Gun Owners, Responsibility, Madmen and a Reality Check

The pundits are debating, arguing and critiquing every aspect of the uncontested shooting spree of Cho Seung-Hui with rather cloudy after the fact clarity. The two-hour window between the killing of two at West Ambler Johnston and later thirty more would be killed and twenty-six wounded at Norris Hall across the campus. The shooter, Hui had a history of mental problems and the media accurately pointed out that his handguns were acquired because he voluntarily went for treatment and this would not have showed up on federal information taking away his right to own a handgun.

There is also the usual rash of blaming the guns themselves for being available and used in the crime. We have heard the far left once again cry, "Why do you need an AK-47 to hunt deer?" The mainstream press will certainly be giving time and space to many who echo that sentiment. This article will be more about other defensive options you won't often see in the mainstream and why we should explore them.

Most of the rabid anti-gun folks often loose site of the fact that laws are directed only at law abiding citizens. A person so intent on committing a crime such as the one at Virginia Tech, while not a criminal at the moment of purchase, will acquire weapons through unconventional methods if necessary. Laws only prohibit citizens from protecting themselves and contrary to the propaganda of the anti-gun crowd there are far more incidents of guns being used by citizens to protect themselves than any version of Dodge City being stirred up by conceal and carry laws. Cho was committing a criminal action and the only law that works is the one that is enforced, in this case a bullet was needed long before he used one on himself.

Recently, I've found many Americans believing those who died and those in the future who will face other madmen (or women) deserve better. Is the discussion about what could have been done better or will be done in the future an unlimited one? Is the media and academics really engaging in a no holds barred look at what the possibilities are and if there is ANY previous incident, which gives students and citizens alike solid alternatives? The answer is a resounding NO.

When Proper Gun Control is Exercised
On January 16, 2002 at the Appalachian School of law in Grundy, Virginia a forty-two-year-old immigrant law student from Nigeria, Peter Odighizuwa was told he was going to be suspended due to failing grades. This soon to be ex-student decided on revenge and took started a shooting spree at the school, killing the Dean L. Anthony Sutin, a professor, Thomas F. Blackwell and a thirty-three year-old student, Angela Denise Dales at point blank range. Three other students were wounded before the actions of two quick thinking students, Tracy Bridges and Mikael Gross brought the situation under control. Bridges and Gross both had handguns in their vehicles on campus and immediately retrieved them. Soon after, Odighizuwa was confronted on two sides by the gun-toting students who commanded him to put down his weapon, he complied and other students restrained him for authorities following a brief struggle.

According to a wikpedia report, the shooter had two eight round clips for his .380 ACP semi-automatic pistol that were empty and several rounds left in the gun he was forced to drop.

It must be noted that Bridges and Gross had experience with guns, both had served as police officers. Gross was a police officer in Grifton, North Carolina and Bridges was a county sheriff's deputy from Asheville, also in North Carolina.

Nobody else was injured or killed on that day in Grundy as two students knew exactly how to control their weapons. Where was the on campus protection to respond to the immediate need at Virginia Tech? Cho moved about like a mini-Godzilla in downtown Tokyo asstudents ran, jumped out of windows, screamed to anyone who would listen and the shots continued to ring out as he calmly reloaded.

Are Guns a viable option for Protection? What happens when they are taken away?
The head of Virginia Tech, Charles Steger, was the subject of countless interviews following the massacre. During one such interview the incident at the Appalachian School of Law was brought up and how it was handled. Steger immediately appeared to be a bit edgy about the story and stated, "Would you be comfortable if two or three students in your class were carrying firearms." Steger exaggerated the situation to invoke a measure of fear amongst that growing part of the public that could be classified as gun phobic.

Watching shootouts on TV is one thing, actually handling a weapon and teaching any children or youngsters in your charge responsibility with the weapon is an area many so-called civilized Americans no longer feel is necessary. What happens when the uncivilized meet the civilized? The sheep get shorn or they get slaughtered and who wants to be that sheep?

One who came out from under the sheepskin was Bernie Goldberg, a former CBS correspondent for twenty-eight years wrote extensively about his experience with the biased nature of big-time media, especially when it comes to private gun ownership. His books Arrogance,Bias and 100 People who are Screwing up America are an excellent way to get insight on how the big-time press moguls think.

While working for the TV magazine show 48 Hours, Goldberg covered a story about the defensive use of a handgun by a woman in rural North Carolina. In his acclaimed book Arrogance, Goldberg outlined what happened. "Late one night, she went to a deserted post office to pick up her mail from her lock box and was ambushed by a man with a gun, who forced her into her car and demanded that she drive away with him. At this point, fearing she would not be alive when the sun came up, the young woman pulled out her own brand new gun and stuck it in the gunman's face, which not only took him by surprise but also apparently scared the hell out of him, because he jumped out of the car and fled."

Goldberg's producer on the article eventually confided with him one day about his reservations about even doing the story about the North Carolina woman. Goldberg says he uttered a naïve sounding why? The producer stated, "Because it gave the impression that this (defensive use of guns) was far more common than it really is."

The anti-gun group think is so prevalent in the media that of the 208 news reports on the Appalachian School of Law shootings, only four mentioned that Gross and Bridges had guns. Goldberg reviewed other searches from other sources and all came up with similar figures. The mainstream press does not want you to think positively about protecting yourself with a handgun.

More facts and figures indicate the huge disparity between responsible gun ownership and anti-gun groupthink. Goldberg's producer would never tolerate getting these facts on any show, but Dr. Gary Fleck, a criminologist at Florida State University stated that in 1995, Americans used guns defensively 2.5 million times. The even better news is that they rarely even fired them, the cock of the shotgun or known presence of an armed defender was enough to make the bad guys go clean their pants.

America is a unique country; most of us still believe we have the right to own a private firearm. Australia and England have stumbled down a more tragic path.
In 1996, 35 people were slaughtered in Port Arthur, Australia. This led to a massive outpouring of "ban the guns" from many of the 19 million down-under residents. Quickly riding an emotional high of fear, the lawmakers gave the people what they told them, they wanted and all guns in the cities would be banned. If you lived in that massive outback, you could keep a .22 caliber to take care of the varmints.

Was there an immediate drop in crime with guns? Did the criminals just start obeying the laws all of a sudden?

The number of robberies with guns jumped 39 per cent in 1997 to 2,183, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, while assaults involving guns rose 28 per cent to 806 and murders by 19 per cent to 75. According to:
http://www.sightm1911.com/docs/guncrimesoars.htm

There were a little more than 640,000 reasons for the jump as that was the number of weapons taken in a buy-back program the government performed. Those politicians supporting the buy-back thought it would help, by 1999 they were no longer sure.

A Senator Vanstone was quoted on an Australian website: http://vigilant.tv/article/2413/misleading-statistics-on-australian-gun-crime
"In 1998/99 there were 64 firearm-related homicides in Australia, the lowest number since the National Homicide Monitoring Program commenced a decade ago. The rate of firearm-related homicide in Australia is 14 times less than the rate in the U-S. However, the use of handguns in homicides in Australia has increased from 13% in 1995/96 to 42% in 1998/99. Positively though, not one handgun used in a homicide between 1997 and 1999 was used by a licensed owner. Those who commit homicide in Australia are individuals who have circumvented legislation and will be least likely to be affected if further restrictions on firearms ownership are introduced."

The gun ban also affected the Australian Olympic shooting teams, since they could no longer own weapons, the could not longer practice in country making their pursuit of a fine sport not feasible economically
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Arguments have been made that it will take five or ten years before the laws are fully effective. That seems like a steeper price to pay when you compare how guns might have prevented as much crime as happens over those five or ten years.

In England, in the summer of 1999 CBS Anchorman, Dan Rather was doing an article about traveling to Merry Old England. Rather was lamenting about the crime problem in the U.K. with an on the scene reporter Tom Fenton describing England as one of the most violent societies in the Western World." Fenton described the streets and shopping malls of Britain as a battleground. What Fenton did not say is that England has a ban on handguns. Considering the effect law-abiding gun owners have had in the United States, could owning handguns in the U.K. really make it worse?

How is the discussion of using guns to protect going on College Campuses?
It is commonly known that guns, in particular handguns are outlawed on American College Campuses. So what would happen, if say a college teacher broached the topic in a classroom situation? Well it happened, according to a Boston Herald article on an adjunct professor of financial accounting Nicholas Winset.

Performing a bit of a reenactment of the shooting with students at the liberal Catholic Emmanuel College in Boston, Winset was attempting to open up the possible solutions.

The Professor allegedly pointed a marker at some students and said "Pow" and than emphasized what would happen if another student was in the room with a gun.

Winset's Wednesday lecture was later punctuated with outright dismissal and permanently barred from the campus.

According to the article in the 4/21 Boston Herald, Winset, 37, of Newton called the college's decision to fire him "pathetic," and said it will have a "chilling effect" on professors' willingness to engage in open discussions about controversial issues. A classroom is supposed to be a place for academic exploration," he said. "It's just gotten so politically correct. It's sad that we have come to this point."

A spokeswoman for Emmanuel College, Molly Honan, would not give the college's rationale for firing Winset. She said the school's policy is not to comment on personnel issues.

Emmanuel College sits on 17 lavish acres not to far from Fenway Park since 1919. The motto is We are Emmanuel College. We believe. We challenge. We transform. Perhaps in light of Professor Winset's experience they'll need to revise their logo to something more mundane. How about We don't want you to think too much. We don't want you to look at all options. We don't want you to be much more than any other sheep, er sheeple?

If you're looking to get more on Winset, he now has an 18-minute video about the incident on You Tube. This is likely the only place you will see it as the mainstream press loves to ignore any kind of pro-gun stance.

A final note about the class reaction, the Boston Herald reported, Student Junny Lee, 19, said that most students didn't appear to find Winset's demonstration offensive.

Conclusion
Some pundits and commentators have argued that we don't need guns since we live in a civilized society. Perhaps there are a few that can remain behind massive walls, heavy security blankets and massive electronic detection systems for protection; for most of us that is not an option.
Drugs, increasing work pressures and many other traumas in people's lives are pushing those on the brink in the wrong direction. Hollywood and the media continue to desensitize both young and old to violence. Such programming is finally coming under watchful eyes as part of the problem, but denial is mostly what is still being served up to the masses. Simply labeling what is violent will not be enough, kids are clever enough to network with other kids whos parents just don't watch what Johnny or Debbie is up to. Dealing with violent games and music is too difficult for most companies profiting from selling them. One could stretch a comparison between that and war profiteering. If you don't think there is a war going on in the streets of America, compare the crime casualty figures of the 20 largest cities in the US to Iraq and Afghanistan military casualties.

If it was only crime we had to worry about, private law-abiding gun ownership will eliminate a chunk of it. Through stolen weapons it will also add to it, the net gain against crime appears to be more positive than negative.

Anti-gun types often cite responsibility with weapons as an area of neglect. One liberal radio-talk show host in St. Louis was criticizing a liquor storeowner in Illinois for allowing his son to steal his loaded .45 pistol. The son was thought to have a problem and the father called it in before the shooting later. The liquor storeowner's son did commit a crime, killed one and then killed himself, near the steps of the Federal Reserve building in downtown St. Louis. The talk show host fired up the callers about this liquor storeowner having a gunlock on his .45. Usually safety procedures call for the magazine to be stored away from the gun too. Can you imagine being confronted by an armed thug who demands everything now! Hey wait a minute you tell him, I've got to get the key to my gun lock and my magazine is about 20 feet away and when I get it all put together we can shoot at each other! The reality is there are business owners in high crime areas who may not get a second chance to grab that gun so the first one will have to be fast and right. Could others be shot? Could an individual have another option? Perhaps, each case stands on it's own set of circumstances and the owner in such a position may have to make a life and death decision. Without a firearm backup, that would be decision only the armed thug could make, do you really want to trust him?

Virginia Tech was a massive tragedy and highlights how this country and most of the world can't rely on authorities to protect in all occasions. The Virginia Tech authorities thought the initial shooting was a domestic disturbance and did not alert the rest of the campus. Maniacal mass murderers aren't always drug induced brain dead automatons, they can plan out what they do and the sheer shock of doing such a deed will give them an advantage.

Perhaps have a few trained undercover policeman or students with weapons or access to them would help short circuit any lengthy unchallenged future massacre. It might become something like the flight marshals. If such a campus had a program like that the would-be shooter might think twice if he's looking to up the ante on the body count just to be number one. Hopefully, the shooter may just go back to playing his video games and fantasize.

I wonder if I'm in the minority of Americans today who hope that the next time one of these mentally tilted wackos wants to perform live target practice that there is a Mikael Gross or a Tracey Bridges in the area to cut that performance way short. Or is the threat of responsible gun ownership under a concel and carry permit just too much a threat for those who are more gun-phobic?