International reaction to the Virginia Tech massacre is already coming in, and it’s pretty much what you might expect: statements of sympathy and regret mingled with condemnations of America’s gun culture and lax regulation. I knew the gun controller would have a field day, despite obvious problems with the argument , but it is still infuriating to see state institutions in Communist China taking the opportunity to run down personal freedom in the U.S.:

The shooting drew intense coverage by media in China, in part because the school has a relatively large Chinese student body and because U.S. reports said the gunman may have been Chinese or Asian. Private citizens are forbidden from owning guns in China. “Why are there were so many shooting incidents in American schools and universities?” said a comment posted on the popular Internet portal Sohu.com. “People should think why an American-educated student would take revenge against America?” Yuan Peng, an American studies expert, was quoted by state-run China Daily as saying the shooting illustrated America’s problems with gun control and a lack of security at American universities. “This incident reflects the problem of gun control in America,” said Yuan, from the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, a Beijing-based think tank.