See previous: At least 32 dead in Virginia Tech rampage; Anti-gunners seize the moment before bodies cold, Virginia Tech: The Day After, Virginia Tech: The Day After The Day After

I think I'm just about burned out on needing to know every gruesome detail of what happened Monday morning. I'm sure there will be plenty of other places to read about that, even if a lot of what you read is inaccurate and/or deliberately slanted. The gun grabbers are going to do their best to make it even more difficult for Joe American to defend his home and person, and a lot of people like me are going to do our best to point out that what we need is better psycho control, not more restrictive gun laws. With the left firmly in control of most of the printing presses and radio and TV transmitters in the county I guess our work's cut out for us. Thank God for the internet.

Below the fold:

• The Numbing Down of America
• Bury Manifesto With Cho
• Despite Dishonest Media Hype, Va. Tech Shooter
  Used Standard Capacity Magazines In Shooting Spree
• The Best Person In The World
• TN moves to allow guns in public buildings
• NBC Airs Laundry Over Airing Cho Materials: Angry Parents, Execs
• To honor Professor Liviu Librescu
• Fighting Back Was Not an Option, Part 2
• Who's looking out for you?
• A Proposal for Collegiate Concealed Carry
• The Fight To Bar Arms
• In Defense of Defending Ourselves

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The Numbing Down of America
Blacksburg seen from an emotional distance.
By Daniel Henninger

The killing of 32 students and teachers across the campus of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va., is as awful in its particulars as virtually any of the stories of death on a large scale that have struck the national consciousness. And yet it seems somehow that the public's emotional response to this event has been more controlled than in times past.

This is in no way to suggest that the response was inappropriate, inadequate or lacking sympathy. Nothing of the sort. It just seemed that the emotional surge was discernibly less than with similar events in the past--such as Oklahoma City, the Beltway sniper, Columbine, the Branch Davidians. This was the sort of event that normally would have caused one's phone to ring off the hook or email inbox to fill with alerts from friends. But that didn't seem to happen this time. If one wasn't watching TV, the news arrived with an uncharacteristic delay.

While the grief death visits on individuals remains an emotionally devastating event, it may be that as a nation we've reached tilt with tragedy. "Tilt" is the famous metaphor drawn from the old pinball machines, which shut down if one banged on them too hard. Pinballs could survive plenty of random shocks to the system. But there were limits. Of late, we have been banged on hard.

This has nothing to do with not caring, or turning cold to tragedy. But one deals with what the world brings, and given the pace of such stuff now, the adjustments one has to make have come quickly. After September 11, after years with the Iraq war and after a lifetime of media coverage of tragedies large, small and phony, it would not be surprising if people began to resist drawdowns on their emotional reservoirs.

The media itself has become cooler and even clinical in its reporting of domestic tragedy, delivering bushels of data and detail, with many of the event's participants willing to do reporter-like stand-up interviews. This week, on any channel one watched and in most newspapers, the coverage of Blacksburg was almost literally forensic. The murderer was "the shooter," the first killing seemed to be a "domestic dispute," and we were all trying to "piece together the details." A police procedural is better than leering and false emotion. But if the way we absorb the complex strands of tragedy now is as the police do--the real ones and the ones on 45 TV police dramas--then we will learn to approach death as they do, at a remove.

This doesn't strike me as obviously terrible, but it is different. Our capacity for shock at genuine violence has been recalibrated.  ...

Read the whole thing. Maybe it explains where I am today, or maybe I've been there for years. Nam, and the way we were treated when we came home, took a lot out of some of us and the only thing that got us back in the fight was John Fucking Kerry's delusions of adequacy. Now that he's not a threat any more maybe I'm ready to just go back to sleep. Maybe I'm just tired. Maybe I'm just sicker than I realize and I'll feel better in a few days. Maybe I'm just sicker than I realize and I won't feel better in a few days. I'll still keep blogging to the extent that I'm able; it's the only way I have left of giving anything to our troops and the country they protect, the only way I can make any sort of attempt to affect the world my grandson grows up in. Maybe I just need some rest.

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Bury Manifesto With Cho
Dan Riehl

There is value in dwelling on this so-called manifesto of Cho's. But that value rests in analysis by mental health and security professionals tasked with protecting society from psychotic individuals who, in their madness, seek to do the innocent harm.

NBC pretended to strike a blow against the continuing degradation of our culture when it recently fired talk radio host Don Imus. Airing the ramblings of a madman before professionals have had time to evaluate them, or those impacted the most have had any time to heal, is proof positive that NBC, like most media outlets, couldn't care less about degrading our culture. It is ratings and advertising dollars which they crave the most. Ironically, that very shallowness is one of the things the deranged mass murderer railed against. I suppose even a lunatic can have a point.

Under any other circumstances, airing the taped message of a mentally ill individual would be considered embarrassing and crass, if not a violation of his or her civil rights. Only because Cho murdered dozens of innocents is it allowed to dubiously pass as breaking news. NBC would have been right to air this material exclusively as part of an intelligent discussion of the threat to society from crazed actors, unfortunately, they opted to not do that and made it a side show, instead. ...

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Despite Dishonest Media Hype, Va. Tech Shooter
Used Standard Capacity Magazines In Shooting Spree
Confederate Yankee

Thanks to Ace and Allah, I was led to a Washington Post article that explains that the shooter at Virginia Tech used standard capacity magazines during his rampage:

The Glock was used in two shootings, first in a dormitory and then in Norris Hall more than 2 1/2 hours later, officials said. A surveillance tape, which has now been watched by federal agents, shows Cho buying the Glock, sources said. Both guns are semiautomatic, which means that one round is fired for every finger pull.

Cho reloaded several times, using 15-round magazines for the Glock and 10-round magazines for the Walther, investigators said, adding that he had the cryptic words "Ismale Ax" tattooed on one arm. Although there are many theories, sources said, no one knows what it means.

As I stated yesterday, the magazines used in the Virginia Tech massacre were of standard capacity. Let me take this opportunity to do what the media has failed to do, and explain the difference between standard capacity magazines, magazines manufactured during the crime bill, and extended magazines as the terms relate to pistols. ...

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TN moves to allow guns in public buildings

NASHVILLE — In a surprise move, a House panel voted today to repeal a state law that forbids the carrying of handguns on property and buildings owned by state, county and city governments — including parks and playgrounds.

"I think the recent Virginia disaster — or catastrophe or nightmare or whatever you want to call it — has woken up a lot of people to the need for having guns available to law-abiding citizens," said Rep. Frank Niceley, R-Strawberry Plains. "I hope that is what this vote reflects."

Read the full story in Thursday’s News Sentinel.

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NBC Airs Laundry Over Airing Cho Materials: Angry Parents, Execs
Posted by Mark Finkelstein (H/T: Michelle Malkin)

The first half hour of this morning's "Today" offered an unusual window into NBC's decision to air some of the materials that the Virginia Tech killer, Cho Seung-Hui, had mailed to the network.

Matt Lauer introduced the topic.

MATT LAUER: It puts us in an unusual position, because obviously at NBC News we always want to cover the important stories of the day and the massacre at Virginia Tech is one of the most disturbing and tragic stories any of us will ever cover. But we're not used to becoming part of the story, and with this package that he sent us, Cho has made us in some way part of the story

MEREDITH VIEIRA: The decision to air some of the images he sent to us: the video clips and the photos and to discuss what was contained in that rambling and hate-filled manifesto was not taken lightly, it was not made quickly, and we understand that this is going to be seen as devastating to many people who lost loved ones in the shooting. In fact I will tell you that we had planned to speak to some family members of victims this morning but they cancelled their appearances because they were very upset with NBC for airing the images.

LAUER: And let's be honest. There are some big differences of opinion right within this news division as to whether we should be airing this stuff at all, that we're taking the right course of action.  ...

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To honor Professor Liviu Librescu
Michelle Malkin

Here's a petition to memorialize VTech hero, Dr. Liviu Librescu, by renaming Norris Hall in his honor.

Related: Fallen students to be awarded posthumous degrees

Related: ...

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Two excellent reads I won't excerpt for fear of tempting you to not read the whole thing:

• Fighting Back Was Not an Option, Part 2

• Who's looking out for you?

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A Proposal for Collegiate Concealed Carry
Confederate Yankee

"Fully armed" college campuses are of course a horrible idea for the very reasons implied above, which are primarily a lack of maturity and the abundant flow of alcohol and other recreational drugs. It would be a recipe for further increasing recipients of the Darwin Awards, and that is something we are certainly against.

What is reasonable, however, is giving students, faculty, and staff who meet certain rigorous standards the ability to bring handguns on campus for the defense of themselves and others in extraordinary life-threatening circumstances.

Here is my proposal.

The minimum age to purchase a handgun is 21 years old in most states. By definition, this would limit concealed carry to mostly juniors, seniors and graduate students, non-traditional (older) underclassmen, faculty, and staff.

Limit concealed carry to students housed off-campus, and to faculty and staff members. Firearms would not be allowed in the dormitories. This is both a practical and legal consideration. In-dorm firearms could not be secured properly and uniformly, and should not be allowed.

Those students, faculty and staff must prove that they have secure storage for their firearms in their off-campus dwellings.

They must register the firearm they wish to carry on campus with the university police, ...

Go read the whole thing.  I'll save my thought's on it for Bob's comment section.

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The Fight To Bar Arms
By Janet Ellen Levy

With the recent tragedy at Virginia Tech in which 32 people were slain on campus by a lone gunman who turned his weapon on himself, no doubt the clamor to ban personal ownership of guns will be raised again. Yet amidst the grief and anguish over this terrible incident it should be noted that the campus itself had gained a well-known reputation as a "gun free zone."

Virginia Tech earned that reputation from widespread, national coverage arising from the 2005 disciplining of a student who brought a permitted firearm on campus. That reputation was further enhanced in January of 2006, when H.B. 1572, a bill that would have given students and employees the right to carry handguns on campus, was quashed in subcommittee review before it ever got to the Virginia General Assembly for a vote. Meanwhile, last June, Virginia Tech's governing board passed a violence prevention policy that further strengthened the ban against weapons on campus.

With the notoriety of its no-gun policy as a backdrop, the Virginia Tech campus thus ensured that students and faculty were practically sitting ducks, stripped of their ability to defend themselves during Monday's tragic sniper shooting. Who can say if the methodical shooter, Seung-Hui Cho, a senior who was a Virginia Tech student during the 2005 student-disciplining incident, was aware of the school's reputation and took it into account? What can be said, however, is that this most recent disaster, featured prominently on the national stage, underscores for many how necessary is our constitutional right to bear arms. ...

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In Defense of Defending Ourselves
By R. E. Smith Jr.

Another shockingly violent, but fortunately rare, case of sudden criminal behavior hit us from media pages, airwaves and screens this week. They called it a "massacre." Students and faculty at Virginia Tech were gunned down by a madman. They were taken by surprise with little means to protect themselves, except to run and hide.

Despite police being at the scene early in the killer's rampage, he eventually killed 32 people, wounded 15 more and shot himself. Ineffective college authorities could only "communicate" by e-mail to warn students and staff of the lone raging maniac.

The killer had the advantage: surprising his unaware victims and being armed with evil intent. The innocent, law-abiding people on campus were vulnerable: at first, they didn't know he was out there; when he started shooting them no one was armed. They were unable to defend themselves against deadly force.

Of course, random, unexpected acts of violence can't be prevented. But the perpetrators can be neutralized by those at the scene who are prepared. Hundreds of thousands of citizens with firearms counteract violent criminals in their attempts to burglarize, assault and murder every year.

In the aftermath of this mass killing at Blacksburg, Virginia, with all the other reflections being offered, we should be reminded that we have the God-given right to defend ourselves. Further, it's self-evident and codified in the Second Amendment to our Constitution. We have a fundamental right to "bear arms." But radical, misguided anti-gun activists and their political allies persist to curtail that right. ...