Michael Daly misses the Mark on Virginia Tech

[Ruger Mike]

My wife brought this article to me from the NY Daily news. If it interests you, check out the forums on their site. Tons of pro-gunners out there.

Yes, Virginia, guns kill innocents
By MICHAEL DALY
DAILY NEWS COLUMNIST
Tuesday, April 17th 2007, 9:22 AM
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An officer stands locked and loaded near Virginia Tech hall.
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Still love those guns, Virginia?
Ready to admit that it's madness for any psycho to be able to saunter into a gun shop and acquire firepower capable of killing 32 innocents?
Feel different now that the blood is the blood of so many of your most promising young people?
You've been shrugging for decades as illegal guns from your state plague our city, killing and maiming and terrorizing New Yorkers by the thousands, at one point comprising 47% of the guns our cops recovered.
You even yukked it up with a "Bloomberg Gun GiveAway" raffle at a gun shop that sold at least 22 guns used in crimes in New York.
You went into a tizzy when Mayor Bloomberg sued some of your gun shops after undercover agents made fraudulent "straw purchases."
Your idea of gun control has been to pass a law making it illegal for undercover agents like those Bloomberg sent South to make such buys.
You seemed to think it was no big deal when an aide to your junior U.S. senator got caught carrying an automatic pistol into the Capitol, you having voted Sen. James Webb into office as an avowed opponent of gun control.
You had a big debate this year about whether Virginia Tech was wrong to discipline a student who was caught carrying a licensed pistol to class.
Never mind that a Virginia gun license is not half as hard to get as a driving license.
Never mind that there are so many guns lying around that an escaped jailbird managed to get hold of one and kill a cop and a security guard at the edge of the Virginia Tech campus at the start of the school year.
Yesterday, the shooting was in the heart of the campus, which suddenly felt like the bleeding heart of the whole nation.
We certainly have enough parents in New York who know all too well what the families of Virginia Tech will be suffering.
We also have cause anew to give thanks for the bravery of Auxiliary Police Officers Eugene Marshalik and Nicholas Pekearo, who died stopping a crazed gunman in Greenwich Village in March.
We have reason to remember Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly saying that the two brave auxiliaries and the equally brave cops who then killed the gunman may well have prevented a massacre. Our psycho certainly had enough bullets.
When we listened to yesterday's gunshots as recorded by a cell phone video, we assumed the police we saw holding back had been ordered to watch the perimeter while other cops charged through the chained doors toward the gunfire. We hoped they had not hesitated as the cops did during the massacre at the Columbine High School in 1999.
We replayed yesterday's video and listened to those gunshots again, each the hyper-real sound of a gun doing exactly what it is engineered to do no matter who is holding it, no matter who it is pointed at, be they on a New York street or in Norris Hall at Virginia Tech.
Today, Virginia Tech will hold a public convocation in the wake of the carnage. President Bush has said he will attend, but his spokeswoman assures us he remains a firm believer in the right to bear arms.
Also expected to be there is Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, who is returning early from an overseas trip. He recently signed Bill 2106, the anti-Bloomberg legislation that forbids undercover agents from making straw purchases.
Not even the worst campus massacre in American history is about to stop Bob Moates Sports Shop of Midlothian, Va., from going ahead with its big Bloomberg Gun GiveAway. The winner will receive a Para-Ordinance Model 1911 .45 automatic, silver and no less deadly than the black pistol a witness says the Virginia Tech psycho used. The 1911 is part of the company's new line of "Gun Rights" pistols, which carry the guarantee the company will donate $25 to the National Rifle Association for every one sold.
"The drawing is April 19," a man at Moates said yesterday.
No wonder some of our cops up here in New York say the bumper stickers down there should really read, "Virginia Is for Gun Lovers."
What do you say now, Virginia?
mdaly@nydailynews.com

[dmg1969]

After reading the article, I felt compelled to write an e-mail response to Mr.Daly.

"Mr Daly: I read your article online and, while I appreciate your hysterical anti-gun rantings...I have a question for you. Did you happen to see the news article about the Mayor of Nagasaki, Japan being shot and killed? Do you know that Japan has among the strictest of gun laws laws in the world?

My point is this...if someone is hell bent on committing atrocities such as that which happened at Virginia Tech, they are going to do it. Had he not had access to a gun, it would have been a homemade bomb, a knife, a sword, an axe...maybe even a vehicle. Even if you pass stricter gun laws, these incidents are still going to happen. We live in a free society, Mr. Daly. And, in such a society, bad things can and do happen. It is unfortunate, but it is a fact.

Demonizing me...a law-abiding gun owner (by the way, I live in Pennsylvania), is not the answer. I carry a handgun most places I legally can. I am not irresponsible nor am I a cowboy. I just realize that we do live in a world where bad things can happen to good people. I would like to think that, had Virgina Tech allowed law abiding citizens to carry their weapons on campus, things could have had a better outcome. What Virginia Tech did, in essence, was provide fish in a barrel. Other than the campus police, who are not in every classroom, there was NOBODY to protect these students.

I would also suggest that, god forbid, something like that happened in your office, you would not against a law-abiding gun owner intervening if you were staring down the barrel of a madman's gun."

[God's Country]

After reading the article, I felt compelled to write an e-mail response to Mr.Daly.

Nice effort.
Ny always feels as if they are the moral compass of the country. They're so predictable.

I actually prefer when they rant like that. They feel better, they're supporters love it, and they give away their hand. Always the same though. "I have a pair of deuces, what do you have?"

[armabill]

Your assuming that he'll read it.

[nijwnfi]

I may not be from Virginia, but I say, "You're an asshole, Michael"!