Eric Thompson tries to end defenselessness (and helps me out in the bargain)

Eric Thompson's internet gun business has taken a great deal of idiotic criticism over the fact that both the Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University killers used firearms and/or accessories purchased from his websites. As has been covered elsewhere, the criticism has lately gotten even more vitriolic, in response to Thompson's latest efforts to deny the next would-be killer a supply of unarmed, helpless victims.

The owner of an Internet-based firearms store that sold a gun to Virginia Tech shooter Seung-Hui Cho says he is now offering a discount for students who want to carry guns on campus to protect themselves. The company, TGSCOM Inc., also sold two 9mm Glock magazines to Steven Kazmierczak, who killed five people at Northern Illinois University earlier this year.

The owner of TGSCOM, Eric Thompson, announced today that for the next two weeks he will sell firearms at cost in the hopes of targeting students who may be on a tight budget. Customers will have over 5,400 different kinds of firearms from which to choose.

"This offer allows students and people who might not have otherwise been able to afford a weapon to purchase one at a hefty discount and at a significant expense to myself," Thompson told ABCNews.com.

Utterly predictably, the citizen disarmament advocates are beside themselves with outrage.

A spokesperson for Virginia Tech said that Thompson's remarks and offer are "incredibly insensitive to the families of the victims who lost loved ones, and to the injured students still recovering from this horrendous tragedy," said Larry Hincker, the Associate Vice President for University Relations.

Hincker is, of course, the namesake of the coveted Larry Hincker Award, given to those who use their authority to mandate that people under their power be rendered disarmed and helpless in the face of evil.

Gun control advocates also call Thompson's special offer "shameless".

"Shameless," eh? That would mean "without shame," wouldn't it? Whaddya' know-it looks as if the gun prohibitionists and I actually agree on something.

While gun control advocates acknowledge that Thompson has a right to make this offer, they say this is yet another example of the gun industry trying to profit from gun violence.

"Trying to profit"? He's clearly not trying very hard to do so, since he is selling the guns at no profit.

To show my support (and also because I really wanted this little bundle of übercoolness), yesterday I ordered (backordered, actually) what I like to call the "Carjacker's Surprise." Of course, the support I'm offering will only be moral support, rather than financial, because as pointed out earlier, Thompson isn't making any money from this.

Well done, Mr. Thomspon. By the way, War on Guns talks about Thompson at the VA Tech campus, with a link to a YouTube clip of Thompson speaking articulately about the evils of victim disarmament.