The "making up for lost time" edition.
First, I want to dedicate #7 and #7.5 to a professor who gave his life in defense of his students:
First, I want to dedicate #7 and #7.5 to a professor who gave his life in defense of his students:
Liviu Librescu (1930-2007)A survivor (Holocaust, Cold-War Communist Romania) who gave his all to help the next generation do the same. Because life is worth defending. L'shanna tova tikotavu.
Continuing to scour the op-ed pages of our nation's college campuses, we start off at Texas A&M with a piece saying "Guns for everyone will just make it worse." Interesting POV from a state noted for very positive stance on RKBA, but then again, the ivory tower of academia doesn't necessarily reflect the sensibilities of surrounding society.
A very short blurb. The only remark of interest was another tired assertion that "Statistics show that the more guns a population has, the more likely people will die or get injured by one." Yep, automobile deaths and injuries have proven that, yet we have made no strides towards stricter car control.
And, if you want to compare statistics, remember that the Brady Bunch claims there are some 200 million guns in the U.S. The 2004 FBI stats I looked at last year report 277,868 violent crimes involving a firearm. That amounts to .138% of all the firearms owned in this country. That is not a bad rate.
Now, a slightly more sensible, if not rather pessimistic, editorial comes from elsewhere in the state, in UT-Arlington's Shorthorn. The subtext of the title reads "School shootings will continue, and we have only ourselves to look to."
While he understands that 2A is not the source of the problem, he doesn't really pose any solutions, other than some more navel-gazing.
Meanwhile, over at UT-El Paso, the editor in chief of the Prospector decides to honk the gun control horn, especially since 2008 is not that far away: "The first step should be taking a closer look at the Second Amendment in the U.S. Constitution and make sure we elect a leader in the 2008 presidential election who will take concrete actions towards mending our outdated gun laws."
Again, another "novel" idea from a captive of the Ivory Tower. Rapunzel here has dropped her brains out the window.
I get a little irked whenever I hear these elite-wannabes talk about "taking a closer look" at our "outdated" Second Amendment. Would these same types also consider due process outdated? How about free speech? Protection against search and seizure?
Let me again quote Alan Dershowitz: "Foolish liberals who are trying to read the Second Amendment out of the Constitution by claiming that it's not an individual right or that it's too much of a safety hazard don't see the danger of the big picture. They're courting disaster by encouraging others to use the same means to eliminate portions of the Constitution they don't like."
Another response to the VT massacre, this one coming from the University of Pittsburgh's Pitt News, was written by someone who identifies more with the gun-control crowd, but interestingly enough states that gun control would not work in the U.S., simply because firearms are too embedded in our culture. He does a lot of comparisons with Western Europe, whether it be a lament that we are not more like Europe or not, I don't know.
An attempt to take the political pulse in light of the VT shootings is featured in Swarthmore College's The Phoenix. There, the writer seems to show a certain amount of astonishment at what seems to be reticence of politicians on both sides to address gun issues in light of the shootings. But I think he fails to see just how around-the-way most politicians have been over this issue, and seem to have realized the rather imprudent practice of leveraging a tragedy's emotional impact for the sake of furthering a political agenda.
Furthermore, the writer seems to be largely clueless about the state of gun rights support in Pennsylvania:
I don't think the author really thought about what he was writing when he typed out the above. He claims that PA's gun rights advocates are actually a minority (without giving any evidence--a common propaganda tactic to make it look like you have the moral high ground, when in fact, you're grasping at straws), but the previous sentence states that elected officials are mostly pro-2A. Who elected those officials? The minority?
I know Pennsylvania to be a state where there are a lot of hunting enthusiasts, so I find his assumptions about the minority and majority to be another case of ignorance borne out of Ivory-Tower isolationism.
More to come later this week, as I continue to search through the op-ed pages I can find online.
A very short blurb. The only remark of interest was another tired assertion that "Statistics show that the more guns a population has, the more likely people will die or get injured by one." Yep, automobile deaths and injuries have proven that, yet we have made no strides towards stricter car control.
And, if you want to compare statistics, remember that the Brady Bunch claims there are some 200 million guns in the U.S. The 2004 FBI stats I looked at last year report 277,868 violent crimes involving a firearm. That amounts to .138% of all the firearms owned in this country. That is not a bad rate.
Now, a slightly more sensible, if not rather pessimistic, editorial comes from elsewhere in the state, in UT-Arlington's Shorthorn. The subtext of the title reads "School shootings will continue, and we have only ourselves to look to."
There is a collective moan among the Jonesboro, Columbine and now Virginia Tech generation. We resist the obligatory gun-control debate, which is ineffective on a national level. We believe the Second Amendment is here to stay, and that Virginia Tech’s tragedy will not be the catalyst for gun-control reform, despite becoming the deadliest shooting in American history.
While he understands that 2A is not the source of the problem, he doesn't really pose any solutions, other than some more navel-gazing.
Meanwhile, over at UT-El Paso, the editor in chief of the Prospector decides to honk the gun control horn, especially since 2008 is not that far away: "The first step should be taking a closer look at the Second Amendment in the U.S. Constitution and make sure we elect a leader in the 2008 presidential election who will take concrete actions towards mending our outdated gun laws."
Again, another "novel" idea from a captive of the Ivory Tower. Rapunzel here has dropped her brains out the window.
I get a little irked whenever I hear these elite-wannabes talk about "taking a closer look" at our "outdated" Second Amendment. Would these same types also consider due process outdated? How about free speech? Protection against search and seizure?
Let me again quote Alan Dershowitz: "Foolish liberals who are trying to read the Second Amendment out of the Constitution by claiming that it's not an individual right or that it's too much of a safety hazard don't see the danger of the big picture. They're courting disaster by encouraging others to use the same means to eliminate portions of the Constitution they don't like."
Another response to the VT massacre, this one coming from the University of Pittsburgh's Pitt News, was written by someone who identifies more with the gun-control crowd, but interestingly enough states that gun control would not work in the U.S., simply because firearms are too embedded in our culture. He does a lot of comparisons with Western Europe, whether it be a lament that we are not more like Europe or not, I don't know.
An attempt to take the political pulse in light of the VT shootings is featured in Swarthmore College's The Phoenix. There, the writer seems to show a certain amount of astonishment at what seems to be reticence of politicians on both sides to address gun issues in light of the shootings. But I think he fails to see just how around-the-way most politicians have been over this issue, and seem to have realized the rather imprudent practice of leveraging a tragedy's emotional impact for the sake of furthering a political agenda.
Furthermore, the writer seems to be largely clueless about the state of gun rights support in Pennsylvania:
House Bill 760 was recently introduced in order to institute certain reforms, but despite Governor Rendell’s support it will face serious contention from the General Assembly, which is mostly comprised of lawmakers that support gun rights. The fact is that in Pennsylvania, as elsewhere, the minority is louder than the majority that supports gun control.
I don't think the author really thought about what he was writing when he typed out the above. He claims that PA's gun rights advocates are actually a minority (without giving any evidence--a common propaganda tactic to make it look like you have the moral high ground, when in fact, you're grasping at straws), but the previous sentence states that elected officials are mostly pro-2A. Who elected those officials? The minority?
I know Pennsylvania to be a state where there are a lot of hunting enthusiasts, so I find his assumptions about the minority and majority to be another case of ignorance borne out of Ivory-Tower isolationism.
More to come later this week, as I continue to search through the op-ed pages I can find online.
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