These guys are idiots.

I can't believe they aired all this crap the shooter sent.

I can't believe they are giving his "manifesto" serious air time.

Lemme make an analogy here:

Ever watched a baseball game on say, WTBS or WGN, when some asshat jumps on the field?

What happens?

The producers of the game pull their cameras off the field. They focus on the broadcast booth. They focus on the dugouts. They focus on the bullpen.

They keep attention on everything but the idiot running around in the outfield, to deny him the attention he so obviously craves.

But NBC/MSNBC?

Game on, brother! They might as well be inviting the rest of the idiots in the stands to take a lap around the basepaths.

And for what?

Does it help the investigation? Does it help those who were injured? Does it help a community make sense of it's losses?

Or does it just goose a failing networks ratings?

Apparently, Brian Williams is going to be talking more about this "manifesto" on the Today Show tomorrow as well. I'm going to answer my own question and say "goose a failing networks ratings."

Enjoy your blood money, NBC.

And when the next psycho sends you a package after killing a number of innocent people? I hope you don't insult me by acting surprised.

Posted by: Jack M. at 04:11 PM | Comments (27)
Post contains 230 words, total size 1 kb.

Since nasty little shits like this get off on having their big media day, how about photoshopping the hell out of Cho?

Like, I sure would like to see a big realistic dildo here substituted for the knife.

It may not be much, but these jagoffs should know they're not going to be remembered as rebels, or even scary monsters (an image of themselves they get off on), but as the sad, pathetic losers they are.

Posted by: Ace at 03:38 PM | Comments (12)
Post contains 78 words, total size 1 kb.

Video about halfway down the long post.

What a douchebag.

Allah notes the "media package" was signed "A. Ishmael," further casting doubt on whatever was left of the jihad theory. He also alludes to Christ's agony, which seems, you know, an other refutation.

Basically he whines about what a loser he is, and how everyone ought to feel bad for his loserdom.

...

It really would have been a good idea to lock the campus down after the first shootings, eh?

Sometime after he killed two people in a Virginia university dormitory but before he slaughtered 30 more in a classroom building Monday morning, Cho Seung-Hui mailed NBC News a rambling communication and videos about his grievances, the network said Wednesday.

Cho, 23, a senior English major at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, killed 32 people in two attacks before taking his own life.

NBC News President Steve Capus said the network received the package in Wednesday morning's mail delivery and immediately turned the material over to FBI agents in New York. The FBI is assisting Virginia State Police in the investigation.

The package included a long, “rambling, manifesto-like statement embedded with a series of photographs,” Capus said. The material is “hard-to-follow ... disturbing, very disturbing — very angry, profanity-laced,” he said.

It does not include any images of the shootings Monday, but it does include “vague references,” including “things like ‘This didn’t have to happen,’ ” Capus said in an interview late Wednesday afternoon.

NBC spokesmen said they would handle the videos with "all the discretion, care, and sensitivity that a certifiable ratings bonanza deserves."

Earlier I was trying to think of ways to have gotten Cho into the system and thus flagged as far as gun purchases. Turns out he already was in the system. Just not so far in the system as to prevent him from buying guns.

Among the materials are 23 QuickTime video files showing Cho talking directly to the camera about his hatred of the wealthy, Capus said.

As early as 2005, police and school administrators were wrestling with what to do with Cho, who was accused of stalking two female students and was sent to a mental health facility after police obtained a temporary detention order.

The two women complained to campus police that Cho was contacting them with “annoying” telephone calls and e-mail messages in November and December 2005, campus Police Chief Wendell Flinchum said.

Cho was referred to the universityÂ’s disciplinary system, but Flinchum said the woman declined to press charges, and the case apparently never reached a hearing.

However, after the second incident, the department received a call from an acquaintance of ChoÂ’s, who was concerned that he might be suicidal, Flinchum said. Police obtained a temporary detention order from a local magistrate, and in December of that year, Cho was voluntarily but briefly admitted to Carilion St. Albans Behavioral Health Center in Radford, NBC NewsÂ’ Jim Popkin reported.

To issue a detention order under Virginia law, a magistrate must find both that the subject is “mentally ill and in need of hospitalization or treatment” and that the subject is “an imminent danger to himself or others, or is so seriously mentally ill as to be substantially unable to care for himself.”

Note that NBC's account seems to diverge from the Washington Post's, linked by Allah. The Washington Post article states that Cho's mental illness and threat to himself and others wasn't implicit -- it was explictly noted in the record:

The order, signed by Montgomery County, Va., Special Justice Paul M. Barnett, checked a box that said Cho "presents an imminent danger to himself as a result of mental illness." But Barnett checked another box that said involuntary hospitalization was not necessary.

"Brief" though this detention was, shouldn't it have been enough to get his name into NICS?

The NBC report continues:

According to a doctor’s report accompanying the order, which was first reported by the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Cho was “depressed,” but “his insight and judgment are normal.” The doctor, a clinical psychologist who was not identified, noted that Cho “denies suicidal ideations.”

Under the law, the magistrate could have issued a stronger detention order mandating inpatient treatment, but there was no indication Wednesday that such an order was ever entered. A spokesman for Carilion St. Albans told NBC News that he could not discuss ChoÂ’s case because of patient confidentiality and privacy laws, but he said the hospital was cooperating with the investigation.

Tough call, but maybe the law needs to take into account that there are some folks who may not be yet committable and yet should be flagged as far as weapons purchases. If they want to buy a gun, they should perhaps have to appear before a magistrate and convince him of their stability.

The guy was a stalker, a classic escalating step on the pathway to murderous psycopathy. He was detained as being mentally ill and a possible threat to others. And yet he passed an NICS instant background check?

Why?

Thanks to RocketBrainTrust.

Just Saw A Clip On FoxNews: It certainly looks and sounds like a martyrdom video. But then I guess these things usually do seem like that.

Posted by: Ace at 02:11 PM | Comments (71)
Post contains 897 words, total size 6 kb.

Goldstein quotes Reynold's column in the Daily News.

Virginia Tech doesn’t have that kind of trust in its students (or its faculty, for that matter) [to carry weapons responsibly]. Neither does the University of Tennessee. Both think that by making their campuses “gun-free,” they’ll make people safer, when in fact they’re only disarming the people who follow rules, law-abiding people who are no danger at all.

This merely ensures that the murderers have a free hand. If there were more responsible, armed people on campuses, mass murder would be harder.

In fact, some mass shootings have been stopped by armed citizens. Though press accounts downplayed it, the 2002 shooting at Appalachian Law School was stopped when a student retrieved a gun from his car and confronted the shooter. Likewise, Pearl, Miss., school shooter Luke Woodham was stopped when the schoolÂ’s vice principal took a .45 from his truck and ran to the scene. In FebruaryÂ’s Utah mall shooting, it was an off-duty police officer who happened to be on the scene and carrying a gun.

Police canÂ’t be everywhere, and as incidents from Columbine to Virginia Tech demonstrate, by the time they show up at a mass shooting, itÂ’s usually too late. On the other hand, one group of people is, by definition, always on the scene: the victims. Only if theyÂ’re armed, they may wind up not being victims at all.

“Gun-free zones” are premised on a fantasy: That murderers will follow rules, and that people like my student, or Bradford Wiles, are a greater danger to those around them than crazed killers like Cho Seung-hui. That’s an insult. Sometimes, it’s a deadly one.

The only thing I'd say is that there are actually two competing considerations:

1) How many murders will be stopped due to widespread gun carrying?

2) How many additional murders will be caused by widespread gun carrying?

The fact of the matter is -- and I doubt that Reynolds would disagree with so irrefutable a point -- is that an argument, a bar fight, some frat guys getting into a fight with a rival frat -- can escalate from rowdy to deadly if a gun is involved. Most people aren't good enough at fighting to kill or even permanantly wound an opponent with their fists and feet. The chance of serious injury is always there, but it's a relatively low chance.

On the other hand, there's always the chance that a guy on the wrong end of a beating -- not a mugging or wildpacking or other case of sudden savage violence; just a guy who got into a fight, willingly, and now is finding maybe that wasn't such a great idea -- might pull out his gun and might start shooting.

And the chance of him killing or permanently wounding his opponent are rather high.

The thing is that while massacres like the one at VaTech are heartbreaking, they're also incredibly rare. The fight-that-turns-deadly situation is much more common.

So whether or not gun-free zones are a good idea turns on simple numbers. Ignoring the constitutional, rights-based arguments, as I often do (as someone tends to believe the constitution dictates whatever they consider good public policy; it's rare that someone argues the Constitution demands a policy they personally disagree with) -- which policy will actually lead to more deaths?

Obviously, if a liberal carry policy results in stopping the slaughter of 20 but also results in 50 extra deaths next year... well, I'm not a mathematician, but that doesn't seem to me to be a gain.

I actually don't know. I'm asking. Is there any good data for this?

Posted by: Ace at 01:35 PM | Comments (99)
Post contains 618 words, total size 4 kb.

And I have the courage to do so on his own blog!

All kidding aside, I took a different lesson from the Steyn article Ace just examined in the previous post.

Ace views it as boiling down to a question of innate heroism: people are or they aren't and no one really knows for sure what category they fall in before the moment arises. Therefore it isn't fair to judge reactions.

I don't think this is the gist of what Steyn had in mind at all.

Instead, I think Steyn is bemoaning a culture of passivity, in which the forces of society itself have acted to reshape the basic "fight or flight" survival instinct to one of just "flight". In such a society, the "heroic" urge (the will to fight) is essentialy smothered in the crib by those who view violence, or the threat thereof, as an unwelcome, uncultured, un-sophisticated response to any problem.

And, I happen to agree with Mr. Steyn.

I read an interesting passage on the Corner about the shootings from the University of Texas belltower this morning. The story was about a scene that would not play out today.

Apparently, when the shooter at UT was on his rampage, a couple of Professors, risking their own life, ran to the top of their building. From this position, they had a vantage point on the gunman. The Professors, who risked being shot themselves, then proceeded to use their own rifles and ammunition (which one of them kept in his classroom!) to attempt to shoot the sniper.

They didn't have to do this. They could have been killed. They could have left it to Law Enforcement.

But they tried to save lives.

Fast Forward to today.

Could these brave UT professors have acted similarly?

No. In a "gun free zone" like Virginia Tech they probably would have been guilty of the only offense that could have cost them a tenured position: bringing a rifle and ammo onto campus.

But this isn't solely about guns.

It's about a culture of expected weakness. Where people are taught "don't resist", "do whatever a gunman says", "play dead", "wait for help to arrive".

Allow me to give you an example from my college days, a mere 15 or so years ago.

I went to a large university. A couple of rapes occurred on campus. Predictably, campus security became a major issue. As a student government representative, I was asked to do my part to help come up with inititatives to help make the campus safer for women.

So I did. I offered a bill to spend student money on the purchase of mace cannisters. Any woman who wanted one (or man, for that matter) could come to the Student Government Association and get a free keyring sized can of mace to carry with them.

My initiative failed.

Why?

Because it was too "violent". A woman might miss the assailant; the mace may not work; the woman may have it used against her.

The initiative that passed?

To spend student money to buy keyring sized "rape whistles".

Whistles.

The justification?

They would be a "cry for help that might bring people to your aid"; "they might scare an assailant off"; "no one can have a whistle used to hurt them".

Mace vs. Whistles.

And the whistles won.

Arms are made for hugging, after all.

Our culture has undergone a lot of trends. But perhaps the most harmful is the devaluation in the concept of self-reliance.

It takes a village, as one of our leading candidates for President would have you believe.

This is one of the reasons we seemed so surprised when people fight back. It's not just that they stood up against an oppressor, even when faced with horrible odds. It's that they bothered to stand at all.

And that isn't healthy.

Do I think that people are any less innately heroic today than they were 200 years ago?

No.

I just think they are now conditioned from an early age to believe they are.

And I think that is the point Steyn was trying to make.

Posted by: Jack M. at 12:47 PM | Comments (50)
Post contains 693 words, total size 4 kb.

It's a scene from a dozen westerns. A lynch mob has gathered outside the jail, determined to take a prisoner from the sherrif and hang him without a trial. The sheriff stands coolly before them and tells them they're won't be any hanging tonight, at least not so long as he's got his shotgun and his Colts.

"You can't kill all of us, sherrif," a rowdy declares.

"I don't mean to kill all of you," the sheriff inevitably replies. "I just mean to kill the first three men that move on me. So who's it gonna be? You? You? You?"

As no one's willing to be part of the first wave that gets gunned down, the crowd disperses, defeated.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 12:16 PM | Comments (63)
Post contains 1127 words, total size 6 kb.

I think this is unfair and overstated.

We do our children a disservice to raise them to entrust all to officialdom’s security blanket. Geraldo-like “protection” is a delusion: when something goes awry — whether on a September morning flight out of Logan or on a peaceful college campus — the state won’t be there to protect you. You’ll be the fellow on the scene who has to make the decision. As my distinguished compatriot Kathy Shaidle says:

When we say “we don’t know what we’d do under the same circumstances”, we make cowardice the default position.

IÂ’d prefer to say that the default position is a terrible enervating passivity. Murderous misfit loners are mercifully rare. But this awful corrosive passivity is far more pervasive, and, unlike the psycho killer, is an existential threat to a functioning society.

First of all, we don't know what we'd do under the circumstances. The first reaction to gunshots fired at one's head is likely to be simple shock and motionlessness. A second or two after the surprise passes, the unthinking instict is likely to be to drop to the floor, seek cover behind a desk, or simply run.

Now, after those three to five seconds of shock and hardwired instinct pass, assuming you're still alive and not incapacitated by a gunshot wound, would come the opportunity to actually begin making decisions -- possibly heroic ones. And possibly nonheroic ones.

I think Kevin Costner's character in Bull Durham spoke to this: "Of course baseball's hard. Baseball's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it."

And so it is with heroism. Heroism is hard. And it's supposed to be hard. If it weren't, everyone would be heroic, and they're hardly be any reason to praise the passengers who fought back on Flight 93.

It's one thing to postulate how one would hope one would act were one faced with such a situation. It's another thing to be entirely certain about it and suggest a heroic lack of regard for one's life is the "default position." It's not the default position -- if it were, this would be a different sort of world.

It's probably true that some people did have some opportunity to attack the psychopathic gunman. They may have been behind him at one point as he was stalking down the halls; they may have been in a group who could, at diminished risk (but by no means insiginificant risk) have bull-rushed him all at once, taking him down with only a few casualties.

But we don't know that. And coordinated action is pretty impossible when bullets are flying right at you.

I think a lot of students just hunkered down until he passed. Once he passed, they might have grabbed an improvised club and went looking for him. But 1) they probably hunkered down until long after he was gone, erring on the side of caution, and thus 2) would find tracking him down somewhat difficult.

And what if a single student armed only with a metal pen he'd hoped to use as a crappy dagger blundered into him at shooting range, without the element of surprise and without the advantage of being behind him? Well, that student would be dead, most likely. He'd have died courageously, but ultimately without accomplishing much. This psycho had a hell of an advatage -- a pair of guns -- and someone hoping to take him down would need something to have a fair chance of overcoming that advantage. Numbers. Surprised. Something.

Otherwise they'd just be more targets.

There's a difference between someone willing to risk his life, and someone willing to give his life, knowing he'll almost certainly die. Both are heroes, but the the latter is the more exalted and more rare sort. I don't know for a fact that any of the students here had a genuine opportunity to merely risk his life to bring Cho down. Many may have had a chance to give their lives in a almost-certainly-suicidal one-man face-to-face charge on a well-armed man; but we hardly expect most people to behave in that manner.

If that were the "default position," we wouldn't even have invented the world "hero" in the first place.

I understand that, with any social pressure, there's a good reason to push for the better. Denigrating cowardice, or at least denigrating the lack of heroism, will tend to make people more likely to act heroically, knowing they will be taken to task for failure to act as well as they possibly can.

But this also seems to suggest that "we" -- me, Steyn, the commenters here -- are actually already the heroic sort who know for a fact we'd bull-rush a man firing on us with two guns. We're heroes, this line of argument seems to me to say, who just haven't had our chance to act heroically.

Which also seems to me to cheapen the heroism of heroes who have actually proven their hero credentials by actually acting heroically. It's almost like saying "What's the big deal with those soldiers in Iraq? Damn, I'd be doin' the same thing!"

Well, no. Heroism is defined by actions, not intentions or desires. And if cheapens true heroism to spout off as we are all just chomping at the bit for our moment of courage under fire.

Posted by: Ace at 11:26 AM | Comments (103)
Post contains 905 words, total size 6 kb.

It has come to this. (Content warning: The dolls have the necessary entry ports to complete the act.)

Doesn't really seem necessary to add a cute little joke after that picture.

Thanks to EricJ.

Posted by: Ace at 10:47 AM | Comments (50)
Post contains 42 words, total size 1 kb.

Confederate Yankee notes that "high capacity magazines" were never banned by the 1994 "Assault Weapon" ban as ABCNews continues to insist.

He attempted, once again, to apprise ABCNews of this fact... and got his sound reportage deleted for his troubles. Can't have good, informed reportage crowding out the shoddy, ignornat reportage; people might get the idea that reporters really have no idea what the hell they're talking about.

Allah reports the WaPo confirms that no extended capacity magazines were used -- just the standard 15 round mag for the Glock, and the standard 10 round mag for the .22. Now, 15 rounds is indeed higher than the 1994-2004 10-round limit, but it ain't that much more, and as ConYank continues to note, such weapons have always been available. The 1994 ban simply interrupted the manufacture of new weapons with a 10+ cartridge capacity.

It's possible the Glock Cho bought was itself an older gun-- manufactured not after the AW ban lapse but before it.

Which makes this rush to legislate irrelevancies simply daffy.

Instapundit notes a modest proposal in Volokh's comments -- rather than restricting second amendment rights, why don't we restrict the press' first amendment rights to report on such massacres, thus limiting the inevitable copycatting that occurs thereafter?

Sounds good to me!

Bryan notes that the form required for purchase of a weapon is pretty much a joke; who is going to admit they're a schizophrenic or a fugitive from the law?

more...

Posted by: Ace at 10:11 AM | Comments (55)
Post contains 938 words, total size 6 kb.

Sorry. It's news. Kinda.

So, after an argument about whether Chris' nasally singing was "deliberate" or just a mistake, and after Chris gave a shout-out to all his friends in the VaTech area -- possibly sincere, possibly a cynical attempt to get sympathy votes, almost certainly both at the same time -- Cowell rolled his eyes.

He says he wasn't even listening to Chris at that point, which I don't really believe. I think he listened and was annoyed at the ploy, which he took to be wholly cynical.

Not that I think Cowell really cares what happens to anyone except himself and maybe a few people he likes and/or has a large contract with. But I find it hard to believe he was rolling his eyes at the VaTech massacre, rather than at a contestant basically saying "Vote for me if you're against Cho Seung-Hui!"

That's not gonna take Idol down, I don't think.

Only one thing can take this beast down: Sanjaya!

Posted by: Ace at 09:22 AM | Comments (12)
Post contains 170 words, total size 1 kb.