Blogoland

First Amendment enthusiast Glenn Reynolds:

And, speaking of "copycats," a Virginia Tech alumna in Kabul blogs: "Eight years ago, after Columbine, a group of students (including myself) from my high school met with then-President Clinton to talk about gun violence. I made a comment that the media was largely responsible, with the glorification of violence in big-budget blockbusters, and constant bombardment of violent images as 'fun.' Clinton shook off my comments, and it's funny, because now something on the same terrible scale has happened at a place close to me, and I still stand by them." I actually think that the sensationalized news coverage 24/7 is worse than the entertainment products.

Thank goodness there’s someone like Prof. Reynolds around to point out the reason a 22-year-old Asian immigrant massacred dozens at a university in Virginia is because he was inflamed by watching too much Neil Cavuto and Paula Zahn.

PS: Curious how much the non-sensaztionalizing and non-opportunistic Prof. Reynolds has posted on this story in less than, ahem, 24 hours? How about ten times (some of them quite lengthy), including a second crack at the "24/7 cable news coverage." He really is the most un-self-aware being around.

UPDATE: Re-reading Prof. Reynolds' original post, I guess what he's saying is that he's worried that the "sensationalized" coverage may result in a copycat shooting. Still, you have to hand it to a guy who exploits the shooting to advance his own agenda, all the while tut-tutting news outlets for doing the same thing.

CLARIFICATION: The non-opportunisitc Professor now has fifteen posts relating to the massacre at Virginia Tech, including some great juxtapositions like "Shootings like this are super-rare" quickly followed by: "What to do in mass shootings."