The Virginia Tech Tragedy

What can one say?

Interesting how the bloggers are adding politics to the analysis:

Some argue that lack of gun control is the problem. Others, the exact opposite. My own take: while letting more people carry guns might be a good thing in exceptional circumstances such as this one --- who would not want one of the victims to be able to shoot back? --- it is likely that, in the long run, more people would die if more people were allowed to buy and carry guns.

(The fallacy is reminiscent of the justifications for torture: Sure, if we knew that torture was the only way to prevent a nuclear explosion in a city, we would approve of it. But how often would that actually be the case? And why would that mean that it is justified in general?)

Other bloggers have pointed out that while 32 dead in a single incident is horrifying in the US, and worthy of extensive media coverage, it has been an almost daily par for the course for Iraq (with less than 1/10 of the population). And yet Bush complains that the Iraq violence is covered too much.

Andrew Sullivan makes the point particularly well in this post.

p.s. An update: Surely enough, the next day we have 171 dead in Iraq, mostly civilians, including children.