Ghoulish, as usual.

Take some advice from the anti-gun junta and draft your spin the day of the massacre and then post that evening or (even better) the day after the massacre.

At the bottom of this post is a link to a Virginia Attorney General opinion from 2006 that suggests to me that Virginia colleges have the right to prohibit students and employees from concealed carry, but not other visitors to campus. Anybody can carry openly?

I find the discussion very vague and non-commital, so I would suggest anybody interested read the whole thing themselves (its a pdf).

Opinion

That's twice as many people as Charles Whitman killed, and it was two hours from the first to the last shot, which is unbelievable.

"Take some advice from the anti-gun junta and draft your spin the day of the massacre and then post that evening or (even better) the day after the massacre."

If you don't personally know anyone involved, you tend to move right past grief or fear and on to anger. I'm just struggling to understand how in a post 9-11 world so many people could have sat still and let themselves be slaughtered. It isn't easy to kill 30 running panicing people in a public space with a handgun. You need thier cooperation, and you need the cooperation of the Virginia government. The gun man assuredly had both.

As to why politicians want the populace was disarmed and made to think like sheep, that I understand even if I don't like it. But as to why they are going along with it, that I don't get at all.

I don't know about the original poster, but I'm not too worried about offending people right now.

While events like these are tragic and our thoughts should go to the families of those affected, one need only look at events in Russia this weekend to see what pressure can be put to bear on an unarmed populace.

SAO:

I not only know people in the colleges of New River Valley, which includes VA Tech as well as Radford University, but know something about the history there. My intuition is that if someone with a CCW had killed this fellow early on we'd all now be breathing a sigh of relief. I'm sure you won't waste time before making a case that all handguns ought to be banned because of the tragic nature of this event, so you'll pardon me if I anticipate that emotionalism by pointing out that it's a case that's already been made, and that having won the policy argument in the VA legislature you'll now attempt to argue that you didn't constrain enough...

This was a population that had been disarmed within the last year, and clearly the shooter knew and counted on that fact. There's nothing ghoulish about pointing out that a tragedy could and should have been avoided. Lot's of folks are doing so. Promotion of "gun free zones" was, I think, a fatal mistake, but it's not "ghoulish".

One correction to my post. The shooter may very well have concealed his weapons to some extent as he made his way across campus. I assumed that because he had gunbelts showing that this wasn't the case, but he may well have some other means to conceal the weapons, and may have worn a coat over the gunbelts.

May they rest easy in summerland. The Gods weep.

At Virginia Tech it is against the law to carry a concealed handgun, even for a holder of a Concealed Handgun Permit.

That provision of the law is more than a year old (but I'm not sure how old).

What happened last year was the Virginia Citizen's Defense League persuaded a legislator to introduce a measure allowing persons with permits to carry concealed handguns on campus, and that measure died in committee.

Today 30 or more students and faculty died.

Do I believe there's a connection? Damned right I do.

Several years ago at another southwestern Virginia school (Appalachian Law School), a shooting spree was ended when two students retrieved handguns and confronted the shooter.

I linked. I hope the people responsible for disarming the student body on that campus sleep really well tonight, and tomorrow night, and the next ...

mariner:

Thanks for the information about Appalachian Law School. I'm not sure at this point about the illegality of CC at Tech, but I think the linked article about the legislation makes the point that it's not a handgun law that's being broken, but a trespass law. As far as I know the only places where it's illegal for a person with a carry permit to carry concealed is in an business that serves liquor, in a state or national park, and in the Dulles corridor. Universities can make their own rules since they're considered private, rather than public, property. Private businesses can also forbid firearms provided they post a sign. But again, it's a trespass rather than a weapons issue. The point is that it suppresses carry.

Again, thanks for the info about Appalachian. That's an important observation.

It's worth noting that a similar incident occured at the Appalachian School of Law, but three students ran back to get their personal firearms (I believe one was a police officer and part time student) from their vehicles and subdued the man at gunpoint.

The Pearl MS school shootings were stopped when the principal ran to his truck to get his personal firearm, a Colt 1991A1, and subdued the shooter at gunpoint.

Compare of course with Columbine, VT, other school shootings.

So we have a number of incidents with radically different outcomes.

Several things come to mind:

1. Schools have lots of people and places that are very hard for first responders to clear. Columbine and apparently VT took a long time to clear (hours) because of all the places a gunman could hide AND all the people to get out in small groups. Even a middling High School will have hundreds of classrooms, and hiding places. A university is orders of magnitude more complex.

2. At the time of the attack, help will not arrive until it's much too late, given the complexity of the people and places involved.

3. Minimizing deaths means people in the immediate area must have weapons.

4. Unarmed people will not tackle armed suspects, armed people will.

Of course, Al Qaeda will watch this closely. I would expect a number of Belsan style operations in the near future.

I'm sure you won't waste time before making a case that all handguns ought to be banned because of the tragic nature of this event,

In a word, no. But from the looks of it there was a lot more wrong there than just overzealous gun-control.

In any case, I expect both sides to read into it what they will. Personally I am holding comment until I know something about the incident.

VT's policy 2.2 states:

"The university’s employees [and] students, ... are ... prohibited from carrying, maintaining, or storing a firearm ... on any university facility, even if the owner has a valid permit".

This means, of course, that university's are safe, target-rich environments for any maniac wishing to
"go out in a blaze of glory".

VT's first proactive step after the massacre was to make its administrative regulations inaccessible on its website.

Notice also that VT's president stated that the university would notify next of kin, and that "no names" would be released until this process was completed. You probably need to be a lawyer to parse the clintonesque phrasing: the SHOOTER's name will not be released for several news cycle under the pretext that VICTIMS' next of kin must be notified first.

I know this sounds positively ghoulish at the moment but, since VT adopted a policy denying faculty & students the means to defend themselves, the university has taken upon themselves some liability for their safety and represents the deepest pocket in this sorry affair. How soon do you think it will be before some lawyer files a sizable lawsuit? This may be the only way to drill through layers of hardened agenda surrounding the school administration.

Hmmm.....not much concern here with the fact that a psycho was able to easily buy everything he needed for a massacre. We wouldn't want to actually keep a crazy person from getting guns---it's way better to have other gun whackos shoot back at him! There was a ton of evidence that this guy was crazy, and many many people knew he was capable of this type of attack, but it's apparently more important to you folks in Redneckville to make sure nothing ever gets in the way of your next gun purchase. Brilliant!

And the shooter knew this population had been disarmed and would meekly go to their deaths.....what a crock o' crap. Advice: any time you think thoughts like this, it means you need professional help. This is the 21st century, not the 19th.....at least evolve into the early 20th century. You're not defending the populace against tyranny, you're just obsessed with a very dangerous (but neato) piece of technology.

Guns are the problem, not the solution. The sooner we wean ourselves off of this obsession (like the rest of the world) the better.

Kevin: You're lucky no one has the spare time to fisk you. Believe me, it's a piece of cake, but not worth bothering with.

I'll limit myself to pointing out:

1) Anyone who believes simple statements of the kind you profess is evidence of just how miraculous modern Western Civilization is. Perhaps you think that proves your point. I don't expect to convince you of the contrary.

2) Two of the most horrible mass murders ever committed in the US (one in NYC, one in Puerto Rico) were both accomplished with about a gallon of gasoline each.

Guns are not "the" problem.

Well, I gave this some time to see if any intelligent comments were posted, but apparently Nortius' major zinger is the only one coming. Ouch....you gun boys really go for the jugular in a discussion: "You're lucky no one has time to, uh, comment on this, uh, blog.....cuz then we'd really tear your logic up."

I suspect that you're all too busy posing in front of the mirror with your gun-toys and lots of ammo-toys. Be honest.....you know you've done some posing in your best "fighting tyranny" camo.

Food for thought even though it's clearly not your strong point: you are some of the biggest supporters of the group that is okay with wiretapping citizens and doing away with habeus corpus (google it....it's an important thing when you are worried about tyranny). Uh, that's the closest we've come to tyranny, dummies, even if they wrap it up in Ol' Glory. They have been able to get your support by slogans and religion and bogus threats. And by letting you have shiny toys to play with. You (and the Christian FunDumbMentalists) are also the last supporters of these frauds.

So, when tyranny comes we can count on you nimrods to walk away from the mirror and go out in the streets to face the Marines? Not a very well-thought-out plan, fellas. Think!

You start by saying "[you] suspect..." and then let the faux-politeness lapse, proceeding to puffed-up, glittering generalities about "[me/us]".

I don't think you're looking at me when you say that stuff. So I'm not in a position of defending myself. Nor am I much moved to nitpick your sloppy thinking/speaking on an item-by-item basis. If you bash around wildly, you might connect with something, but from where I'm standing it's hard to see just what.

Hint: pen registers are not recordings of conversations. So they're not "wiretaps" unless you treat the term the way Humpty Dumpty would... "When I make a word work hard like that, I always pay it extra."

So exactly which "wiretapping" are you talking about? The pen register stuff? Or something else? Please be specific--if you're vague, it's too much like "have you stopped beating your wife".

What I will do, for a moment: I'll lower myself to speaking the way you do, to wit...

[From your posts, it appears] You have a cartoon sensibility, and concrete opinions (in the sense of "mixed up and permanently set"). You are welcome to both. It's a big blogosphere. You seem to be colorblind in part of the spectrum. A pity, that.

But hardly my problem. Maybe I am blind, but you sure haven't done anything but claim it. Loudly. And you know sweet f-all about me to say that.

Seems to me as if you're doing some posing/posturing yourself, with or sans mirror. Seems to me you're acting like a holier-than-thou know-it-all twerp.

But that's just how it seems to me, right now, and as an unpaid member of the support staff here at WoC I am supposed to do better than that.

So please try to do something more substantive in future if you want the participants to find your posts worth the time, OK?
Kindly check the comments guidelines. Nobody's perfect, we all have bad days, but we strive to be substantive. Telling your presumed audience that they prance around in front of mirrors like Francis Dolarhyde in Red Dragon is a waste of everybody's time. Ya-dig?