Larry Hinkler
Posted on 04/20/2007 11:14:05 AM PDT by SWO
Student pleaded with Tech: Allow guns
Bradford Wiles
Wiles, of New Castle, is a graduate research assistant in the department of human development at Virginia Tech. My fears have been realized. As a graduate student at Virginia Tech, I have been adamant about changing the university's policy forbidding students from defending themselves. Before I proceed, let me please express my deepest condolences to those who have lost family, friends and loved ones in this awful tragedy. I do not want anyone to misconstrue my pleas for reform of university policy with a disregard for the human impact of this calamity.
It is clear that we need to rethink the idea of gun prohibition. If just one person in Norris Hall had a gun to defend himself or his classmates from an armed attacker, lives could have been saved. It is difficult not to think about how I would have felt had I watched in horror as my classmates were gunned down, and me standing there without my gun, helpless. What would it be like to stare down the barrel of the gun when it was aimed at me?
Then I think about how abhorrent that scenario is. Shouldn't I be able to think about how I would draw my own gun and stop this madman from killing my classmates and me? Gun laws and policies affect law- and policy-abiding citizens. Are we really expected to think that the shooter thought, "I shouldn't go on a murderous rampage; it's against school policy?" Can't we all see how ridiculous that is?
The policies in place on Virginia Tech's campus ask that we, as students, faculty and staff, do exactly that. In August I wrote a letter to the president of Virginia Tech, Charles Steger. An excerpt reads: "The policy that forbids students who are legally licensed to carry in Virginia needs to be changed. I am qualified and capable of carrying a concealed handgun and urge you to work with me to allow my most basic right of self-defense, and eliminate entrusting my safety and the safety of my classmates to the government. This incident makes it clear that it is time that Virginia Tech and the commonwealth of Virginia let me take responsibility for my safety."
If they had made the change at that time, then perhaps things would have been different.
The fact is that we have seen where gun control gets us. Prohibiting guns on campus only creates a place where those bent on murder can inflict the most amount of harm with the least fear of armed resistance. Virginia Tech has asked that its students choose between expulsion and death. Is that a choice we need to be forced to make?
Would my wife and family, knowing how much I have written and spoken about allowing me my most basic right of self-defense on campus, feel any comfort in the policy that supposedly protects me?
Larry Hincker, associate vice president for university relations, in response to a column I wrote in August asking that the university change its policy forbidding law-abiding concealed handgun permit (CHP) holders from carrying on campus, wrote the following in The Roanoke Times: "Guns don't belong in classrooms. They never will. Virginia Tech has a very sound policy preventing same."
Do you still feel the same way about your policy now, Mr. Hincker? Will your faith in that policy provide comfort to any of the victims' families?
In the coming weeks and months there will be calls for gun bans and tougher restrictions on gun rights. This is only "feel-good" legislation and does nothing to prevent those who follow the law from protecting themselves. The answer is not restricting freedoms, the answer is to make would-be killers think twice because of the probability of armed resistance.
Let us try the other end of the spectrum, responsibility for our own safety. If the university community members were not subject to penalties for arming themselves, perhaps someone would have neutralized the attacker before he could kill more than 30 people. The Virginia Tech police did the best they could in responding. Responsible individuals who want to protect themselves need to have that option, without being subject to disciplinary action or termination of employment.
The devastating events on Virginia Tech's campus remind us of just how sacred and precious life is. The Virginia Tech community and the entire nation wish that the families and friends of the afflicted students find peace somehow.
We all need to come together and do what is prudent to minimize the possibility of this ever happening again.
The rest of the story.
very well written. I do wonder how many of the dead were permit holders and are now dead because of that policy...?
Very important.
“Guns don’t belong in classrooms.”
I have been very surprised at the lack of response of comparing the Utah Mall incident to VT.
Just imagine if no one in that mall had had a gun. The story has been buried, because the perp was killed by someone defending his MANY potential victims.
I will wait on the MSM to make the comparison.....not.
Absolutely ... “feeling” is the “f” word when it comes to legislation. If a bit of law or policy makes you feel _____, then it isn’t worth the ink used to print it. Hincker had his campus that “felt” safe but all that went up in smoke - gunsmoke. Turns out it wasn’t safe at all.
Great column.
Good letter. He makes it clear that Hincker has blood on his hands for going out of his way to disarm students.
And because he was a Bosnian Muslum on a personal act of Jihad.
4 March 2007:
Sulejman Talovic, the 18 year-old Bosnian refugee and practicing Muslim who killed five innocent shoppers and wounded four others at the Trolley Square Mall in Salt Lake City in February was buried yesterday in his home village of Talovici, Vlasenica. The frightening truth about this shooting rampage is also being buried - not in Bosnia, but in Salt Lake City.
An extensive investigation conducted by the Northeast Intelligence Network and detailed in the current issue of the HQ INTEL-ALERT Private Intelligence Report has confirmed disturbing facts that indicate that the truth is being deliberately withheld from an unsuspecting and trusting public by both police and public officials. These officials are using the general public’s short attention span and growing malaise about the threat of “neighborhood Islamists” to downplay a very real and growing threat.
The well-scripted comments about this event from Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, police Chief Chris Burbank and FBI Special Agent Patrick Kiernan, a supervisor in the FBI's Salt Lake City office, are the same: the motive for the shooting rampage, although not known to authorities, is not connected to terrorism.
Based on the information developed from our investigation – including numerous interviews – determined that TALOVIC originally planned to execute his deadly rampage at the Conference Center, just north of the Mormon Tabernacle in Temple Square as first reported by KSL reporters Reed Cowan and Susan Wood.
Continued investigation found that TALOVIC also had more connections to the al Noor Mosque than originally reported. The al Noor mosque is located just two blocks from the Trolley Square Mall, and was the same mosque that U.S. Marine Corporal Wassef Ali Hassoun attended.Ali HASSOUN was at the center of controversy in June 2004, when his picture appeared on the Arabic news network Al-Jazeera. On June 27, 2004, Al Jazeera showed a photo of Hassoun, blindfolded, with a sword behind his head. A group called the National Islamic Resistance/1920 Revolution Brigade claimed to be holding him and was threatening to decapitate him unless detainees in "U.S.-led occupation prisons" were released.
****
What was Bosnian Muslim Sulejman Talvic's Plan A?
To launch his murderous Islamic Jihad assault against LDS Christian worshippers the day before the Trolley Square rampage.
This simpleton, insane logic is only equaled [if not surpassed] by the DBM and their lefty cohorts who actually castigate the Supreme Court for upholding a ban on the abortion practice of sucking the brains out of infants just prior to birth while their arms and legs are kicking as they dangle outside the mother womb!!
INFREAKINGSANE!!!
"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."
Sad to say it is better to be safe than just feel safe.
Source: Roanoke Times
March 12, 2007 — The Roanoke Times has decided to remove the online database of registered concealed handgun permit holders from its website.
The newspaper is requesting the Virginia State Police, which provided the information, verify the data.
“When we posted the information, we had every reason to believe that the data the State Police had supplied would comply with the statutes. But people have notified us that the list includes names that should not have been released,” said Debbie Meade, president and publisher of The Roanoke Times. “Out of a sense of caution and concern for the public we have decided to take the database off of our website.”
The database was posted on roanoke.com on Sunday as part of a New River Valley editorial page column about open records. This column, as well as others that will be published this week, is part of a special focus on Sunshine Week, a national initiative to raise awareness about open government and freedom of information.
“Feeling” is all that matters.
This guy was Moslem?
And heavens, was he the “right” group from that Yugoslavian area?
Problem is, if the comparisons were made, liberals would note....
...the defender was a “HIGHLY TRAINED PROFESSIONAL”.
Not a very good place to go for a gun-rights view. We need a “non-professional” example to prove the point.
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