Virginia Tech’s gun-free zone left Cho Seung-Hui’s victims defenseless
Jacob Sullum
Last year Virginia legislators considered a bill that would have overridden policies at public universities that prohibit students and faculty members with concealed handgun permits from bringing their weapons onto campus. After the bill died in committee, The Roanoke Times reported, Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker welcomed its defeat, saying, “I’m sure the university community is appreciative of the General Assembly’s actions because this will help parents, students, faculty, and visitors feel safe on our campus.”
Maybe Hincker was right. But as Monday’s horrifying mass murder at Virginia Tech vividly demonstrated, there is a difference between feeling safe and being safe. The university’s gun ban not only did nothing to protect people at the school; it left them defenseless as a cold-blooded gunman methodically killed 32 of them over the course of two and a half hours.If some students and faculty members had access to guns during the attack, there’s a good chance they could have cut it short. According to witnesses, the killer—identified by police as Cho Seung-Hui, a senior studying English—took his time and paused repeatedly for a minute or so to reload.
In shootings at other schools, armed students or employees have restrained gunmen, possibly preventing additional murders. Four years ago at Appalachian Law School in Grundy, Virginia, a man who had killed the dean, a professor, and a student was subdued by two students who ran to their cars and grabbed their guns. In 1997 an assistant principal at a public high school in Pearl, Mississippi, likewise retrieved a handgun from his car and used it to apprehend a student who had killed three people.
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