As James Brown is wont to say, Papa’s got a brand new bag. Specifically, the gun control industry is taking a new tack in their never-ending battle to disarm Americans. I mean, prevent gun violence. Money. The lack of gun control costs money. We can’t afford NOT to have gun control. To wit: the Center for American Progress has totted-up the cost of Seung-Hui Cho’s killing spree. Click here for Auditing the Cost of the Virginia Tech Massacre; How Much We Pay When Killers Kill. Needless to say, the not-quite-right-thinking Center threw everything they could at the bottom line: the university’s legal bills (including a $55k fine under the Clery Act) and staffing costs, police costs, hospital bills, even autopsy receipts. Spock! Damage report . . .
In this report we share the findings of our survey of the monetary costs incurred as a result of this murderous rampage at Virginia Tech five years ago. This paper assesses this cost at $48.2 million for the taxpayers of the United States and the commonwealth of Virginia, and for Virginia Tech, a public university. This report also demonstrates how the background-check system, still rife with loopholes, failed to protect American citizens from an armed and dangerous Seung-Hui Cho, costing innocent lives—many of them young ones.
See what they did there? Gun control advocates just can’t bring themselves to ditch the entirely spurious argument that background checks could have prevented Cho from going postal. Check this:
Cho had a history of mental illness but was able to bypass the national gun purchase background check system and buy two weapons to accomplish his meticulously planned spree killing.
Cho did NOT bypass the FBI’s NICS system. He bought a gun through a gun dealer, who ran Cho through the system. Cho passed. And if he hadn’t, what are the odds he would have said “Fuck it. If I can’t buy a gun legally I’ll forget the whole thing and get some therapy. Maybe go to an anger management class.”
As Bruce Krafft would surely point out, what about the cost savings created by armed civilians? You know: crimes that weren’t committed or bad guys shot to death who would have otherwise sucked-up taxpayer money for their incarceration? What’s the Second Amendment’s monetary value?
Anyway, who cares about money? If arming Americans saves one life, it’s worth it.