Yesterday I posted on an article from Editor & Publisher that left out a bit of important detail from a Pew Center survey. Today, the same site has a report on the guns purchased by the Virginia Tech shooter; and while the reporting's accurate this time, the headline is blatantly biased.
Virginia law, as I understand it, allows residents to purchase one gun every thirty days. Cho Seung-Hui bought his handgun on March 13 and then a second gun yesterday (just over a month later.) As is the case with all legal firearms purchases in the United States, he submitted proper ID and underwent a background check. He passed.
Now, gun-haters will insist that allowing the purchase of even one gun per month is laughable; but even if the law permitted you to buy just one a year or one in a lifetime, that wouldn't have prevented this kid from doing what he did. He bought two guns but evidence so far indicates he only used one of them.
And what if, as many would prefer, no one was permitted to buy guns at all? Well, in that case, all he'd have had to do was drive into Washington D.C. and get one on a street corner. But ... but, what if we forbade the manufacture and importation of guns? Sorry, didn't work with drugs -- wouldn't work with guns.
[UPDATE:] The NY Sun has a good article on how the Democrats had planned to steer very clear of gun issues -- a plan this incident may spoil.
