John Derbyshire is an asshole with no conception of reality.

John Derbyshire's idiotic blame-the-Virginia Tech-victims column has been thoroughly savaged by everyone with an IQ above room temperature.  But it deserves to be pulled out from under the rock it's hidden under.

Why?  Because a friend of a friend of mine was murdered Sunday by another madman in Kansas City.

I'm ranting.  I'm angry.  I'd be even more so if one of the people killed was my own friend, instead of a friend of a friend.  

And I'd like to know if John Derbyshire has any conception of reality whatsoever.  A man starts shooting people at random in a mall parking lot, and Derbyshite is going to play Rambo and go directly for him?  

The reason we have police forces is because people shouldn't have to be looking over their shoulders for criminals 24/7.  Fear of criminals or vigiliance would paralyze everybody in the situations Derbyshire describes.  Students would be listening for every creak of a door.  Shoppers would have their head on a swivel and hands patting their holster everytime they hear footsteps.

Society would come to a crashing halt.

That's why there are police - trained professionals whose reality is far from the action movies Derbyshire has confused with real life.  I'm totally silent on gun control, and I believe people have the right to self-defense, but a state of constant vigilance (which is a police officer's job) would damage society irreparably.

I'm sorry for blogging this two weeks after Derbyshire's offensive article, and I'm sorry for ranting.