Regarding the Virginia Tech Massacre
Let me begin by saying that the developing news story about the incidents at Virginia Tech yesterday are what kept me from posting here.Today I am naturally filled with grief for the families and friends of the victims and rage that this was allowed to happen. Real unadulterated rage.
College Campuses across this nation have a no-guns policy. Colleges and universities like to perpetuate the idea that college is fun and safe, but nothing could be further from the truth! You have rape and drug violence. You have muggings and theft. College campuses are like mini-cities on hormones. They are not charming idylls, but rather a boiling pot with a lid on. If you blow that lid, you are going to have one giant freaking mess on your hands.
When I was at the University of Illinois, a student killed a professor with whom he was in love. An act of passion when she rebuffed his advances, I believe. Also while there, I was personally nearly raped by one guy and stalked by another. You'll never convince me that being unarmed on campus makes you safer. After the sexual assault, my father insisted that I have a weapon. I was too far from home, however, and the University prohibited guns. As such, I carried a MagLite Flashlite (the biggest one they make) so as to beat off anyone who might come at me with nefarious purposes.
A year later, after going home, I brought my handgun to campus. I stored it under my bed, locked safely away. Nobody but my father and I knew that I had it. Fortunately, I never had to use it. I wonder, however, if our universities and colleges aren't making us sitting ducks!
Those young people yesterday at Virginia Tech were like the plastic animals at a carnival shooting gallery. They were trapped and they couldn't defend themselves. All they could do was hide. The son of a bitch even saw fit to eliminate the possibility that they could run from his bullets by chaining the doors closed. That is the action of a true psychopath. A nutjob. Just one armed citizen student might have saved lives had he pulled a gun from his bag and plugged this mad dog between the eyes.
It makes me so angry. Life is too short to set yourself up, walking around, waiting to be victimized. As I read in several places yesterday, it is far better to be judged by 12 than carried by six.
I wish we could get concealed carry here in Wisconsin. I would totally jump through any number of hoops to get my CC license. I don't want to hurt anyone, I just don't want to be hurt myself either.
The MSM and liberals will call for more gun control because of this. They will reconjure the images from Columbine and the clocktower of the University of Texas. They will tell you that we don't have sufficient control over guns. But the fact of the matter is this: no gun law will ever keep weapons out of the hands of criminals. Outlawing and criminalizing possession of drugs hasn't kept people from getting drugs and gun laws work the same way.
The fact of the matter is that only law-abiding citizens heed the laws of the land. Think about that for a minute.
There is really no logical gymnastics that will get you around the fact that criminals don't care if they are breaking the law. If they did, they wouldn't rape (against the law), murder (against the law), steal (against the law), or commit other crimes. In point of fact, gun laws do little but make the job of the criminal easier by ensuring that he has a defenseless victim to accost.
The stories from yesterday's incident are already highlighting the heroes: those who barred doors against the shooter's entry, those who pulled other people to safety. But what if a single armed citizen had cut this guy down when he started firing? How many lives might have been spared? Ten? Fifteen? Twenty? I would posit that even had only one life been spared, it would have been a wonderful thing.
All it takes is for more people to want to be Sheep Dogs instead of Sheep.
(That link is to an excerpt at Noble Eagle's site. The whole thing can be found here.)
Labels: Gun Culture
