. . . muttered the ogre

Just when you thought I had stopped talking about guns, here are John and Antonio on the recent school shooting in Germany:

And guess whose fault it is, according to psychologist Andrés González Bellido in the Vanguardia? You guessed it. America’s. “These episodes that once seemed only to occur in the US can be explained (in Europe), says this psychologist, because European society is becoming more similar to American society. ‘Loneliness, individual frustration, and greater and greater social inequalities lead to extreme situations,’ he adds.” These people took Death of a Salesman much too seriously. Interestingly enough, the exact same sort of commentary was made after 16 were killed in Hungerford, England, in 1987, after 14 were killed in Luxiol, France, in 1989, after 17 were killed in Dunblane, Scotland, in 1996, after 14 were killed in Zug, Switzerland, in 2001, and after 8 were killed just recently in Nanterre, France.

We are often reminded that US murder rates are the Highest in the Developed World. This parade makes me yearn suddenly for a comparison of mass murder rates.

This ought to surprise nobody. (Another link from Kopel; search for “April 2”.) I’m pleased that Mr Harper had the good sense to shoot at the robbers even though they claimed to be police. If it happens more often, maybe some of the police will speak up about the foolishness of the War On Some Drugs.

Hey, I can dream, can’t I? But more likely they’ll ask for further police-statist legislation to make such violations of the Fourth Amendment safer for the violators.

Someone (forgot who) recounted a conversation with a cop during the siege of Waco: the cop agreed that BATF was in the wrong, but still wanted the Davidians to be smacked down hard, because resistance cannot be tolerated.

A few years ago, Massad Ayoob’s column in one of the gun magazines invited us to weep for the wife and small child of a policeman who was shot dead during a “dynamic entry”, police euphemism for breaking into a home at night to terrorize the occupants. Ayoob (himself a cop) hoped the killer would be sentenced to death. I was delighted to see that the next issue’s letters disagreed with Ayoob in the strongest terms, and later a jury rejected the murder charge: even a trader in contraband (I believe he was convicted on that count) has a right of self-defense.