I am NOT arguing against concealed carry, but I am arguing that severe nutcases like the guy at Virginia Tech will eventually carry out a plan somewhere. In his case, I don’t think there’s any question he never intended to escape or survive, so if every venue he could imagine would have involved armed people, he simply would have chosen a place where he could have taken out people more quickly.
The fellow at VT certainly would NOT ave tried his stunt at VT if CC were permitted on campus. The flagrant advertising of VT’s gun-free status ensured that he would do it there and may well have contributed to his decision to do it at all. Here was the chance to kill a LOT of people before getting himself killed by police or before he decided to finish it himself. He would not have had the incentive to go shooting anywhere else that he was familiar with or had access to anywhere else around him and these people “going off” like that is not inevitable but often is the product of opportunity and a function of the direction of their own resentments. That fellow did not have any animosity against people on the street. His problems were with people on that campus. He probably would not have done his thing anywhere else if VT were no-go because of CC. Mass shooting is not the only outlet. Descent into self-destruction is another way out-alcohol or drugs or other. VT’s gun-free policy crystallized for him his particular path to hell.