Apropos of the arguments about the Virginia Tech shooting and gun control-

There's been a lot of guff on the internet recently about how "if only those poor students had been armed" this tragedy would never have happened.



Yesterday, by pure coincidence, an 18 year old crashed his car into my friend's house, through the wall and into the living room. She was asleep upstairs and unharmed, although a passenger in the car was killed. Police say speed was a factor in the crash.



Regardless of your position on gun control in general, it seems obvious that a college would consider it in its best interests to keep guns out of the hands of their students, at least while on campus. Young people are impulsive and prone to make poor judgments about all sorts of things- drugs and alcohol, sex, cars and guns, especially in the presence of their peers.

College administrators are in a good position to witness the outcome of poor decision-making among large groups of young adults. They see the alcohol poisoning, the car crashes, the date-rapes and the other stupidity otherwise smart students get into. Why on earth would they permit these people to carry guns onto campus, and into classrooms?

This is not to say that young people are particularly vicious or violent, or that they can't be taught to safely handle firearms. They are young. They haven't lived very long, and haven't necessarily developed the skills or patience that only experience can teach. They certainly have the right to carry firearms outside campus according to the laws of the state. But school, and college especially, is intended to be an environment where youthful mistakes are tolerated, and used to instruct. Mistakes with firearms are far too permanent, and too horrific, to be tolerated in such circumstances.

As has been noted many times, it is extremely difficult to defend oneself against a suicidal terrorist attack, which is precisely what has just happened. In the event of a calculated ambush, none of us know how we would react, especially since we cannot live our lives in constant expectation of violence. We can only take action to protect ourselves from reasonable threats, not extraordinary ones. Cold-blooded, targeted execution is monstrous, and rare. Accidents and crimes of passion are equally deadly, and far more frequent.