Comments on: Previous University Shooting In Virginia Stopped By Armed Citizens

By: Ed B

Ed B — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 09:27:08 +0000

Tough crowd. Ya know I think that everyone has the right to bear arms. I was mulling over all of these blogs and thought “o.k. give anyone who has no record of crime or mental instability a license for a fire arm with a 2 month course of training and evaluation on paper and in the firing range”. But like anything else that becomes a provision of “The System”, there will be people that slip through the cracks or people going in healthy by appearence, then committing a heinus crime. You will always have these problems. And the other problems that go with it. The one trained person that makes a fatal shooting error. The poor judgements that even the most experienced will make especially in the heat of the moment. But aside from all of that I will say this. That I would rather take my chances on the “shakiest gun in the U.S.” who is licensed to give me the slimmest chance of survival, before being gunned down with no chance at all. Man what an awful thing that these people and their families have to endure. I hope for myself and every other law abiding innocent that we never have to see or experience anything of the like. I could attain a license for a fire-arm, but have not yet decided to do so. But heres some food for thought. If I am ever in a situation like that and the perpetrator runs out of ammo. The remnants of my actions will have alot of people wondering who the unstable person was in the scenario.

By: Troma Luv

Troma Luv — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 16:04:41 +0000

Why are people so willing to live like slaves?

Responsible gun ownership is not a crime. Some founding fathers called it a duty as a matter of fact. How about the fact that these killers are always on excessive doses of serotonin reuptake inhibitors?

By: SWATman92

SWATman92 — Tue, 01 May 2007 19:17:50 +0000

Dan, you’re right. Cho would not have dropped his weapon. But didn’t the kid say he was prepared to shoot to kill? If he had confronted cho and shot him, it all would have been over! Being a gun owner myself, and on a SWAT team, the argument is legitimate. No, I am not encouraging armed students to approach gunmen, but I personally have seen incidents stopped by citizens with personal arms.

By: DosPeros

DosPeros — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 18:04:24 +0000

Abu – this whole notion of “courage” is a tired cultural remnant of the barbarous chauvism embedded in the Western concept of masculinity. Courage means death. Courage means war. I agree with Justin, to coward is human; “To die with honor” and all that, cultural constructs necessary for the submission of man’s rational instinct for service to the state, a death service. In this Hobsian universe no amount of posthumous waxing poetic on “courage” is going to truly buff the corpse of the “brave.” I would have probably used the good Professor’s back to help me leap out of the window as I elbowed and kicked anyone in my way. Courage – pure bunkum in these post-modern adrogyous times; part-in-parcel of a code of ethics derived from fairy tales. The wages of bravery is death and it is only the craven coward that is rewarded with life and it is the living that do all the remembering. Sure, there will be temporary lauds for the “courageous” and, of course, the obligatory memorial with the perfunctory tulips – but the silent sentiment will ring “Glad it wasn’t me.” The focus will not be on understanding the “courageous” – screw courage, it gets you killed. No, the focus will be on “understanding” a fuckwit and his unrequited fantasy of kissing a girl and what music he listened to and what movies he watched, and did he jerkoff with left hand or right and blah, blah, ad nauseum, while those in need of justifying a psychology degree with a communications minor (or visa versa) draw inane conclusion which protend the obvious — coming of the next fuckwit. Courage means nothing, we don’t want to know anything about it, because we already know where it gets you. The courageous don’t interest us. The deviant self-absorbed loser shitheel, now there is a character we can relate to.

Go Hogies and arm-up next time.

By: BillA

BillA — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 16:12:14 +0000

“Someone who is willing to die to accomplish their goal is virtually unstoppable.” That’s a paraphrase from the Secret Service Protective Detail. They are the best bodyguards in the world and they know that the only chance they have to stop a killer who is willing to die is to be willing to die themselves. That point was made on both sides of the Va Tech Shootings – Cho was willing to die to accomplish has goal of killing as many people as possible…and the professor was willing to die to save his students. Both succeeded.
It has also been said that “An armed populace is a polite populace.” One need only look to Switzerland, where virtually every male between 18 and 45 has a government-issued firearm at home…and a homicide rate 1/5 that of the US.
Finally, what about the the school shootings in Grundy, VA in 2002 or Pearl, MS in 1997 or Edinboro, PA in 1998? In each case, 1 or 2 armed people kept a tragedy from turning into massacre. What a shame that the students and faculty of Va Tech were denied the opportunity to save their own lives and the lives of others.

By: Abu Nudnik

Abu Nudnik — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 18:53:08 +0000

Yeah, thatÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢s the first thing IÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢d think of when somebody was shooting at me. And then IÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢d wait for just the right time and give him a roundhouse kick to the face, knock him out and kiss the nearest woman because IÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢m such a bad ass.

Seriously, what a moron.

Oh yeah, Justin? That’s exactly what one teacher did. He died, but he saved a whole class of his students. A little more courage is exactly what’s needed.

By: domajot

domajot — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 11:49:27 +0000

The armed citizenry argument is just thin smoke, as it presumes that all those people with guns would be responsible, level headed good citizens.
It’s more realistic to assume that for every responsible gun owner, you would be arming at least one who isn’t.
Among college youth, the odds are even higher, I bet.
That would be inviting open shooting season in public places.
As far a I’m concerned, the NRA is a cult.

By: Dyre42

Dyre42 — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 05:55:41 +0000

Good Point Joshua. He may have for example dropped by his local “spy store” and bought a kevlar vest. Those that make the argument that being able to carry a concealed weapon on campus would have prevented such a heinous crime have an inherently flawed point of view. Here in TX less than 10% of those eligible to carry a concealed weapon actually do. Conversely VA is an open carry state meaning thats as long as the gun is blatantly visible it is legal. Exceptions being schools, govt. property, and anywhere booze is served. VA also offers concealed carry permits which again less than 10% of the population opt for. So had VA Tech allowed law abiding citizens to carry concealed weapons on campus the odds of Mr, Cho meeting armed resistance would have still been low enough to not be a deterrent, particularly to one as messed up as he was.

By: sleipner

sleipner — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 05:47:12 +0000

Frankly I’ve always been against anyone having guns in today’s high-pressure social environment. Way too many people crack each day, and with even handguns available, they’re far more likely to kill someone when the pressure gets too much for them. Plus, if I recall this correctly, our society has the highest gun-assisted crime rate of all industrialized nations by far.

Unfortunately, with the boatloads of cash the gun lobby keeps shoveling into the Republican party, it’s unlikely that any reasonable universal measures will ever get put into place, such as a federal registration database for all firearms, total ban on all automatic and semi-automatic weapons, etc.

By: Joshua

Joshua — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 22:29:34 +0000

In the long run I doubt the general availability of guns (or absence of same) would make much difference, either in overall violent crime rates or in mass attacks like this one.

Any weapon or other countermeasure we can take against crime, once it becomes sufficiently commonplace, is only likely to work for a limited time before criminals pick up on it and adapt. This adaptation need not mean just getting a bigger or more powerful weapon than yours; adjusting their tactics should more than suffice. Firing at a crazed gunman who is threatening you is one thing. Firing at a crazed gunman who, before proceeding to threaten you, took some sweet old lady hostage for use as a human shield against your gun is another thing entirely.

If “Ismail-AX” (as the shooter apparently called himself, a revelation that has raised some eyebrows on certain other blogs due to “Ismail”’s Muslim connotations) knew he would be facing an armed student body, that doesn’t necessarily mean he would have been deterred. He might simply have planned his attack much differently, to minimize the risk to himself and/or maximize the carnage he could inflict before being taken down. Homemade bombs are one alternative method that comes to mind.

By: Virginia University Shooting In 2002 Stopped By Armed Citizens | The Moderate Voice

Wed, 18 Apr 2007 19:34:10 +0000

[...] Find out more about two brave souls, and then check out the moronic, “manly” comments of two action-hero obsessed bloggers who think the current students should have done the same thing and fought the gunman… At the very least, count the shots and jump him reloading or changing hands. Better yet, just jump him. Handguns arenÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢t very accurate, even at close range. I shoot mine all the time at the range, and I still canÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢t hit squat. I doubt this guy was any better than I am. And even if hit, a .22 needs to find something important to do real damageÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â‚¬?your chances arenÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢t bad. [...]

By: GN

GN — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 18:48:57 +0000

It must be nice to sit at a desk and pontificate on the application of fight/flight syndrome, eh? Of course, some will take a radical approach for gun control because of a deranged individual. OTOH, I don’t think the gun control folks have considered not owning a car because deranged people get drunk and drive; or people hurt and kill others with road rage.

Wild west syndrome of arming to the teeth may not be a very good idea either … but then again, if you put the bad guy down and live to tell about it being armed looks pretty good.

Responding to violence with physical defense or offense (armed or unarmed) seems to be a reactive trait that one has or doesn’t have. The guy who put a stop to Sylvia Seegrist at Springfield Mall in Springfield, PA in the 80’s was un-armed …. he just reacted … to great benefit of many scared individuals.

By: Monica

Monica — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 17:52:09 +0000

I think armed citizens could definitely help in these types of sistuations, as the example Justin provides above demonstrates. That doesn’t mean I think college freshman should be armed; I believe the law requires that the person be at least 21 years old to carry a weapon.

Police can’t respond quickly enough in these types of situations. I don’t know how else to combat crazies hell bent on killing as many people as he can before killing themselves.

By: Damozel

Damozel — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 16:46:00 +0000

I do not buy into the chicken-egg argument that an armed citizenry is good security against crime, including this sort of crime. If guns weren’t available to nut-jobs like this Cho, nut-jobs like Cho wouldn’t have guns. While I don’t know whether or how gun laws would work now that so many morons own automatic weapons and handguns, I certainly am not prepared for gun-fights at my child’s college campus. If a lot of drunken 18-21 year olds boiling over with testosterone had handguns under their beds, there would be blood all over the walls all the time.

I knew one of the people killed in the shooting at the Appalachian School of Law, a terrible tragedy. And there were motives there that obviously did not apply to Cho. It’s not clear that the killer intended to open fire on everyone in sight, I think.

At any rate, thanks very much for drawing the distinction that Blake and Derbyshire failed to draw: THE STUDENTS AT VIRGINIA TECH WERE ALL UNARMED AND ALL TAKEN BY SURPRISE.

By: Blue Neponset

Blue Neponset — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 14:48:43 +0000

I am all for off duty cops carrying keeping a firearm in his car. I just don’t think it is a good idea for college freshmen to have a pistol/rifle in his/her dorm room.

By: Pug

Pug — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 12:13:25 +0000

Nathanael Blake: Something is clearly wrong with the men in our culture.

Well at least he shows a slight amount of self-awareness. There is something wrong. Too many losers like him have macho fantasies of kicking ass and taking names even though they are old, weak and stupid.

By: dan

dan — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 05:37:18 +0000

also: i think it does speak for itself, if you think it says the armed students still didn’t stop the killings. who’s to say the guy would have killed more??

hell, who’s to say cho would have DROPPED HIS WEAPON?

this argument is ridiculous.

By: dan

dan — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 05:31:31 +0000

But by the way, this post wasnÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢t written to suggest that the kids should have rushed the guy. IÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢m just saying that the armed society has its advantages when people go nuts.

oddly enough, so does a competent security staff that doesn’t let campus run as usual after two people are shot…

an “armed society” may look great on paper, but it opens up a whole bunch of other worm-filled cans that you would never even think of because it’s never happened. as with everything.

crap, we’ve got school teachers screwing their 13 year old students. obviously not a subset of the populace that gets the “best judgement” award.

what if cops rushed in whilst an “armed citizen” was shooting mr. cho? who would the cop shoot? how would he know who was the original shooter?

armed populace is just a fantasy land. the grass is greener over there simply because you’re not there.