Virginia takes center stage in gun debate
March 3, 2008 | Virginia News
Even with fresh memories of the Virginia Tech shootings, residents are divided about whether to restrict guns.
It's a simple device, really. By modern standards, downright basic. A metal tube. A tiny explosion. A bit of lead that zips through the air at up to 4,000 feet per second and rips a hole in nearly anything in its path.
After that, nothing about guns is simple. The stakes are just too high. When the squeeze of a finger can end a life -- or save one -- people tend to line up at the extremes. They hate guns, or they love them.
Americans clash over guns now more than ever. And nowhere is that conflict at a higher pitch than in Virginia -- where the specter of the worst shooting in modern U.S. history hangs over Virginia Tech's campus.
The killings in April in Blacksburg thrust a stunned Virginia into headlines around the world. They also galvanized both sides of the gun debate: Clearly, one side says, the country has too many guns. Clearly, says the other, it doesn't have enough.
This year, the pendulum is swinging toward more.
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