The Corner

Virginia Tech

The effort to shoehorn an event as devastating as this one into a predetermined set of ideas — like the need for gun control, or the need for the abolition of all gun controls — is an effort to make the unthinkable thinkable. Does this massacre seem to be utterly without cause? Well, then, we will find a cause in order to be able to wrap our minds around it, because when we have a cause we can determine a remedy. (I can sense a certain measure of disappointment emanating from some quarters that the shooter, may he reside forever in Hell, wasn’t an illegal alien.) We can pass a law, or teach new kinds of classes to people, or produce anodyne television specials and heartwarming television commercials that will serve to vaccinate America against the next monstrous act of senseless evil.

John Podhoretz, a New York Post columnist for 25 years, is the editor of Commentary.
Exit mobile version