What if?

[zaijian]

A two-part article, comments wanted and welcome.
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What If?
You've probably heard about the VT shooting by now:

Gunman Kills 21 at Virginia Tech
Apr 16, 12:31 PM (ET)
By SUE LINDSEY

BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) - A gunman opened fire in a dorm and classroom at Virginia Tech on Monday, killing 21 people and wounding another 21 before he was killed, police said.

A horrible tragedy, in its own right.
However, it's even worse in light of this:

Gun bill gets shot down by panel
HB 1572, which would have allowed handguns on college campuses, died in subcommittee.

A bill that would have given college students and employees the right to carry handguns on campus died with nary a shot being fired in the General Assembly.
[...]
Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker was happy to hear the bill was defeated. "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."(emphasis mine)
[...]
Most universities in Virginia require students and employees, other than police, to check their guns with police or campus security upon entering campus. The legislation was designed to prohibit public universities from making "rules or regulations limiting or abridging the ability of a student who possesses a valid concealed handgun permit ... from lawfully carrying a concealed handgun."
[...]
Last spring a Virginia Tech student was disciplined for bringing a handgun to class, despite having a concealed handgun permit. Some gun owners questioned the university's authority, while the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police came out against the presence of guns on campus.

In June, Tech's governing board approved a violence prevention policy reiterating its ban on students or employees carrying guns and prohibiting visitors from bringing them into campus facilities.

It won't be long before both sides of the argument starts comparisons to Columbine:
The anti-gun group will again argue for tougher restrictions and more gun control, even though such methods are proven time and time again to be more harm than help.
The pro-gun group will again be proven correct in that gun control only affects the law-abiding, and not the criminals.

So, the rhetorical questions begin:

What if one teacher at Columbine had been armed?

What if one student at Virginia Tech had been armed?

Now, college students are not known for a developed sense of personal responsibility, so maybe allowing them to CCW may not sound like the wisest choice. However, that's a training issue. We allow college students to drive cars and keep keys in their rooms, even though there's a very good chance of drunkenness and stupidity. But we hammer into their heads every chance we get to not drink and drive. Why not simply apply the same method to firearms? Now I can't back this up with data (although if anybody comes across some, let me know), but has the drunk-driving rate been affected by tougher drunk-driving penalties? Likewise, why not do the same thing with firearm offenses?

Besides, in many states, having a CCW permit implies 2 things: that 1) you have a clean criminal record, and 2) you have taken a handgun safety course. And statistically, CCW licensees have been proven to be a very law-abiding and responsible group (there are, as always, a few bad apples - but such in the CCW community are exceedingly rare). I'd like to think that we can reliably count on a CCW licensee, even one in college, to be responsible enough to maintain control and be responsible with a firearm.

But Virginia Tech, like most campuses, has forbidden everybody, even the responsible, the option of self-defense. It's my contention that if you're going to take away the ability to self-protect, then you better darn well provide it for me. Otherwise it's just plain irresponsible. For that reason, I will not do business with any bank that will not allow CCW (especially in the Dayton area). BTW, compared to other cities with populations between 135k and 185k, Dayton (160k) ranks 1st in robbery, 3rd in forcible rape, 3rd in murder, and 7th in overall violent crime (source: FBI UCR 2005).

So, in the end, you have to find your own answer to this question:
Would you rather ask "What If?" - or would you rather have the answer?

Read my next post for some answers.

DISCLOSURE:
Yes, I'm an asian male, and I enjoy the proper use of firearms.
No, I've never been to Virginia Tech.


UPDATE 04/17/2007 01:05AM
Some more discussion in the comments:

By tim, at 4/16/2007 09:30:00 PM
Ridiculous. In Valparaiso, Indiana, where I go to school, a cop shot a kidnapped woman instead of the kidnapper. If a trained officer can make a mistake like that, what is going to stop me from getting shot on campus by some jack off with a concealed gun who thinks he's protecting everyone?

Maybe with a gun in your own hand, you could defend yourself. Because the only person ultimately responsible for your well-being is YOU.

But no, you don't feel confident enough in yourself and your abilities to be able to defend yourself. And apparently, by extension, you don't feel anybody is capable.

As your argument goes, if a law enforcement officer isn't capable of protecting himself, or others, then how could a non-law enforcement officer be capable?

That's like saying if a Nascar driver gets into an accident, then no one should drive, because it's obviously too dangerous.

By Anonymous, at 4/16/2007 11:47:00 PM
Guns are what's wrong with America. Guns should be outlawed. I don't get this post at all. You're saying you're bummed because the right to carry a concealed weapon on campus was shot down? Hallelujah! I live in Europe and we don't have this kind of stuff happening because it's hard as hell to get a gun in the first place and no one I know can understand Americans' obsession with guns.

You're right, Europe doesn't have the same problems. Europe's got a completely different set of problems, like "youths" "torching" cars, or yobs overrunning British society, or senior citizens dying in mild heat waves.

But enough fun at Europe's expense.

Anyways, ask a British subject what their crime rate was before handguns were banned, and after they were banned. Ask an ozzie. Ask a Jewish holocaust survivor. Ask a white South African.

By Anonymous, at 4/17/2007 12:41:00 AM
As horrific as this situation is...and countless lives are affected by this siuation and it is going to be a lot pointing the finger at what is to blame for this situation. Some say MORE GUN CONTROL... others say HEY WE SHOULD CARRY WEAPONS... the real problem is folks who have no regard for human life and decide to go on a rampage like that kill innocent people. But we are assuming that our problems would be solved if at least one person carried a weapon today other than the shooter. We cant begin to imagine the terror and stress that the students and faculty went through. Under perfect situation the ONE person carrying the gun would ignore all the fear and pull out the gun and fire perfectly and save the day!!! But like someone already said, Police officers hesitate all the time and they get paid to do it. Like it is nice to think in hypotheticals and try to make this situation seem better by finding something that we could have changed that would have made the situation better. We do that so we dont have to admit to ourselves that we live in troubled times. People are being slaughtered all over this world and until recent years the US has not understood how quickly things can happen and how sadistic some people are.

Now I do agree that making strick gun controls does not change a thing because I know people who have guns without permits. So I know that changing that aspect would not make anything better. However I dont think it is as black and white as saying okay every one who meets the criteria should go apply for CCW or whatever. This situation this tragedy opens up a whole sea of ideas about what needs to be done and It is not even close to being one dimensional.

You make some very good points, Anonymous.

Clearly, not everybody will have either the will, discipline, or proper mindset to use a firearm.

But here is the cold, hard, reality.

The police are not responsible for your safety. They can boast of 5-minute emergency call response times all they want - but that doesn't help you at all if the trouble is a bit closer than that, does it? And plenty of lawsuits have proven that the police will not and can not be held responsible for their inability to protect you from harm.

The person ultimately responsible for your safety is yourself. You may use a gun, or you may not. Statistically speaking, the firearm has been proven to be most effective self-defense implement. However, at the very least, you have to decide that your life is worth preserving.

What strikes me most is that this crazed man killed/wounded 50+ people, and wasn't stopped until he killed himself. I don't care if you're John Wayne reincarnated, there's no way you can take out that many people with a handgun (or 5!) if they are fighting back. The high kill count and suicide of the gunman doesn't speak to me of resistance. It sounds like a slaughter.

Now, i'm not going to speak for the dead, or even pretend to know what happened there that morning, but it certainly seems to me, at this time, that these poor kids were told so often that "it could never happen here" that they believed it even when the exact opposite happened before their eyes.

Should everybody carry a gun? Certainly not.

But why not for those who are capable and willing?

And, what if, today, one had?


UPDATE 04/17/2007 01:21AM
From The Countertop Chronicles, a first-hand account of a VT student/victim/CCW licensee:

Upon exiting the classroom, we were met at the doors leading outside by two armor-clad policemen with fully automatic weapons, plus their side arms. Once outside, there were several more officers with either fully automatic rifles and pump shotguns, and policemen running down the street, pistols drawn.

It was at this time that I realized that I had no viable means of protecting myself.

Please realize that I am licensed to carry a concealed handgun in the commonwealth of Virginia, and do so on a regular basis. However, because I am a Virginia Tech student, I am prohibited from carrying at school because of Virginia Tech’s student policy, which makes possession of a handgun an expellable offense, but not a prosecutable crime.

I had entrusted my safety, and the safety of others to the police. In light of this, there are a few things I wish to point out.

First, I never want to have my safety fully in the hands of anyone else, including the police.

Second, I considered bringing my gun with me to campus, but did not due to the obvious risk of losing my graduate career, which is ridiculous because had I been shot and killed, there would have been no graduate career for me anyway.

Third, and most important, I am trained and able to carry a concealed handgun almost anywhere in Virginia and other states that have reciprocity with Virginia, but cannot carry where I spend more time than anywhere else because, somehow, I become a threat to others when I cross from the town of Blacksburg onto Virginia Tech’s campus.

Of all of the emotions and thoughts that were running through my head that morning, the most overwhelming one was of helplessness.
[...continued...]

 

[zaijian]

Answers to "What If"

I asked in my last post, "What if someone had been armed?". Today, I'll give you some answers.

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How about the last time there was a school shooting in VA?

[Student Orest J.] Jowyk began researching his law school's gun policy following the January incident in which a disgruntled student at Appalachian Law School, Peter Odighizuwa, allegedly shot and killed the school's dean, a professor and a student on campus before being subdued by two armed students, Mikael Gross and Tracy Bridges.

Gross and Bridges reportedly ran to their cars to fetch their own guns and returned to confront Odighizuwa, who surrendered after allegedly initiating a fistfight.

Jowyk was heartened by the students' intervention. But looking into GMU's gun policy, Jowyk found to his dismay that the school's board of visitors had in 1995 passed a ban on all weapons, concealed or otherwise, except by law enforcement officials.

Anyone who violates the school's gun ban would face administrative repercussions but not criminal charges, according to Jowyk.
[...]

So two students had the nerve and the ability to do something about the situtation, and they managed to subdue the attacker. But, being law abiding CCW licensees, they complied with their university's no-guns policy, and had to run back to their cars to get their weapons. How much time did that take? How many other lives hung in the balance in the meantime? If the school had trusted them as much as the state of Virginia does, they could've ended the threat a lot quicker.
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In another state, a different school, the same situation:

Vice Principal Joel Myrick held his Colt .45 point blank to the high school boy's head. Last week, he told me what it was like. "I said 'why are you shooting my kids?' He said it was because nobody liked him and everything seemed hopeless," Myrick said. "Then I asked him his name. He said 'you know me, Mr. Myrick. Remember? I gave you a discount on your pizza delivery last week."

The shooter was Luke Woodham. On that day in 1997, Woodham slit his mother's throat then grabbed a .30-30 lever action deer rifle. He packed the pockets of his trench coat with ammo and headed off to Pearl High School, in Pearl, Miss.

The moment Myrick heard shots, he ran to his truck. He unlocked the door, removed his gun from its case, removed a round of bullets from another case, loaded the gun and went looking for the killer. "I've always kept a gun in the truck just in case something like this ever happened," said Myrick, who has since become Principal of Corinth High School, Corinth, Miss.

Woodham knew cops would arrive before too long, so he was all business, no play. No talk of Jesus, just shooting and reloading, shooting and reloading. He shot until he heard sirens, and then ran to his car. His plan, authorities subsequently learned, was to drive to nearby Pearl Junior High School and shoot more kids before police could show up.

But Myrick foiled that plan. He saw the killer fleeing the campus and positioned himself to point a gun at the windshield. Woodham, seeing the gun pointed at his head, crashed the car. Myrick approached the killer and confronted him. "Here was this monster killing kids in my school, and the minute I put a gun to his head he was a kid again," Myrick said.
[...]
Myrick is as much of a hero as the law would allow. He was only seconds away from the shootings, yet the law had him far away from his gun. Federal law precludes anyone but a cop from having a weapon in or near a school. The modern spree of school shootings began sometime shortly after this law was enacted. In most places, state and local laws needlessly duplicate the federal law, serving only to accommodate political grandstanding.

In Pearl, federal, state and local laws helped Luke Woodham shoot nine students. The deer rifle had to be reloaded after every shot. To hit nine students, Woodham needed time. The moments it took Myrick to reach his gun are what allowed Woodham to continue shooting and almost escape. Gun laws, and nothing else, gave Woodham that time.

Joel Myrick stopped a 1999 school shooting in Pearl, Mississippi after taking several minutes to leave his office, run all the way to the parking lot, unlock his truck, unlock a gun case, retrieve ammunition, load his gun, run back to the school, and confront the shooter? How many more people would have been slaughtered if not for the brave actions of [Myrick]? How many children were killed while Vice Principal Myrick retrieved his self-defense tools that he wasn't permitted to keep with him?

Zero-tolerance laws again prove themselves to be merely zero-thought. Short of having cops on duty in all classrooms, at all entrances, what could possibly protect those kids? Hmm, perhaps we could find a few responsible adults and pay for some firearms training? Oh, and actually allow them to possess tools for self-defense on school grounds? Or does that just make too much sense?
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Being able to protect yourself is very good - but to be fair, self-preservation is a strong natural instinct. However, sacrificing your own protection for the sake of protecting others, others you don't even know - that's downright supernatural. That's the story of Mark Wilson:

First we have a story about the Tyler Texas shootings, recounting how Mark Wilson lost his life protecting the unarmed, including the shooters own son, from David Arroyo Sr.

Wilson gave his life to protect those around him. I can think of no finer thing to say of a man.

David Arroyo Sr. killed his wife, shot his son, critically wounded a deputy and blown the glass doors out of the East end of the Smith County Courthouse before Mark Wilson lined up the sights of his 1911.

Mark had heard the boom of gunfire from his loft apartment overlooking the Spring Street side of downtown Tyler. When Mark moved into the apartment, he told friends that he expected a shootout sooner or later on the street below. A glance out his windows would have shown the scene completely: the gunman advancing, the victims sprawled on concrete. Mark grabbed his Colt, bounded down the staircase to the sidewalk, crossed the corner intersection and sprinted to cover behind the first vehicle on the end of the block.

Though Wilson couldn't have known it, the extended cab truck parked head into the loading zone belonged to David Arroyo who was at that moment stepping forward to finish killing his own son on the courthouse steps. Arroyo had followed his wife and child to the courthouse, or waited there until it was time for their child support hearing, then intercepted them on the courthouse steps. Mark lined up the sights on the gunman's bulkyb ack. He shot once, perhaps twice. The range is inside 20 yards. Less than 60 seconds had passed since he heard the first shot.

In the streetside restaurants and shops people were running for backexits. Waiters and cashiers were locking doors and dialing 911. Arroyo was burning through 65 rounds of 7.62X39 ammunition. Over 100 witnesses were listening or watching. Bullets began to tick in the window glass of lawyers' offices, splinter through woodwork of shops, and whine off plaster walls. In the courthouse judges locked themselves in their chambers. Witnesses and juries huddled while deputies and bailiffs scrambled to secure the building and return fire.

Mark Wilson was in street, firing.

The courthouse security camera shows Arroyo turning away from his son bleeding on the steps and running back to his truck. In the truck was more ammunition, a loaded Remington 243, and escape. On camera, three sheriff deputies in the courthouse door began to fire steadily. Mark shoots again to no effect. The gunman is wearing an army flak jacket over body armor. Pistol shots will not penetrate. Mark is wearing a red pullover sweatshirt and jeans.

Wilson and Arroyo exchange shots across the truck bed popping up and down, perhaps three shots each before Mark falls to the red bricks, facedown. Arroyo walks around the end of the truck, steps over him and shoots repeatedly. He starts his truck and backs out, stopping at the corner stop sign and looking both ways before driving north on Spring Street. A Tyler police car sits at the intersection. Michael Mosley, a uniformed security officer assigned to the US Attorneys Office chases the truck on foot, unfired pistol in hand.

Tyler Police will intercept and kill Arroyo with his Mak-90 in his hands two miles up highway 271 North.

Mark Wilson was a shooter and an athlete in many sports. Hee nthusiastically held a Texas CHL. He was the former operator of a state-of-the-art indoor gun range in Tyler. He believed in the Bill of Rights. His family and many friends in Tyler will miss him.

Donations to:
Children's Village
P.O. Box 6564
Tyler, Texas

John 10:11-13 - "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd who owns the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep."

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Dan McKown will be the first to say he's not a hero, but his actions speak otherwise:

Once he turned 21, McKown obtained a license to carry a concealed weapon because he believed - and still does - that firearms offer the best protection from violence.

On a Sunday afternoon in November, McKown was confronted with the type of situation he had spent most of his life preparing for. With his ever-present handgun in his waistband, McKown was walking through the Tacoma Mall just as an angry man began spraying customers with gunfire.

McKown pulled his gun. When he didn't immediately see the gunman, he put his gun back in his waistband. Seconds later he spotted the gunman, but it was too late.

"I'd spent my life carrying a gun to protect people and when the situation came, I failed," McKown says. "All I had to do was keep my gun out, but I didn't. I felt humiliated."

Of the seven people wounded by 20-year-old Dominick Maldonado, McKown was the most seriously injured by far. He was shot five times, with one bullet severing his spine. He was initially told he might never walk again.
[...]
The man who aspires to be a stand-up comedian cannot stand. But he tries to put a positive spin on his situation, sprinkling his routine with jokes about the shooting:

"So then I said, 'Young man, I think you need to put down your weapon,' which apparently translates in street lingo to 'Shoot me right now.'"

But there's no mistaking the impact the shooting has had on the 38-year-old's psyche. His decision to put the gun away hurt him as much as the bullets that slammed into his body that Nov. 20 afternoon.

He wrestles with feelings of failure and bouts of depression. He's grappling with the idea that he is now, and may always be, disabled. His faith in a Christian God has remained intact, he said, but his faith in some people has been shaken.

"I feel grateful, but it angers me when people say I will walk again. I'm trying to accept the possibility of not walking. I'm trying to accept that God might want me in this chair," he says.
[...]
He was working at Excalibur Cutlery and Gifts store in the Tacoma Mall where he had been employed for seven years. He was walking to a mall bank branch to make a store deposit when he heard the gunshots.

McKown immediately pulled out his 9-mm handgun and looked around. "Where's the shooter?" he called out to the people around him. "Do you see him?"

The gunshots ceased, and in the silence it occurred to McKown that it might not be safe to have a gun out in the mall. He remembers thinking: Is this legal? Is this safe? The cops could mistake me for the shooter.

He tucked the gun back inside his waistband just before Maldonado walked by.

"He brings his gun up, I draw my gun and I sight him and that's when I got shot. I was too late," McKown said.
[...]
"I lay there and I was talking to God, apologizing for failing him and kicking myself the whole time," McKown said. "I'd had him in my sights, but when the shooting stopped, I started thinking and I over-thought. I was a half a second too late."

McKown, the last person wounded in Maldonado's shooting spree, was later told by police that his injuries may have stopped Maldonado after all. The gunman fled into a store immediately after shooting McKown.

McKown takes comfort in the fact that "no one else was hurt after me."

"Dan is always one who believed in protecting people and he put his life on the line for other people," McKown's father said. "His actions and the actions of others like him may have prevented additional casualties by confronting the aggression and possibly changing the gunman’s action early in the conflict."

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Just recently, there was another shooting in another "gun-free" shopping mall. But thankfully, there was another man with a gun:

An off-duty police officer having an early Valentine's Day dinner with his wife was credited Tuesday with helping stop a rampage in a crowded shopping mall by an 18-year-old gunman who shot five people to death before he was killed by police.

A day after the shooting, investigators struggled to figure out why a trench-coated Sulejmen Talovic opened fire on shoppers with a supremely calm look on his face.

The teenager wanted "to kill a large number of people" and probably would have killed many more if not for the off-duty officer, Police Chief Chris Burbank said.

Ken Hammond, an off-duty officer from Ogden, north of Salt Lake City, jumped up from his seat at a restaurant after hearing gunfire and cornered the gunman, exchanging fire with him until other officers arrived, Burbank said.

"There is no question that his quick actions saved the lives of numerous other people," the police chief said.

John Lott has this to say:

I have been arguing this point for years, but here is one reason why police officers should be allowed to carry concealed handguns when they are off-duty. Fortunately, the off-duty officer ignored the "no guns allowed" sign at the Mall. The killer apparently also ignored the sign.

Unless there are security guards and metal detectors, there's no such thing as a "gun-free zone". Even then a demented soul could probably still find a way. News flash: criminals don't have a problem breaking laws.

It appears as though off-duty Ogden police Officer Kenneth Hammond, who carried a concealed weapon, stopped the killing spree, said Clark Aposhian, chairman of the Utah Shooting Sports Council.

Aposhian noted that it is impossible to know whether a concealed-weapon holder could make a difference in every violent confrontation.

"But we do know what happens when there is no one with a concealed weapon in these situations - people die."

"Those without swords can still die upon them"

Eowyn, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, J.R.R. Tolkien

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So, in light of these stories, I must again ask:

What if?
What if there had been a Joel Myrick at Columbine?
What if there had been a Mikael Gross and Tracy Bridges at Virginia Tech?
What if it happens to you, my dear reader?

My hope is that I got you thinking. Regardless of whether or not you choose to carry a concealed weapon, at the very least I expect you to be aware of the possibility that someday you may tested. Thinking now about what you would do in certain cases saves you a lot of time later - saved time that may save lives.

 

[zaijian]

Any comments or critique would be greatly appreciated.
(Other than "It's too soon" or "stop politicizing it", because that's not what I'm looking for)