Craven McCain leaps to support 2nd Amdt right after Virginia Tech massacre

If you needed any further evidence of how desperate and craven John McCain is (apart from abandoning the McCain-Kennedy comprehensive immigration reform bill which has carried his name for at least two congressional cycles), and apart from abandoning the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform bill which passed, look no further.

Many of us have heard of the tragedy that happened at Virginia Tech today where a gunman shot and killed 33 people on the campus. Virginia Governor Tim Paine canceled a scheduled trade tour to come home. Even Dubya has expressed his sorrow, albeit through his spokeswoman Dana Perino. But McCain, he immediately leaps to defend Second Amendment rights: "I do believe in the constitutional right that everyone has, in the Second Amendment to the Constitution, to carry a weapon," he said."

THe article starts out this way: "Sen. John McCain says the shooting rampage at Virginia Tech does not change his view that the Constitution guarantees everyone the right to carry a weapon. "We have to look at what happened here, but it doesn't change my views on the Second Amendment, except to make sure that these kinds of weapons don't fall into the hands of bad people," McCain said Monday in response to a question.

Of all the disgusting moves, he chooses to pander to the NRA. I have a huge project due tomorrow, so I wasn't going to blog, but this made me throw up a little. It outrages me that he won't even reconsider gun control measures. Every other candidate has some message of grief and sympathy for the Virginia Tech victims and families and friends, and McCain feels the need to spew forth this piece of bile. It makes me so angry, I can't think straight.

Update: Ugh, i keep getting angrier and angrier about this. What happened to normal pandering and showing appropriate sympathy?!? What is this messed up version of McCain's? I need to stop now.

Reappropriate is doing regular updates, this is just my one cent on the thing. I share a lot of her feelings and worries. First, I grieve with the friends and families of those affected. Second, I question why it took so long for the administration to notify students - even calling all students in the dorms wouldn't have notified everyone, but it would have been a start. Other options that immediately run through my mind, like pulling the fire alarm, wouldn't work since it would only have pooled all students outside and turned them into sitting ducks. But there's also the whole-building megaphone or broadcast anouncement that always accompanies any fire drill.

And as for the suspected shooter being Asian American, I think of the jokes that comedians will be making for months afterwards, but first I think of all those dead kids. We cannot defend criminal actions even if they are committed by members of our community, and let it be said that every community has its bad apples. I hope that if he is the guy pictured, and that if he isn't dead yet, that he get lots of psychiatric counseling. [Update, the guy pictured is a student photographer who got too close. The shooter is dead, although it's not clear whether that's by his own hand.] It's inexcusable that he was gunning for his girlfriend, but then to shoot down over thirty innocents? He must be seriously mentally ill. This is where it crosses the line from being a crime of passion to psychosis. My thoughts are heavy tonight, and lie with the victims and their families.

Let the grief, and then the healing, begin.