Posted on 04/16/2007 9:48:10 AM PDT by Anti-Bubba182
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.
House Bill 1572 didn't get through the House Committee on Militia, Police and Public Safety. It died Monday in the subcommittee stage, the first of several hurdles bills must overcome before becoming laws.
The bill was proposed by Del. Todd Gilbert, R-Shenandoah County, on behalf of the Virginia Citizens Defense League. Gilbert was unavailable Monday and spokesman Gary Frink would not comment on the bill's defeat other than to say the issue was dead for this General Assembly session.
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."
Del. Dave Nutter, R-Christiansburg, would not comment Monday because he was not part of the subcommittee that discussed the bill.
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."
The legislation allowed for exceptions for participants in athletic events, storage of guns in residence halls and military training programs.
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.
The Governor is so nasty he'd refuse to allow the death penalty be exercised against this type of mad-dog killer.
The latest bill intended to redress the situation at Virginia Tech was knocked down in a subcommittee by someone currying Governor Kaine's favor ~ no doubt ~ always a budgetary need in someone's district eh.
All such nasty people should be removed from office by the electorate before they get more of us killed.
Would seem you are in error ~ VA Tech has been vigorous enough to target a specific student and scare all the others. If they hadn’t, someone would have been able to stop this maddog killer earlier before 31 people were dead.
“It is better to be tried by 12 than carried by 8.”
Outstanding post.
If one of those college kids had a gun, only 5-8 people would have been killed instead of 33.
Have you ever wondered why you never hear a story about a uniformed cop getting mugged? It's not because he is wearing a uniform. The mugger knows damn well the officer is armed.
In my days at VT (mid 60's), we had 7000+ cadets, and about 1000 "civilian" students, and every cadet was issued an M-1 rifle, and those on the rifle team had their own weapons. That doesn't include those who had personal weapons in their cars or dorms. None of us had ammunition (at least openly), but this campus probably had a higher percentage of guns per student than virtually any community in the nation. The campus was virulently pro-military. The media never reported on it, but what other campus had a march supporting the military in Viet Nam? 80%+ of the students in those days were in ROTC and went into the military upon graduation. There are still a few hundred cadets (you saw some of them in the videos).
From those days, VT has been converted into just another liberal state university, with a large percentage of foreign students. What a shame!
And all the ususal suspects are howling for more gun control when the problem was a lack of guns in the right hands.
There have to be a lot of PO’d parents today.
bttt
I understand CHO was on scholarship. His sister is attending Princeton. How could these immigrants get such educations on their father’s pants pressing salary?
It sickens me to see the constant stream of sob-sisters interviewed on the media. When I went to Tech before you, the “girls” were housed in there own dorm; were aggies or engineering students and would have made short work of CHO themselves.
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