Good thing he didn't use a gun, isn't it...

Random Throat Slashing on Colorado Campus
Alleged Attacker Mentally Ill, Worked on Campus; Freshman Victim Expected to Recover

By DAVID SCHOETZ
Aug. 28, 2007

The brazen throat slashing of an incoming freshman Monday shook the University of Colorado's Boulder campus on the first day of school.

Micheal George Knorps, 17, was leaving the university's student center around 9:30 a.m. Monday just days after arriving on campus.

At the same time, according to police and university officials, Kenton Drew Astin, a 39-year-old former campus employee with a history of mental illness, parked across the street from the building, exited his vehicle, began shouting incoherently and attacked Knorps.

The suspect grabbed Knorps from behind and sliced his throat, according to a release issued by the University of Colorado's Boulder. The injured student freed himself as officers from the Boulder Police Department and Boulder County Sheriff's Office responded, demanding that Astin drop his weapon.

Instead, he turned the weapon on himself. "The suspect began to stab himself with the knife and officers deployed a Taser to disable the suspect and then took him into custody," the release reads.

Both men were transported to a local hospital. Knorps, of Winnetka, Ill., underwent surgery Monday to repair a neck wound and is expected to make a full recovery, according to University Chancellor G.P. "Bud" Peterson, who has been in communication with Knorps' family. Astin remains in the hospital with serious injuries.

Astin allegedly was carrying a backpack at the time, but early reports suggesting he was carrying bomb-making materials turned out to be false.

The attack in Boulder happened less than five months after 32 students and faculty were killed at Virginia Tech by Seung-Hui Cho and just a week after the student body returned to Blacksburg, Va., for the first time since the massacre.

A Virginia Tech panel investigating the rampage last week recommended a series of security reforms in its internal report that included closer monitoring of mentally troubled students and improving campuswide communications during security incidents.

In the Boulder attack, the university sent out a text message at 10:20 a.m. to approximately 1,300 students, parents, faculty and staff enrolled in a service activated on the campus less than a week ago.

University administrators have urged members of the community to sign up for the text messages as a security precaution. After the killings at Virginia Tech, college campuses across the country established such messaging programs.

University of Colorado officials released as much information as possible to the public as details about the suspect emerged.

Late Monday, the university announced that Astin had worked without incident for the university as a temporary employee from October 2006 until April 2007. He was a cashier at the grill inside the building near where the stabbing occurred.

Astin had a criminal record and a history of mental illness. In 2001, according to the university, he was charged with larceny, assault and criminal intent to commit first-degree homicide. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity and was sent to the state mental hospital in Pueblo, Colo. For the last two years, he worked under a Boulder-based release program, which referred him to the university for his campus job.

Peterson, the university chancellor, immediately ordered criminal background checks for all new employees, permanent or temporary, as well as checks of existing employees.

The university also suspended its relationship with the program that had referred Astin, as well as other similar agencies, and placed seven current campus employees referred from the program on suspension while conducting further background checks.

"All campus resources have been called into action to respond to this random incident and to ensure the safety of our students and everyone on campus," Peterson said. "We are relieved that the student was not more seriously injured."

Dial 911 and Die!

Woman shot dead in middle of 911 call
By KATHLEEN CHAPMAN

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Sunday, July 29, 2007

BOYNTON BEACH — A woman was shot to death in front of her mother Saturday night, apparently while on the phone with 911 dispatchers.

Mittie Marie Allen, 49, was on the phone in the bedroom at her mother's home on 11th Avenue, according to Boynton Beach police. Dispatchers said they heard a man in the background ask Allen whether she had called police at 6:46 p.m. The man, who police say was her boyfriend, Anthony H. Williams, then shot her at least once in the head.

Allen rolled forward, grabbing onto the shirt of her mother, Odessa Cox, pleading for help. Cox ran into the street, where a witness saw her and called 911 at 6:50 p.m. Six minutes later, the SWAT team arrived at the house.

SWAT members entered the house at 8 p.m., but Williams was not inside. Police believe the 52-year-old lives in West Palm Beach and were looking for him Saturday night.

Williams has been to prison five times since 1977, according to Department of Corrections records, for crimes including cocaine possession, robbery, aggravated battery and grand theft. He was released most recently in August 2005.

Police ask anyone who knows Williams or where he may be to call Boynton Beach police at 561 (742-6100) or Crime Stoppers at (800) 458-TIPS (8477).

Found at The War on Guns.

Senior Couple Saved by Gun

Cape Coral, Florida

From the Bonita Daily News of May 29, 2007

Cape Coral couple tries to cope after attack at their home

Jacob Seckler keeps a gun in his pocket when he mows the lawn. He keeps a gun in his pillowcase when he tries to sleep, but the shadows dancing across the bedroom walls keep him awake.

“I’m strictly against guns. I never wanted them in the house,” said Seckler. “Now I wouldn’t be in the house without a gun.”

Seckler’s stance on guns changed the morning of May 16. He was mowing his lawn when he turned around and saw two 20-year-old men standing behind him. Seckler said one of the men was pointing a gun at his head.

After Seckler, 50, raised his hands to the sky, the two men pushed him past the garage toward the front door of his home in northeast Cape Coral. They held him at gunpoint and said they were getting into his house no matter what.

A struggle ensued at the front door. Seckler refused to let the men inside and they beat him over the head with the pistol and their elbows and fists. One of the men bit Seckler’s back. Seckler’s fiancée, Elizabeth Kachnic, 37, said she heard screaming and the door slam repeatedly.

“I don’t know what happened to me,” said Seckler. “I was so scared. I’m not crazy like that, but I knew I had to do something.”

The gun was pressed against Seckler’s temple. He said he pushed the assailant’s hand down and the gun fell to the ground. Seckler said he screamed for Kachnic to call 911 as he and the two men scrambled for the weapon.

“I got the gun. I just turned around and shot,” said Seckler. “If they did not come here with a gun, they would be alive. It’s their fault.”

He fired every bullet in the clip. One of the men, John Patrick Moore Jr., was hit as he sprinted across Seckler’s driveway. He stumbled to the edge of the street and died.

Police say Moore’s accomplice, Damion Jordan Shearod, fled when they lost control of the gun. Seckler said Shearod was hiding in the garage or the side of his home and appeared after the gunfire ceased and ran to a car parked in the street outside Seckler’s residence.

Police say Moore’s 19-year-old girlfriend, Jazzmyne Carrol-Love, was waiting behind the wheel and the two sped away.

Seckler had just killed a man. He hadn’t held or fired a gun since he was 18 years old and serving in the German Army. Even then, he was only aiming at practice targets.

“I was crying, screaming and hurting,” said Seckler, a large man who became tearful while recounting the shooting. “If they would have gotten in they would have killed us both. Everybody says I did the right thing, but it feels so bad. I killed another person.”

(Much More)

Found at Civilian Gun Self Defense Blog

The Merced, CA Pitchfork Murders

Presented without comment...

Deaths in Merced
The Mary Carpenter Letter


Mary Carpenter in her own words.
Part 1



Part 2

Why would anyone want to carry a gun inside a church?

Several Christian churches these days seek to restrict CCW inside their walls. After all, churches are places of sanctuary, and of peace and devotion. Why would anyone want or need to carry a concealed weapon inside a church?

I can come up with at least two reasons off the top of my head. Search the internet and I bet you'll find several more.

Sex Attack Inside Church Captured On Videotape
May 17, 2007 11:38 am US/Mountain

"(CBS) NEW YORK CITY - It's supposed to be a sanctuary, but instead a New York church became perhaps the most unexpected place for a sex attack.

Middletown, N.Y. police are looking for a man who sexually assaulted a woman inside a local church -- in an act that was captured on surveillance video.

The attack happened just after midnight on Wednesday. The victim, a female volunteer at St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Middletown, was volunteering during perpetual adoration when the church is kept open for paying respect over the Eucharist."

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Church Fire Was Set to Kill, Police Say
SALEM, Ore., Oct. 28, 2006

"(AP) A man accused of sloshing fuel on pews and parishioners during a church service and starting fires intended to kill everyone in the building, investigators say.

Kam Shing Chan is charged with attempted aggravated murder, attempted assault, arson and reckless burning. A judge denied bail Friday, saying Chan would be a danger to the community.

Witnesses said Chan burst into the Peoples Church on Wednesday ranting about "the blood," sloshed fuel around and started fires. Two women were burned when their clothing caught fire. Members of the congregation caught him."

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Even Jesus advocated armed self-defense. When preparing his disciples to go into the world and spread the gospel, he specifically instructed them to buy a short sword for defense against wild animals and robbers.

"Luke 22:36 (New International Version)

He said to them, "But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one."

Any questions?

Come again?

Does he seriously think we're stupid?

"CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- A police officer pleaded not guilty Wednesday to beating a female bartender, and to threatening to arrest bar employees in a failed attempt to suppress a video of the attack that has been viewed around the world.

In a brief hearing, Anthony Abbate's attorney entered not guilty pleas to all 15 felony counts of aggravated battery, official misconduct, intimidation, conspiracy and communicating with a witness.

"He's pleading not guilty because he is not guilty," Peter Hickey said after the hearing. "And we expect at the end, the conclusion of the trial, that that's what the outcome will be."

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For those of you with short attention spans, here's the video of him not misbehaving.




...and these are the very same people the Brady Bunch would have us believe are the only ones who should have guns?

Yeah right...tell me another one Sarah!

-Yuri

Also found on The War on Guns.

One of the reasons I carry a Gun

The world, is not a safe place. Period. Consider the following excerpt:

"When they came back outside, Watson says he was confronted by Fennessee, who he believes was watching the house. The suspect reportedly accused him of having relations with his child's mother.

"Let me put my babies in the car," Watson said he told the man, before denying the claims.

When Watson turned toward his vehicle, he says Fennessee shot him in the back and he went down. It was then that he says Fennessee stood over him with the gun pointed at his head.

"Don't kill me in front of my babies," Watson said he pleaded with Fennessee.

Instead, he said the suspect yelled an obscenity and shot him again and again, in the head, back and chest.

"I thought I was going to die," he said. "I could hear my 3-year-old screaming, 'He shooting my daddy! My daddy dead!' "

Click here to read the whole article.

Thanks to Xavier Thoughts.

OMG! Nobody panic now!

The War on Guns: Prosecute This Criminal Now!:

"Prosecute This Criminal Now!

The man was walking with a beagle along Flint Hill Road in Bedford County, carrying a bag of dog food and an unloaded .22-caliber rifle, when he stopped and sat in a ditch near school property, authorities said Monday.

If they determine he set one foot on school property, I know at least one guy who wants to see him prosecuted to the full extent of the law:

[W]e believe in absolutely gun-free, zero-tolerance, totally safe schools. That means no guns in America's schools, period ... with the rare exception of law enforcement officers or trained security personnel.

Isn't that right, Wayne?"

Convicted School (murderer) Shooter Loves Gun Control

(Yeah, I wonder why... -Yuri)

Fifteen years ago, Wayne Lo went on a killing spree at his Massachusetts campus. Here's his take on Virginia Tech.

By Samantha Henig
Newsweek
Updated: 2:00 p.m. PT May 2, 2007
May 2, 2007 - Before Virginia Tech, before Columbine, there was Simon’s Rock.

Late on the evening of Dec. 14, 1992, Wayne Lo, an 18-year-old student at Simon’s Rock College of Bard in Great Barrington, Mass., approached a security-guard shack on the campus and began shooting, as he says now, “at anything that moved.” Lo fired at least nine rounds during the following 20 minutes, killing another student and a Spanish professor and wounding four others.

A gifted violinist who had moved with his family from Taiwan to Billings, Mont., at age 12, Lo had bought his weapon, an SKS carbine rifle, that very afternoon at a sporting-goods store in nearby Pittsfield, Mass. His Montana driver’s license was the only documentation the purchase required. The cab driver who took him to the store would later describe Lo to the press as “a real gentleman.” That same morning he had received a package containing 200 rounds of ammunition, purchased the previous day from a mail-order company using his mother’s credit card.

Shortly after the shooting, Lo surrendered to police. When he appeared in court the next day, he was wearing a sweatshirt emblazoned with the words SICK OF IT ALL, the name of a rock band he liked. His lawyer would later use an insanity defense, but Lo never testified and has subsequently said he doesn’t believe he was insane. On Feb. 4, 1994, Lo was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole.

This week, almost 15 years since that murderous night and two weeks after an even bloodier morning at Virginia Tech, Lo met with NEWSWEEK’s Samantha Henig in a conference room at MCI-Norfolk, the Massachusetts medium-security prison. Wearing a black T shirt tucked into the elastic waistband of his gray pants, Lo looked more like a young professional on casual Friday than a campus killer. He spoke candidly about his murderous tear at Simon’s Rock and shared his insights into the Virginia Tech shooting, which he said he had been following closely so that he could be ready with his opinion “if anybody wants to listen.” Yet his tone was oddly similar to that of most people when confronted by the tragedy—bewilderment at how such a thing could happen.

NEWSWEEK: What was your reaction when you heard about the Virginia Tech shooting?
Wayne Lo: When they said it was a perpetrator who was Asian, that really shocked me. The stereotype is that Asians don’t do these things. The Secret Service came and interviewed me for a report on school shooters that they put out in 2002, and even they said Asians don’t really do this.

Did you relate to Seung-Hui Cho because you’re both Asian?
At first I thought it was just a coincidence, but as more details came out, there were just too many eerie similarities to me. He was an immigrant, like myself. The events leading up to the shooting, the warning signs he gave out really reminded me of what happened at Simon’s Rock. They said he had mental-health issues. I don’t really think I had mental-health issues, but I did give out those warning signs. He harassed women, and I also had an incident where I was accused of stalking a female classmate. He went and purchased a gun at a store 40 minutes out of town; so did I. He wrote papers that got people’s attention; I did that, too.

What was the paper that you wrote?
It was for my sophomore English class. The assignment was to come up with a 10-step program for anything, so being the smart ass that I am, I wrote a paper on how to eliminate AIDS, and at the end it was calling for the extermination of all people with AIDS—you know, tongue-in-cheek satire. But that’s not how the class interpreted it.

Do you think that Cho’s writings should have been more of a red flag than they were?
It’s ludicrous that they didn’t stop this guy with all the warning signs. I mean, come on, I did this 15 years ago. I was one of the first school shooters. The question is, how don’t we learn from it? They’ve done studies; they know the typical warning signs now. How could they not see this coming?

What should be done when teachers or parents spot these warning signs?
Drastic measures should be taken. You should kick the kid out of school.

But did either of you really do anything that warranted kicking you out?
No. I certainly didn’t. But for him, in 2007, with all these precedents, there should be different standards.

Do you believe that stricter gun control would help prevent such tragedies?
The people who do these things are people who don’t want contact. They wouldn’t be capable of going out there and stabbing people to death. But there’s such a disconnect when you’re using a gun. You don’t even feel like you’re killing anybody. The fact that I was able to buy a rifle in 15 minutes, that’s absurd. I was 18. I couldn’t have rented a car to drive home from school, yet I could purchase a rifle.

You were from Montana, and a member of the NRA. Had guns and hunting been a part of your life?
That night was the first time I fired a gun. Why should a person who has never touched a gun be able to buy one and the first time he fires it, be able to kill people? You wouldn’t be able to drive a car without a license.

What sort of gun control do you propose, then?
Ideally, guns should be eliminated, but I know that won’t happen. There should be stricter checks. Obviously a waiting period would be great. Personally, I only had five days left of school before winter break: school got out on Friday, and I did that on a Monday. If I had a two-week waiting period for the gun, I wouldn’t have done it.

You’ve talked about "warning signs." One of the common ones is social isolation. Is that something you experienced?
Most people at Simon’s Rock choose to leave high school because they felt isolated there. [Simon’s Rock College is designed for gifted students who want to pursue a college degree without having completed high school.] So the outcasts basically become the majority. For me, it wasn’t that I felt isolated at high school—I just wanted to get away from my parents. I was basically your typical normal kid. I wasn’t an outcast in high school. I was the kind of kid who made them feel isolated.

So did that make you an outsider there?
They didn’t like me. I felt defensive toward them, like, "If you don’t like me then I don’t like you." But I did have a close group of friends at Simon’s Rock.

You also mentioned relating to Cho because you are both immigrants.
The issue of mental health and stuff like that is not talked about in the Asian community, even within families. It puts a lot of pressure on you as a young person. As it builds up and builds up and builds up, [Cho] acted out just like I did. Asians tend to be passive aggressive: we don’t get in fights, so it doesn’t come out in little bits; it all comes out in one big act.

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What the Gun Banners REALLY want!

The disarming of America
-by Dan Simpson

LAST week's tragedy at Virginia Tech in which a mentally disturbed person gunned down 32 of America's finest - intelligent young people with futures ahead of them - once again puts the phenomenon of an armed society into focus for Americans.

The likely underestimate of how many guns are wandering around America runs at 240 million in a population of about 300 million. What was clear last week is that at least two of those guns were in the wrong hands.

When people talk about doing something about guns in America, it often comes down to this: "How could America disarm even if it wanted to? There are so many guns out there."

Because I have little or no power to influence the "if" part of the issue, I will stick with the "how." And before anyone starts to hyperventilate and think I'm a crazed liberal zealot wanting to take his gun from his cold, dead hands, let me share my experience of guns.

As a child I played cowboys and Indians with cap guns. I had a Daisy Red Ryder B-B gun. My father had in his bedside table drawer an old pistol which I examined surreptitiously from time to time. When assigned to the American embassy in Beirut during the war in Lebanon, I sometimes carried a .357 Magnum, which I could fire accurately. I also learned to handle and fire a variety of weapons while I was there, including Uzis and rocket-propelled grenade launchers.

I don't have any problem with hunting, although blowing away animals with high-powered weapons seems a pointless, no-contest affair to me. I suppose I would enjoy the fellowship of the experience with other friends who are hunters.

Now, how would one disarm the American population? First of all, federal or state laws would need to make it a crime punishable by a $1,000 fine and one year in prison per weapon to possess a firearm. The population would then be given three months to turn in their guns, without penalty.

Hunters would be able to deposit their hunting weapons in a centrally located arsenal, heavily guarded, from which they would be able to withdraw them each hunting season upon presentation of a valid hunting license. The weapons would be required to be redeposited at the end of the season on pain of arrest. When hunters submit a request for their weapons, federal, state, and local checks would be made to establish that they had not been convicted of a violent crime since the last time they withdrew their weapons. In the process, arsenal staff would take at least a quick look at each hunter to try to affirm that he was not obviously unhinged.

It would have to be the case that the term "hunting weapon" did not include anti-tank ordnance, assault weapons, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, or other weapons of war.

All antique or interesting non-hunting weapons would be required to be delivered to a local or regional museum, also to be under strict 24-hour-a-day guard. There they would be on display, if the owner desired, as part of an interesting exhibit of antique American weapons, as family heirlooms from proud wars past or as part of collections.

Gun dealers could continue their work, selling hunting and antique firearms. They would be required to maintain very tight inventories. Any gun sold would be delivered immediately by the dealer to the nearest arsenal or the museum, not to the buyer.

The disarmament process would begin after the initial three-month amnesty. Special squads of police would be formed and trained to carry out the work. Then, on a random basis to permit no advance warning, city blocks and stretches of suburban and rural areas would be cordoned off and searches carried out in every business, dwelling, and empty building. All firearms would be seized. The owners of weapons found in the searches would be prosecuted: $1,000 and one year in prison for each firearm.

Clearly, since such sweeps could not take place all across the country at the same time. But fairly quickly there would begin to be gun-swept, gun-free areas where there should be no firearms. If there were, those carrying them would be subject to quick confiscation and prosecution. On the streets it would be a question of stop-and-search of anyone, even grandma with her walker, with the same penalties for "carrying."

The "gun lobby" would no doubt try to head off in the courts the new laws and the actions to implement them. They might succeed in doing so, although the new approach would undoubtedly prompt new, vigorous debate on the subject. In any case, some jurisdictions would undoubtedly take the opportunity of the chronic slowness of the courts to begin implementing the new approach.

America's long land and sea borders present another kind of problem. It is easy to imagine mega-gun dealerships installing themselves in Mexico, and perhaps in more remote parts of the Canadian border area, to funnel guns into the United States. That would constitute a problem for American immigration authorities and the U.S. Coast Guard, but not an insurmountable one over time.

There could conceivably also be a rash of score-settling during hunting season as people drew out their weapons, ostensibly to shoot squirrels and deer, and began eliminating various of their perceived two-footed enemies. Given the general nature of hunting weapons and the fact that such killings are frequently time-sensitive, that seems a lesser sort of issue.

That is my idea of how it could be done. The desire to do so on the part of the American people is another question altogether, but one clearly raised again by the Blacksburg tragedy.

Dan Simpson, a retired diplomat, is a member of the editorial boards of The Blade and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Click here to read David Codrea's (The War on Guns) take on this.

The War on Guns: Take the Airsoft Challenge

Original post can be found here: The War on Guns

There's a lot of debate going on right now about what the results of the Virginia Tech massacre might have been had just one targeted student been armed.

Here's a way we can approximate real world results: Stage an Airsoft mass shooting.

Gather around 20 friends or so. Pick a room to conduct the test. Everyone should have protective gear. One person should act as recorder/tally keeper, off-limits to the action.

One person will act as the shooter. He will enter the room where everyone else is seated in simulation of a classroom setting. He will block the only exit and begin shooting. In order to be faithful to the Virginia Tech scenario, no one will fight back. You can run, you can duck and cover, you can play dead, you can plead, you can pray, but you can't counterattack. Feel free to add to the pandemonium, though. If hit, raise your hand and remain in place.

What were the results?

Now we're going to repeat the test, but this time, one person in the room will have a concealed Airsoft pistol, and will draw and fire it at the shooter when they think they can. Again, to be faithful to real world conditions, this person should have practiced with the "weapon" beforehand to approximate the skill level of a trained and knowledgeable gun owner. And to keep things as realistic as possible, don't tell the shooter or anyone else this scenario is planned. THIS IS IMPORTANT. Let them get through one massacre, and then tell them you want to do it again to reconfirm the results of the first test--that way, the shooter will be just like Cho, or Harris or Klebold--he won't be expecting resistance from his prey--and the "victims" will likewise not have cause to react differently.

What were the results this time? If the person shooting back is hit, could he likely have continued firing? Note that this does not guarantee everyone will survive, or that there won't be collateral damage--what we're looking for is simply a difference in raw numbers of people shot. The recorder will call a halt to the action when the initial shooter is deemed stopped, and ask everyone to remain where they are and report if they've been hit and where.

Then we can up the ante. Pick a new shooter, again one who doesn't know there may be armed victims. Now add another concealed carrier in the classroom, or maybe a couple more--after all,those opposed to armed defense would have us believe the more people with guns, the worse such situations are likely to become--why not test that theory as well? As the number of concealed carriers goes up, what happens to the number of victims?

Feel free to come up with variations and rules of your own--this is just a rough idea at this stage. If anyone actually conducts these or similar tests, I'd be interested in hearing the results.

Disclaimer: If you do this, I'm not responsible for any consequences. Here's some information you may find useful, but I ain't vouching for it. It might not be a bad idea to let local "authorities" know about your intentions so you don't get mistaken for real shooters and shot. Even firing Airsoft equipment may be illegal in some jurisdictions/prohibited in some locations. You may want to get everyone to sign waivers, but that's not legal advice. Here's an online manual I found-- follow its suggestions at your own risk.

CCW & Gun-Free Zones

-by Yuri

The facts are that CCW permit holders are among the most law abiding citizens in our nation. For example, in Florida, with perhaps the most liberal CCW permit laws anywhere, only .02% of CCW permit holders were involved in a crime. When you add into this the fact that their crime rates fell to 4% below the national average from a high of 36% above, it is clear that CCW permit holders are not the problem. In addition, in every state where shall issue permit laws have been enacted, incidents of mass murder have gone down.
When I look at the facts in the Virginia Tech Massacre, I too am struck with the inevitable conclusion that, if only one of his potential victims had been armed, he could have been stopped. If only the teachers had been armed, he could have been stopped.

For example reference the Appalachian School of Law shooting (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachian_School_of_Law_shooting) where two students with legally owned firearms subdued the suspect before he could take anymore lives. In addition, lawfully armed citizens prevent a crime to themselves or others an estimated 2.5 Million times a year. This hardly indicates a need to increase the over 20,000+ gun control laws already on the books with another piece of useless "feel good" legislation. None of the estimated 80+ Million law abiding gun owners killed anyone that horrible day, nor did they commit an act of mass murder.

Gun-free Zones do nothing to stop homicidal criminals bent on mass murder. All they do is provide a fertile hunting ground with no means for the victims to fight back.

Gun-free zones should be scrapped as the failure they have proven to be. Law abiding CCW permit holders should be allowed to carry in schools and the teachers should be allowed to arm themselves, just like airline pilots. In Utah, it is legal for CCW permit holders to carry a concealed weapon into schools. There has never been an incidence of mass murder perpetrated in a Utah school, least of all by a CCW permit holder. Israeli teachers are armed, and now so are the teachers Thailand in response to terroristic attacks. Why then aren't our teachers similarly prepared? It's time we pulled our collective heads out of the sand.

I have one child in 1st grade and another to start kindergarten later this year. I would feel a whole lot better knowing that my childs teachers were equipped to protect my childs life with something other than pleading with the maniac to "please spare their lives".

Gun-Free Zones

By DAVID B. KOPEL, April 18, 2007

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"The bucolic campus of Virginia Tech, in Blacksburg, Va., would seem to have little in common with the Trolley Square shopping mall in Salt Lake City. Yet both share an important characteristic, common to the site of almost every other notorious mass murder in recent years: They are "gun-free zones."

Forty American states now have "shall issue" or similar laws, by which officials issue a pistol carry permit upon request to any adult who passes a background check and (in most states) a safety class. Research by Carlisle Moody of the College of William and Mary, and others, suggests that these laws provide law-abiding citizens some protection against violent crime. But in many states there are certain places, especially schools, set aside as off-limits for guns. In Virginia, universities aren't "gun-free zones" by statute, but college officials are allowed to impose anti-gun rules. The result is that mass murderers know where they can commit their crimes.

Private property owners also have the right to prohibit lawful gun possession. And some shopping malls have adopted anti-gun rules. Trolley Square was one, as announced by an unequivocal sign, "No weapons allowed on Trolley Square property."

In February of this year a young man walked past the sign prohibiting him from carrying a gun on the premises and began shooting people who moments earlier were leisurely shopping at Trolley Square. He killed five.

Fortunately, someone else -- off-duty Ogden, Utah, police officer Kenneth Hammond -- also did not comply with the mall's rules. After hearing "popping" sounds, Mr. Hammond investigated and immediately opened fire on the gunman. With his aggressive response, Mr. Hammond prevented other innocent bystanders from getting hurt. He bought time for the local police to respond, while stopping the gunman from hunting down other victims.

At Virginia Tech's sprawling campus in southwestern Va., the local police arrived at the engineering building a few minutes after the start of the murder spree, and after a few critical minutes, broke through the doors that Cho Seung-Hui had apparently chained shut. From what we know now, Cho committed suicide when he realized he'd soon be confronted by the police. But by then, 30 people had been murdered.

But let's take a step back in time. Last year the Virginia legislature defeated a bill that would have ended the "gun-free zones" in Virginia's public universities. At the time, a Virginia Tech associate vice president praised the General Assembly's action "because this will help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on our campus." In an August 2006 editorial for the Roanoke Times, he declared: "Guns don't belong in classrooms. They never will. Virginia Tech has a very sound policy preventing same."

Actually, Virginia Tech's policy only made the killer safer, for it was only the law-abiding victims, and not the criminal, who were prevented from having guns. Virginia Tech's policy bans all guns on campus (except for police and the university's own security guards); even faculty members are prohibited from keeping guns in their cars.

Virginia Tech thus went out of its way to prevent what happened at a Pearl, Miss., high school in 1997, where assistant principal Joel Myrick retrieved a handgun from his car and apprehended a school shooter. Or what happened at Appalachian Law School, in Grundy, Va., in 2002, when a mass murder was stopped by two students with law-enforcement experience, one of whom retrieved his own gun from his vehicle. Or in Edinboro, Pa., a few days after the Pearl event, when a school attack ended after a nearby merchant used a shotgun to force the attacker to desist. Law-abiding citizens routinely defend themselves with firearms. Annually, Americans drive-off home invaders a half-million times, according to a 1997 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In Utah, there is no "gun-free schools" exception to the licensed carry law. In K-12 schools and in universities, teachers and other adults can and do legally carry concealed guns. In Utah, there has never been a Columbine-style attack on a school. Nor has there been any of the incidents predicted by self-defense opponents -- such as a teacher drawing a gun on a disrespectful student, or a student stealing a teacher's gun.

Israel uses armed teachers as part of a successful program to deter terrorist attacks on schools. Buddhist teachers in southern Thailand are following the Israeli example, because of Islamist terrorism.

After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the U.S., long-time gun control advocates, including Sen. Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.), agreed that making airplane cockpits into "gun-free zones" had made airplanes much more dangerous for everyone except hijackers. Corrective legislation, supported by large bipartisan majorities in both houses of Congress, allowed pilots to carry firearms, while imposing rigorous gun-safety training on pilots who want to carry.

In many states, "gun-free schools" legislation was enacted hastily in the late 1980s or early 1990s due to concerns about juvenile crime. Aimed at juvenile gangsters, the poorly written and overbroad statutes had the disastrous consequence of rendering teachers unable to protect their students.

Reasonable advocates of gun control can still press for a wide variety of items on their agenda, while helping to reform the "gun-free zones" that have become attractive havens for mass killers. If legislators or administrators want to require extensive additional training for armed faculty and other adults, that's fine. Better that some victims be armed than none at all.

The founder of the University of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson, understood the harms resulting from the type of policy created at Virginia Tech. In his "Commonplace Book," Jefferson copied a passage from Cesare Beccaria, the founder of criminology, which was as true on Monday as it always has been:

"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms . . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes . . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."

Mr. Kopel is research director of the Independence Institute in Golden, Colo., and co-author of the law school textbook, "Gun Control and Gun Rights" (NYU Press)."

SAF SAYS VIRGINIA TECH CASE UNDERSCORES IMPORTANCE OF SECOND AMENDMENT RIGHT

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"BELLEVUE, WA – Alarming new details about Virginia Tech gunman Cho Seung-Hui underscore the importance of a citizen’s individual right to keep and bear arms, the Second Amendment Foundation said today.

“There were abundant warning signs that Cho posed a serious threat to the campus community,” said SAF founder Alan Gottlieb, “yet here he was running loose and committing mayhem. And all that seems to be on the minds of many in the media and at the offices of gun control extremists is figuring out how to exploit this horrible tragedy to erode and eventually destroy the right, and the means, of self-defense.

“If this case demonstrates anything,” he continued, “it is the ineptitude of a system that is damaged if not broken beyond repair. He was taken to a psychiatric hospital for evaluation in December 2005 by the police, and a Montgomery County district court ruled him a danger to himself or others. But a state doctor found his ‘insight and judgment’ to be ‘normal,’ and he was only given outpatient treatment.

“How many other people like Cho are out there,” Gottlieb questioned. “Nobody knows, and it is because of that clear and present danger that Americans should not be browbeaten or bullied into surrendering their civil right to have a firearm for personal protection.

“In the past few days, I’ve lost count of the number of times people have asked me why Americans should have a right to buy a gun,” Gottlieb noted. “The answer is simple. It’s because there are monsters like Cho Seung-Hui among us who are willing to kill without provocation or remorse. Police can’t always be there when they are needed, and people like Cho do not commit carnage by appointment.

“Attempts by the state legislature to allow legally-licensed citizens to carry on campus were stymied, with the approval of a Virginia Tech spokesman,” Gottlieb recalled. “Nobody can say for sure whether an armed student or teacher could have intervened in time to save lives, but we do know what happens when they can’t.

“This kind of thing should never happen, but it does when people are denied the means to fight back,” Gottlieb concluded. “If we learn anything from this tragedy, it is the value of the Second Amendment and self-defense, for those who value their lives and the lives of others.”"

Japanese Learning English

This is both hilarious and disturbing. While it's laugh out loud funny by US standards, the victim defenselessness that it perpetrates is dangerous. Of course, coming from the unarmed island of Japan, it is only logical I suppose. I know in the same situation, I will most definitely not be saying "Take anything you want!" and "Spare me my life!"