This sounds worse than Columbine, from what’s being reported so far. Only thirteen died there.

Of course, the gun grabbers will use it as an excuse for calls for more gun control, though probably none of the nostrums that they put forth would have prevented it from happening. And defenders of the Second Amendment will point out (as I’m admittedly doing in this post), that if people had been allowed to carry legally on campus, as they are in the rest of the Commonwealth of Virginia, that the shooter would almost certainly have been taken out long before he could kill twenty unarmed people. And it’s not clear that he couldn’t have killed even more if he’d chosen to, since it’s unclear whether he (or she, to be fair) was killed by a self-inflicted wound, or someone else.

We’ll find out in due time.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Some related comments from Instapundit. The legislature apparently made the campus a “gun-free zone.” Well, you can call a tail a leg, but it doesn’t make it one. Modern “liberals” see the words “gun-free (or nuclear free, in the case of Berkeley) zone” and somehow thinks that this magically makes the place safer. But the sign that mass murderers see is “free-fire zone of unarmed victims.”

[Update at 2 PM]

Now it’s up to almost thirty fatalities? Whoever did this was serious, and well trained.

Perhaps multiple people? A terrorist attack? Who knows? I’d think a shopping mall would be a better place for that. All speculation at this point (at least on my part).

[3 PM update]

Thirty-two people now. I suspect that this is the worst such incident in US history. What lessons will we draw from it? Not good ones, I suspect. I heard some “security analyst” being interviewed who was basically advocating making university buildings into lock-down prisons, with no classroom windows, and wanding of everyone going in and out.

[Update at 4:40 PM EDT]

Here it comes. Now they’re going on about “the children, won’t someone think of the children“? Someone on Cavuto is demanding to know what they’re doing for “the kids.” Are they being kept warm, are they being fed, are they getting the grief counseling they need?

These “kids” are college students. Almost all of them are of the age of majority. They’re the same age as the “kids” who are off fighting for us overseas, who are seeing things just as horrific, or more so, every day. Yes, one doesn’t go off to an idyllic campus in the western Virginia mountains with the expectation that they’ll have to deal with something like this, but they’re not kids. In every society up until this one, they would have been considered adults, and many of them would have already been married (or not) and raising families. The notion that we should treat them like grade schoolers, for whom we are responsible for feeding, and heating them, is ludicrous. Yes, they’re upset, but I’m pretty sure that they’re still capable of feeding themselves, and finding a blanket, if shooting people somehow caused the heating systems on campus to break down. If I were one of them, I’d be insulted and appalled at this kind of stupid, stupid commentary.

The infantilization and extended adolescence of our society continues apace.

[Update at 5 PM]

One more thought. I already noted that it was probably the biggest death toll in US history from such an event, up above. I heard Cavuto say so as well.

But I’ll bet that now that the news reporters (I don’t count myself in that category–I doubt many people read this site for up-to-date news, except on those rare occasions when something exciting is happening in manned spaceflight or New Space, and not that many people read this site, period) are making the point, there is at least one, and probably more than one, person listening to all the coverage, and thinking “You know, I could beat that. He was a wienie.”

One unfortunate consequence of advances in technology is an advance in the ability to kill large numbers of people with ever-smaller numbers of people, in a short period of time. This is Vernor Vinge’s (and Bill Joy’s) nightmare (I don’t think Vinge’s interview with Mike Godwin at Reason is on line yet, though). This is also the core of the so-called “War on Terror,” and it’s unfortunately only going to get worse as time goes on, particularly as world population increases, and the number of people on the tails of the bell curves increases as well.

[One more update a few minutes later]

What happened in Blacksburg today, and Columbine, and other similar incidents, is very similar to what happened on 911, in that it was a catastrophe, in the mathematical sense. It’s probably worth a TCSDaily column.

[Another, listening to John Gibson]

No, I haven’t listened to the other news channels, because I’m working in my office, where I can’t easily browse channels, but I think that it’s safe to say that this is the only story of the day.

[Update at 5:40 PM EDT]

Finally. Gibson and Judge Napolitano are discussing the fact that no one on campus was allowed to carry, and the fact that it was a decision by the university administration, regardless of the bill that failed in Richmond. I don’t know whether it will or not, but in a just world, this would open them up to lawsuits.

[Update at 6 PM EDT]

Brit Hum lead story: “Worst mass shooting in American history.”

Yeah, that will discourage the next one seeking equivalent publicity.