A terrible, terrible tragedy.

[Roland]

Can't agree with this more.

Look at Philadelphia and our rediculous murder rate right now. Hell, a week or two ago, a man was hit by a stray bullet while getting ready for work, and killed. All because some people decided to have a gun battle on the street outside his house.

What's Philly up to now? 120 homicides?

Since the inception of increasingly harsher gun control laws, gun-related deaths in the city of Boston have increased over the years, compared to when gun control laws were (slightly) less circus-like.

What does that tell you?

I will say I am a proponent of gun SAFETY, gun EDUCATION, and LIMITED gun control. Here in Mass. things are WAY out of whack, but from the sound of it, Virginia hasn't caught on since Columbine. Hell, most of the U.S. hasn't. Up here, we have laws that state you MUST have a license in order to purchase and own a gun, and in order to obtain said license you MUST have taken at least 1 Gun Safety Course that the state deems qualifying. That's in addition to the background checks and waiting period for handguns, and the fact that if you have ever been convicted of a felony (or even had a restraining order taken out against you), you will never own a gun legally in Mass.

What intrigues me is there is a 30-day wait before you can buy another gun, from what I have heard, in Virginia. Therefore, he bought one gun, waited the 30 days (exactly), then purchased the second gun. That's a full month of preparation beforehand for this slaughter. This was not some random break, but a premeditated onslaught, much like Columbine.

Personally, I find fault with the school administration for not closing the campus down, and taking the first shooting more seriously. "We thought it was a murder-suicide" does not cut it with me. If it's a murder-suicide, where's the damn smoking gun in-hand? They screwed up, big time, and I fault them for that, and tell it to the friends and families of those 33 dead that you didn't take action because "there were too many people in transit to the school".

Having said that, the real blame lies on one sick, demented individual, and nothing more. I'm glad he's dead. I only wish he had taken his issues out on solely himself, but we didn't have that luxury this time around.

The saddest thing about all this? There'll be another, sooner or later. And another after that.