Protection Free Zones
I don’t usually comment on national issues, but this article from World Net Daily sent by a friend of McHenry County Blog is spot on and I've added an Illinois angle.
The very short article is entitled,
Death toll limited before campus gun ban
5 years ago, shooter subdued by armed students
It explains what happened January 16, 2002, when a student started shooting administrators at Appalachian School of Law.
A couple of students, one an off-duty police officer, got guns from their cars and subdued the gunman.
He was more than tackled by bystanders, as most press reports said.
Since then, the state legislature banned guns on college campuses last year in the interest of safety, the article says.
My gubernatorial campaign manager Ted Semon referred to areas where guns are banned as “protection free zones.”
Mayor Richard Daley’s reaction, of course, would have pleased the Virginia assemblymen who voted to ban guns on campus after the Appalachian School of Law murders.
ABC reported this Saturday:
The mayor's state legislative package includes laws that ban assault weapons and magazines that hold more than ten rounds.He’s “pushing for what he calls ‘common-sense’ gun laws,” ABC says.
"There just too many guns in our society," Mayor Daley said. "Too many guns leads to too many accidents, and you have too many victims."
Common sense would suggest that what worked to limit deaths at the law school might have worked at Virginia Tech.
More at McHenry County Blog. I didn't spend the weekend in the yard.
= = = = =
And, Monday in the Chicago Sun-Times a Tom Toles cartoon appeared,
the bottom of which said,Also, if everyone on campus had been armed…it’s hard to imagine anything bad happening.
6 comments:
You really think the world would be a safer place if every college student was armed?
Why not let high school or junior high or elementary students carry guns too.
Didn't you advocate for teachers to carry guns? Well given the transgressions of some teachers, why not let every student carry a gun?
Cal -
I have equal venom for both camps who are trying to capitalize on this tragic event to advance their own agenda.
Disgusting, disgusting, disgusting.
A careful look at the facts in this case after they have all emerged will tell us what would or would not have prevented this calamity.
I will admit that I haven't followed this story closely, but from what I've learned we do know that the shooter was able to evade gun safety laws by spreading out his purchases over 30+ days. I think we can also see that there was a breakdown in permitting laws that allowed someone with a serious history of mental health problems to purchase any gun at all. Finally, you really have to wonder if this case doesn't support a ban on semi-automatic weapons.
The old argument that gun control laws are ineffective because "criminals will always find a way to buy guns" doesn't apply here. This wasn't some gangbanger with underworld connections. This was a college student who went on the internet.
Lets wait until ALL the facts have emerged before we decide what we've learned from this case. Okay?
Great story.
The World Net says that most of the media was wrong, but points to zero sources.
Sure, that's reliable.
I read the news and listened to the electronic stories about the law school at the time. Whoever wrote the World Net Daily piece is correct, according to my memory.
Cal, I hope you realize that Toles was being snarky. (Here's a link to the full cartoon: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/opinions/cartoonsandvideos/toles_main.html?name=Toles&date=04182007)
Toles's point is that guns wreak havoc, and the typical NRA response -- that we should punish the person who misuses guns -- doesn't really prevent mayhem in the case of a psychologically disturbed individual.
Well put, Other.
That cartoon completely toasts Skinner. It shows how utterly ridiculous his position is.
Gun ownership to all and then punish those who use guns for illegal purposes.
That sure stopped this case, didn't it? The fear of criminal sanction stopped him from doing something really bad.
But Skinner thinks that won't happen. Skinner and a right wing extremist web site known for making the National Inquirer look like a fact-based publication THINK that a few years ago guns stopped another shooting. The rest of the media didn't report on it, but those two sources are sure that it occurred.
How absolutely pathetic.
If Skinner had the slighest bit of dignity [no evidence of that to date], he would apologize to the victims of this tragedy for his insane statements about causation.
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