MORE AND BIGGER SIGNS (for crying out loud)!!
Two days after the deadliest shooting rampage in American history, many are left wondering why it happened and what can be done to prevent it from happening again. Certainly, more thorough background checks would reveal whether a prospective gun owner had gone on any wild murder-suicide sprees in the past. Mandatory creative writing classes for all firearm purchases would also be a way to determine if someone has an unhealthy obsession with violence and gore, or is simply applying for a job at CBS.
Whether you’re in favor of such sensible gun control laws, or a mind-numbed minion of Chuck Heston, everyone can at least agree that Gun-Free Zones as they currently exist don’t quite work. Although Virginia Tech was a proud “Gun-Free Zone”, firearms still somehow found their way onto the campus. Obviously the so-called “gunman” wasn’t aware that he had entered such a zone, or else he would have thought twice about gunning down 33 innocents before shooting himself in the face. Bigger, bolder “Gun-Free Zone” signs would be harder to ignore, but renaming the entire school “Gun-Free Zone Tech” would send a clear message to any suicidal maniacs that bringing guns to school will NOT be tolerated, and that slaughtering scores of your classmates could result in expulsion and possibly even the forfeiture of all your credits. To discourage individuals from cleverly standing just outside the Gun-Free Zone and firing into the campus, the zone’s boundaries should also be expanded to encompass all 50 states, and as rigorously enforced as gun control laws currently on the books.
The concept of Gun-Free Zones is a noble one, and with a little revamping it can be far more effective. 33 out of the 34 people that died in Virginia Tech’s Gun Free Zone were actually following the rules. There’s no reason to believe that expanding the program nationally won’t provide the same results.
