32 Martyrs:

The massacre at Virginia Tech is a logical consequence of that reality. Are we sorry that 32 people, most of them no older than 22, were killed? Of course. But we aren't so sorry that we intend to do anything to prevent such a tragedy from happening again. We value the lives of Mary Read, Ryan Clark, Leslie Sherman, and all the rest, but we value more their killer's untrammeled right to purchase not only a Glock 19 and a Walther P22, but also the ammunition clips that, according to the April 18 Washington Post, would have been impossible to obtain legally had Congress not allowed President Clinton's assault-weapon ban to expire three years ago. "If Democratic leaders cannot muster the votes to reinstate the full assault weapons ban," report Jonathan Weisman and Jeffrey Birnbaum in the April 18 Washington Post, "some suggested that at least the clip-capacity portion could be passed." That would do roughly as much good as banning all gun sales to guys named "Cho." Washington's lack of interest in gun control is so pronounced that the city scarcely took notice when a United States senator (coincidentally, from Virginia) hinted publicly that he does not obey the District's handgun ban when he drives in from Virginia.

There are people in this country today who, one day in the future, will be gunned down by psychopaths like Cho Seung Hui. Future presidents will be assassinated, if the past is any guide, and probably the odd pop star, too. We could spare these lives—some of them, at least—by making it difficult or impossible to acquire a handgun in the United States. But we choose not to. Tough luck, whoever you are.

--Timothy Noah, Slate (4/18/2007)

I'm not quite that pessimistic. Although I don't think an outright ban would survive judicial scrutiny under the Second Amendment, certainly reasonable restrictions on the sale and possession of weapons can, just as reasonable time, place and manner restrictions on speech survive muster under the First. And as long as we're fighting a War on Terrorism, a winning political rationale is available, if gun control advocates wish to use it. There isn't much difference between the delusional loner responsible for this atrocity and the type of person who straps on a bomb in a subway or flies an airplane into a skyscraper. You may not be able to completely stop them, but you can contain their damage, if you have the will to do so.