I don’t want to diminish how utterly horrific the Virginia Tech shootings were—they are everything the national media are making them to be. But for a little perspective here, Juan Cole notes that in Baghdad, on average there are two Virginia Tech incidents every single day. Those Iraqi dead had friends and families just as the American students did.

Second, while the L.A. Times reports that most gun-rights supporters are (sensibly) “keeping their heads down” as Virginia Tech dominates the news, some right-wing commentators apparently decided this is just the time to pipe up. There are apparently quite a number, but I’ll just mention two that caught my eye:

Instapundit laments that students are forbidden to carry concealed weapons on campus so that someone else could have taken the shooter out. Personally, if I were still in school I’d be more than happy that every time a couple of liquored-up frat boys let their testosterone get the better of them that it doesn’t lead to a firefight, or that professors have to worry about posting a bad grade in case the recipient is packing. But I guess I’m just a hippie musician, not a big tough pundit.

Here’s the Man With the Big Balls, though: at National Review Online, John Derbyshire wants to know why nobody rushed the shooter! Seriously. “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.”

Apparently they are accurate enough to kill about half the people he shot, but again, what do I know? Based on my experiences of 9 am classes, I would have been sitting there half-asleep and possibly half-hungover, eyeing the female students and taking desultory notes. Apparently I should have been morally and physically prepared to leap to Defend Truth, Justice, and the American Way, rather than, say, taking immediate steps to Remove My Young Ass from Harm’s Way.

It takes Big Balls, or at least an over-arching machismo, to be a conservative commentator (as Glenn Greenwald has pointed out). Sadly, none of them was on campus yesterday morning to show the rest of us how a Real American would act.

My heart goes out to all who have been hurt by the Virginia Tech tragedy. But I can’t help wondering why we think college students are more important than Iraqis (or maybe residents of New Orleans, hmm?), or decide the meaning of isolated incidents involving deeply disturbed individuals is that more of us should carry guns. Or, like that Derbyshire idiot, have the unspeakable arrogance to presume that someone caught in that horrible situation should have acted differently than they did.