One week ago today

A madman went on a rampage with a pair of handguns at Virginia Tech.

We have learned a lot about the victims and a lot about the murderer since then. We have also been feed a lot of bullshit as well.

One of the larger chunks of stool we have had to contend with was that the murderer used “high capacity” magazines during his murderous walk, with MSNBC claiming that unnamed “officials” stated he had 33 round magazines for the Glock pistol.

As Ace states here, we should find it odd that in all of the photos and footage the murderer sent to NBC, not one single picture shows these magazines. The murderer took so-called “artistic” pics of his HP ammo and even more of himself all ninja’d up, but these supposedly extra special (and rather costly) magazines never made it into a single picture?

Get real. I also find it suspect that they couldn’t get one “official” to put his name to that quote. After all, speaking of the HP ammo, they were able to get the name of a lying former BATFElcher into their newsstory that contained the second largest stool sample of the week:

In the photos Cho sent to NBC, he showed some of his ammunition — hollow-point rounds, purchased, officials say, in the weeks before the shootings. Law enforcement officials say hollow-points are generally considered more lethal.

Joseph Vince, a retired ATF agent, agrees.

“It’s not something that you would need for home protection, because what you are trying to do is eliminate an immediate threat,” Vince says. “The idea of killing is what this ammunition portrays to me.”

Of course, no one at MSNBC thought to ask former agent Vince why his former employer uses HP ammo exclusively in their handguns and submachine pistols. I would truly have loved to hear fomer agent Vince explain, if HP ammo is used only for killing, why his agency only wants to kill those they shoot?

But by and far, the largest turd American firearms owners have had to swallow so far is that “This Only Happens in America”.

Steve Stanek at TCS gives us the truthful line on that subject:

In response to the horrible mass shooting at Virginia Tech on Monday, overseas leaders as well as many Americans have condemned the “gun culture” of the United States. Perhaps these overseas leaders and American citizens would be less hard on our country if we discuss what has been happening in other countries.

Major news outlets reported on April 18 about the shooting deaths of at least 19 gang members in Rio de Janeiro by rival gangs and police. These shootouts occurred despite Brazil’s strict gun control laws.

Also in Wednesday’s newspapers are reports about Tuesday’s shooting death of the mayor of Nagasaki, Japan. Japan has some of the strictest anti-gun laws in the industrialized world.

In Scotland authorities are enacting knife control policies because violent crime has continued to climb (with knives as a weapon of choice) in the wake of the nation’s gun bans. Should Americans speak contemptuously of Scotland’s “blade and booze” culture?

Stanek has more examples in his article.

Another line that has been taken by the media is that Vriginia had not told the FBI that the murderer was mentally disturbed. This lead to a number of stories about how the previously “top of the line” and “absolutely neccessary” NICS system is now broken and that additional legislation is required to strengthen it.

We even entered into a discussion here about proposed legislation, with David finding a couple of old federal bills wallowing around in Congress that their proponents claim would have stopped this. Maybe they would havem but they would have also led to some very frightening legal terms being introduced into the ownership of firearms law.

Which leads me to the very scary bit of news that the federal government has been compiling records of folks who use a pharmacist (that means everyone).

President Bush signed into law a bill to create electronic monitoring programs to prevent the abuse of prescription drugs in all 50 states.

The new law creates a grant program for states to create databases and enhance existing ones in hopes of ending the practice of “doctor shopping” by drug abusers seeking multiple prescriptions. It would authorize $60 million for the program through fiscal 2010.

The feds looked on the database to see if the murderer had been perscribed anti-depressants in the past. No, he had not.

But don’t you feel safer knowing that they looked him up?

I know I don’t. There is nothing to stop them from tying this database into the firearms laws. Except for you and me.

Yes it is a tragedy that murders like the ones at Virginia Tech happen. But the last thing you want is to give your political opponents the ability to claim that you are mentally unfit to own firearms. As I wrote in the comments of David’s post, the next thing you know, anyone who believes they need a firearm for protection, especially if they claim to need protection from “the government” could, and in the future possibly would, be declared “paranoid” and have their gun rights stripped from them forever for as little as expressing an opinion.

An opinion that I think most folks around these parts share.

Whence I return from Boomershoot, I will be making the purchase of a “lifetime supply” of standard capacity magazines for all my firearms. I will also be purchasing as much HP ammo as I can. I remember what a gun-bigot ruled Congress did to my right to own firearms and their accessories in the name of “safety” and I’m not going to get pinched by either the feds or my state and local politicos again.

You might want to get ready as well. they are currently saying that there is nothing on the table at this time.

But, times change. And unfortunately, not everywhere is like Tennessee.