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In the wake of yesterday's Virginia Tech shootings, I have little to add. It is hard, perhaps impossible, to understand the acts of madmen. And as of this morning, there's still so much we do not know.That lack of information hasn't stopped the usual suspects, though. Already cries for more gun-control legislation are going out in the media and press. Of course, they ignore the fact that Virginia Tech banned its students from carrying weapons, even if they were qualified to do so under the state of Virginia's concealed-carry laws.The fact is, yet another law only restricts the liberties of those willing to obey the law. For a madman with murder in mind, a weapons possession charge is the least of his worries.
Jack Dunphy writes in National Review today:The rush to blame the school’s administration and police is a reflection of a society that believes any and all misfortune can be averted by the proper application of government will. At this very moment, politicians in Richmond, Va., and Washington, D.C., are exerting their tiny brains trying to be the first to propose legislation that will “prevent the next tragedy.” The number of laws the killer broke on Monday will probably run to more than 20, but there are those who actually believe he might have been deterred by a few more strokes of a legislative pen. I can’t put it any more simply than this: There are evil people in the world, and no amount of laws will make them any less so.
The race to blame everyone besides the killer is on.
Jonah Goldberg's got a new G-File out, and he's in rare form, dismantling the so-called "Queen of Nuts Nice," Rosie O'Donnell, and her latest inanities.Renowned metallurgist Rosie O’Donnell proclaimed on TV last Thursday that Sept. 11, 2001, was a more significant date than most of us realized. It was, in her words, “the first time in history that fire has ever melted steel.”
This, of course, came as news to steelworkers, blacksmiths, firefighters, manufacturers of samurai swords, and other fools who hadn’t realized that steel is forged in magic furnaces using dragon breath and pixie dust.
It gets better: Asked if the government was responsible for its collapse, she coyly replied that she didn’t know. All she knows is that it’s “impossible for a building to fall the way it fell without explosives being involved” and that, for the “first time in history, steel was melted by fire.” Wink, wink. For the record, fire can melt steel, and buildings also collapse when heat weakens steel. But that misses the point. The point is we shouldn’t have to argue with crazy people.
Regardless, it appears that not even the heat of ridicule can weaken O’Donnell’s steely resolve to make an idiot of herself.
But the point Jonah goes on to make is all too true - she shares this craziness, and yet she is still on the air.Why is that, ABC? She's making you guys look like a bunch of idiots.I'm sure Father Coughlin would approve, though.
James Lileks, writing in
The Bleat:
They’re turning off the Eiffel tower to save the planet. The tower – which is the largest metal refutation of the concept that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar – is probably fueled by nuke-juice, but never mind. It’s going off to set a good example. Let us all be inspired by the darkness... All lights will be turned off for five minutes to show concern. After which the lights will be turned back on, of course. It’s a peculiar inversion: the height of civilization now consists of undoing the plug, not connecting it.
