With not even twenty-four hours passed since the tragedy at Virginia Tech, and already the New York Times has taken the lead in turning it into a political issue:

Yesterdayâ€™s mass shooting at Virginia Tech â€” the worst in American history â€” is another horrifying reminder that some of the gravest dangers Americans face come from killers at home armed with guns that are frighteningly easy to obtain. Not much is known about the gunman, who killed himself, or about his motives or how he got his weapons, so it is premature to draw too many lessons from this tragedy. But it seems a safe bet that in one way or another, this will turn out to be another instance in which an unstable or criminally minded individual had no trouble arming himself and harming defenseless people.

Here’s a memo to the editors at the Times. Guns have been widely available for a long time. Fifty years ago, they were more widely available than they are now and gun control laws were unheard of. And yet things like this did not happen, at least not as frequently as they seem to now.

This isn’t about the guns, it’s about people. It’s about the failure of law enforcement to protect citizens. And it’s about laws that prevent people from even having the opportunity to defend themselves. And, most importantly, it’s about one man who was on a mission to kill. Gun control laws won’t stop a person like that, as events in Europe have confirmed more than once.

No, this isn’t about the guns at all.