Belatedly, I would like to extend my condolences and prayers to the victims and those who lost loved ones Friday when a City of Virginia Beach engineer opened fire on coworkers at the end of the workday, killing 12 and injuring four before being killed himself in a gun battle with police.
I have a brother-in-law who has worked for 15 years in the same municipal complex where the shootings occurred, and I even had a job interview there back in 2004, so I am well familiar with those buildings. On Friday afternoon, I texted Charlie and was concerned when I hadn't heard back from him in an hour. My son, who is close to his Uncle Charlie, had the good sense to call him. After he spoke with him, he called my wife and gave us the good news that Charlie was okay. Shortly after that, Charlie called me, and I expressed my profound relief that he was safe, but our conversation was brief as he needed to call others, and his sister was on the other line.
It is always tempting for leftists to pigeonhole criminals and regurgitate tiresome talking points when it comes to firearms related mass killings such as Friday's horror.
But more often than not, there is nuance involved with perpetrators of such crimes, and it is easy to decimate liberal arguments for gun control, gun free zones and expanded background checks. Liberals are champing at the bit for a shooter to be an angry white male, a Christian, a Trump supporter, a racist neo-Nazi skinhead, a right-wing social media blowhard. This feeds their hateful, spiteful narrative about the political opposition. It's deeply disappointing to them when the perpetrator turns out to be a black man, as was the case here, or has any other characteristics that don't fit the left-wing narrative.
It's also, to use Al Gore's term, an "inconvenient truth" when background checks and a gun-free zone failed to prevent the horrible slaughter. The perpetrator in Friday's atrocity was a seemingly straight-laced 40-year-old with no criminal record. He had a bachelor's degree in civil engineering and had served in the Army National Guard. But he apparently did not engage in social media, and was not known for being outspoken about politics.
But he did acquire some firearms in the months leading up to the shootings, and given that he had served in the military, I'm willing to bet he could shoot well. So again, beefed up background checks would not have deterred this crime, nor would they have revealed whatever demons were troubling the perpetrator.
As for the matter of gun-free zones, it's obvious to anyone with common sense that such areas represent soft targets that are highly desirable for those bent on shooting and killing as many innocent people as possible, with little or no chance of opposition.
The Commonwealth of Virginia operates on a "shall issue" policy for concealed carry permits. Supposing a few people in the building the gunman hit had been armed when the assault went down. There's a good chance lives would have been saved. Now, it's always possible an innocent person -- or several -- could have been hit in the crossfire when a good citizen attempted to shoot the gunman. But I still say fewer people would have been killed if armed resistance had preceded the arrival of the police.
In this case, we were fortunate that the Virginia Beach Police Department Headquarters is located only a few hundred yards from the municipal complex, meaning a quick response, or many more people might have died. But there's no questions that many other mass killings in recent years would not have taken so many lives had armed opposition been present as soon as shots rang out.
Mass murders, whether committed by guns, bombs, planes used as missiles, or trucks driven through crowds, often have at their root hatred, insanity and / or undiagnosed severe mental illness. Perpetrators of mass murder through firearms don't care that there are thousands of gun control laws on the books. They flagrantly disobey these laws. Gun-free zones, expanded background checks and absurd rules that restrict magazine capacity for semi-automatic rifles are largely ineffective. (In the case of the magazines, the vast majority of firearm homicides involve handguns, but since when do liberals let logic and facts get in the way of their emotions and virtue-signaling?)
As the Daily Caller points out, the Democrats -- er, DEMAGOGUES -- were quick to politicize this horrible Virginia Beach crime, turning it into another futile plea for more gun control. Some things never change. Some people choose to remain willfully dense. Guess we'll just have to learn to live with it.
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