There is a great deal of debate going on in the blogosphere about the recent tragedy at Virginia Tech. This debate is over values. Gun owners are enduring the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune anew from the ranks of gun prohibitionists. Gun prohibitionists want prohibitions on gun ownership applied to private citizens, the "only policemen and soldiers should have guns," refrain is put forward again. They cite studies that claim a positive correlation between gun ownership and shootings and use the tired old post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy in claiming that the "availabilty of guns" causes people to commit assaults, homicides and suicides with guns; therefore, guns must be banned. In doing so, they get it "bass ackwards." Individuals form the intent to murder or to commit suicide. This was the case in the Virginia Tech tragedy. It is reported that "...authorities disclosed that more than a year before the massacre, Cho was accused of sending unwanted messages to two women and was taken to a psychiatric hospital on a magistrate’s orders and was pronounced a danger to himself. But he was released with orders to undergo outpatient treatment." Because of this, under Virginia law, Cho Seung-Hui, was prohibited from possessing firearms. In fact, the US Bureau of Justice Statistics report "Survey of State procedures related to firearms sales, 2005," with regard to the sales of firearms in the state of Virginia. Virginia law prohibits: possession of a firearm by a person who is acquitted of certain offenses by reason of insanity; purchase or possession of a firearm by a person who has been adjudicated incompetent or incapacitated, or involuntarily committed.

That Cho Seung-Hui was prohibited from possessing firearms under Virginia law should have shown up on the routine background check that is required before a firearm may be lawfully purchased. This point was noted in a report in the New York Times from which I quote "the special justice's order in late 2005 that directed Mr. Cho to seek outpatient treatment and declared him to be mentally ill and an imminent danger to himself fits the federal criteria and should have immediately disqualified him, said Richard J. Bonnie, chairman of the Supreme Courtof Virginia's Commission on Mental Health Law Reform." This being the case, had existing laws been properly enforced the Cho would not have been able to lawfully acquire a firearm. Unfortunately, this would not have made any difference. Cho was determined to go forward with his killing spree. He would have turned to the black market to acquire firearms for this purpose. The sad reality is that there is no stopping an individual who is intent on mayhem. It is stupid and insulting to liken hunters, sport shooters and collectors to the likes of Cho.

The student newspaper at the University of Western Ontario published a spoof issue as an April Fool prank on March 30, 2007. Included in the spoof issue was an article entitled "Labia Majora Carnage." The article pokes fun at a campus feminist organization, its annual Take back the night event, and the prurient fixation some feminists have with sex organs. The article is decidely raunchy, to say the least, it includes rape jokes, but it is put forth as satire. In spite of the intent of the editors to satirize, there is now a terrible hue and cry being raised. Campus feminists are up at arms over this complaining they feel as though they were raped among other things. The Rabble/Babble crowd is fuming over this too. It strikes me as odd that the left-leaning and politically correct interests are reacting so emotionally to a raunchy article in a spoof issue of a student newspaper. It seems that satire and humour is only appropriate when it is the politically correct who make nasty and vindictive mockery of individuals and institutions they dislike. I cite, for example, the occasion when Rabble/Babble's cartoonist, Mike Constable, published an animated cartoon featuring a caricature of Pope Benedict giving a Nazi salute to a statue of the Virgin Mary and saying "Heil Mary." This cartoon was very offensive to a great many people, Catholic and non-Catholic alike. I quote the Rabbi Reuven Bulka who called the cartoon “horrible, unwanted and an inexcusable insult” saying “there is no room for this type of satire in this civilized world”. "How dare Rebick and her cohorts play loose with all this, with the Pope's dignity and with the life of devotion he has led and continues to lead." Despite the criticism this cartoon generated, the publisher of Rabble/Babble, Judy Rebick, insisted she “finds the cartoon funny,” and points to Canada’s well-known “history of satire, sometimes biting satire.” Why, then, cannot the campus feminists at UWO and the politically correct denizens who frequent Rabble/Babble just accept that "Labia Majora Carnage" is just in keeping with Canada's well-known history of satire, sometimes biting satire, and move on?