A Senseless Massacre of Good Taste

This morning, 15 Virginia Tech students walked into a German class in Norris Hall, not realizing that for some of them, they would never walk out. They didn’t know at the time that they would soon become subjects of the most deadly shooting spree in American history – an event so horrific, that the nation would have to stop and catch its breath to understand what happened.

Undeterred by the gravity of the event, liberal columnist John Nichols of The Nation had it all figured out within hours. At 5:35, he had already written a blog post pre-emptively criticizing the National Rifle Association for their “rapid response,” which has yet to materialize. In his post, replete with misspellings and grammatical errors, Nichols decries “one dimensional explanations” of the violence today, then immediately offers… an explanation that can barely be ascribed one dimension.

Nichols goes on to blame corporate gun companies, the NRA, and anyone that supports owning “deadly weapons” for our “culture of violence.” (Incidentally, if you purchase a gun, and it’s not “deadly,” then you got ripped off.) He says:

Do not doubt that the National Rifle Association is preparing its \”this-had-nothing-to-do-with-guns\” press release. The group has no compunctions about living up to its reputation for being beyond shame — or education — when it comes to peddling its spin on days when it would be better to simply remain silent.

Of course, criticizing imaginary press releases from the NRA certainly doesn’t smack of “peddling spin.” John Nichols is clearly above offering his boiler-plate opinions on days “when it would be better to simply remain silent.” Perhaps Nichols should move to downtown Detroit, where nobody is an NRA member, and therefore completely free from the threat of gun violence.

Yet lo, before the blood had even dried on the Norris Hall floor, Nichols had the answer to reverse this trend of violence: Everyone should be forced to watch Bowling For Columbine, Michael Moore’s anti-gun screed where he ridicules people with Alzheimer’s. If only the young man who shot 32 others on the Virginia Tech campus today had seen that movie, they’d all be alive today. Michael Moore has the cure for all jilted lovers who feel like they have no more reason to live. Even better, maybe we should make everyone watch \”March of the Penguins,\” to teach people about the value of life. Seems about as plausible.

Even more incredibly, Nichols writes:

Moore certainly does not let apologists for the gun industry off the hook. But he does not stop there. \”Bowling for Columbine\” explores the role that America\’s mad foreign policies and obscene expenditures on weapons of mass destruction might play in fostering a culture of violence.

There you have it – it’s American foreign policy that caused the massacre today. Silly of you to think George W. Bush didn\’t play a role in this. Clearly this young man was a student of foreign relations and had tired of the United States exerting its will on the rest of the world, which is why he decided to start shooting up a university campus. Things like this never happened when America was respected in the world under the Clinton administration. Oh, except for Columbine.

Nichols and his ilk will likely ignore an inconvenient fact: Virginia actually has a “concealed carry\” law. Yet there was no gun anywhere on campus to stop this shooter. Does anyone honestly believe that an event like today\’s is any less likely to happen at the University of Wisconsin because we ban concealed weapons? I thought that if we allowed people to carry firearms, everyone would be packing heat and our campuses would be the Wild West revisited? In fact, only one person on the Virginia Tech campus was aware of our “culture of violence,” and he was the one pulling the trigger.

It’s good to know liberals have lunatics like Nichols on-call to destroy good taste within hours, if necessary. Somebody get his beeper number so we can call him to blame Bush for the next time a baby falls down a well. One thing is clear – Nichols had this blog post written long ago, whether he actually had typed it out or not. I’m just happy the 33 corpses that turned up today gave him an excuse to write it.

UPDATE: The NRA did put out a written statement. It simply says: \”Our thoughts and prayers are with the families. We will not have further comment until all the facts are known.\”