As I write these words, news reports out of Blacksburg, Va., say that more than 30 people have been shot to death on the campus of Virginia Tech, and that the toll could go higher.
I’ve devoted so much “ink” to this topic in countless columns over the years, I can recite the deadly data by heart. Why do Americans continue to tolerate state and federal loosening of gun control laws as the numbers of mass shootings mount? When is the horror, loss and resulting anger going to turn into greater citizen pressure for tighter restraints on lethal weapons?
Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards may come across as more Southern preppy than country, but this week he is playing up his small-town roots as he makes a major pitch to capture the rural vote.
Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson’s Republican supporters see him as a potential dark-horse candidate poised to gallop in and represent the party’s more conservative wing in the 2008 presidential election.