The Death of Imagination

Yeah, that's why I initially avoided the addressing the issue: Because the absolute last thing I want to get into right now is a discussion of gun control. (Well, that and the fact that I thought--and still think-- that I didn't have anything interesting to say.) In other words, I agree with Ross Douthat when he says:

I'm extremely skeptical, though, that there's actually anything significant to learn about gun policy from yesterday's violence: Extreme, unpredictable events like this one seem like precisely the kind of thing that shouldn't dictate lawmaking decisions (though of course they inevitably do). If there's a case for gun control, it's in the daily run of shooting deaths that don't make the front page; if there's a case against gun control, it's in the daily run of crimes deterred by an armed citizenry (and in more abstract questions of personal liberty), not in the faint chance that a kid with a conceal-and-carry permit might have taken the Virginia killer down.