Sunday, April 22, 2007

Dead story walking

I still subscribe to a Sunday paper, but my morning ritual usually includes making the rounds of internet news sources like Raw Story in order to get a few of the news items buried by the Mainstream Media under the VA Tech shooting and the antics of Mr. Baldwin. Of course the Virginia story is still stumbling around like an escapee from Night of the Living Dead and even Raw Story is going on and on about ludicrous and irrelevant details trying to keep the zombie walking.

Today's lurid contribution to the whole fulsome issue is titled VA Tech Killer bought Ammo on eBay. Astounded by this because I know eBay doesn't list live ammunition or firearms - even antique ones, I clicked on the headline to find that the actual article reads "ammo clips." That's the kind of come-on you expect, and get, at the National Enquirer.

It may seem a small difference to some people, but what he bought were empty magazines and as the article pointed out, you can get those anywhere. Interesting enough, in light of the fuss others have made about the end of the ban on magazines that held more than 10 rounds, the ones Cho bought were legal under the defunct ban.

He had a good eBay "feedback" rating, we're told and has been buying and selling there - like hundreds of millions do - for three years. None of this nonsense has any bearing on the motivation or execution of the crime nor will it enable any further degree of understanding of schizophrenia or Virginia or Federal gun laws. To people who only read headlines, it will seem like an indictment of eBay.


" Computer forensics have played a major role in the investigation into why Cho carried out the massacre that killed 32 people and himself."
We are told - as if questioning the usual suspects and looking at records will produce any understanding of mental illness such as schizophrenia or the illogical, irrational and terrified state that characterizes it, nor will any of this further progress toward the goal of diagnosing and isolating dangerously ill people who by law are forbidden to own firearms.

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