Ismail-Ax, World Politics, And The Art Of Handgun Making

Virginia Tech. What a clusterfuck of a tragedy. The school doesn't shut down for the day after a double homicide. The e-mail goes out minutes after the second round of murders begins. The school fails to use its intercom system to warn students. After the lawsuits are done, will there even be a Virginia Tech?

So this kid scribed Ismail Ax on his arm before he starts taking people out. Theories abound that it is an Islamic reference. Not that my first thought wasn't, "Crap. Is this a terrorist thing?" as soon as I found out it was a North Korean. I'm still shocked it wasn't a white male with a crew cut. So what was it? It was his X-Box Live handle. The question is, why did he pick it as his X-Box Live handle?

So how will the world react to this? Sympathy? Nah. They're going to wag their fingers at the US for allowing citizens to own guns. Now, I'm not going to claim that every student should have been armed and they could have stopped this guy, but I'm also not going to allow a knee-jerk reaction to a tragedy dictate how I feel about US policy. Mexico, ever classy, even printed a story that compared their gun deaths for the day to the massacre, titling the article "US 33, Mexico 20". I know we're the big kid on the block right now and you all have to take pot shots at us. I get it. Could you just give us a day to get over this first? Just 24 hours. I mean, it's not like you've got all of your problems solved either. Mexico, you have rampant drug trafficking problems. Solve that before you judge us. England, your suicide rate is incredible. Handle that, then get back to us about guns. Australia, you can't even keep your cane toads under control. Let us deal with our own problems. Stop wagging your fingers at us.

Finally, the concept of gun control in general. Does anyone realize how incredibly easy it is to make a gun for someone who wants to do something like this? I mean, seriously. $500 and you can have your own homemade special friend. Of course, for much cheaper, you could just make a dozen bombs and bring the school down around everyone. Violence can not be controlled. It will happen. We can legislate until we are blue in the face and there will still be bad and evil. We need to move on. We need to teach people how to react when problems are spotted. We need to be thankful for the time we have because it could all be over tomorrow.