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.”
Now, fast forward fourteen and a half months:
MSNBC and NBC News
Updated: 10:07 p.m. PT April 16, 2007
BLACKSBURG, Va. – Local, state and federal investigators scoured a university campus in Virginia for clues to what set off the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history after a gunman shot two people to death in a dormitory Monday morning before making his way to a classroom building where, silently and coolly, he killed 30 more people before turning his weapon on himself, authorities said.
At least 15 other people were wounded in the shootings, which took place over 2½ hours at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Some of them were injured as they leapt to safety from the windows of their classrooms.
The shootings, which came just four days before the eighth anniversary of the Columbine High School bloodbath, in which two students killed 13 people and themselves near Littleton, Colo., created panic and confusion at the university, which was already on edge after two weeks of bomb threats.
After the scope of the carnage was clear, angry students and employees demanded to know why the first e-mail warning from police and administrators did not go out to them for more than two hours, even though the killer of two people was at large. By then, the gunman had struck a second time.
Nearly 50 victims
In all, 33 people died Monday at Virginia Tech, including the gunman. The 15 who were wounded were treated for gunshots or other injuries, authorities said. Their conditions were not reported.
ENOUGH already with the Brady Bunch NONSENSE! ENOUGH already with the George Soros NONSENSE! ENOUGH already with the Michael Moore NONSENSE! Thirty One PERFECTLY GOOD HUMAN BEINGS ARE COMPLETELY USED UP — DEAD — because of them!
By now, even the politically correct set must understand “more guns, less crime” is a REALITY!! Stop letting murderers kill our children! ARM public school teachers, and allow concealed carry on all college campuses before MORE of our children are murdered! Put an END to the Columbines and Virginia Techs! This murdering of innocents has gone on long enough!
The Brady Bills would never have stopped Columbine. The Brady Bils would never have stopped Virginia Tech. The Brady Bills will never stop armed crime. Disarming Americawill NOT stop the carnage. ARMING America WILL!
ALL the Brady Bills would do is disarm innocents!
Best,
Chuck
I don’t know where to begin. Can you cite any studies that show more guns = more safety, especially in the hands of teenaged/early twenties college-aged individuals (God knows they are a beacon of responsibility. This is also the age group that gets in the most car accidents.) Looking back at the Patriots/Red Sox riots, I don’t see how throwing fire arms into that mix would have made Boston safer. I’ve also seen enough drug/alcohol fueled college fights, one ending in a stabbing, that I would never attend a college that permitted fire arms. Give me an old fashioned knife fight any day; as a witness, at least I have a sporting chance to get out of the area without being knifed. Ducking errant bulletts are much more difficult.
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It’s not really that hard for someone to own a fire arm. Most of us choose not to own one. Also consideri 40% of firearms owned in america are illegally purchased.
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Plus, owning a fire arm is one thing. Knowing how to fire a fire arm is one thing. Using a fire arm to effectively protect oneself and others requires a degree of training and keeping that training up to date.
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And what about people who are “well-trained”? What about < a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amadou_Diallo”>Amadou Diallo? “Well trained” cops shot this guy 41 times because they “thought” he had a weapon. What about Mark Charboaire or any other armed police officer who has been shot and killed? How did their guns protect them? Perhaps the shooters we’re affraid they were going to be shot so they fired first. Guns + fear are a bad, bad mix.
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What if Va. Tech was armed? Who’s to say these kids would have the head on their shoulders, when fired upon, to calmly reach for they’re weapon and kill the shooter? How do you prevent a “Wild West” situation? Shooter comes into my classroom and I eventually kill the shooter. Immeadiately after, another armed student enters the room and sees the gun and my hand, makes a snap judgement that I’m the real shooter, and now we’re in a shoot out. Police arive on the scene and have no idea what is going on, just see the two of us in a firefight, and kill the both of us. Meanwhile, others are still getting caught in the cross fire.
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I dunno. Show me stats where a well armed citezenry is the safest. I’m convinved more guns = more gun violence. Show me a stat that says that many more guns are used in self defense (discharged or not discharged) than used for intimidation, coercion or crime.
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The old addage is true – guns don’t kill people, people kill people. But people with guns can kill a lot more people than a psychopath on a eampage with a machete or an ax. I can potentially out run a machete. I can’t out run a bullet traveling thousands of feet per second.
Not sure I agree with Mr. chimp, but I think that most people who make this agrument figure if they ever find themselves in the midst of a rampage, they are less likely to be a portrait of grief if they are carrying a weapon and are capable of putting a few rounds into the rampager BEFORE the rampager kills dozens of people.
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On a college campus, one wonders if a lot of guns means that keg party brawls would turn into bloodbaths. He raised his gun at me, so I shot first. Oops, it was only a keg tap.
Actually, the logic is VERY sound. And let me correct a misunderstanding; I am NOT, repeat NOT advocating that every drunken frat boy on campus be armed. I am advocating that for those who can meet rigid training criteria, demonstrate proficiency, and qualify for a CCP, there should be no restriction on concealed carry. I also believe that individual should lose the right-to-carry on campus at the first sign of trouble from him/her. Finally, I am advocating that College Faculty and Staff who so qualify should be permitted concealed carry, and I believe the same to be true for selected, trained and carefully screened Public School teachers.
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Concealed Carry is a definite deterrent. This is demonstrable from the fact that in EVERY state that passed Right-to-Carry Laws, the number of armed crimes, and victims has fallen drastically, and has stayed low. This can be seen from the Bureau of Justice Statistics cited below. In these states the whack-jobs are not killing people in public malls because people in public malles are packing! Had the Virginia Tech campus been armed, do you suppose that little twit would have been able to kill that many people? Do you suppose that the knowledge of armed students/faculty would have acted as a deterrent? I can’t say for sure, but even a wingnut like that has to have at least SOME lucid thoughts!
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I don’t know where you got the wild statistic about 40% of gun purchases being illegal, but logic tells me it is bogus.
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“According to ATF statistics, over 99 percent of firearms dealers are law abiding. At a recent National Firearms Law Seminar ATF reported that only a small fraction of one percent of all firearms dealers faced criminal prosecution. (And much of THAT is over record-keeping, NOT demonstrated illegal sales!) ATF has long recognized the important role firearms dealers play in the fight to curb the illegal purchase of firearms. In 2005, ATF arrests led to over 1,440 individuals being convicted of illegal firearms trafficking, up 14 percent from the previous year. In that same year, hundreds of thousands of Americans legitimately purchased firearms.”
http://news.findlaw….
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The upsurge in states passing Concealed Carry laws began in 1994, as a huge grassroots backlash to the National Gun Control Act (“Brady”) of 1993.
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“Nonfatal firearm crime rates have been declining since 1994, before increasing [slightly] in 2005. After 1996, less than 10% of nonfatal violent crimes involved firearm. According to the 1997 Survey of State Prison Inmates, among those possessing a gun, the source of the gun was from –
? a flea market or gun show for fewer than 2%
? a retail store or pawnshop for about 12%
? family, friends, a street buy, or an illegal source for 80%”
http://www.ojp.usdoj…
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As to Defensive Gun Use, anyone MIGHT claim a DGU, phony or otherwise, but the collected statistics are based on everything from newspaper reports to hospital emergency room statistics. The following quote is germane:
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“(David) Kleck’s review of the literature revealed that anti-gun scholars frequently fail to even mention the growing number of surveys which show large numbers of DGUs each year. One way of trying to ascertain how many criminals have been wounded by armed victims is to get emergency room figures. Problem is, many criminals will not go to a hospital with a bullet wound that they can treat themselves. This avoids the risk of the mandatory report of their bullet wound ending up with the police who might then determine that they were wounded during the commission of a crime. For this reason, it is not an easy matter to get accurate data. Anti-gunners have argued that there are few DGUs based on emergency room bullet wound reports. Anti-gun scholars are happy to accept any (and only) those data that support their predetermined conclusions.
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In spite of anti-gun scholars’ best efforts, if their data do not accord with their desired outcomes, Kleck has caught them from time to time simply withholding their own data.
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At the end of the day, analysis of the existing data indicates that DGUs outnumber criminal uses of guns at about a five to one ratio. For those who want to argue that guns have no social utility, these data are overwhelming.
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But the facts do not budge those who, in Kleck’s words, view a DGU as valuing aggression. They justify this view by doubting the truly defensive nature of most DGUs. Science morphs into conclusions based on deeply-held emotional views held before the data are even collected and analyzed.
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(To Kleck’s credit, he began his inquiries about DGUs with a presumption that guns were more often used for harm, not for good. His own studies surprised him but he was willing to publish his results showing that guns save lives.)” http://www.gunowners…
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A final comment: Most reliable sources regarding DGU’s require documentation, in the form of newspaper clippings, police reports, etc., before accepting profferred stories about DGU.
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Best,
CHuck
correlation does not imply causality.
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The number of armed crimes, and victims has fallen drastically, and has stayed low in all states, including those which do not allow concealed carry.
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So, not only does correlation not imply causality, but there’s no real correlation here anyway.
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Crime — including violent crime — goes down when people have jobs, food, and shelter. This has been understood for thousands of years, way back when some people argued that concealed spears were keeping the crime rates in check.
And please don’t refute it with that tired old argument from the Austrailian gun control freak who performed some mumbo-jumbo with Lott’s aggregated data after first disaggregating it, then performed some regression this minor-in-statistics guy never HEARD of!
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Best,
Chuck
http://www.motherjon…
“Mother Jones” has a tarbrush. They regularly use it, not very successfully, in this writer’s opinion, to TRY and tar information that doesn’t fit their rather warped agenda. This, if you read with a jaundiced and unbiased eye, is what they tried to do to Professor Lott.
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But if you choose to believe Mother Jones, instead of a respected Statistician/Attorney, please feel free. Meantime, the reality-based world will be here waiting for you, should you decide to join us.
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Best,
Chuck
Gosh, thanks for opening my eyes to Mother Jones’s tar-brushing agenda. It’s really helpful the way you documented that point, too. Because there you are in the reality-based world, where people actually care about making sure they back up their wild-ass claims with data.
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I’d really like to join you, yet here I tarry, in the company of unserious people like Chris Mooney (author of The Republican War on Science) who actually wrote the piece I referenced.
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And the company of Donald Kennedy (the editor-in-chief of Science), who said of Lott’s sock puppetry “In most circles, this goes down as fraud.”
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But I want to do better. I know that when serious people like yourself and John Lott want to show how serious they are, they provide citations to research and back up their claims with hard data.
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I know your “link” key is broken which is why you still haven’t linked to that Lott report you keep talking about, but it’s okay. John Lott will show us how it’s done: First you make a counter-intuitive claim like “Guns, hormones, and binge-drinking – that’s a recipe for safety” or in Lott’s case like “98 percent of the time that people use guns defensively, they merely have to brandish a weapon to break off an attack.” Then when people are astonished by your assertion, you pull out the supporting data … oops. That didn’t go so well did it?
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Well, it doesn’t matter. You are still there in RealityWorld, respecting the heck out of John Lott. Maybe you can send me a postcard.
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I think it’s bogus too. Here is some data though: 40% of state inmates using a gun while committing their special crime obtained it from “street/illegal source.” Maybe that’s to what he’s referring?
These statistics; perhaps the misunderstood statistical source:
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Source of gun 1997 1991
Purchased from –
Friends or family 39.6 33.8
Gun show 0.7 0.6
Flea market 1.0 1.3
Pawnshop 3.8 4.2
Retail store 8.3 14.7
Street/illegal source 39.2 40.8
Total 100.0% 100.0%
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Thanks,
Chuck
But I stand by my extreme skepticism of the idea that more guns would have made Va. Tech safer and will make our country safer.
Give ME a gun, and make me a 24YO college student (the age I would have been had I elected to come home from my first of FIVE tours in Vietnam and go to grad school full time, instead of going to a certain mideast country, and getting into both their protracted war and a military career!).
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I am not the only one in that category. And our age is not the determinant; rather the attitude is. Proof? Ask the returnees from Iraq . . .
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Given arms for this category, the perp would have died within seconds of his first shot.
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Your decision as to whether that is good.
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Best,
Chuck
In your version “the perp” would have “died within seconds”. Maybe Cho would have been taken down after the first few victims. Maybe nobody would have been shot up by would-be vigilantes in this case.
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So you want campuses to be filled with guns. Let’s remember what college is. College has become a time when our culture condones, if not celebrates impulsive behavior, wild exploration, and large quantities of alcohol. And you think what we need is more guns in the mix? Do you want everyone in a traditional Friday night bar fight armed? Do you want some kid half off his tree with alcohol and high on testoserone to play hero with a pistol every chance a shadow moves? Your answers is just a recipe for more “perps” and more shootings.
The perp at VA Tech was a drama queen. That is evident from the videos he sent to NBC. You aren’t going to be able to protect yourself from all of the drama queens in this world. Just look at GWBush, another drama queen, and he was a Yalie.
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Now, answer the questions I posed downstream.
I am not promoting your scenarios, and I think you know it from my previous posts on this subject. What I am promoting is allowing demonstrably responsible and properly trained, qualified and permitted students, faculty and staff, to be armed on campus, and in the classroom. You keep talking about drunken, testosterone-laden frat boys. They would not fit the definition of “demonstrably responsible,” now, would they?
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My interest has little to do with gun control or gun freedom. My interest has more to do with decreasing the number of DEAD PEOPLE from, say, 32, to, perhaps, ONE!
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Or maybe, in the name of political correctness, you prefer more Columbines and VA Tech’s? Think it through before responding, please! I am sick and tired of being sick and tired of philosophy that does NOT understand that doing it the same way and expecting different results is a form of INSANITY!
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Best,
Chuck
Don’t you dare imply that I want more massacres simply because I don’t agree with you. It’s whiny and pathetic. This isn’t an academic exercise for me, chump. Too many of my students have been busted for having weapons for me to treat it as “political correctness”,
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According to the provisions in place, Cho was exactly the level-headed, responsible person you’re describing according to documents. As were Dylan Klebold’s parents.
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Unless you’re arguing for a combo of forcing people to have guns (VTech students weren’t packing — are you going to make them carry weapons?) AND increasing regulations and background checks for prospective gun buyers (to catch folks like Cho) you don’t have a point.
“Concealed Carry is a definite deterrent.”
Conceled carry is not a deterent for suicidal psychopaths hell bent on mass murder.
A way to ensure that DEMONSTRABLY RESPONSIBLE students, faculty and staff, who are properly trained and permitted can reduce the number of DEAD PEOPLE from, say, 32 to one or two . . .
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Best,
Chuck
Or, maybe the people in those buildings would have chosen not to carry a weapon.
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All hypothetical.
…and this is a question to which I do not know the answer.
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Background point. Virginia Tech is in the American South, and it seems to be the fact that, in the American South, gun control laws are quite liberal–meaning that they would permit people to “carry,” whether or not concealed*. Do you know what the Virginia gun laws are? I do not.
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*I’m not sure what relevance the “concealed” part has; it strikes me that, if the weapon was not concealed, it would be a more stringent deterrant than if it was concealed.
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The question is, if the Virginia gun laws allow for carrying, at the VA Tech incident, why weren’t more people carrying? Apparently, nobody (except the police) had a gun to shoot the perp with. (Well, maybe someone did, and that may be why the perp is dead. But not enough were carrying, and that’s why the perp was able to kill more people.) If VA’s gun control laws are as liberal as I suspect they are, it is likely that more than a few people don’t want to carry. (It is rather inconvenient to carry around a few extra pounds of metal, when the likelihood of having to brandish it to avoid a crime is fairly minimal.) If people don’t want to carry, that rather puts the kabosh on the “more guns, less crime” argument, doesn’t it? Unless there is a “required to carry” law, of course.
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BTW, going down a bit, Tim Lambert (the Australian that you mentioned below) is hardly the only critic of Lott’s work. And Lott’s rather bizarre behavior actually casts doubt on the veracity of his work. And Kleck, whom you mentioned, was associated with Lott. I’m actually not interested in any response you might have to this part of the comment. If you have a comment on my question of Virginia’s gun control laws and carrying in the paragraphs above, I would be interested.
…and this is a question to which I do not know the answer.
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Background point. Virginia Tech is in the American South, and it seems to be the fact that, in the American South, gun control laws are quite liberal–meaning that they would permit people to “carry,” whether or not concealed*. Do you know what the Virginia gun laws are? I do not.
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*I’m not sure what relevance the “concealed” part has; it strikes me that, if the weapon was not concealed, it would be a more stringent deterrant than if it was concealed.
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The question is, if the Virginia gun laws allow for carrying, at the VA Tech incident, why weren’t more people carrying? Apparently, nobody (except the police) had a gun to shoot the perp with. (Well, maybe someone did, and that may be why the perp is dead. But not enough people who were allowed to, were carrying, and that’s why the perp was able to kill more people.) If VA’s gun control laws are as liberal as I suspect they are, it is likely that more than a few people don’t want to carry. (It is rather inconvenient to carry around a few extra pounds of metal, when the likelihood of having to brandish it to avoid a crime is fairly minimal.) If people don’t want to carry, that rather puts the kabosh on the “more guns, less crime” argument, doesn’t it? Unless there is a “required to carry” law, of course.
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BTW, going down a bit, Tim Lambert (the Australian that you mentioned) is hardly the only critic of Lott’s work. And Lott’s rather bizarre behavior actually casts doubt on the veracity of his work. And Kleck, whom you mentioned, was associated with Lott. I’m actually not interested in any response you might have to this part of the comment. If you have a comment on my question of Virginia’s gun control laws in the paragraphs above, I would be interested.
Discuss whether you need to put down your tar brush re: Lott and Kleck. I AM going to champion the need for “demonstrably responsible” students, faculy and staff to be allowed to be armed. As I said in previous posts, I am not interested in the merits of either Lott’s, or Lambert’s arguments, though the latter has no merit, IMHO.
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To steal a line from the gun control crowd, if we can save ONE life — just ONE, why is it a bad idea, dude?
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Best,
Chuck
I AM going to champion the need for “demonstrably responsible” students, faculy and staff to be allowed to be armed.
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The question was, whether or not under Virginia law they were allowed to be armed, and, if they were allowed to be armed, why–apparently–more of them were not. You evaded the question.
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I would suspect that, under Virginia law, virtually everyone can carry (whether or not concealed), and so I am at a loss to understand why more were not carrying. If they wanted to, of course. And in the last lies the rub.
this.
if no one had automatic handguns?
…on Altercation on this issue. Pretty much sums it up for me.
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http://mediamatters….
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“…if I hear one more stupid gun-loving sonuvabitch talk about how, ‘Well, if they just had allowed all those students to have guns, this lunatic at Virginia Tech wouldn’ta got far,’ I am going to slap his dumb ass on the first plane smokin’ for Iraq, where I would like to personally drop him off, with as many guns as he would like, in Dora (that’s a particularly nasty South Baghdad neighborhood with which I am familiar). …
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…As a microcosm, Dora should be the NRA’s dream town, as it perfectly matches the NRA ‘Wild West’ theory of what is needed in a society: honor is important to the individual; the family is the most important part of society; all of the inhabitants are very religious (except for when they are not); and absolutely everyone has at least one gun.”
I conclude he writes like a neo-Nazi. If he thinks like he writes, I would just as soon not let him be dictator of these United States, thank you.
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I don’t love guns, particularly. I DO love competitive shooting, hunting, and my freedoms and rights. Bateman, apparently, loves to dictate. As a retired Master Chief, I’ve obviously met a LOT of Colonels and Captains, and he is the first one I’ve ever heard from who thinks that way.
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Best,
Chuck
you just dissed one of the most respected of the military bloggers.
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As for his tone… I think he’s pissed off… can’t imagine why.
I tried. I REALLY tried. FEW deserve it more.
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I also dissed Ollie North, BTW. Same reason.
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Bloggers are HUMAN. Homo Sapiens. This Lieutenent Colonel is trying his best to be a Colonel, and winding up being a WAC Third Class UNDER the Brig! (Absolutely NO derogation to REAL WAC’s, who are his betters by a thousand percent, BTW!)
Just thought I’d justify . . .
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Best,
Chuck
Master Chief,
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I can’t think of a worse idea that arming a campus of college students. Rather that focus on the guns free zone why not look at the larger problems.
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the ease with which a crazy person bought a gun, the amount of gun violence we have in the US vs any OECD country. We have over 200mln guns it does not make us safer. Iraq and Brazil, two other countries, with loose guns laws are also not safer for them.
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States with loose guns laws have higher deaths per capita then states with tigher laws.
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If you want a gun for hunting or protection great, but if you can’t see there is a problem with the current laws there is a real problem.
http://www.youtube.c…
I can’t think of a worse idea that arming a campus of college students. Rather than focus on the gunfree zone. Why not look at the larger problems?
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The ease with which a crazy person bought a gun, the amount of gun violence we have in the US vs any OECD country. We have over 200mln guns it does not make us safer. Iraq and Brazil, two other countries, with loose gun laws are also not safer for it.
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States with loose guns laws have higher deaths per capita than states with tighter laws.
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If you want a gun for hunting or protection, great. There 30,000 guns deaths a year, that is a problem. It would be great to hear a solution besides a Glock Party.
WOW – I have to admit Mr. Chump
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comming here, and speaking your views takes a lot of guts. You know everytime you open your mouth here, there are a half dozen BMGers combing the web for a source, any source that will debunk your point. And lets face it, it’s the World Wide Web, there is an organization out there for everyone’s view point.
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Here is my take, I am a college student at Salem State College and if we had another VT shooting at Salem State I would be dead in minutes. Campus Security here is a Joke…..let me say that again, CAMPUS SECURITY IS A JOKE!!!!! And after listening to you (Mr Chump) versus the rest, I can see your school of thought (although not 100% perfect) offers me the best chance for survival.
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With respect, my score card shows
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Mr. Chump 1
BMG’ ers 0
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