Madness indeed.

Stockton 1989. Littleton 1999. Virginia Tech 2007. Add the awful scenes from Northern Illinois University 2008 (above) to the school-shooting horrors that lay further testament to the dangers of firearms in the hands of madmen.

The worst possible response to last week’s lecture-hall shooting that left five dead would be to rationalize legislation in 12 states (in response to the Virginia Tech massacre) that would allow people with concealed-weapons permits to carry guns on public universities. The problem is not a lack of guns in the right hands. It is the ease with which guns end up in the wrong hands.

Riiiiight. And the “wrong hands” are “everyone’s hands,” I’d wager. No thank you. Some days I’d be perfectly happy to see California break at the fault line, drift into the ocean, and finally become a Mexican island.