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Who Also Pulled the Trigger?

Cho Seung Hui from South Korea is named everywhere as the sole soul-less killer of those 32 young students at Virginia Tech.  He didn't pull the trigger by himself.  He had help.

The gun he used was a Glock 19 Semiautomatic that held a magazine holding 50 bullets - enough to kill all those seated children at near-blank range.  

He could buy two guns like that in one month's time -- without a waiting period, without questioning why he bought TWO guns from two stores - because he bought those guns in Virginia!  The State of Virginia is has fewer anti-handgun laws than any state in the union!  Guns bought easily in Virginia were used in half the homicides in New York City, Philadelphia and Miami last year.  Cho was not alone.  The State of Virginia is also guilty.

Who else?  The NRA - National Rifle Association.  Again, the NRA is involved; just as it was in Columbine, in Austin, Texas and just as it is whenever a child picks up his daddy's handgun and shoots his playmate's head off.

The NRA is responsible for the election of George Bush in 2000 against Al Gore.  The NRA mailed millions of pro-Bush flyers to voters all over the nation.  Bush is against sane anti-gun laws.

The NRA is responsible for the Republican victory in the House of Representatives in 1994.  The gun lobby paid huge sums to Republicans running for Congress.  The winners paid the NRA back by passisng a bill that year that allowed magazines back in handguns.   

The Glock 19 Cho used held a 50-bullet magazine -- all he needed to kill all those young people so full of promise, so full of life.  

The NRA is responsible in the same way for hundreds of deaths each year by handguns.  Since the Brady Bill, there has been no other meaningful legislation to outlaw these easy-to-use, easy-to-conceal, easy-to-work killing machines.  For the NRA, the Virginia Tech Massacre was just one more time they helped pull the trigger.

A discredited State.  A despicable lobby.  A crazed young man overwhelmed by hate.  They pulled the trigger together.   

Cho is dead.  We can't change him.  But we can change the laws in Virginia to make it much harder to buy guns there.  And we can elect people to Congress who will vote handguns out of existence. 

How many more people will have to die before we can all live - LIVE - in a safer, saner world?

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