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Tech massacre empasizes
need for handgun ban

Originally published 4/17/07 on Cadet Spiff's Deep Space Log

While I'm no prognosticator, I'm relatively certain that we will soon see feverish and impassioned debate on gun control as a result of the massacre this week of 33 people at Virginia Tech University.

Such tends to be the case when incidents such as this occur: Gun control issues come to the forefront for a time, with pro- and anti-control factions making impassioned speeches and tossing around a political football, resulting -- in the end -- in very little change.

It might become a little more difficult for Joe American to buy some exotic piece of weaponry, but for the most part, Americans continue to brandish their weaponry proudly as politicians pat each other on the back for doing a good job of making Americans safer and try in vain to console the ones who were most affected in the first place.

Feh.

It is time for America to look at itself and say, "you know, handguns aren't such a good idea. Maybe we should just get rid of the damn things." Melt them down. You know, the whole "swords into ploughshares" ideal.

I was looking at some statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice regarding murder rates and firearm use, not only in the U.S., but in other countries as well. Some of the statistics were surprising. For example:

    * As of 1995, 40 million handguns were produced in the United States alone since 1973. That's one handgun for every 7.5 people in the country.

    * In murders in the U.S. involving firearms (approximately 70 percent of all murders), 81 percent were committed with a handgun.

    * The U.S., with eight times the population of Canada, has a murder rate 24 times higher than Canada. Of course, Canada has incredibly strict gun control laws -- some of which came into being after a shooting spree in Montreal a number of years ago which was similar to what happened at Virginia Tech this week.

The arguments against gun control are illogical and, well, just plain silly. I can hear the NRA cranking up its propaganda machine now, in preparation for the attack which is sure to come. Of course, the arguments are old ones, tried and true: Taking away handguns is a violation of the constitutional right to bear arms; if guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns; and my favorite, guns don't kill people, people kill people.

As comedian Eddie Izzard said: Yes, people kill people. But the gun makes it a lot easier, don't you think?

As far as violating the constitutional right to bear arms is concerned, that argument is a load of crap, if for no other reason than from an historical perspective. The founding fathers never envisioned the ways technology would allow us to ever-more efficiently kill people; all they had to deal with was muzzle-loading rifles. And when the natives were restless (and there were a lot more natives back then), it was necessary to have a rifle to protect home and property, especially on the frontier.

Of course, we know the Bush administration has no problem violating the constitutional rights of U.S. citizens; just look at the Patriot Act. But I get the feeling that the right to bear arms is one facet of the Constitution that Bush will find iron-clad. Would Bush go after a war on handgun violence as tenaciously (or as blindly) as he has the war on terror? Of course not. The NRA is too huge a conservative voting block.

And as far as outlaws only having guns? Fine. Makes the outlaws easier to find and gives prosecutors something else with which to charge violators. If the government can outlaw lawn darts as a hazard to public safety, it makes sense that it can outlaw a product which specifically designed to kill other human beings.

Would a ban on handguns have prevented the Virginia Tech killings? Maybe, maybe not. There will always be those among us who feel alienated, loners who eventually snap and decide that it is a time to kill, for whatever reason. Unfortunately, we will always have Eric Rudolphs in our midst. There's nothing to say that Cho Seung-hui wouldn't have gone about his grisly plan using another method.

But if there was a handgun ban, he wouldn't have been able to legally buy two handguns and kill 33 people with them.

And that makes more sense than anything coming out of this tragedy.

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