Cohen On Thompson: Guns Don't Kill People, Hormones Do

The Washington Post's Richard Cohen totally mis-characterizes Fred Thompson's NRO piece on gun laws in the wake of the Virginia Tech massacre. Cohen makes it appear as though Thompson was advocating some Wild West approach, allowing anyone and everyone to carry a concealed weapon. Cohen also appears to believe that there can't possibly be anything like a responsible 21 year old in the world today. Unfortunately, maybe that's true in Cohen's view of some liberal utopia, but it still isn't what Thompson suggested.

Cohen: If the university did not prohibit guns, students would have been able "to protect themselves" -- presumably by reaching into their backpacks and gunning down the shooter.

Marshal Dillon begs to differ. He might point out that young people -- especially young men -- sometimes drink too much and have hormonal surges that compare, on a mild day, to Vesuvius on Aug. 24 of the year 79. (Goodbye, Pompeii.) To think that a university president in his or her right mind would permit students to carry guns on campus so stretches the term "right mind" that it loses all meaning.

Here's what Thompson actually wrote. He not only stated that a teacher with a carry permit might have been able to intervene, he also made the case that a 21 year-old able to pass a background check and having gone through some training might have been able to do the same. Actually, even 18 year-olds do it all the time, in Iraq. And liberal illusions to the contrary, rarely with any problems. It's a shame more young people don't appreciate just how little credit liberals give them and that the total lack of expectations from the likes of Cohen may well be the greatest contributor to irresponsible and even criminal acts by young men and women today.

Virginia Tech administrators overrode Virginia state law and threatened to expel or fire anybody who brings a weapon onto campus.

In recent years, however, armed Americans — not on-duty police officers — have successfully prevented a number of attempted mass murders. Evidence from Israel, where many teachers have weapons and have stopped serious terror attacks, has been documented. Supporting, though contrary, evidence from Great Britain, where strict gun controls have led to violent crime rates far higher than ours, is also common knowledge.

So Virginians asked their legislators to change the university's "concealed carry" policy to exempt people 21 years of age or older who have passed background checks and taken training classes. The university, however, lobbied against that bill, and a top administrator subsequently praised the legislature for blocking the measure.

The logic behind this attitude baffles me, but I suspect it has to do with a basic difference in worldviews. Some people think that power should exist only at the top, and everybody else should rely on "the authorities" for protection.

Comments

[Horatio]

Cohen suffers from what those of us in the IT world refer to as the "ID10T Error Code", & "The Carl Rowan Syndrome" (http://www.tincher.to/rowan.htm)

[Other Ed]

Once Fred Thompson gets into the race, I think we should show gun owner’s support for him by coming to all his rallies heavily armed. Just think how intimidated those Dems would be with hundreds of assault rifles being waved in the air everytime Fred speaks!

[seekeronos]

I'd actually support a wild west approach: only condition is everyone who wants to wear a firearm or transport it on their person has to open carry.

[Purple Avenger]

Ummm...the blood drenched state of Vermont must be the "wild west" murder capital of the USA then. You can carry open or concealed in VT without any sort of state permit or license.

[Horatio]

How about tax breaks for open carry? Would drive every liberal out of the state that enacts this. I can't take credit for this, which goes to Boston T. Party's "Molon Labe"

http://www.amazon.com/Molon-Labe-Come-Take-Them/dp/1888766077

[buzz]

"Just think how intimidated those Dems would be with hundreds of assault rifles being waved in the air everytime Fred speaks!"

Easy there Moby. The point is that an armed citizen has and will continue to be the person on scene when something bad happens, not the cops. The point is not to intimidate by force others who's politics are different that ours. Methinks someone is projecting.

[Peter]

It's worse than that. Not only aren't we there when trouble starts but the first few Officers on the scene will be jacking around forming a perimeter, gathering intelligence, establishing a chain of command and otherwise jerking off.
When I pinned on a badge some thirty-five+ years ago if somebody started shooting up a school we'd go in as we arrived and shoot the bad guy.
When I retired I would have been fired for going in without permission from the brass. I'm glad I'm retired.

[Andrew]

Here's another example of why restricting guns won't work:

http://www.break.com/index/store-thief-gets-his-ass-kicked.html

It takes 6 minutes of an 8+ minute video of a would-be convenience store robber getting the crap kicked out of him before the cops finally showed up. Had the robber been armed with a gun, the outcome probably would've been quite different, with either dead employees, the robber getting away, or both.

So let me get this straight...we're supposed to just hope that we won't have to deal with a bad guy with a gun, and if we do, call the cops and just hope that they show up in time? I dunno, but that seems like a bad bet to me, particularly if you work in a convenience store.

No offense to the cops, BTW...they can't be everywhere at once, and we shoudn't expect them to be.

[Daniel in Brookline]

> No offense to the cops, BTW...they can't be everywhere at once, and we shoudn't expect
> them to be.

Well, yes and no, Andrew. You're right that we should be our own first line of defense; it's irresponsible to do otherwise. (Assuming that the police have the responsibility to protect you, more than you have responsibility to protect yourself, is irresponsible by definition.)

My problem is when the police themselves buy into the myth. In many American communities, the local police department has an arbitrary veto on who gets a gun permit and who doesn't -- and they are not answerable to anyone for that decision. That's why more and more states have started to pass "shall-issue" laws, requiring police departments to show good reason for denying a gun license.

If I recall correctly, not long ago a police department was sued, after a 911 call didn't get a response in time -- and it was determined that the police were not liable. So if they're not responsible for failing to save lives, and we're not supposed to be responsible for protecting ourselves, then where are we?

Responsibility must lie somewhere. For a long list of reasons, I believe we must take responsibility for ourselves, first and foremost -- and we have a right to insist that our laws and government institutions support us in this.

respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline