Peggy Noonan has a great column in the Wall Street Journal this morning where she asks a question that's been on my mind for the past several years: Where have all the grown-ups gone? Doesn't anyone take responsibility anymore or is it now acceptable to parse, justify and rationalize everything away?

The answer to this is, sadly, "no one" and "yes". The most immediate example of this is the savage, senseless murder of those 32 kids on the campus of the University of Virginia. It seems that the killer was a disturbed student with a history of bizarre, violent and dangerous behavior known to both the campus authorities and local law enforcement. He had been caught stalking female students, had set his dorm room on fire, had written a series of violent, morbid scripts and stories for his creative writing class and had actually been declared by a judge to be "mentally ill". His former roommate claims that in the entire time that they lived together the killer never said a single word to him. Not one. This is the personification of anti-social menace. So why was nothing done to remove him from campus?

Because there were no adults in charge at Virginia Tech. In fact, in the aftermath of the killings, both the counseling staff and the administrative leadership at the school claimed that nothing could have done preemptively, in large part because of the "lack of mental health services" in the United States. So, it's the federal government's fault (yet again). Forget about the fact that the University had the right to expel the killer from school and have him forcibly removed from campus. Forget about calling the parents and asking them to take him home to get help. Forget about taking responsibility for the campus population at large and making a decision. Oh, yes. I forgot. That's what adults do.

The unfortunate thing here is that this is now de rigueur in all of public life, not just on college campuses. The rights of the minority now trump the rights and safety of the majority. It is more important to protect a person's civil rights than it is to act decisively in the face of a potential threat to public safety. This is the product of the insane political-correctness that has taken over our culture, buttressed by an overly active trial bar and groups like the ACLU which see everything in terms of power and oppression. The inmates are now running the asylum.

And of course, it permeates so many of the very serious and critical issues we now face. Look at the way the U.S. Congress plays politics with the Iraq War -- choosing political expediency over what is truly good for this country. Just yesterday, Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader of the Democrats in Congress, declared (unilaterally, I might add) defeat in Iraq: "The war is lost". Is there anything more irresponsible than the leader of the United States Senate claiming defeat while our soldiers are in harm's way in Iraq?

Where have all the grown-ups gone?

The mass murder that occurred on the campus of Virginia Tech this week is a terrible and tragic event. Innocent kids sitting in class, hoping to gain knowledge that will embolden their future, are cut down with ruthless efficiency by a cold-blooded killer. As information comes out about Cho Seung-Hui we will know more about the psychosis that lead him to this heinous act. I'll leave that analysis up to the professionals.

But what I will say now is that those who were killed were like lambs lead to slaughter. Helpless and defenseless. Why so? Because Virginia Tech was under a self-imposed ban on the carrying of concealed weapons on campus, part of the broader effort in the wake of Columbine to create "gun free" zones on school property. The goal of these efforts is to create a safe environment for students by ensuring that no one will be carrying a firearm, irregardless of whether a legal concealed-carry permit has been issued by the state or local authorities. When you cross the campus threshold, you check your gun at the door.

And, while this may protect against the minuscule chance of a firearm being used to settle some petty argument over calculus theorems, it has the effect of ensuring that the campus becomes a kill zone. Like most gun-control laws, this rule is based on a fundamental flaw in logic: those who commit crimes break laws. This includes prohibitions against carrying and using guns, as well as the violent acts they commit with them. Those who do obey gun restrictions are those who are most likely to be the victims of violent crime, not the perpetrators. Pretty simple.

Of course, logic is never at the heart of these kind of laws. Emotion is. The simple fact is that having gun-free zones is designed to give us a sense of feel-good security. They are not consistent with the facts, which overwhelmingly tell us that most criminals pray on the weak and are rarely looking for a fight, and are only emboldened by the knowledge that they are unlikely to be confronted with someone with a gun for self-protection. Studies show consistently that areas with more lenient conceal-carry laws have less gun crime, not more. The reason for this seems obvious to me: When you are uncertain whether your intended victim can shoot back or not, you tend to be much more circumspect in your actions.

Whether or not this would have stopped Cho Seung-Hui from committing this atrocity is unclear. But what is clear is that it is very possible that if the teacher or any of the students in that class could have fired back, it is unlikely that 32 people would now be dead. Yes, it's a sad commentary that an armed classroom should be our antidote to this kind of threat. But we live in a world where real evil exists. We can pass laws that make us feel good and embolden those who seek to harm us. Or we can deal with reality and admit that we should provide ourselves, under proper laws and guidance, with a fighting chance to protect ourselves.