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A Gun RIghts Activist Responds To The Virginia Tech Shooting. |
By
F. Paul Valone
F. Paul Valone is president of Grassroots
North Carolina, a Second Amendment advocacy group.
If your state lawmakers killed legislation to protect students
from slaughter, would you celebrate by saying, "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"?
This 2006 hubris was courtesy of Virginia Tech spokesman Larry
Hincker. The legislation was Virginia House Bill 1572. It would
have let handgun owners with permits for concealed guns carry
those weapons on college campuses. Harsh reality trumped Hincker's
feeling of safety when Seung-Hui Cho murdered 32 at Virginia
Tech.
When gun control advocates showcase their oft-failed schemes
as solutions, they avoid mentioning details of three other school
shootings, where armed intervention saved lives:
• In 1997, Pearl, Miss., assistant principal Joel Myrick
stopped triple murderer Luke Woodham, using a handgun retrieved
from his car.
• In 1998, in Edinboro, Pa., the 14-year-old who killed
science teacher John Gillette at an off-campus dance was captured
by shotgun-wielding James Strand.
• And in 2002, at Virginia's own Appalachian Law School
in Grundy, student Tracy Bridges used his pistol to detain murderer
Peter Odighizuwa.
Each time, armed intervention saved lives without additional
shots being fired.
Beyond anecdotes, researchers John R. Lott and William M. Landes,
then at Yale University and the University of Chicago, studied
multiple-victim public shootings. Examining data spanning 19
years from 1977 to 1995, they reported that shootings in states
that adopted concealed handgun laws declined by 84 percent.
Deaths from these shootings plummeted by 90 percent, and injuries,
82.5 percent.
Crediting the reductions to deterrence (even suicidal maniacs
avoid armed victims), Lott and Landes called their findings
"dramatic." The "only policy factor to have a
consistently significant influence on multiple victim public
shootings," the researchers said, "is the passage
of concealed handgun laws."
Like North Carolina, Virginia prohibits guns on campuses. But
policies purporting to create "gun-free" zones actually
increase victimization. "States with the fewest gun-free
zones have the greatest reductions [in] killings, injuries,
and attacks," Lott and Landes found.
• Indeed, of eight school rampages tracked by The New
York Times, six occurred after enactment of the 1996 federal
Gun Free School Zones Act.
• "Gun prohibitionists concede that banning guns
around schools has not quite worked as intended," Lott
said, "but their response has been to call for more regulation
of guns. Yet what might appear to be the most obvious policy
may actually cost lives. When gun-control laws are passed, it
is law-abiding citizens, not would-be criminals, who adhere
to them."
After 12 years under North Carolina's concealed handgun law,
permit-holders have proven themselves sane, sober and law-abiding.
Revocations run less than 0.10 of 1 percent, most for reasons
unrelated to guns.
Rather than passing new gun laws, we should examine Virginia
Tech's delayed emergency response and its inattention to Cho's
clearly disturbed behavior. We should improve campus security.
But if 32 murders say anything, it is that police have neither
the ability nor -- as courts have ruled -- the responsibility
to protect you.
Liviu Librescu, 76, a professor and a Jewish survivor of Russian
labor camps, used his body to shield escaping Virginia Tech
students. Doubtless, the politicians who killed HB 1572 console
themselves by saying that their malfeasance didn't quite cause
his murder.
Maybe our state legislators will display uncharacteristic courage
by allowing concealed handguns on campuses, ensuring that heroes
like Librescu have something better than their bodies to stop
bullets.
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in any manner. |
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© 2000 - 2008, Oregon Firearms Federation. All Rights Reserved.
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