No night to stay in/Bad moon is rising again

Here's a story, probably not coincidentally from the Houston Chronicle, saying not to expect a "rush to new gun control" after yesterday's events. It strikes me as cynical to the point of toxicity.

Notice something. Nearly every time the article quotes a prominent Democrat-Harry Reid, Ted Kennedy, Dianne Feinstein-they are saying pretty much what I wrote yesterday that I hoped they'd say.

"I think we ought to be thinking about the families and the victims and not speculate about future legislative battles that might lie ahead," said Reid, a view expressed by other Democratic leaders the day after the shootings that left 33 dead on the campus of Virginia Tech.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., was one of very few lawmakers to refer on gun control in the early hours after the shootings. "There will be time to debate the steps needed to avert such tragedies," he said on Monday, "but today, our thoughts and prayers go to their families."

But every time, they are followed or preceeded by assertions like this:

Democrats traditionally have been in the forefront of efforts to pass gun control legislation, but there is a widespread perception among political strategists that the issue has been a loser in recent campaigns. It was notably absent from the agenda Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi unveiled earlier this year when the party took control of the House and Senate for the first time in more than a decade.

Overall, though, said Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y., "It is a tough sell" to pass gun control legislation. Neither Reid nor House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., seemed eager to predict Democrats would lead a drive to toughen existing laws.

Emphasis mine. In other words, Democrats like Reid and Kennedy aren't thinking of or praying for the families of the victims today, like most everyone else in the country and world. That is not, this article implies, why they're not making immidiate efforts to link the shootings to the passage of new gun control legislation.

No, they're just cowering in the corner and saying "please don't hurt me" because "the issue has been a loser in recent campaigns."

And notice something else. Go back and read that Ted Kennedy statement. Find me the "reference to gun control" AP writer David Espo assures us he made, pls.

Finally, notice the difference when a Republican or two, god bless their money-loving hearts, is heard from:

Not all lawmakers were as reticent.

Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, one of Congress' most persistent advocates of gun rights, noted that the student who police say was the shooter at Virginia Tech had brought a weapon onto campus in violation of restrictions. He said he doubted a law could be passed that would protect "any of us when somebody who is mentally deranged decides to do this."

That is all. The Democrats are "reticent." By implied contrast, the Republican is expansive, confident, and open. Nothing about any alternate motivation a Republican might have for making an anti-gun control statement at this time.

Funnily enough, if you do a few searches for "Larry Craig" on Yahoo! you find two or three interesting things, such as that:

Larry Craig, Republican of Idaho...sits on the N.R.A.'s board of directors in addition to his day job as a federal lawmaker.

Get that? He isn't just " a persistent advocate of gun rights." He is quite literally in the N.R.A's pocket. It is in his financial interest to futher their interest. Shouldn't that have come up, at least in passing, in an article that repeatedly bends over backwards to question the motivations of Democrats?

And isn't it also worth mentioning in an article like this that a majority of Americans already wanted stricter laws covering the sale of firearms before yesterday's shocking killings? I'm not saying this will change the will of the people one way or the other, I simply don't know.

But either way, I suspect that (the will of the people) will have a lot more to do with what the Democrats do than anything Harry Reid says now.

ETA: Similarly, notice something in this story on John McCain's simplistic reaction:

"We have to look at what happened here, but it doesn't change my views on the Second Amendment, except to make sure that these kinds of weapons don't fall into the hands of bad people," McCain said Monday in response to a question.

"...to make sure that these kinds of weapons don't fall into the hands of bad people."

In other words...regulating them, you weasel!

But the headline is "Sen. McCain sticks to views on guns," thus associating him with the phrase, "stick to your guns." Which means, "Do what you know to be right regardless of consequences," and which makes McCain sound a lot better than the flip-flopper he really is.

BTW, as a way of rinsing any bad taste this tale of corruption and weasels may have left behind out of your mouth, have a look at the aforementioned Sen. Craig, on the issues. Among other positive things, notice the consistent record of voting against same-sex marriage, prohibiting job discrimination by sexual orientation, and other gay rights issues.

We all know what that means, don't we?

An anti-gay rights GOP Senator?

Uh-huh, that's right. He has sex with men.

ETA, again: This is what we call the other shoe dropping. To the rest of the world, our gun laws are just another part of their image of us as Mickey Mouse cowboys.

South Korea's Foreign Ministry said the government hoped Monday's shootings, allegedly carried out by a 23-year-old South Korean native, would not "stir up racial prejudice or confrontation."

Gee, why would they think that might happen? Just because Debbie Schlussel-she who thinks women are just too darn stupid to have the vote-said she suspected the shooter might have been a "Paki" doesn't necessarily mean...

(re Media Matters)

While some focused blame only on the gunman, world opinion over U.S. gun laws was almost unanimous: Access to weapons increases the probability of shootings. There was no sympathy for the view that more guns would have saved lives by enabling students to shoot the assailant.

Emphasis mine. Definitely read the whole thing, not only to get some information about what the rest of the world thinks about us at a time like this, but to read about men like:

Liviu Librescu, 76, an engineering science and mathematics lecturer, tried to stop the gunman from entering his classroom by blocking the door before he was fatally shot, his son said Tuesday from Tel Aviv.

"My father blocked the doorway with his body and asked the students to flee," Joe Librescu said. His father, a Holocaust survivor, immigrated to Israel from Romania, and was on sabbatical in Virginia.

Again, emphasis mine. As the reaction to the shooting heats up on both sides, I don't want to lose sight of the fact that there were honest-to-god heroes involved. A 76 year old man put himself between his students and danger, and lost his life because of it.

I don't know if I could have done that. Could you?