Suppose Van Gogh had had a gun...

...I'm not saying. I'm just saying.

Van Gogh, 47, a great grandnephew of the painter Vincent van Gogh, had received death threats after his recent film sharply criticized how women are treated under Islam. He was repeatedly shot and stabbed. "Don't do it. Don't do it. Have mercy. Have mercy!" the Algemeen Dagblad newspaper quoted Van Gogh as begging his killer.

(Or suppose the witnesses, who are reporting his last words, had been armed and ready to defend him...)

UPDATE: Just noticed this bit from further down in the article:

Van Gogh, an award-winning filmmaker, television producer and newspaper columnist, once mocked a prominent Dutch Jew, referred to Jesus as "the rotten fish" of Nazareth and called a radical Muslim politician "Allah's pimp."

So he insults Jews, Christians and Muslims. Pretend you don't already know the answer and ask yourself: which group would you bet would be the first to try to off him?

Uh huh. Thought so. So much for moral equivalence.