have been notified of the situation," Wayne wrote in his blog http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/the-internet-thinks-its-me/2007/04/17/1176696821109.html?s_cid=rss_age .

"It was five for five. I was Asian, I lived in (the dorm), I go to V Tech, I recently broke up with my girlfriend and I collect guns."

Let us get back to the point. It is a tragic story of 32 innocent lives killed by a young man. Just hold up candles for their souls.

--

Original Source:China Daily

<a href="http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2007-04/18/content_853638.htm">http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2007-04/18/content_853638.htm<a/>

Guo Qiang

2007-07-25

Na Mi

eng

One more rampage, same weapon of choice

By Judy Polumbaum
Updated: 2007-04-19 07:10

Details of the shootings on the Virginia Tech campus on Monday have unfolded to confirm that the gunman was a US resident originally from South Korea. He is Cho Seung-hui, who killed 32 people and then himself in the worst campus carnage in US history.

Cho, a senior English major at the university who had come to the US at the age of 8, went about his murders methodically. Doors of one building where he opened fire on classes had been chained from the inside.

Two hours earlier, a young woman and a resident hall assistant had been shot at a dormitory, a presumably related incident that police at first interpreted as a domestic dispute. Their assumption led to the calamitous delay in alerting the campus and community to the threat.

The Virginia shooting inevitably brings back memories of a gunman&#39;s rampage one drizzly November afternoon more than 15 years ago on the campus of the University of Iowa, where I teach. The killer at Iowa was Lu Gang, a Chinese doctoral student in physics and astronomy.

On November 1, 1991, just up the hill from my office, Lu shot to death one fellow Chinese, three professors and an administrator, and critically wounded an undergraduate student, leaving her a paraplegic, before killing himself.

Undoubtedly, as more becomes known about the Virginia Tech shooter and his circumstances, people will reflect on what produced the sort of nihilistic rage that could lead someone to commit mass murder.

Such rumination, among both Americans and Chinese, ensued after the Lu Gang shootings. Most of us on the Iowa campus, and US observers generally, viewed Lu Gang&#39;s crimes primarily as the actions of a deranged individual. In China, by contrast, people sought broader social explanations.

A prolonged discussion carried out in the pages of the Beijing Youth News raised a variety of notions, including that Lu Gang&#39;s generation lacked good values due to defective early schooling during the "cultural revolution". A minority of readers suggested that the unfair pressure and discrimination that Chinese students suffered abroad was the root cause.

Such analyses were contradicted, of course, by the story of the young Chinese colleague among Lu&#39;s victims. Shan Linhua, brilliant, outgoing, well liked, the son of poor peasants from Zhejiang Province, had flourished at Iowa, winning a prestigious dissertation award and a research job on campus after his graduation.

Among the factors once again under discussion in the wake of the Virginia tragedy are an American "culture of violence" celebrated in mass media, a prevalence of "narcissism" among young people who lash back when they feel slighted, and shortcomings in provision of psychological counseling for troubled students.

Ultimately, however, what enabled both campus killers to cut down other human beings was the easy accessibility of guns in the United States.

After the Iowa shootings, Lu Gang was found to have purchased guns and practiced his markmanship at a local shooting range. Similarly, Cho Seung-hui wrought bloody mayhem with two guns and ample ammunition in hand. Reports say that five weeks earlier, wielding merely a credit card, he had paid $500 for a gun.

Weapons fanciers among US bloggers and commentators are raising a hue and cry against using the Virginia episode as another argument for gun control.

The zealots claim the mantle of the US Constitution, specifically, the Second Amendment. They selectively stress the phrase "the right of the people to keep and bear arms" while conveniently ignoring the larger context, which is to support society&#39;s ability to maintain a "well-regulated militia" for its security.

Nothing could be less secure than a nation awash in guns. We speak of "random" violence in connection with these campus shootings, but such incidents are not random. They&#39;re a logical result of the doctrine that gun ownership is an unassailable personal right, along with the blithe attitude that trade in guns is simply another unexceptional form of commerce.

Even in US states with stricter regulation, any lunatic who wants to buy a gun can find a way. The fact that both Iowa and Virginia shooters were of Asian heritage is mere coincidence. Their shared instruments of choice are not.

Judy Polumbaum is professor of journalism at The University of Iowa

--
Original Source:ChinaDaily

<a href="http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2007-04/19/content_853892.htm">http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2007-04/19/content_853892.htm<a/>

Judy Polumbaum

2007-07-24

Na Mi

eng

Virginia Tech massacre an unbelievably sad event

Friday, April 20, 2007 - The China Post

A total of 32 people were killed Monday in a Virginia Tech campus building in the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history. The gunman, a student from South Korea, took down his victims in two attacks that were spread two hours apart. The tragic incident has sent shockwaves around the world.

We wish to express our sympathy to the victims&#39; families and hope they will get all the help they need to make it through this very difficult time. The other students at the university should also be assisted so they can overcome the shock and grief they are suffering.

U.S. President George W. Bush has ordered flags flown at half staff across the nation. Speaking at a memorial service on the Virginia Tech campus, Bush said "it&#39;s impossible to make sense of such violence and suffering."

"Those whose lives were taken did nothing to deserve their fate," the president said. "They were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now they&#39;re gone -- and they leave behind grieving families, and grieving classmates, and a grieving nation."

At first it was reported that the alleged killer was a student from China. Later, however, police found the gunman was a fourth-year student from South Korea, described in the media as a "loner." Authorities said he was a legal resident of the United States. The suspect committed suicide after the attacks. Police said there was no evidence of any accomplice at either of the two attacks, but are exploring the possibility.

The shocking incident has prompted debate and discussion about the prevalence of gun ownership in the United States.

An Indonesian mother, according to a news report, bemoaned the availability of guns in the United States after learning her son was among those killed in the massacre, while South Koreans expressed shame and shock that the gunman came from their country.

"Why can people bring guns to campus?" the Indonesian mother said, recalling third-year doctoral student Partahi Lumbantoruan, who had such a promising future. The family had sold property and a car to finance his civil engineering studies.

The lax gun-control legislation in the U.S. is something on which people in many parts of the world don&#39;t agree. Here in Taiwan, gun control legislation is tough and gun possession is generally confined to law-enforcement personnel. The local Gun Control Act even bans the production of toy guns that could be converted into life-threatening firearms, or those bearing similarities to real guns in appearance, material, structure and trigger device.

The strict gun-control legislation here has without a doubt played an important role in preventing violent crime from rising rapidly.

In the United States, there is a powerful gun lobby, and legislators fear that advocacating stricter gun control would result in a loss of votes. Another reason why guns are readily available is the common American belief that in a free country, citizens should be free to own guns.

The slogan of the lobbyists is: "Guns don&#39;t kill people, people do." Well, that&#39;s like saying, "Bombs don&#39;t kill people, people do."

If restrictions on gun possession in the United States were stricter, the Virginia Tech shooting rampage -- and many other campus shootings that have occurred in the past -- might not have occurred.

Hopefully, this tragic event will lead to vigorous efforts in the U.S. to pass some sensible gun control legislation.

--

Original Source: The China Post
<a href="http://www.chinapost.com.tw/archive/detail.asp?cat=1&id=107654&d=2007420">http://www.chinapost.com.tw/archive/detail.asp?cat=1&id=107654&d=2007420<a/>

The China Post

2007-07-22

Na Mi

eng

Ponderation over shock from US campus shooting rampage

UPDATED: 17:04, April 19, 2007

A total of 33 people, including the gunman Seung-Hui Cho, 23, were killed Monday at Virginia Tech University in the deadiest shooting rampage in modern US history. The whole of the United States is stunned and shocked, and so is the entire world.

At the time when people, full of sympathy, are plunged themselves in an extreme sorrow and grief, they cannot but naturally ask such a question: Why it (the shooting rampage) has been again occurred in the U.S., and again in on the campus? In fact, this is not beyond people&#39;s expectations, as it is neither the first tragedy, nor the last, because there are two reasons involved:

First, the Second Amendment to the US Constitution specifies that the American people are endowered with the "right to keep and bear arms", which cannot be encroached upon. So the sale and purchase of firearms are legal in the United States according to law. Consequently, a large number of American families possess guns. Approximately 200 million guns are owned privately in the U.S., which has a population of 300 million, note relevant statistics released by the US Department of Justice. It has been reported that Seung-Hui Cho, the gunman on the Virginia campus killings, bought his first gun, a 9mm handgun, on March 13 at Roanoke, Va. Gun store, and he timed the purchase of his two firearms to be far enough apart that he would not run afoul of the "one gun a month" law.

Why does the United States still not amend its Constitution to ban the use of firearms after a frequent occurrence of mass killings with guns? Almost every shooting rampage is followed by a nationwide debate on whether or not the possession of firearms should be banned. But bills for banning the ownership of guns will not be passed in Congress in the end. This, however, has something to do with the influential and powerful National Rifle Association of America, or NRA. Having a membership of some 3 million that includes arms dealers, rich hunters and firearms fans, the NRA has both money and the vote with a significant impact in both Congressional and presidential elections. Any amendment of the US Constitution has to be rectified with a two-thirds majority at both chambers of US Congress and, therefore, the rigid draft firearms banning code remains a "still born in the womb". And gun owners seem to have some kind of reason, alleging that it is the gunman not the gun that kills people and the guns themselves cannot massacre people automatically.

Second, every society is made up of all kinds of people, and an undeniable reality is that a handful of people do not have a "sound" or healthy mind or character and still a small member of people are somewhat in mental disorders. Once these people seize firearms, others will be exposed to an immense threat. Relevant statistics show that close to half the killers have mental problems of some sort and, so for the sake of safeguarding social security, it is a must to reduce or prevent their accesses to firearms. Just imagine how is it possible for the gunman in the campus shooting rampage in Virginia Tech to massacre so many people if he had only a sword or a knife, not two guns in hand?

Furthermore, to make an in-depth analysis of its causes, a kind of culture to adore the force has been fostered and spread in the process from the War of Independence in 1776 to the subsequent extension westward in the late 18th century and early 19th centuries. In the meantime, violence and bloodshed scenes have been kept flooding "cowboy" movies and audio and visual products based on high-tech Star wars. This has created notions in minds of kids to worship the force and resort to it to solve problems.

On April 20, 1999, two teenagers, aged 17 or 18, killed 12 fellow students and a teacher and wounded 24 others before taking their own lives at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. What they did was solely simulated and designed with meticulous care on audio and visual items to peddle or spread violence and crimes.

Seung-Hui Cho, a South Korean American student, has been in the U.S. from a very young age.

If he was in South Korea, a nation of his birth instead of the U.S., would a tragedy of such a scale could happen?

To date, the entire world has been mourning with a deep grief over victims in the Virginia campus killing rampage, and another round of debate for prohibition of firearms ban is in sight in the United States. If only the loss of 33 precious young lives on the Virginia campus will arouse the awareness and introspection of American statesmen. </b>

<i>By People&#39;s Daily Online, and its author is Li Xuejiang, a top PD resident reporter in the U.S.</i>

--

Original Source: People&#39;s Daily Online, China
<a href="http://english.people.com.cn/200704/19/eng20070419_368006.html">http://english.people.com.cn/200704/19/eng20070419_368006.html</a>

Li Xuejiang

2007-07-18

Na Mi

eng

Virginia Tech

Anyone who is not living an incredibly secluded life (if you are, can I join you there?) has probably heard about the tragedy at Virginia Tech. where a gunman killed some 33 people, including himself. I&#39;ve struggled whether to weigh in on this or not, but I felt that I would do so because I feel like a lot of the subtext of what is being said is awful.

First and foremost, as a Christian, I am praying for those actually affected by this. Friends, families and Virginia Tech&#39;s students and faculty are hurting right now. God of all comfort, be near to them and somehow work this evil towards good. Christ, have mercy.

I implore people to not use this as a springboard for their agendas. Gun control lobbyists, anti-video game lobbyists and people of this ilk: I&#39;m talking about you. While you may have some valid points, just shut up for a while and grieve with those who are mourning.

I also understand that, in pain, people want someone to blame. Since the killer committed suicide, he does not prevent the convenient target. Please don&#39;t turn the school&#39;s president and the the chief of campus police into scapegoats to satisfy your pain-fueled desire for justice. Guess what: there won&#39;t be any here. The pain won&#39;t go away just because you feel like you have someone to blame.

To the news media: you disgust me. Human suffering is not a commodity to be packaged, sensationalized and delivered to consumers. You&#39;re a pack of vultures; a bunch of parasites of pain. Stop giving voice to the lobbyists who want to twist this for their own cause. Learn to listen, learn to suffer with those who are suffering. Tell us what&#39;s happening, and get the hell out of the way. Please.

To those who will inevitably say, "let&#39;s ensure this never happens again," I have news for you: you can&#39;t do that. What you can do is learn to live a life that is full of joy and pain amidst many uncertainties. I&#39;m not saying that nothing can be done, but I am saying that fear and pain do not drive anyone to make good decisions about the way things can be.

Every crisis is an opportunity. Let us not miss out, no matter how ugly the package this crisis came in.

Published on April 17th, 2007

--

Original Source: mattwiebe.com
<a href="http://mattwiebe.com/2007/04/virginia-tech/">http://mattwiebe.com/2007/04/virginia-tech/</a>

This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.5/ca/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License</a>.

Matt Wiebe

2007-07-16

Brent Jesiek

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License

eng

The right to life

<b>More gun control doesn&#39;t infringe on right to bear arms</b>

By: Editorial Board
Posted: 4/23/07

It took little time for the journalists and political pundits to start talking gun control.

This editorial is not just about last week&#39;s Virginia Tech shooting. It&#39;s also about the North Mecklenburg High School student who brought a gun on campus last Wednesday, threatened two other students and then left and shot himself. It&#39;s about the rumors of a planned shooting that circulated around Orange County High School last Friday and about the student who killed his father, then injured two others at that same school last fall.

This editorial isn&#39;t about the Second Amendment or taking away Americans&#39; right to bear arms. It&#39;s about how to keep guns away from those who are unfit to use them. It&#39;s about taking away an easy means of suicide for the roughly 16,000 Americans who killed themselves with a firearm in 2004. It&#39;s about limiting the 14,000 murdered by guns in 2005 and the 650 fatal accidents the year before.

One reason to study history is to avoid making the same mistakes as in the past. Stricter gun control laws might not prevent tragedy from striking, but they can make it far less likely.

Even simple regulations such as background checks can make a huge difference. If somebody has a history of mental illness, that should certainly show up in a background check and prevent that person from buying a gun. And there is no sense in destroying information gathered during those checks after 24 hours, as is mandated by national law, when, in some states, that person can return to buy another gun 30 days later.

A comprehensive registration system of gun owners would not hurt anyone but criminals. In Texas, residents do not need a permit to own a gun and do not have to register their firearms. The authorities don&#39;t even know how many guns are in the state. In addition, 80 percent of prisoners who own guns received their gun from family or a friend or bought it on the street or illegally. These person-to-person transactions go unrecorded.

Automatic and semiautomatic weapons - for instance, a 9 mm Glock - only are available to police in almost every other country. You can buy an AK-47 online for $379.99, and nobody in their right mind - and certainly nobody not in their right mind - needs one of those. The assault-weapons ban, which expired in 2004, should be renewed.

Gun-related crime has fallen since the mid-1990s, but rose sharply again in 2005. Unfortunately, the rates are still exorbitantly high. The gun-murder rate in America is more than 30 times that of England. Tighter gun control won&#39;t necessarily bring that down. If somebody has a strong enough inclination to kill another, that person likely will find a gun regardless of how strong the restrictions are, but it sure won&#39;t hurt to conduct thorough background checks and ban automatic weapons.

We&#39;re not trying to take away Americans&#39; rights to hunt or own a gun in case anyone feels the need to start a militia and revolt against tyranny. But nobody should complain if America is a safer place.

--

Original Source: <a href=http://media.www.dailytarheel.com/media/storage/paper885/news/2007/04/23/Opinion/The-Right.To.Life-2873036.shtml> The Daily Tar Heel - April 23, 2007</a>

Editorial Board

The Daily Tar Heel

2007-07-16

Sara Hood

Kevin Schwartz <kschwartz@unc.edu>

eng