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Young described the driver as a short man of slight build who appeared to be Mideastern. He said, "I got a good look at the guy."

This is from InstPundit.com

Posted 1/17/2002 04:47:43 PM by Glenn Reynolds, Professor of Law, University of Tennessee

FROM A LAW PROFESSOR'S EMAIL LIST comes this word that the Grundy shooter was stopped by a student with a handgun:

Students ended the rampage by confronting and then tackling the gunman, officials said.

“We saw the shooter, stopped at my vehicle and got out my handgun and started to approach Peter,” Tracy Bridges, who helped subdue the shooter with other students, said Thursday on NBC’s “Today” show. “At that time, Peter threw up his hands and threw his weapon down. Ted was the first person to have contact with Peter, and Peter hit him one time in the face, so there was a little bit of a struggle there.”

Very interesting. Believe it or not, some law professors on the list are actually suggesting that it would be a good idea if people with handgun carry licenses carried guns at school.

Where some of my colleagues are concerned, I'd find that very comforting. With others, well. . . .

Posted 1/17/2002 09:06:29 PM by Glenn Reynolds I MENTIONED THAT LAW PROFESSORS ARE WRITING EACH OTHER about the shooting at Appalachian Law School in Grundy. Here is something terrific that Eugene Volokh [of UCLA] wrote (originally for the LAWPROF email list) on the student heroes. It's reproduced with his permission.

These are real heroes, and I'm proud that I will soon have them as fellow members of my profession -- a profession which sometimes demands great courage of its members. I think the AALS should recognize their courage with some suitable award (perhaps named after Thurgood Marshall or some other lawyer who has put his life, liberty, or livelihood in peril to do what is right).

Let me also mention one other item. View the video on MSNBC, and notice your first reactions to the student being interviewed. I am sorry to say that my first observations were that he was somewhat plump, that he wore an unfashionable haircut, and that he spoke with what is in many of our circles an unfashionable accent. I wish that I hadn't noticed these things, but somehow automatically managed to ignore them -- my reactions do not reflect well on me. But there they are. The man did not look particularly impressive, or lawyerly, or otherwise extraordinary.

And yet he is extraordinary. He, together with his fellow students, confronted a gun-wielding murderer in order to save the lives of others. He didn't have to do this; it wasn't his job; he wasn't defending himself; he could have so easily just left the scene and avoided the risk; no-one would have condemned him had he done so. But he came back and risked death. Do I have this capacity? Does any of us? Most of us don't know, and probably will never know. None of my prejudices or first impressions could have revealed this capacity of his to me. Sometimes the hero looks like Gary Cooper in High Noon. More often he looks like a random guy in western Virginia.

Of course, denouncing prejudice is cliche to the point of banality. We're constantly told of the evil of judging people by their appearance. But of course we do it nonetheless -- and prejudice against the fat and against supposed "hicks" is, in my experience, a common prejudice in the very circles where other forms of prejudice are often vehemently condemned.

I hope that when I find myself falling prey to this tendency again, I'll remember this student and what he did -- and wonder again whether I, with my intellectual-class manners, would have had the courage to do the same.

My girlfriend used to live in that same apartment building in Chicago on West Hollywood Avenue mentioned in the article (the same apartment building that was the address of one of the FBI material witnesses picked up on Sept. 12, the same witness who was on a flight the morning of Sept 11., and later was picked up by authorities on his way to San Antonio with boxcutters, $5000 in cash, and some phony passports).

The apartment bulding, from what I remember, reeked with a curry odor. A lot of Indians (and no doubt Pakistanis) live there. The buidling isn't too far from a section of Devon Area, which is like the Little India/Pakistan of Chicago.

My girlfriend used to live in that building on west hollywood in chicago a few years ago... the place always reeked with a curry odor...

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I don't care for Glocks because I don't care for polymer. But that's just me. But it's not like I leave my firearm in the sink every night!

Aside from that, I prefer Beretta to Glock, particulaly for conceal carry purposes, because of Beretta's added layers of safety features. I also have a neurotic prediliction for actually SEEING the hammer!

I still here some bad report about the .40 S&W.

By the way, as for "Suck & Weasel," I'll never forgive those bastards for selling out and caving in to that Klinton hack, Andrew Cuomo, when he was at HUD. They are a disgrace.

"Not that I'm sure it would work, but with his logic...may he be the first one a rocket hits. Then we can ask him if he's changed his mind. I bet he'll have changed it a lot."

LOL!

Opposition to missile defense is an article of faith for his type. And I've never quite understood the reason for the tenacity in which this opposition is held (other than the fact that the Right favors it). In the abstract, missile defense doesn't seem to be a position that inherently cuts either way, whether you are a hawk or dove. Missile defense is something seems compatible with a program of dramtically reducing offensive nuclear stockpiles.

Look, putting all your macho "one shot stopping power" b.s aside, most people are not cops or ex-military, or have the capcity to handle really high caliber firearms.

A solid 9mm, like a Beretta 92FS, Sig, or Ruger P95 is 1) very reliable 2) very accurate 3) has significantly less recoil, and thus easier to handle than a .45. In addition, the higher capacity magazine on a 9mm (which in some of the earlier pre-Klinton ban models you can still get with 15-16 rounds) is another plus, given that criminals often travel in packs.

So to all you ex-Navy Seal and Spec Ops types thumping your chests out there, my hat's off to you. But when it comes to the defensive needs of the average civilian (a topic which, if you claim to be a Second Amendment defender, you should NOT be sneering at) the 9mm in most cases is the tool of choice.

Well I "research and write for a living," too--just not as law professor, but as a commercial and appellate litigator. I think law professors like him have the time to put up a web log like that. He probably teaches two classes a semeser, three at the most. I, on the other hand, have to find the time to bill 2100 hours per year to somebody willing to pay my going rate.

1) The rejoinder to Hobbes IS game theory. A stateless society, contra Hobbes, is not a zero-sum game, but more of a hawk-dove game, where cooperation in the norm.

2) Robert Wright is a pretentious bore. Like Tom Friedman of the NY Times, he is much smarter than the average journalistic pundit, but at the same time way way overrated. Only a fews hours after the attacks on the morning of Sept. 11, he's up on Slate.com saying "s=See, see, see everybody, this PROVES we don't need National Missile Defense."

Macho B.S. is not sound advice for the defensive needs of "average people"--who you impugn anyway.

Beretta rules more.

Oh, gimme a break. Don't try to defend an undefendable position, i.e., that a .45 is more accuarate and reliable than a 9mm. If you prefer the .45, great. But don't tell me it doesn't have more drawbacks for the average firearm user--law enforcement and military included.

Make that SEVEN misses with the .45, and some nasty recoil to boot!

Mkae that SEVEN misses with the .45, and some nasty recoil to boot!

His tastes are very eclectic, that's for sure. And I still can't figure out there the heck he has all that time to surf the web and post comments on his web log all day. He's certainly Posnerian in that regard. I take it "NonZeroSum" is reference to the classic rejoinder to the Hobbesian argument for the State, no?

"The funny thing is that it's not exactly his specialty (or at least it didn't used to be). He's actually one of the pre-eminent experts on space law."

There aren't many attornyes or academics who specialize in in "space law"--which I take it is concerned primarily with puzzling jurisdictional dilemmas. A good many of his journal articles deal with the Second Amendment and/or federalism.