CAMPUS SHOOTING: THE KIND OF PEOPLE WE ARE

Subject: What Kind of People We Are

Date: April 16, 2007 5:59:48 PM PDT

To: CONLAWPROF

The underlying question which defines the subject of Constitutional Law asks what kind of people we are.

Constitutional law provides the answer to that question, at least for the time being, and is, as we know, subject to change over time.

The kind of people we are is defined by what we allow to happen over and over again.

rs
sfls

***

This submitted to the email discussion group consisting of Constitutional Law professors with whom I discuss matters, following today's murder of 32 students at Virginia Tech, by a lone gunman who killed himself, reportedly despondent over a woman.

The White House was reported to be preparing a statement.

I expect to see more calls for gun control.

I expect to see the National Rifle Association say that more gun control is unnecessary as it is not the fault of honorable hunters and hobbyists that a deranged person picks up a gun and uses it to slaughter all within range, even in school, or especially in school, for some reason, recalling Columbine.

I expect to see copycat incidents across the land.

Other countries will cluck their tongues at "only-in-America," until it happens in Canada, Britain or France.

For the next five days, the U.S. will be in shock and mourning at the loss of 32 young and promising lives.

Overlooked in the furor will be the fact that Iraq loses that many if not every day, then every week.

CNN repeatedly called Virginia Tech's the worst massacre in U.S. history. It may have been, if you decided to ignore the massacre perpetrated by U.S. troops of Indian women and children at Wounded Knee, but why ruin a good story, right?

I expect to see President Bush declare a day of national mourning, and attend a memorial service for all of the fallen.

I expect to see business return to normal, as usual, within a few days thereafter, perhaps with airport type security installed at universities, high schools and grade schools across the country. But that will be expensive, won't it? So I take this one back. It'll be business as usual without this. But the students will become more paranoid than they may already be, leading to worst-case thinking. The next time a college boy is sad over a break-up, we may have to round him up, or at least bar him from campus.

Comments

[bobC]

Upon further review, it turns out that I must change my thoughts in this tragedy from the 2nd Amendment to the word "adjudicated." In the true (legal) sense of the word was Cho's case adjudicated or not? Or is Special Justice Paul M. Barnett now backtracking to cover his ass?

IMHO if Barnett deemed Cho a danger to himself and others, then he should have been in the system. Perhaps the shootings would not have happened.

Can someone provide, for a layman, a legal clarification of "adjudicated" as it pertains to this case?

[rs]

Apparently so, if you listen to the Second Amendment fans...

In deference to them, since no one can win a debate over this ambiguous amendment, I'm no longer in favor of gun control. People-control is another story. You even look funny, I'm for taking your guns, temporarily, until you stop looking funny.

Nice to hear from you again, bobC.

rs

[rs]

Apparently so, if you listen to the Second Amendment fans...

In deference to them, since no one can win a debate over this ambiguous amendment, I'm no longer in favor of gun control. People-control is another story. You even look funny, I'm for taking your guns, temporarily, until you stop looking funny.

Nice to hear from you again, bobC.

rs

[bobC]

Was this........

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

....intended to mean that every Tom, Dick and Harry "nut case" have the ability to procure, possess, and use said arms in a manner that has nothing to do with "securing a free State?"