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Brian Guthrie blogged today about an article in The Economist about the VT tragedy. The Economist is a publication I have a great deal of respect for, but in this case they’re flying their European socialist flag as high as ever. Here is the quote from the article that Brian used:

When it comes to most dangerous products—be they drugs, cigarettes or fast cars—this newspaper advocates a more [classically] liberal approach than the American government does. But when it comes to handguns, automatic weapons and other things specifically designed to kill people, we believe control is necessary, not least because the failure to deal with such violent devices often means that other freedoms must be curtailed. Instead of a debate about guns, America is now having a debate about campus security.

Later in the same article, they state:

Had powerful guns not been available to him, the deranged Cho would have killed fewer people, and perhaps none at all.

Let us not confuse the availability of guns with the legality of gun ownership. For reference, please note the availability of illegal drugs. Tightening regulations is one thing, but when reasonable firearms for self-defense (e.g. Glocks, non-automatic weapons, non-explosive weapons) are withheld from all but the police, you merely catalyze the growth and ubiquity of the weapons black market, which peddles its wares primarily to those with the urge to do real harm.

I’m a proponent of gun control. I do believe that the way we manage the sale and distribution of (especially) handguns in this country deserves to be revisited. But I also believe that the ability for an individual to buy a gun for self-defense, not having any intention or expectation to use it in public, is a boon to the overall safety of the country (or any country). In my mind, the critical issue to be addressed is how to better regulate the sale of arms to people like Cho, who clearly demonstrated (non-criminal) characteristics that would not inspire trust in any gun seller. Because those characteristics were not readily available to the gun seller, they had no way to know what his intentions might be.

The issue of gun control is divisive, as it sets forth premises that are so broad, socially, that there is scarcely a way to determine their accuracy. It was precisely these types of anecdotal premises that spurned the “war on drugs,” and as history has demonstrated, politicians are seldom very adept sociologists.