Courage
This is what courage looks like:
Professor Liviu Librescu, 76, threw himself in front of the shooter when the man attempted to enter his classroom. The Israeli mechanics and engineering lecturer was shot to death, "but all the students lived - because of him," Virginia Tech student Asael Arad - also an Israeli - told Army Radio.
Several of Librescu's other students sent e-mails to his wife, Marlena, telling of how he had blocked the gunman's way and saved their lives, said Librescu's son, Joe.
"My father blocked the doorway with his body and asked the students to flee," Joe Librescu said in a telephone interview from his home outside of Tel Aviv. "Students started opening windows and jumping out."
The Glittering Eye makes a valid point.
For those of you who believe this is an opportunity to place tighter controls on firearms, what’s your program? How, in particular, will it incontrovertibly prevent one determined nutcase from killing a lot of people?
For those of you who believe this is an opportunity to pitch concealed carry laws, again, how would that have prevented this particular incident? IMO training and courage are the determining factors in acting in dire circumstances like this, not firepower. Most people just freeze or (prudently) flee under crisis conditions. How will you mandate training and courage?
Those of us arguing that an armed citizen might have made a difference have to also address the issue of courage. Because armed or not, someone who won't step up when the time comes will not make a difference. Professor Liviu Librescu stepped up even though he was not armed and saved the lives of his students. But a lot of people who are legally licensed to carry have military training or other training (as I do). And they, because they obey the laws and rules are precluded from using their training. I'd like to think I would have rushed a gunman, whether I was armed or not. I cannot say with absolute certainty that I would in every situation. But I'd be inclined to use my firearms training if I needed it. That is why I got the permit in the first place.
Professor Liviu Librescu, may you rest in peace knowing that you truly made a difference in this world.
Other Links to this Post
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Bravery’s Scarcity » The American Mind — Wednesday, 18 April , 2007 @ 8:47 am
By Uncle Pinky, Tuesday, 17 April , 2007 @ 8:26 pm
What I find telling is that the people who respond, heroically in cases like this, are people who have encountered adversity before. People who have learned through tribulations that they must rely on only themselves.
These individuals become rarer and scarcer in the Nerf world, to the point that individual self-protection is punishable.
United Flight 93 did not make it to the terrorist chosen target because some people, rugby players and other rough men and women, were able to see the strategy of the monsters.
Prof. Librescru, and all of the dead; I apologize for your having to live in a country where youth are taught to be slaughtered rather than take fate in their hands.
A Country that was founded in individual responsibility has devolved into a country in which we would rather die by a monster’s hand to no purpose or use than even take a chance that we might, might, be aggresive and successful.
No blame attaches to these students, nor could it. Since they were off the teat they have supped on the pabulum of “violence is not the answer” and when parents, books and TV have taught docility, it is to be expected.
I blame Marlo Thomas for “Free to Be You and Me” and the whole equivical morality culture. “Fighting is wrong” they pronounce. “All people are good, just in different ways” they proclaim.
Crap.
32 people died and one monster self-destructed yesterday because these ideas and ideals have turned us into Whiffle-Ball people.
My apologies for ranting, and here endeth my contribution for the night.
Regards,
Uncle Pinky
By feeblemind, Tuesday, 17 April , 2007 @ 10:39 pm
One of the things about this tragic event that gets me is that Va Tech was a *Gun Free Zone*. Will libs ever learn that simply issuing edicts will not necessarily make it so?