An Armed Citizen With A Permit Stopped The Last VA College Shooting Rampage (2002)

CNS News ^ | September 17, 2002 | By Christine Hall

[Grig]

Student Group Wants Campus Gun Ban Lifted

(CNSNews.com) - After two armed southwest Virginia law students stopped a campus shooting rampage in January, a Second Amendment group at a northern Virginia law school decided it was time to change their own school's ban on guns.

"We are trying to build a detailed and persuasive brief that would include statistics on increases in safety, decreases in violent crime when you do have concealed carry permit holders in a jurisdiction," said Orest J. Jowyk, president of the Second Amendment group at George Mason University School of Law.

"I think the middle ground is to allow concealed handgun permit holders to carry just like they can anywhere else in Virginia," he said. "You provide extra safety to the student body that way."

Jowyk began researching his law school's gun policy following the January incident in which a disgruntled student at Appalachian Law School, Peter Odighizuwa, allegedly shot and killed the school's dean, a professor and a student on campus before being subdued by two armed students, Mikael Gross and Tracy Bridges.

Gross and Bridges reportedly ran to their cars to fetch their own guns and returned to confront Odighizuwa, who surrendered after allegedly initiating a fistfight.

Jowyk was heartened by the students' intervention. But looking into GMU's gun policy, Jowyk found to his dismay that the school's board of visitors had in 1995 passed a ban on all weapons, concealed or otherwise, except by law enforcement officials.

Anyone who violates the school's gun ban would face administrative repercussions but not criminal charges, according to Jowyk.

Then in April, Virginia's Democratic governor, Mark Warner, signed a law prohibiting local governments from using administrative rules to pass gun restrictions that go beyond existing state law.

Jowyk's Second Amendment group is now investigating how that law might apply to GMU, though the group has not yet approached school administrators about changing the policy.

"There is a question that's being bandied about in the Commonwealth whether or not this university qualifies under that law as a locality," said Mike Lynch, chief of police for GMU law school's police department. "Today, I don't think we have the answer."

If that legal question is eventually resolved in the school's favor, Lynch says he will likely recommend that the weapons ban continue.

"The more people that have guns...on them, it is my opinion that that would increase the propensity for somebody getting hurt," either through accident or mischief, said Lynch. "And I don't want to see that."

But the controversy surrounding gun bans on state colleges and universities isn't limited to Virginia.

In January, the Utah legislature launched an inquiry into the University of Utah's 25-year-old gun ban after state Attorney General Mark Shurtleff said state laws on concealed weapons prohibited agencies and schools from banning them from state property.

"We need to have the right to exclude weapons on campus," University of Utah President Bernie Machen testified to legislators, describing the decision as a matter of academic freedom. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," he said. Machen has also argued that the ban fosters a safe learning environment.

On March 6, the Utah Senate passed a GOP-sponsored bill allowing the legislature to cut in half the school's administration budget if the gun ban continues. The university responded two weeks later by initiating a court challenge, asking a U.S. District Court judge to uphold the school's gun ban.

Also in March, Ohio University's 2000 "workforce violence policy" prohibiting any carrying or displaying of weapons became the subject of controversy when a journalism professor was directed to remove a Civil War-era gun he had displayed on his wall for more than a decade. University administrators reportedly are re-evaluating the policy.

"I feel like I've really been fingered as a dangerous person," Patrick Washburn told the University Wire.

[Spiff]

EXCELLENT find! Thank you.

[massgopguy]

2,000,000 cases of legal guns preventing crime is called anecdotal evidence.

[GrandEagle]

No, no, no...
We would have been MUCH safer if they had just submitted to being shot and killed. I'm very sure their friends and family would agree. (/sarc)

[Albion Wilde]

ping

[stevio]

I remember this now. Great find, and/or good memory.

[Badeye]

“2,000,000 cases of legal guns preventing crime is called anecdotal evidence.”

Yep, and 42% of the total votes cast in 1992 were called a ‘mandate’ by the same that say this is ‘anecdotal’.

(eyes rolling)

[Grig]

Stumbled across it by accident actually.

[Grig]

Stumbled across it by accident actually.

[lexington minuteman 1775]

BTTT

[Irontank]

And one story that will get no coverage amid the debate over "gun control" is a story out of New Hampshire this weekend where a patron in a bar, carrying a concealed weapon, shot and wounded a gunman trying to murder a bouncer

Gunfight at bar leaves one wounded, another in custody

[Chi-townChief]

OUCH

[Publius6961]

Another relevant and useful thread.
Please note that both the university itself as well as the MSM totally ignored the use of firearms in bringing the crisis to a close.

A Useful Lesson

[Antoninus]

Bang...

[Candor7]

Finally , patriots who are willing to fight the liberal cultural war!

Thanks for this inspiring post.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

CASE CLOSED!

[Kozak]

Appalachian School of Law shooting

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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The Appalachian School of Law shooting occurred January 16, 2002, at the Appalachian School of Law, an American Bar Association accredited private law school in Grundy, Virginia, United States. Three people were killed (and three others wounded) when a disgruntled former student opened fire at the school with a handgun.

Contents

• 1 The shooting
• 2 Students subdued Odighizuwa
• 3 Trial
• 4 Analysis
• 5 References
• 6 External links

[edit] The shooting

On January 16, 2002, Peter Odighizuwa, 43, of Nigeria, who had recently flunked out of the Appalachian School of Law, arrived at the school. Odighizuwa first discussed his academic suspension with professor Dale Rubin, where it is reported that he told Rubin to pray for him.^[1] Odighizuwa then walked to the offices of Dean Anthony Sutin and Professor Thomas Blackwell, where Odighizuwa opened fire with a .38-caliber semi-automatic handgun. According to a county coroner, powder burns indicated that both people were shot at point blank range.^[2] Killed along with the two staff members was a student, Angela Denise Dales, age 33. Three other people were wounded.

[edit] Students subdued Odighizuwa

When Odighizuwa exited the building where the shooting took place, he was approached by two students with personal firearms.^[3] At the first sound of gunfire, fellow students Tracy Bridges and Mikael Gross, unbeknownst to the other, had run to their vehicles to grab their personal firearms^[4] (with Bridges pulling his .357-caliber Magnum pistol from beneath the driver's seat of his Chevy Tahoe). As Bridges later told the Richmond Times Dispatch, he was prepared to shoot to kill.^[5]

Bridges and Gross then worked with another student, Ted Besen. The three students approached Odighizuwa from different angles. Bridges raised his revolver and pointed it at Odighizuwa while yelling at Odighizuwa to drop his gun.^[6] Odighizuwa then dropped his firearm and was first subdued by Besen, followed by other students.^[7] Once Odighizuwa was securely held down Gross went back to his vehicle and retrieved handcuffs to help hold Odighizuwa until police could arrive. Police reports noted there were two empty eight round magazines belonging to Odighizuwa’s .380 semi-automatic handgun. It is unclear whether Odighizuwa ran out of ammunition or if there was still a round in the chamber at the time that he dropped his firearm.

[edit] Trial

At trial, Odighizuwa was found mentally competent and pleaded guilty to the murders to avoid the death penalty. Odighizuwa was sentenced to multiple life terms in prison.

[edit] Analysis

This case was cited by John Lott^[8] and others^[9] as an example of the media's supposed bias against guns, as the use of a firearm in a defensive role was not reported in most news stories of the event.

[edit] References

1. ^ "Suspect in law school slayings arraigned" USA Today, January 17, 2002.
2. ^ "Suspect in law school slayings arraigned" USA Today, January 17, 2002.
3. ^ The Bias Against Guns: Why Almost Everything You've Heard About Gun Control Is Wrong by John R. Lott, Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2003. This book's section on this shooting incidence is summarized at "Appalachian Law School Shootings, Media Crushes The Truth" by Ted Lang, the Price of Liberty Website, accessed April 17, 2007.
4. ^ "Helping to Stop a Killer: Students Went After Law School Gunman" by Rex Bowman, Richmond Times Dispatch, 5/5/2002. Also "Ex-Charlottean: I Helped Nab Suspect" by Diane Suchetka, The Charlotte Observer, 2002-01-18, Page 2A.
5. ^ "Helping to Stop a Killer: Students Went After Law School Gunman" by Rex Bowman, Richmond Times Dispatch, 5/5/2002.
6. ^ "Helping to Stop a Killer: Students Went After Law School Gunman" by Rex Bowman, Richmond Times Dispatch, 5/5/2002.
7. ^ "Law school, guns, and a media bias" by James Eaves-Johnson, The Daily Iowan 01/24/2002.
8. ^ The Bias Against Guns: Why Almost Everything You've Heard about Gun Control is Wrong by John R. Lott, Regnery Publishing, 2003, page 27.
9. ^ "When Guns Stop Crime, Media Attach Their Silencers" by Donny Ferguson, The Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk, Va.), February 4, 2002, page B11.

[edit] External links

• CNN Report: Shooting At A Law School

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachian_School_of_Law_shooting"

Categories: School shootings in the US perpetrated by students | School killings in the United States | Spree shootings | University shootings | 2002 in the United States | History of Virginia | Buchanan County, Virginia

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[Balding_Eagle]

If they only had smiled at the gunman.

[RSmithOpt]

Thank you!! Once again, courage and moral conviction is just a terrible thing, isn’t it? (sarc)

[proud American in Canada]

Great find!