Mike, at Cold Fury, lost his wife, Christina, in a tragic motorcycle accident. I’m sure he’d appreciate your thoughts and prayers; he certainly has mine.

A lot of people confuse opposition to illegal immigration with opposition to immigration in general. It’s like they don’t understand the difference between illegal immigrants and legal immigrants. Not to fear, though; Patterico is here to explain the difference:

The difference between legal and illegal immigrants lies not in their measure of courage, but in the depth of their respect for the laws of the United States. This is not a meaningless distinction, and Rosa Brooks — and all the other people trying to push amnesty for illegal immigrants — ought to recognize this.

Read the whole post.

Orson Scott Card, at The Ornery American, writes about American Honor:

As an embarrassed Democrat, I am ashamed of my party, because I know that at the grass roots level there are plenty of Democrats who care about honor and wish their party had any. But as long as the press remains silent about Democratic dishonor while harping on any trumped-up charge they can lay against Republicans, it’s hard for many people to believe that the dishonor really happened, or that anybody cares that it did.

That’s why Clinton could fire all the U.S. Attorneys, but Bush can’t fire eight of them. That’s why Clinton could scoff at Congressional subpoenas and pretend they had “lost” files they didn’t want to hand over, while Bush is pummeled for refusing to respect Congressional demands for things no Congress has ever claimed a right to have.

That’s why the politically correct are the main censors and suppressors of free speech in our country today, the deniers of diversity and the elitist enemies of democratic process — and yet are able to claim credit for their tolerance and love of freedom, and the media, which they control, does not expose their shame.

Because they have no shame.

That’s the sorry state of honor in America today. It is regarded as a relic that only matters to those dunderheads who still believe in God and morality and fairness and decency and all those other outmoded concepts. You know. Regular people. Not the cool, elite, smart people who all have identical — and completely unexamined — opinions.

So why is it any surprise that our nation is also on the verge of losing its honor?

The whole thing is worth reading, as usual.

Late last week, while I was at work, I heard a co-worker say, about the Virginia Tech shootings, “I think we do need to have the gun control argument again. This sort of thing doesn’t happen in countries where guns are outlawed.” Considering that I’ve learned that political debates should stay out of the workplace (people get angry, which is not good for a workplace environment), I opted to keep my mouth shut, though I told myself that I’d write a post about it later to get it out of my system.

Of course, as tends to happen, I discovered that the post had already been written, and been written better than I could have done, in several places. One of which is, of course, on the blog of Connie du Toit:

The person who is willing to murder someone has already crossed the line. The person wanting to murder someone is already planning to break the most critical of all laws: Murder. But somehow the criminal will think, “Ohhhhhhh, guns are illegal. Guess I can’t murder anyone then and I’ll have a V-8.”

Shall we make murder illegal again? Write it down twice (or three times) or write the law in gold ink, clicking our heels together three times while passing it, and then people will stop committing murder?

I really don’t understand how anyone can think that someone would go through the thought process that making the purchase of a gun illegal will stop someone from doing something already illegal (regardless of weapon choice) with a gun. It makes no sense at all.

…

Guns are illegal in Japan, yet the Mayor of Nagasaki was shot and killed yesterday, with a gun. Folks need to think that through. Guns were illegal, but somehow, someone got a gun. How’d that happen if guns were illegal? How’d that happen in an island country where people can’t own guns?

PEOPLE BREAK LAWS.

Let me say this again, just in case it isn’t really understood: No matter what laws you pass, no matter how many pounds of fairy dust you sprinkle on the earth, no matter how many pennies you throw in wishing wells, or offerings you make to the Gods, YOU CANNOT MAKE GUNS GO AWAY.

Guns are here to stay, just as there will always be clubs, knives, and swords.

Criminals do not obey the law. You’d think that was apparent in the use of the word “criminal” but some folks just don’t seem to allow that to sink in.

They’re C-R-I-M-I-N-A-L-S. Criminals break laws. Criminals will be able to get guns (or other weapons) no matter how many laws you pass. No matter how many hurdles you put in place to prevent law-abiding people from buying guns, or even the complete eradication of all laws which allow their possession (as in Japan), criminals will always be able to get a gun… or a knife… or gasoline to make a Molotov cocktail… or a kitchen knife… or a club… or a shovel.

The possession of a gun isn’t like the chemical compound in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. A hunk of forged metal in someone’s hand doesn’t turn an ordinary person into a lunatic. They were a lunatic BEFORE they had the gun in their hand.

As always, the whole post is worth reading (as is her Fax to her Congresspersons).

I really do understand why some people believe that the proper response to incidents like the Virginia Tech shooting is to ban guns (or, since it was, as I understand it, already illegal to have guns on campus, to ban them harder), but I think that ultimately, that desire is misguided. In the wild, predators don’t tend to go after the prey that will fight back if they have a choice. The best way to defend ourselves against criminals like Cho Seung-Hui is to give responsible, law-abiding citizens the means to fight back (if they so choose — I’m not advocating forcing guns on anyone who doesn’t want to use them), not to continue to strip them of those means.

…And That’s All That I Am

Connie du Toit has an interesting post about people and their limitations, titled Good Hearted, Wrong Hearted:

I have no trouble at all dealing with the reality of an individual’s potential. There is no sadness or feeling of loss for people who are differently abled, or not abled at all. It is just what it is. They are who they are. They will each get to happiness in their own way, if they’re able to get there at all. I don’t overlay my picture of what happiness or success should be on others.

In the same way, I don’t have any expectations beyond the wall that exists for each and everyone of us. Each of us has a wall of some sort. There isn’t any sadness or remorse about that. It just is. The wall is just there. It doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t mean that person can’t be happy.

Fortunately, I never had any aspirations to be a ballerina, because at age 14 I was 200 lbs and 6’1” and there was a wall between me and a career as a ballerina. There are other, similar walls for me. You just ignore those walls and find things that are available to the unique hand of cards you’ve been dealt. If all a child is capable of doing is picking peaches, responding with “You want fries with that?” or some other job or task we tend to think of as menial, we need to get over that. That is us getting in their way, not anything wrong with them.

The whole post is a must-read.