Stopping Killers
Glenn Reynolds has an op-ed in the New York Daily News today about armed citizens stopping killers. The media has not widely reported these incidents, because, of course, they don't fit into the agenda. I pointed these out to my son a couple of days ago - he had never heard of them. (Regular readers know that I linked to these items over at Doug Ross' blog.)
In fact, some mass shootings have been stopped by armed citizens. Though press accounts downplayed it, the 2002 shooting at Appalachian Law School was stopped when a student retrieved a gun from his car and confronted the shooter. Likewise, Pearl, Miss., school shooter Luke Woodham was stopped when the school's vice principal took a .45 from his truck and ran to the scene. In February's Utah mall shooting, it was an off-duty police officer who happened to be on the scene and carrying a gun.
Police can't be everywhere, and as incidents from Columbine to Virginia Tech demonstrate, by the time they show up at a mass shooting, it's usually too late. On the other hand, one group of people is, by definition, always on the scene: the victims. Only if they're armed, they may wind up not being victims at all.
"Gun-free zones" are premised on a fantasy: That murderers will follow rules, and that people like my student, or Bradford Wiles, are a greater danger to those around them than crazed killers like Cho Seung-hui. That's an insult. Sometimes, it's a deadly one.
I'd also point out that Japan has extremely strict laws concerning handguns. Which did not stop the mayor of Nagasaki from being gunned down by a gangster yesterday. The laws did ensure that the killer had complete confidence that no armed citizen could stop him, however.
By James, Wednesday, 18 April , 2007 @ 1:48 pm
Armed students would not have done anything to stop the shooter.
People are assuming too much. You have to have the correct “present of mind” to do that. That takes years of proper training.
Students with guns make it near impossble for the police to know who is the bad guy.
The idea sounds useful, but in reality it’s not.
My suggest is to have better trained police who know how to response to shootings. It was simple stupidity
on the police’s part not to alert school officals and students that a shooting had occurred earlier.
People have to understand that society has a limited ability to recognize, in time, events that lead up to these kind of tragedies.
The proper word for what happened is ambushed. It’s hard to stop ambushes.
By Gaius, Wednesday, 18 April , 2007 @ 1:52 pm
It takes one person to make a difference. How many former military are in attendance at VT? How many of them have permits but obey the rules and don’t carry at school?
The outcome may not have been different, but the victims were denied the chance at a different outcome.
By Jenny, Wednesday, 18 April , 2007 @ 1:53 pm
The gun control issue is clearly complicated and wrought with emotion, especially in the wake of such a horrible tragedy. There is no doubt that this issue will continue to play itself out in the media in the coming weeks and months… check this Reuters video clip. http://www.thenewsroom.com/details/217425/US
By Quilly Mammoth, Wednesday, 18 April , 2007 @ 2:53 pm
The only way to beat an ambush is to charge it.
By TC@LeatherPenguin, Wednesday, 18 April , 2007 @ 10:57 pm
James, your statement shows you know absolutely nothing about the average bearer of a duly licensed firearm.
And you have no frickin’ idea what it means when it comes “presence of mind.”
If you hear “POP-POP-POP” coming from outside your classroom door, your “presence of mind” is immediately focused on DROPPING whoever walks into your classroom brandishing a piece.
Those V-Tech students were not a pack of middle school kids. They were, on the whole, adult men and children.
And considering it was a campus in Virginia, a good portion were probably fairly familiar with baggin squirrels since they were kids “toting” WristRockets.
By TC@LeatherPenguin, Wednesday, 18 April , 2007 @ 10:59 pm
(strike “children”; insert “women”
did I just do a Freud?