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First off, let me say that I despise using the terms “bloodbath” or “massacre” to describe the events that took place at Virginia Tech this past Monday. Those are the words of yellow journalism, meant to inflame rather than inform. I just wanted to get that out of the way before the real moral outrage begins.

Now, in the wake of this week’s events, there have been the usual blatherings from conservatives stating that things could have ended differently if only those violent video games didn’t guide him down the wrong path. If only the other students were able to carry guns of their own and gun down their attacker. If only our society wasn’t becoming so Europeanized. Can’t you see he’s an angry Muslim that hates Americans? Most people with any shred of common sense will dismiss these things out of hand. But then you get a real whopper, something so big that it takes the moral outrage meter off the scale. This came at the hands of National Review Online blogger John Derbyshire, who laid out this blistering piece of criticism about the victims:

As NRO’s designated chickenhawk, let me be the one to ask: Where was the spirit of self-defense here? Setting aside the ludicrous campus ban on licensed conceals, why didn’t anyone rush the guy? It’s not like this was Rambo, hosing the place down with automatic weapons. He had two handguns for goodness’ sake—one of them reportedly a .22.

At the very least, count the shots and jump him reloading or changing hands. Better yet, just jump him. Handguns aren’t very accurate, even at close range. I shoot mine all the time at the range, and I still can’t hit squat. I doubt this guy was any better than I am. And even if hit, a .22 needs to find something important to do real damage—your chances aren’t bad.

Yes, yes, I know it’s easy to say these things: but didn’t the heroes of Flight 93 teach us anything? As the cliche goes—and like most cliches. It’s true—none of us knows what he’d do in a dire situation like that. I hope, however, that if I thought I was going to die anyway, I’d at least take a run at the guy.

Now, honestly, where do you even begin with this? Let’s start with the first thing that came to my mind when I read this. If handguns are so remarkably inaccurate, why does every law enforcement agency across the world swear by them? Why then are most policemen fair marksmen with a service pistol? If this guy can’t hit squat when he goes to the range, he probably shouldn’t have a gun in the first place. It’s more likely that he uses the gun to make up for, shall we say, other small inadequacies? Everything I’ve read so far makes me think this kid was pretty good at wielding those supposedly hard-to-aim pistols. He knew how to aim them, and he also knew how to finish the job with them.

Secondly, have you ever noticed that the people who talk big are always the ones who probably have never even been remotely near a situation like that in their lives? We all like to think that in the face of danger, we’ll be able to stand up and defend ourselves and others, but it’s a little different when you’re staring down the other end of a deluded mentally-unstable kid holding a 9mm. It’s the same thing that makes me scoff at the notion that people claim that allowing everyone to conceal and carry a handgun makes the world a safer place because they can fight back. It’s all good until someone has a gun at your head and if you even tried to reach for your piece, you’d just be another statistic. The most you can hope to achieve is zero sum mutually assured destruction. In the wake of things like this, the natural instinct to survive kicks in full force and I think that the last thing on most people’s minds is staying alive.

I guess I’m most pissed off about this, because it ignores the facts. It ignores the facts that were out almost as soon as this shit happened. There was heroism in the face of certain death. Especially that one teacher who held the gunman at bay in an attempt to let as many students as possible escape with their lives. Something tells me that if someone bust in shooting where Derbyshire was, he’d probably cower in a corner somewhere and hope not to get shot. Saying crap like this just dishonors the memories of those who died in this tragic event by making them look like the people who were in the wrong, not the mentally unstable kid who thought the world was against him. It’s sad we even have to waste energy on this, but some people will never be satisfied unless everyone but themselves takes the blame.