Shots Fired on WKU Campus

Halfway listening to the news on the radio and just heard something about a search from suspected gunshots fired, but no guns were found. A lot of people can't tell the difference between a backfire and a gunshot since most of them have never even heard a gun actually being fired.

Why are you posting this as "Shots Fired"?

Likely because the CNN linked article is titled, "Shots Reportedly Fired On WKU Campus"

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. -- Officials have reported an armed man on Western Kentucky University's campus.


The Western Kentucky University campus remains on lockdown Wednesday afternoon due to reports of shots fired near Pearce-Ford Tower, a student dormitory.

WKU issued the following text alert at 12:30 p.m. CT Wednesday: "An armed man has been reported on WKU South Campus. Please stay clear of this area."

Reports state that police are searching for four people dressed in black with guns. Kentucky State Police, Bowling Green police, and campus police have evacuated South Campus.

Around 12:30 p.m., school officials sent out the following text alert: "Shots fired near Pearce Ford Tower. Seek shelter immediately."

Bowling Green police have confirmed reports of shots fired on WKU's main campus at Pearce Ford Tower.

Reports say one person has been taken into custody for questioning in connection with this incident.

Police are still on the scene and everyone is being advised to steer clear of the area or stay indoors.

At this time, there are no reports of any injuries.

Several other local schools are on lockdown in response to this situation.

James Williams said that he got the following text message from his daughter at 1:37 p.m.: "Stay away from south campus because armed men are running around campus. All students have been moved to the main campus."

University spokesman Bob Skipper says the incident is occurring inside the school’s South Campus. Skipper says the building has been evacuated and police are searching the area.

University lawyer Deborah Wilkins says there are no reports of injuries.

Skipper says he has little information at this point.

WLKY and WLKY.com will continue to provide updates on this late breaking news.

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As the campus leader for TTU for concealedcampus.org, this is a good example of something that could have been prevented. I have several friends at WKU. Please pray for them and their families.

I attend WKU, just got out of lockdown... time to write an editorial on concealed carry. At this point its looking like no weapons were actually involved, just some fights and someone yelled gun. Who knows.

It was very interesting to talk to people I was locked down with. Several said "what do we do?" or "what would we do if someone started shooting here?" I was able to calmly respond that we should have the right to shoot back. Others suggested piling up tables to hide behind. Running was not an option as we were on the third floor. They were laughed at, several people agreed with me, several were people I had talked to and previously did not think concealed carry on campus was a good idea. Everyone I talked to agreed, in order to prevent another situation like this, we should give the power back to the good guys, which is me and other students, faculty, and staff. Fear and the reality of the gravity of these kinds of situations makes people recognize a dumb argument and one that makes sense. My $0.02.

Tweatherford, good job making a point your fellow students won't soon forget...

and glad to hear that there may not have been any real danger, too.

If you are a Kentucky concealed carry licensed person, and have not heard yet.

KC3, http://www.kc3.com/index.html is in process of petitioning the State Legislature to allow concealed carry on Campus, and K-12 for licensed individuals.

If anyone would like to participate, contact me, or use the web site contact to get a copy of the petition. The site does not have the petition on it active yet, as we are about to rebuild for this pursuit.

Snipe300: How could this have been prevented with students being allowed to carry?

Oldskoolfan if it had been an actual shooting incident, concealed carry could make a difference to those trapped in a lock down. For a campus fight, no guns would be seen or needed.

True. But it would not have prevented a school shooting. A CCW does not guarantee the outcome of a school shooting. Many people seem to forget that.

Fire extinguishers are not guarenteed to put out a fire, but we sure do have a lot of those!

Oldskoolfan said:

True. But it would not have prevented a school shooting. A CCW does not guarantee the outcome of a school shooting. Many people seem to forget that.

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I don't think anyone is forgetting that or claiming CCW is some talisman against tragedy.

They merely point out the advantage of a responsible, armed citizenry in such a scenario.

Do you think banning guns will prevent school shootings?

No I dont think banning guns would stop these shootings. I guess the way it was written it sounds as if Snipe300 said it would have been prevented by CCW.

It is reassuring to see that most of the people at my school support CCW on campus. As more kids get shot, more people realize that the cops can't be there every time something goes bad.

As for the CCW preventing school shootings, it would help. I would assume that a person wanting to make a name for himself wouldn't do so in a school if they knew they would get shot the instant they whipped out a gun and start shooting. It would be a small deterrent.

HB

Oldskoolfan, I'm sorry if I left something to the imagination, but what I intended to say was that in a situation such as Virginia Tech, the mere knowledge that there are an unknown number of people on campus that are ready and willing to shoot back tends to make troublemakers think twice.

I would imagine the school shooter types are so irrational/insane that it wouldn't matter to them who was armed and who wasn't.


As for CCW
Your either going to get lucky and save the day
or
Get unlucky and turn a bad situation into a worse one by getting yourself and/or others killed in the process

Right. If you already have a death wish, whether or not there might be some armed people there isn't going to make a difference. CCWs aren't making any sort of difference in crime either. Even with justifiable homicides being at at decade high, crime isn't plummeting.

The fact of the matter is that there are still so few people who carry guns that the chance of a bad guy encountering one is still VERY low. How many do you really think will rationalize, "Okay, I have been in this fight and I am really mad because this guy just humiliated me in front of my friends and I could pull my gun and shoot him dead, but there might be a person or two in this crowd of dumbfounded onlookers who has a gun and who will shoot me if I try. Okay, I just better cool my jets and go home and have a Snapple."

No, that sort of rationalization isn't going to happen.

While allowing CCW on campus does not guarantee that it will stop a mass shooting, if it is well known that your inteded victims might be armed it would make you think twice.

These idiots who engage in mass shootings always seem to pick soft targets. Just the mere knowledge that they know they can shoot as many people as they want without worry of being stopped is what attracts them.

Charles Whitman, as effective as he was, would have killed a hell of a lot more people had the citizens of Austin not returned fire and pinned him down.

While allowing CCW on campus does not guarantee that it will stop a mass shooting, if it is well known that your inteded victims might be armed it would make you think twice.

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If it is well known that the intended victims are armed, then their CCWs were outed by the local newspaper and they would all be enraged by the invasion of privacy. Still when newspapers do that, local crime doesn't drop.

So on a college campus of 19000 students and roughly 2000 full and part time employees (WKU), you have to figure at least half the population is below the age of 21. That leaves 10,500 over the age of 21. Assuming as many as 5% (estimate) of the 21 and over population has CCDWs in Kentucky and they could carry on campus, that would mean there could be as many as 525 folks on campus with CCDWs. Of course, you have to figure that at any given time, maybe only 70% of people with CCDWs are actually carrying on their person (a generous estimate). So that means 368 people. At any given time on campus, there is no more than about 70% of the total population present, leaving 258 potential CCDW people carrying guns. WKU is a 200 acre campus, so that gives you about 1.29 CCDWs per acre averaged. Of course, you will have a tremendous amount of concentration of CCDWs where people congregate. You could divide those 258 people by the 65 buildings present and get an average of nearly 4 CCDW people per building. So people congregate in the open areas as well, so let's compromise that there might be 2-3 CCDWs in any major occupied area of the campus.

Of those 2-3 CCDWs in the area, how many are in a geographic position to be able to respond? If you don't have line of sight to the event, response will be difficult.

To add further confusion to the problem, assuming that the 2-3 CCDW folks who might be in the area of a given event, just how many are going to respond to a crisis if they are not themselves immediately under attack? We know it isn't the cops job to protect individuals and we can't count on them. Can we could on CCDW folks? How well trained are they?

Sorry, but this notion that bad guys are fearful of concealed carry folks as a deterrent to crime is really pretty silly. There just are not enough concealed carry folks yet to make a real difference on such a scale so as to scare bad guys into not acting.

Charles Whitman, as effective as he was, would have killed a hell of a lot more people had the citizens of Austin not returned fire and pinned him down.

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Charles Whitman wasn't pinned down by the armed citizens of Austin. He researched and picked the clocktower building's observation deck as a high ground and well protected shooting hide. It was where he was going to make his stand from there. He wasn't mobile at all and he wasn't going anywhere. Hell, he brought a footlocker, food, water, a radio, gun cleaning supplies, etc. He wasn't ever coming down from up there, not alive.

Shooting back by the citizens of Austin may have kept Whitman from being able to freely pick and choose his shots, but he was not pinned down. When he came under fire, he simply moved to shooting from the drain holes.

What it boils down to is this: It's not about whether we would be effective at stopping a gunman or not, it's about legally licensed adults having their rights restricted and being forced to become sitting ducks. As for stopping a gunman, he may not care if I am armed or not, but I WILL be able to defend myself.

I don't really, in essence, care whether or not I as a soon to be CCW holder (21 in less than 4 months) could stop or prevent an attack at my school. I do care about my 2nd amendment right to conceal and carry. And when the SHTF, I want to be able to do more than run or hide behind an overturn table, I want to be able to fight back. That right is currently denied to me.

No one here who conceals and carries 24/7 is hugely concerned with stopping all crime in the world, at least that is not the primary reason they carry. They just want something more than pepper spray and a cell phone to fight back with when their safety and the safety of those they love are threatened. Am I wrong?

snipe

"it's about legally licensed adults having their rights restricted and being forced to become sitting ducks."


No one is forcing you to go to college or forcing you to become a sitting duck. I don't really find it to be a restriction on your rights at all; since you still have the right not attend. It's almost a restriction on the University's rights to decide how to run their campus.

Now if the government required you to attend college for 4 years, and you could be subject to prosecution if you did no show up for class; then by all means you should be able to take your weapon. Only because you are truly being forced into a potentially unsafe situation.

"Shooters are too insane to care about resistance" -wrong

Go back and look at Columbine and VaTech et al, the shooters took their lives as soon as resistance was met. An unarmed target allows the bad guy complete control, not something he could be sure of if the possibility of armed resistance was allowed. The people that have shot up schools are crazy, not stupid.

Mr Crowley, I am sorry that you feel that way! GFZ's are the reason that many shootings occur. But, to be able to attend college, pick up your kids from school (if you get out of your car), your forced to be unable to protect yourself and those you love.

With a few restrictions, in most states you can defend victims of deadly actions, anywhere but schools and colleges. Why should colleges be a GFZ, I never understood the reasoning. "Oh there will be gun fights over parking, or girlfriends!!" Just like if CC is allowed, "There will be shootings on the street by people over road rage, or some other thing".

Well guess what, it has not happened. The most dangerous places are the states and cities that do not allow for a person to protect themselves. Not my figures, but they are out there about NY, Chicago, and other places that restrict the carrying of guns. I am in no way saying a gun is the end all, and the only way to go. Far better to run away if you can, or hide if you can.

BUT IF YOU CAN'T you should have the right and ability to defend yourself.
(Yes some schools put out instructions this year to fight back for students, telling them to throw their laptops at the shooters) It does sound silly to me, but it might slow them down until someone with a gun takes action.