Virginia Shooting – Things are going to change
Like it or not, yesterday we woke up in a different America. This incident will have far-reaching effects for a while. Sadly, these effects will be of the band-aid variety and likely won’t have much impact. I fully expect our college and university police to slowly become more like regular police. It will start out small, with some colleges hiring additional security and getting better hardware. But I doubt it will be long before their security forces could go toe-to-toe with the local PDs in terms of gear.
Some folks are blaming the college for banning CCW holders from carrying there. Could have a point but the facts are that most college kids are just that: kids. Eighteen, nineteen and twenty year-olds can’t lawfully carry anyway. And, honestly, who wants a bunch of kids who are away from their home for the first time and who (like I did in college) are probably consuming a bit too much of, well, anything strapped? Armed staff is a better sell and, honestly, is probably a bit more responsible. Not to say that all college kids are irresponsible but that your average 18-20 something probably isn’t the best candidate for packing heat. And, of course, not all college kids are 18-20.
On the radio this morning, this was the topic of the day (like it is everywhere, I’m sure) and will be the topic for weeks. One caller said something I found disturbing but I will not be surprised to see it made an issue in the near future. He said he didn’t think foreigners should be allowed to own guns. Particularly, he said some store owners who were Iraqi, Iranian or some kinda A-rab made him uncomfortable. Currently, lawful resident aliens can purchase guns. I’d like to think restrictions on guns wouldn’t be based on where someone was born. As deplorable as such a push would be, I’d love to see how the Brady Campaign would react to gun control returning to its racist roots.
Guns aren’t to blame. Neither is porn, video games, movies, whatever-today’s-random-kid-corrupting-bogeyman is. And neither is the young woman who had the misfortune of being the shooter’s object of obsession. Seriously, some sick fuckers said: This is the face of the teenage student who may have sparked the biggest gun massacre in US history. Wow. Just wow.
Speaking of sick fuckers, the foreign press is amusing in their misrepresenting US gun laws and their apparent gloating over the incident. Der Speigel (IIRC) basically said that you could go buy machine guns over the counter here. So did The Daily Mail.
The most chilling thing I read was this at Radley’s:
Just saw an interview with rescue workers on TV. They said the thing that keeps sticking with them is the sound of cell phones ringing on the bodies of the dead students they were carrying out–calls from desperate parents and friends frantically trying to reach them.
That sends chills down my spine.
The Democrats say gun control isn’t a priority:
After the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid cautioned Tuesday against a “rush to judgment” on stricter gun control.
[…]
Democrats traditionally have been in the forefront of efforts to pass gun control legislation, but there is a widespread perception among political strategists that the issue has been a loser in recent campaigns. It was notably absent from the agenda Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi unveiled earlier this year when the party took control of the House and Senate for the first time in more than a decade.
Good. Gun control is what politicos do instead of something. VA Governor is not a fan of the politicization of this incident.
What’s the solution? I dunno. And you don’t either. People just go nuts. They do it with guns, knives, swords, planes, and Ryder Trucks loaded with fertilizer.
April 18th, 2007 at 10:02 am
The proposals in Virginia were not to arm 18 to 20 year olds. The proposals involved nothing more than prohibiting a STATE entity from precluding those students and staff members who have Concealed Handgun Permits from carrying on campus.
If the person is trusted in the City of Blacksburg to carry a concealed weapon, why are they instantly rendered untrustworthy 20 feet away on the VA Tech campus???
Not all college students are kids and not all, even among the kids, are prone to over-indulgence. My Son is a student at Old Dominion University (another Virginia Public University that prohibits CCW). He is 20 years old. He is also married and has a child. He also works full time as well as going to school full time. He doesn’t have TIME to “party all night”. The point is that he is a responsible person and one whom I would trust with my life…not just because he’s my Son, but because he’s a good, responsible, upstanding, trustworthy citizen. Unfortunately, he isn’t old enough to get a CHP yet…but as soon as he is, I would completely support him doing so.
The point in allowing Carry on the campuses is not to arm all students regardless of their age, level of responsibility etc. It is to allow those who have already taken their safety and responsibilities seriously enough to jump through the hoops to get a CHP to have the right to defend themselves and their fellow students while on campus just like anywhere else in the State of Virginia.
This rule change may very well have had no impact on this particular incident…we will never know. But what I DO know is that, had CHP holders been ALLOWED to carry on campus, there is a CHANCE that this attack could have been stopped much earlier. Under the current state of affairs, there is NO CHANCE that an attack will be stopped quickly.
April 18th, 2007 at 10:03 am
[…] says things are going to change. I think he’s right, and hopefully for the better. I just don’t want to see it go […]
April 18th, 2007 at 10:21 am
>If the person is trusted in the City of Blacksburg to carry a concealed weapon, why are they instantly rendered untrustworthy 20 feet away on the VA Tech campus???
April 18th, 2007 at 10:22 am
Sorry, my reply was truncated.
Exactly. It’s utter nonsense.
If only ONE professor had the proper 20 oz tool, he could have possibly saved dozens of lives. POSSIBLY.
Which is more than can be said of all the impressive looking yet totally ineffective SWAT hardware prancing around afterward. They look good on TV though.
April 18th, 2007 at 10:22 am
Grad students, like my 35 year old self should be able to pack. I wouldn’t mind if the campus cops required us to take and pass a graded course on CCW etc before we could either.
April 18th, 2007 at 10:24 am
What I meant about the course… it would have them tell us how to act in the event that something bad like this happens. Give us guidelines for what to do to help them, and what not to do to avoid making situations worse. If the CCW students and faculty/staff were coordinated with the police, well, then they get free trained security. No reason we couldn’t take responsibility that way.
April 18th, 2007 at 10:46 am
“People just go nuts. They do it with guns, knives, swords, planes, and Ryder Trucks loaded with fertilizer.”
I’ve made the point to several people that the worst mass murder in the history of the United States was conducted with gasoline, not guns. And in a city with strict gun controls, too.
April 18th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
What strikes me most about the media coverage is how they stress that this is the worse mass murder with a firearm ever in the history of the US. Then they go on to say something about the “gun control debate”, usually about the expired “assault weapons ban”. Like that silly law would have done anything.
Why they say “worse mass murder with a firearm ever…” and not just “worse mass murder” is this unfortunate incident
87 people tragically killed with a few dollars of gasoline. Easily available without a background check or a 7 day waiting period, Legally able to be possessed by convicted violent felons.
April 18th, 2007 at 1:21 pm
People just go nuts. They do it with guns, knives, swords, planes, and Ryder Trucks loaded with fertilizer.
And with execution chambers (Holocaust), and with propane tanks (Columbine). Caligula, Stalin, Polpot, and Hitler were crazy psychopaths, too, they just happened to be in positions of power.
No law will ever stop random acts of the psychopath.
The only hope we can have is that a legally armed citizen — CCW holder, cop, security, whatever — is nearby to blow the psychopath to hell before they kill too many innocents.
I’m a college student, and there’s been a lot of “what if…” on campus since the attack. But everyone admits that no one really knows how they’d react in that situation. However, I think the next psychopath to open up on a school will be met with more resistance, just like terrorists in Flight 93 were.
and on a more bloodthirsty note, I’m glad this prick is dead and there is no appeal, no long trial, no “I snapped and went crazy” defense.
April 18th, 2007 at 4:13 pm
Great post Uncle.
April 18th, 2007 at 4:17 pm
Thanks. Speaking of, one year and no posting? Dude!
April 18th, 2007 at 8:29 pm
April 18th, 2007 at 8:30 pm
McCarthey Bashing
April 18th, 2007 at 8:50 pm
When trying to find out what is at the bottom of a problem one has to look for the common denominator? What is the common factor to all these mass shootings?
It is not upset personal relationships. Everybody has those and very few end in killing and even then it’s usually only to the target of their hate.
It is not unloved kids either. We have had them for a hundred years and they never went on shooting sprees.
It is not violent games. Kids have played cowboys and Indians since forever and not gone out randomly shooting for real as a result of playing that. Any sane person knows when they are playing and when it is real.
It is certainly not guns. They are at the very end of a chain of earlier events. And besides guns do nothing of themselves. Someone has to be in a certain frame of mind to fire a gun with intent to kill. Not an easy thing to accomplish.
In fact it’s a very hard thing to accomplish in any rational person. Ask a soldier trained to kill if he finds it easy to go out and kill another human being even when justified.
So what is it that is common to all these shootings?
One thing is common. Irrationality. None of these killing make any sense to anybody. Everybody reels in trying to understand them.
What then makes these shooters so irrational?
A little research will reveal that the common underlying factor is drugs. In every case of these mass shootings the shooter was on drugs. Either street drugs or much more commonly so called “legal” or psych drugs. Every single time. Check Google for proof.
And as everybody knows these drugs head straight for the brain and send a person out of their mind so they do not know what they are doing. In other words they are drugged insane at the time.
They certainly have no idea of what they are doing. A necessary qualification to be able to randomly murder in cold blood. No different from a suicide bomber. These idiots are psychologically brain washed and for the most part drugged into a state of insanity. They would have to be.
You think about it. Could you tie a bomb to yourself and blow up innocent people? Would you go out and randomly kill your class mates because you had a tiff with your partner? No. You would have to be nuts to do it. And that is exactly the frame of mind these killers are in. They are nuts on drugs. You ask any poor parent who has had the experience of their kid on Ritalin, Prozac, Zoloft, Speed, Ecstasy, Ice. The story is the same. If they don’t commit suicide they have fits of wanting to kill others.
As soon as you put drugs into the equation as at the bottom of it all it all makes sense. Drugs are your common answer and it is the only thing that is date co-incident with the rise in killings. In other words these insane random killings never happened before until the powerful drugs of today were introduced by the various vested interests and pushers.
Merv Nash
60 Church St
Eaglehawk
3556
Victoria
Australia
April 18th, 2007 at 9:10 pm
“your average 18-20 something probably isn’t the best candidate for packing heat.”
Uh, how old are most of our Soldiers and Marines in Iraq? 18-20, and they do a pretty good job of “packing heat”. Age has nothing to do with responsibility or ability.
If a person is considered trustworty enough by the state authorities to get issued a concealed carry permit then why cant a college recognize it and TRUST that student to act responsibly?
IMHO, if just ONE iron packing student with a set of ‘nads had been on that campus many lives could’ve been saved.
April 18th, 2007 at 9:18 pm
true, but your average 18-20 y.o. college kid isn’t as disciplined as a soldier.
April 18th, 2007 at 10:28 pm
There is an answer, if you don’t know it. Fine. Don’t assume others do not.
We know for damn sure that helplessness is not a security measure. How many times must we see this proven, before people quit calling for more of it?
April 19th, 2007 at 11:40 am
“true, but your average 18-20 y.o. college kid isn’t as disciplined as a soldier.”
Speaking as someone who’s been in college both before and after military service, that’s very, very true. I wonder how much different it was on campus back when ROTC was mandatory? Or if maybe just requiring all freshmen to go through an 8-week boot-camp-like program in the summer before college would be worth it in easier-to-manage classrooms and dorms?
April 22nd, 2007 at 4:22 pm
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