Despite Blacksburg, Guns Are Good

April 20, 2007

 

Now that we've had time to digest what happened in Blacksburg, VA, it's time for some critical assessment of what went wrong and what we can do to prevent it from happening again. One thing is clear. Crazy people will do crazy things. There's not much that can be done about that, but we can prevent these nut cases from inflicting as much carnage as was inflicted in Virginia.

Being a gun owner and a licensed gun carrier, I fully grasp the responsibility I bear each time I decide to go armed. It's not some power trip, as some on the left have suggested. It's a matter of feeling secure. I first came to the realization that I needed protection when I found myself defenseless. My wife and I found ourselves, many years ago, hunkered in a corner of our bedroom with our infant son in our arms believing that an intruder was about to kick in the door. I've never known a more helpless feeling. Once I became trained in how to properly handle a weapon I no longer felt like a victim just waiting to be victimized.

Imagine my feeling of vulnerability and horror way back then and magnify it by a million. That's what the victims in Blacksburg must've been feeling as their gun-free zone was shattered by a maniac who systematically executed them. Imagine being locked in a classroom while some crazed gunman slowly kicks and shoots his way past the lock. You know it's just a matter of time before he gets to you. This is the hell the state of Virginia and Virginia Tech created when they prohibited law-abiding, licensed gun owners from carrying their weapons on campus. The blood of these students and faculty members is on their hands. In their naïve little world they believe that all they have to do is ban something and it goes away.

A year and three months before the shootings, the Virginia legislature considered a bill that would have lifted the ban on licensed conceal-carry permit holders carrying their weapons on college campuses. Ironically, a spokesman for Virginia Tech rejoiced in the bill's defeat saying that killing the bill would ensure safety at Virginia Tech.

Even in the wake of such a massacre, the libs still don't get it. I interviewed a spokesman for Vanderbilt University the day of the shootings and he was horrified that I would even consider allowing a responsible citizen to carry a gun on his campus. Forget the fact that in the cases of Pearl, MS, Edinboro, PA and the Appalachian Law School shooting in Virginia, it was law-abiding private citizens with guns who stopped the killers from killing more people. The problem is the mainstream media go out of their way not to report these heroic stories.

Here's the simple truth. A licensed, armed citizen in the building with the gunman at Virginia Tech could've lowered the body count by dozens. Several of these permit holders have revealed that they were in the building but had to, by law, leave their weapons at home. It's more than a shame. It's a downright disgrace.

It's also disgraceful that this crazed gunman had been deemed a danger to himself by a judge and that never showed up in a background check. Again, the politically correct who insist on too much medical privacy sealed the fate of the 32 who died in Blacksburg.

Our government should try its best to keep guns out of the hands of crazed killers but if these killers still manage to get a gun, let us protect ourselves.