People With Guns Stop People With Guns - Virginia Tech
As the Virginia Tech story rolls on the question of guns and gun use rages. Do guns kill people? Do people with guns kill people? Or do people with guns stop people with guns killing people?
This by David Kopel in the Wall Street Journal:
“The bucolic campus of Virginia Tech, in Blacksburg, Va., would seem to have little in common with the Trolley Square shopping mall in Salt Lake City. Yet both share an important characteristic, common to the site of almost every other notorious mass murder in recent years: They are “gun-free zones.”
Forty American states now have “shall issue” or similar laws, by which officials issue a pistol carry permit upon request to any adult who passes a background check and (in most states) a safety class.
Research by Carlisle Moody of the College of William and Mary, and others, suggests that these laws provide law-abiding citizens some protection against violent crime. But in many states there are certain places, especially schools, set aside as off-limits for guns.
In Virginia, universities aren’t “gun-free zones” by statute, but college officials are allowed to impose anti-gun rules. The result is that mass murderers know where they can commit their crimes.
Private property owners also have the right to prohibit lawful gun possession. And some shopping malls have adopted anti-gun rules. Trolley Square was one, as announced by an unequivocal sign, “No weapons allowed on Trolley Square property.”
In February of this year a young man walked past the sign prohibiting him from carrying a gun on the premises and began shooting people who moments earlier were leisurely shopping at Trolley Square. He killed five.
Fortunately, someone else - off-duty Ogden, Utah, police officer Kenneth Hammond - also did not comply with the mall’s rules.
After hearing “popping” sounds, Mr. Hammond investigated and immediately opened fire on the gunman. With his aggressive response, Mr. Hammond prevented other innocent bystanders from getting hurt.
He bought time for the local police to respond, while stopping the gunman from hunting down other victims.”
Join the debate
Posted: 18th, April 2007 | In: Twitterings Comments (8) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
Comments
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April 19th, 2007 at 5:16 pm
No argument from me. I do not advocate lining up every man woman and child and issuing them a handgun. My biggest concern is Virginia Tech being a gun free zone, no doubt that many people should not be carrying a weapon across campus not knowing what they are doing, but people like you and I who are know what they are doing and are comfortable carrying concealed should be permitted to, because while my University did it’s very best to make the campus safe, there are some things that cannot be expected. I feel it is necessary that we be allowed to protect ourselves if we wish.
April 19th, 2007 at 3:13 pm
Brooks - thanks for your comments. Join Anorak forums and bypass the nonsense… http://www.anorak.co.uk/forums/
April 19th, 2007 at 2:43 pm
Honestly it seems much of this discussion is being over exaggerated in attempt to make logical arguments via sarcasm. Please let me interject that it is not working. Many Americans do not want “guns for every man, woman, and child.” That motto is reserved for the extremists on both sides of the gun control debate. Extremists also exist on every major political issue so please, let’s focus on the sensible moderate middle and have a well founded conversation.
I personally hold a “Carrying Concealed Weapon” permit (CCW) in the state of Georgia. (Before the redneck comments begin, I hold a senior programming position in the IT Legacy Modernization division of a Fortune 200 company and I am well educated.) I do not want every person armed, there are people who have a healthy fear of guns and would only cause more harm than good in an emergency situation. I simply ask that those who wish to carry concealed weapons in accordance with the laws of my locality so that I may defend my family from an attack. I have received several hours of firearms training and I practice nearly 2 hours a week at the local range to maintain my accuracy and proficiency. I have also received threat identification training to better help myself asses an emergency situation and logically deduce the means for a safe ends.
People will always do the wrong thing regardless of any laws. We have anti-theft laws yet property is still burglarized. We have zero-tolerance policies on drugs at the federal, state, local, and even business level yet drugs abound (as is the case in many nations.) Therefore one can logically deduce that after banning all guns, or even limiting the ban to only handguns and other self-defense munitions, the net result will be a black market where the tools for crime are still available to criminals, but not to the law abiding citizens of my nation. Where is the sense of security in laws that supply the criminals and disarm the orderly?
I ask anyone to please offer a persuasive argument refuting my discussion so long as said argument is polite, as I have taken great pains to avoid injuring the sensitivities of others.
April 19th, 2007 at 3:32 am
Quote from above post-
“If no guns were allowed by anyone then there would be no need for a gun to stop someone who has a gun
___________________________________
Exactly… If only Virginia Tech would have had some sort of rule that no students were permitted to carry concealed or have guns in their dorm room.
…Wait a minute— this is the case campus wide. IF only Cho had been aware that Virginia Tech policy prohibited his Glock and Walther P22
April 19th, 2007 at 2:13 am
Virginia Tech. is a “gun free zone”. Complete prohibition of firearms that most of you want is the law at this school, and like so many other so-called “gun free zones” such as schools, churches, the work place and post offices, they continue to suffer multiple victim attacks by killers who don’t obey laws because their victims are disarmed and defenseless.
A few years ago a shooting rampage began at the Appalachian Law School in Virginia by a deranged student. However, unlike Virginia Tech., two students ran to their vehicles and retrieved their firearms, they confronted the attacker and stop the rampage saving untold lives. Other school shootings were prematurely stopped in similar manners, but the media for the most part ignored the self defense uses of firearms that saved lives.
The victims of these shootings are victims of gun control. Bad people will always do bad things regardless of how many laws there are. The right to life means nothing without the right to lawfully possess the means to protect and defend one’s life.
April 19th, 2007 at 1:40 am
The contitution won’t change while Bush is in power. But I hope it does change someday. It took a similar event in Australia in 1996 to change the laws there.
Mentally ill people are prone to doing copycat crimes. If there were no guns available, they couldn’t mimic them.
The hero in your story above was an off-duty police officer. I have no problems with a police officer carrying a gun, it’s the general public that scares me. Guns = fear, and no-one wants to live in a society of fear.
April 19th, 2007 at 1:09 am
If no guns were allowed by anyone then there would be no need for a gun to stop someone who has a gun.
April 18th, 2007 at 10:00 pm
Humans + Guns = DEATH
It has been designed and produced to kill, not to stun or hinder potential offenders, just kill.
The US governement really needs to look into legislation, especially their vetting/cooling-off period as it seems that even people who have even gone to physicatric facilities and may deem to be “unstable” are still allowed the same previlege of purchasing a “death-bringer” as everyone else.
It may be a part of the Constitution, but these archaic laws need to be revised and updated to fall in line with the times. The fact that the US invades other countries in the name of democracy, yet cannot control their own populus from killing each other shows how hypocritical their standpoint truly is.