George_co, DMK, and all, I appreciate this discussion.
What's being demonstrated in this thread is the complexity of issues generated by a real deadly force situation, the utter failure of Virginia Tech's (and other colleges') simplistic approach to such situations, and the careful thought everyone here gives to the responsibilities assumed by people who carry a concealed weapon. This is not the caricature of gun owners depicted by the Brady Campaign or imagined by people who are uncomfortable around them. There are no cowboys or ninjas here.
Please take a minute to
view the video I noted of Zack Petkewicz talking about his experiences. The young man breaks down at the end. I think it's obvious that he is conflicted by confronting these same issues we've been discussing. Zack
did help save his own life and the lives of other people in his classroom. That's undeniable. But so is his obvious heartfelt sense of frustration and grief that he could do no more than keep the madman from murdering those in
that one classroom. Zack couldn't prevent Cho from continuing on his way to murder others because Virginia Tech denied everyone
that possibility by depriving them all of the means to overcome the disparity of force there and then. (I don't think that someone is a hero because he has saved his own life and coincidentally saved the lives of others. It strikes me that Zack doesn't think so either.)
That's what we're all circling around in frustration: the essential immorality of depriving even tested and proven people of the means to level the playing field in a deadly force situation. Virginia Tech and other colleges--and, for that matter, employers and property owners and businesses too--deny everyone a last best chance to survive. It is foolish to assert that Cho would have been stopped dead by the first Concealed Weapons Permit holder he encountered. No one can know that. We all are talking about
possibility, and it is indeed frustrating to confront educational institutions that are supposed to open or create possibilities but close the most vital possibility.
Did you know that
Virginia Tech posthumously awarded degrees to all the murdered students? It's true. What an
obscene gesture that was. Virginia Tech made it impossible for all of those students to survive. The posthumous degrees are of no use to them because their deaths ended all their possibilities. It is Virginia Tech's final insult to those dead young people it sent to their graves.
The decision to take the life of another human being, under any situation, isn't easy and shouldn't be made lightly. It must be especially difficult in the midst of chaos such as prevailed at Virginia Tech when Cho went on his rampage, and must be horribly difficult when there is any possible risk to other people. What's striking about this discussion is that everyone here has thought about those issues from various points of view and recognized their complexity.
There's no way to know in advance what any rational, responsible Concealed Weapons Permit holder would have done at Virginia Tech or would do in another such situation. The reason, I believe, is that holders of Concealed Weapons Permits tend to be a fairly carefully selected subset of the general population. Filtered out are the very young and likely most immature people, all people who have been convicted of felonies or who have debilitating mental or emotional illness, people who are active alcoholics and abusers of other drugs, and so on--all the factors that we know disqualify people from obtaining a Concealed Weapons Permit. No one should argue that permit holders are saints, but it should be clear that they most certainly are not devils, irresponsible demons, or witless imps.
This discussion is evidence that permit holders tend to be thoughtful people who are especially mindful of their exceptional responsibilities.
I doubt that many of Virginia Tech's administrators, faculty, and other employees have had their backgrounds scrutinized as carefully and their lives monitored as continuously as any of the people here--the people
they have judged and found wanting. Please resist the temptation to argue that the background checks and monitoring aren't stringent. Gun owners tend to blow them away as insignificant. But they aren't at all insignificant and they are much greater testimony to a person's character than the hiring practices at universities. A permit holder who comes to be known as an alcoholic, a drug abuser, or even an habitually unsafe driver
will lose his permit immediately in the states I know. Not so an administrator, faculty member, or other university employee: at least some of us have seen faculty members go to class tipsy, smelling of alcohol, or with a readily-admitted hangover.
None of us would tolerate anyone in that condition with a gun.
My guess is that what they fear is the projection of their own irresponsibility and lack of character on other people. Because
they cannot control themselves and don't believe that
they would behave responsibly, thoughtfully, and competently in a deadly force situation, they can't imagine that anyone with a Concealed Weapons Permit would behave any better. Theirs is a failure of the imagination, the intellect, and the character.
In the end they are pathetic creatures who nevertheless exercise far too much control over the lives of other people. That's the problem, and it extends into many other areas of academia as well. For centuries an honored institution, higher education has fallen to the point at which it is an embarrassment and has earned contempt. Its attitudes towards firearms are perhaps the smallest of its sins. It has stopped being a life giving and life enhancing force.
