The "Creepy" Efforts To Tie The VaTech Massacre To Political Action

Via Michelle Malkin, Andrew Sullivan finds it "creepy" that pro-gun-rights bloggers are noting that VaTech banned weapons on campus, disarming only law-abiding citizens, and taking weapons of self-defense from students and faculty.

However, he seems to have entirely glossed over the NYT's predictable editorial in favor of gun control. Sullivan reads the NYT every day; one of the many things that makes him a twit is his constant NYT-boosting. So it's simply not possible he just missed the article.

Why is it creepy to note the downside of gun control (citizens unarmed by state decree) while it's not creepy to agitate for further gun control measures?

He also seems to have entirely missed ABCNews making a spurious connection between the lapsed assault weapons ban and the availability of extended capacity clips. Not only were such clips not made unavailable by the ban, but there is (as of yet) no evidence I know of that the shooter used such clips at all. (I'll correct this of course if I find out otherwise.)

Creepy? No. To Andrew Sullivan, the only "true conservative" left in America, it's only creepy to suggest conservative solutions to problems.

The Shooter: ID'd as a Korean national named Seung Hui Cho. A "loner," if you can believe that.

The serial numbers were filed off his weapons, suggesting, but not quite proving, he purchased them illegally.

And yet the gun control lobby wants more ineffectual gun control.

I don't know if that's creepy so much as jackass stupid.

Confederate Yankee also notes the possbility -- possibility -- that these might have been illegally-converted machine pistols (at least a commenter notes this possibility). That is, conventional semiautomatics (one shot per trigger pull) converted via mechanical alteration to full-automatic mode (gun keeps firing bullets until the trigger is released).

That modification can be done with most, if not all, semiautomatics. Trouble for gun control advocates is that that's already illegal.

Further, whether it's actually a very effective modification is questionable. Pistols are already the most inaccurate of weapons, and turning a light pistol into a machine gun is only going to reduce accuracy further. Plus, you're going to run out of bullets in an awful hurry -- extended capacity clips or not -- and most of those will end up parked in the scenery.

The Evil 9mm Round? The 9mm round is pretty much the world standard for pistol rounds. The US converted from the more-effective .45 ACP round for its standard sidearm to the less-deadly 9mm partly just to be in sync with the rest of NATO.

Which makes it curious that the Screaming Mimis would suddenly decide that it's this particular round that's to blame for the shootings.

My wife and I (OU_Gryphon) were watching CNN last night because Fox had Geraldo Rivera doing his usual schtick. It was special report with Anderson Cooper. He had a short segment on the weapons used in the shootings which was extremely biased (Surprise!) and along the lines of the ABC story you linked yesterday. The segment implied that the 9mm round is a military round favored by gangs and is the caliber of choice for criminals. He all but came out and said it was an evil cartridge which should be banned.

He tried to send a video link, but sent the wrong thing. I'll post it as soon as I get the correct one.

Question: Is it the evil Europeans and their venal adoption of the 9mm parabellum/Luger round -- with its insidious metric measurement -- that's actually responsble for the massacre?

The sarcasm there isn't meant to make light of the deaths of the VaTech students. But we are entering a decidedly stupid phase of uninformed speculation and ranting, and I think that stupidity should be lampooned.

No one benefits when stupidity is permitted to pass for wisdom and expertise.

Edit/Correction: It just occurred to me that I have no idea what I'm talking about re: magazines vs. clips. I think it is correct to say "box magazine," not box clip. I apologize for the foolishness. Should have looked that up before accusing others of getting it wrong.

I think what I did was this: I knew one was right and one was wrong. The media was using one, so I assumed that was the wrong one. A few minutes later I thought about it, and realized no, "box magazine" is correct, it's "clip" that's incorrectly used.

Apologies again. Please, call off the hounds.

posted by Ace at 01:23 PM

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