Unarmed and Vulnerable

The Roanoke Times/ roanoke.com ^ | Thursday, August 31, 2006 | Bradford B. Wiles

[Osage Orange]

Have you replied to anyone?

Are you trolling?

If so, you need better bait.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[philman_36]

BTTT

[Froufrou]

RC2, welcome to FR!

I’ve read the comments here closely and here’s the situation, as I see it:

Your faith in the goodness in people is as awesome as it is impractical. IOW, what can you name to have been done to stop Cho from being a nutjob? Because that’s the only real way to stop this kind of thing, you know. You have to stop [a person] from being a nutjob.

Keep in mind, nutjobs really do just happen; one minute they’re hanging onto their tree, next, they’re falling.

[Sal]

Hincker was Cho's accomplice, plain anbd simple.

Reminds me of somebody's comment that Jamie Gorelick couldn't have helped al Qaeda more if she'd been the head of their ground squad on 9/11. Both true.

[Hot Tabasco]

thousands of students carrying weapons on campus.

What makes you think that "thousands" of students currently even have CCW permits? And the next time you are in your supermarket, how many people do you think are actually carrying concealed firearms?

[Bigun]

What makes you think that "thousands" of students currently even have CCW permits? And the next time you are in your supermarket, how many people do you think are actually carrying concealed firearms?

I could tell you a very long story abut how concealed carry came into being here in Texas and all the mechanisims used by the opponents to try and defeat it but I won't do that. Instead, I will simply tell you that the entire argument is NOT about who does or does not have a permit it is about the thugs out there NO KNOWING who has one!

[archy]

What makes you think that "thousands" of students currently even have CCW permits?

I don't think there are *thousands* of students with CCW in VA, but there are certainly dozens at VA Tech, and probably hundreds statewide. And certainly every member of the university's Corps of Cadets/ROTC program should be so trained in their freshman year.

At least one of those killed was a previous military cadet from a military prep school; one other was a current member of the Va Tech Corps. That would have been two in seperate classrooms in Norris hall, which would have at least offered 50-50 odds of preventing the gunman from continuing his attack on all four classrooms, and with luck, skill or guile, might have stopped him in the doorway of the first classroom.

[archy]

There’s got to be another answer.

Indeed, I can think of at least two.

Instead of *allowing* suudent-citizens and their teachers to carry handguns for their defence, give them hand grenades. If two or three students in the first classroom of Norris Hall had pitched frags at Cho as he began firing, the killings would have stopped right then and right there, with fatalities limited to the shooter and those nearest him; though there'd be eardrum and at least some fragmentation injuries. Nevertheless, the number of fatalities would be cut by three quarters.

Another possibility: do nothing, and leave things as they are, or make them worse. In which case, the next mass killer will probably try to top Cho's numbers, and will probably succeed. As did a former school board member who decided one of the schools under his supervision needed some renovation.

[archy]

And who will prosecute them? School administrators are above the law. Any law. And they know it.

There used to be a prosecutor in Seattle who thought that, too.

[archy]

I know some will jump on me for this but I have a problem, again, with thousands of students carrying weapons on campus. Considering the original post, what do people think would have happened if these students had been armed and went running out of the building, weapons drawn, and met a bunch of heavly armed police? I think we would have had another big disaster on our hands.

Had the students been really well-armed I don't think that the police would have been so quick to point their submachineguns at the surviving students and tell them to get their hands up or be killed. And they'd have been able to do a much better job of filling out the necessarily paperwork if the killer had been stopped in the doorway of the first classroom he attacked, saving about 75% of the victims. Or at the second, saving half. Or at the third, saving a not inconsequential fourth of them. Or even at the last classroom, where a capable physicist and Holocaust survivor might have carefully taken aim, and, as he fired, thought never again....

The police would not have know who these kids were. There’s got to be another answer.

Judging from the newsclips, their answer seems to be to have fat doughnut munchers hide behind trees with automatic weapons, ready to shoot any survivors, letting the killer inside go about his business until the others get changed into their SWATzie outfits.

The Blacksburg police didn't seem to do that well last time, either. So expect more of the same next time.

[archy]

Shut up, and be like lambs...

Baaaaaaa! Please don't kill me! I'm SUCH a good person, and a valuable individual, hoping to make important contributions! Baaaaaa....

[Hot Tabasco]

What makes you think that "thousands" of students currently even have CCW permits

I didn't even want to get into the issue other than point out to him his most ridiculous statement of "thousands" of students on the campus carrying weapons......

FWIW, I've been a CCW permit holder for about 6 or 8 years now. There's a very little know fact that I just found out this past year that here in Michigan it is perfectly legal to openly carry a firearm without any permit whatsoever. I have even mentioned this to several law enforcement officers that I know and they didn't even know about it. Other than an on duty officer, I have never, ever seen anyone openly carry which probably accounts for nobody ever giving a thought to its legality.

But the moment you carry it concealed then that is when you have to have the CCW permit.........