My heart goes out to the families and students / faculty at Virginia Tech.
From the Roanoke Times:
A bill that would have given college students and employees the right to carry handguns on campus died with nary a shot being fired in the General Assembly.
House Bill 1572 didn’t get through the House Committee on Militia, Police and Public Safety. It died Monday in the subcommittee stage, the first of several hurdles bills must overcome before becoming laws.
The bill was proposed by Del. Todd Gilbert, R-Shenandoah County, on behalf of the Virginia Citizens Defense League. Gilbert was unavailable Monday and spokesman Gary Frink would not comment on the bill’s defeat other than to say the issue was dead for this General Assembly session.
Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker was happy to hear the bill was defeated. “I’m sure the university community is appreciative of the General Assembly’s actions because this will help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on our campus.”
The above statement did not turn out to be the case. Many lives could have been saved today if our 2nd amendment was not stripped away from so many law abiding citizens.
Del. Dave Nutter, R-Christiansburg, would not comment Monday because he was not part of the subcommittee that discussed the bill.
Most universities in Virginia require students and employees, other than police, to check their guns with police or campus security upon entering campus. The legislation was designed to prohibit public universities from making “rules or regulations limiting or abridging the ability of a student who possesses a valid concealed handgun permit … from lawfully carrying a concealed handgun.”
The legislation allowed for exceptions for participants in athletic events, storage of guns in residence halls and military training programs.
Last spring a Virginia Tech student was disciplined for bringing a handgun to class, despite having a concealed handgun permit. Some gun owners questioned the university’s authority, while the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police came out against the presence of guns on campus.
In June, Tech’s governing board approved a violence prevention policy reiterating its ban on students or employees carrying guns and prohibiting visitors from bringing them into campus facilities.
Truly, legislators need to be held accountable for preventing law abiding citizens the right to keep and bear arms.
12 responses so far ↓
mommyzabs // April 16, 2007 at 1:40 pm
very interesting. thanks for making that information known. although most likely this will be used as an excuse for more gun control… although we know that criminals never have a problem breaking rules so it wouldn’t help. hm.
matt // April 16, 2007 at 2:02 pm
i’d still feel much safer is there were no guns on campus at all. besides, even if several people had a gun in the hall this morning how much good do you think they would have been able to do? There was already so much confusion how were students to know who was the malicious gunner and who was the ‘good guy’? How would police know when they arrived on the scene? I think that your romantic vision of gun slingin’ heroes saving the day is a little naive.
tieki rae // April 16, 2007 at 2:36 pm
This whole situation is just terrible and shocking. It is also especially frightening to me as a student on a university campus that has a firm no-weapons policy. I disagree completely with Matt’s arguments. I would feel a thousand times better if college students were actually respected as American students in full capacity of our constitutional right to bear arms. If even one or two of the law abiding, non murderous students at VTech had a gun this morning, they could have stopped the gunman. As for your question about how the police would know who was good and who was bad, I’m pretty sure that the dead gunman would be a giveaway. The “good guys” would put their weapons down. I think your romantic vision of a world overflowing with gun control legislation and criminals who actually obey that legislation is more than a little naive - it’s deadly.
Pray for Virginia Tech « Haemet Yeshachrer Otcha // April 16, 2007 at 2:50 pm
[...] mom posted a good article from January about a gun bill that was shot down in Virginia in late January. [...]
jaredmclaughlin // April 17, 2007 at 12:54 am
I think that we really need to look at what we’re doing on college campuses these days. If we’re shaping the minds of the future generation, should we be shaping them to depend on an unrealistic assumption of safety, only to have that safety shattered by these sorts of incidents? Wouldn’t it be better to help teach them to exist in a real world that is more fluid and more interesting? I think it would be a good idea to stress more independence in thought and action.
Defiant_Infidel // April 17, 2007 at 10:24 am
Tammi, I am delighted to find your blog after following your comments at HotAir and other sites for many months. To add to that, this post is particularly excellent and relevent.
Matt, you and those who think(?) like you are at the very heart of this problem we have in our schools and other public facilities.
i’d still feel much safer is there were no guns on campus at all.
Spiffy and progressive thought… so where’s the beef? How did you plan on insuring that no guns enter the campus? When someone decides to do such an abhorrent act, they will do it, whether it means shooting their way through the metal detectors and those attending them or otherwise. Your not even remotely realistic.
besides, even if several people had a gun in the hall this morning how much good do you think they would have been able to do?
People with firearms training are educated to be aware, alert, prepared and calm in the face of a threat. If “several people” had been armed, the liklihood that one of them would have been able to return fire and stop this idiot would have been a helluva lot greater than the alternative reality of a classroom full of unarmed victims, ripe for the killing. Additionally, if it was publicly known that students and teachers both had the right to be armed and therefore COULD BE, it might well have given pause for thought to the would be perpetrator. Scum like this go where they will have no threat of return fire… he didn’t go into the police station or the local shooting range and start attempting to kill people, did he? How many times do people like you have to see this miserable piece of history repeated before it actually gets through your stone cranium???
There was already so much confusion how were students to know who was the malicious gunner and who was the ‘good guy’?
Ummm…. I would bet that the other students could tell who the good guys were when they took note of the fact that they were one second studying in class and the next all trying to stop the one guy that was indiscriminately killing all those around him. Boy, that was a tough question to consider…
How would police know when they arrived on the scene?
Ummmm… that would have been easily discerned by the fact that the shooter in question was dead, by someone else who was armed and capable and with a whole lot less dead victims laying around first, rather than after the police showed up (as so frequently is the case) and after the gunman thankfully decided he was done and turned the gun on himself.
I think that your romantic vision of gun slingin’ heroes saving the day is a little naive.
How quaint… the rest of us here seem to agree that your view is prevalent. ludicrous and indirectly(?) responsible for the “shoot fish in a barrel” scenario that exists in each and every one of our classrooms across the country yesterday, today and, until we change things… tomorrow.
I find it such an exercise in futility and pointlessness to sit around every time, after one of these unnecessary random acts of murder, and interview witnesses to ask about their “feelings” over the incident. Remarkably, that is the chief focus. Inane questions like “How could this happen?” and statements like how “unbelievable” it all is permeate the airwaves. That and more liberal gibberish about how we will all be “safer” when we are completely unarmed universally… except for the law ignoring criminal perpetrators, of course. They also are big fans of restricted citizen rights to defend themselves… Afterall, who wants to be a criminal in a capable, armed and potentially defensive general public?
the Grit // April 17, 2007 at 1:09 pm
Hi matt,
One of the early school shootings was stopped by a teacher with a gun. Would that I could remember which, but it was the incident that started the initial discussion of allowing teachers to go armed. Unfortunately, since the teacher had to run to his car to fetch the weapon, the murderous student had a chance to reload his pistol and shoot several more people, before being stopped. It was another 5 minutes before the police arrived.
Hi w,
Great post.
the Grit
wytammic // April 17, 2007 at 1:28 pm
The case you are thinking of was in Pearl, MS and the Vice Principal was Joel Myrick. He is a modern day hero.
Ronin // April 17, 2007 at 6:13 pm
This massacre was pulled off by one man armed with small caliber weapons. A group armed with explosives could have done far worse. Self defense limited to “call the police” is suicide. Had a single armed policeman been in the building and not taken out first. Saw the guy enter the building and watched him aim the gun. Had the same policeman been an expert at the quick draw and had training to release the safety on the draw. Had the policeman been well trained and an expert shot and not had his hands tied by some liberal PC policy. It would have been a different story. The press would have condemned the officer, demanded jail time for shooting a suspect who had not actually committed a crime. His career would have been ruined and he might have gone to jail himself. Couldn’t happen? We sent a border patrol officer to prison for a similar scenario.
Learn from this, arm yourself, you might not have cop handy or one as well trained and available as the hypothetical one I mentioned above.
stevereenie // April 17, 2007 at 10:20 pm
I guess the prognosis from the left concerning Armageddon if we had concealed carry laws just didn’t pan out where it has passed, but how many must die before people are allowed to defend themselves where the law doesn’t permit it. Rosie won’t help you. She’ll scream about the 2nd Amendment but then hire her own personal thug to carry a gun and protect her. When was a gun law or prohibition EVER a deterrent to a criminal?………..Stevereenie: Next Stop Lauderdale………………..
jweaver // April 19, 2007 at 2:39 pm
Yeah, If there were some more armed people this may not have happened, just KNOWING that there might be an armed response somettimes discourages these type of events.
Haemet » Blog Archive » Pray for Virginia Tech // July 20, 2007 at 2:46 pm
[...] mom posted a good article from January about a gun bill that was shot down in Virginia in late January. [...]
You must log in to post a comment.