Here we go again. Assume your positions.

Guns kill. No, guns don’t kill. People kill. No, people don’t kill. Asians/aliens/others kill.

No, it’s not who people are; it’s what they watch and “play.” People don’t kill. People who play video games and watch TV kill.

Video games kill. They teach kids to kill. They do it without forcing them to really learn how to use a gun or face the consequences of killing. Kids need to be trained to use real guns, not conditioned by using phony ones. Kids need more guns. Or fewer video games.

In 2002, an armed gunman was killed by armed students at Appalachia Law School. Or maybe he was unarmed or his gun was empty or he had put it down by the time he was shot dead. The congressman from the district that includes Virginia Tech has been sponsoring legislation every year to expand the right to carry concealed weapons, allowing for reciprocity between states.

No, we need more regulation.

We license drivers, insisting on training. My 16-year-old got her permit, did not pass the road test on the first try, took more lessons and now has a license, but is subject for the first year to a curfew and can’t take passengers. We take it one step at a time. Why not with guns?

No, we need better policing on campus, better security for students. How long will it take before the first lawsuit is filed against the university, claiming that it acted in a grossly negligent fashion in failing to take action after the first shooting to warn students and secure the campus?

No, the university was reasonable in its judgments and should enjoy at least qualified immunity from suit. Otherwise, taxpayers get stuck with the bill.

No, we need more community. Here was this clearly troubled kid who was sufficiently “troubled” that the English department at one point intervened. No one did anything/enough to get him the help/attention/expulsion he so clearly needed.

No, if he was so troubled, it was his parents who should have known – they raised him; they sent him into the world.

No, it’s the culture that did it, that created his anger. It was the way he felt about “rich kids” and the way they behaved.

Everyone will find someone to blame. Most people will find more than one person or thing. The person who is obviously most to blame is dead, leaving us to search for other scapegoats. The lawyers will find a way to sue. The screamers will have much to say.

So we’ll take to our usual corners and try to impose rationality. Even if no one changes anyone else’s mind, so long as we’re arguing, we can almost convince ourselves that we have control, the capacity to protect our children, to offer them the safety we all crave in a world that, on some days, feels like a very scary place to send your children.