Channeling Helmke to the masses

February 16, 2008 on 7:35 pm | In Virginia Tech, colleges, concealed carry, gun control, illimois | 1 Comment

It’s inevitable that editorial boards (typically composed of liberals who know nothing of combat, tactics, guns, life, earth, reality, etc.) are going to come out with high-minded baloney against right to carry laws on college campuses. However, you have to wonder whether or not they are actually thinking for themselves or channeling Paul Helmke while pretending to think for themselves:

In dormitories, more guns will undoubtedly mean more gun-related accidents, more suicides and more senseless tragedies brought about by immaturity, lack of judgment, impulsivity, alcohol consumption or mental illness. But whatever their root cause, each of those incidents will only have been made possible by the proximity of guns.

So there it is. They’ve written off all college students as immature, idiotic, impulsive, drunks and sociopaths (just like Paul has almost word-for-word). They seem to forget that there are a lot of non-traditional students out there who would like to be safe in a classroom too.

Of course, I can think of a place where there are a whole lot more people of the similar ages to the average college classroom who are all sitting in “dormitories” with fully automatic firearms. It’s probably even more frightening to said editorial boards that these young people tend to be conformist and all wear the same clothes and speak respectfully of tradition, authority, and discipline.


Let’s also not forget that some of these guys are coming back and going to college. And now, the editorial boards are screaming that they are too immature to handle a firearm in a dangeous situation? Come on. They’ve been in combat how much more training do you need?!?!

This seems to me more like a case of projection. Go back and read that description again and you’ll probably get a good picture of what a bunch of hippie kids were like before they got a chance to be on editorial boards at local newspapers. You know, immature, idiotic, impulsive, drunks and sociopaths…

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National Collegiate Empty Holster Protest


Press Release - National Collegiate Empty Holster Protest – Students for Concealed Carry on College Campuses – ConcealedCampus.com

On April 16, 2007, twenty-seven students and five faculty members at Virginia Tech lost their lives to a madman who possessed one distinct advantage over his victims—He wasn’t concerned with following the rules. Undeterred by Virginia Tech’s status as a “gun free zone,” this mentally unstable individual carried two handguns onto the university campus and indiscriminately opened fire.

During the week of October 22-26, 2007, college students throughout America will attend classes wearing empty holsters, in protest of state laws and campus policies that stack the odds in favor of armed killers by disarming law abiding citizens who are licensed to carry concealed handguns virtually everywhere else.

In thirty-nine U.S. states, thousands of collegiate students and faculty—age twenty-one and above—are licensed to carry concealed handguns throughout their day-to-day lives. And they do so without incident. However, despite the absence of any compelling evidence that these licensed individuals might pose any more threat to college campuses than they do to office buildings, shopping malls, movie theaters, grocery stores, banks, etc., they are currently prohibited, either by state law or school policy, from carrying their firearms onto most college campuses. On October 22 these students, through their Empty Holster Protest, will ask for a change.

In the last twenty years, the vast majority of the mass shootings in America—from the Texas Luby’s massacre to the Columbine High School massacre—have happened in “gun free zones.” Labeling an area “gun free” may make some people feel safer, but as the shootings at Virginia Tech taught us, feeling safe and being safe are not the same thing.

For over a year, state law in Utah has allowed licensed individuals to carry concealed handguns on college campuses. This has yet to result in a single act of violence. Numerous studies, including studies by John Lott, David Mustard, William Sturdevant, and state justice departments, show that license holders are five times less likely than non-license holders to be arrested for violent crimes. Clearly, license holders pose little threat to college campuses.

While some may argue that guns have no place in institutions of higher learning, the students of the Empty Holster Protest contend that it is the threat of uncontested, execution-style massacre that has no place on America’s college campuses, and these students respectfully ask that steps be taken to take the advantage away from those who seek to harm the innocent.

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NICS Bill Stalled


Senate gun bill tied to Va. Tech shootings stalls

Bill, bogged down by funding concerns, aims to improve background checks

WASHINGTON - A bill inspired by the Virginia Tech shootings is bogged down by objections over funding and who should be barred from buying a firearm.

The bill would tighten requirements for states to share gun purchasers’ mental health information with the federal government.

Majority Democrats in the Senate were poised as early as this past Monday to bring the bill to a vote until Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., objected.

Coburn says he has concerns that billions of dollars of new spending in the bill is not paid for by cuts in other programs. And he says the bill does not pay for appeals by veterans or other Americans who feel they have been wrongly barred from buying a gun.

“As Congress prepares to raise the debt limit once again, it is not too much to ask politicians to do the job they were elected to do and make choices,” Coburn said Wednesday. “Veterans, or any other American, should not lose their Second Amendment rights if they have been unfairly tagged as having mental health concerns.”

Propelled by a rare alliance between the National Rifle Association and majority Democrats, the legislation was passed in similar form by the House and would be the first major gun control law in more than a decade.

“Nothing can bring back the lives tragically lost at Virginia Tech, but this amendment will begin to repair and restore our faith in the (national background check) system and help prevent similar tragedies in the future,” said Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who is sponsoring the bill with Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

“When the NRA and Chuck Schumer agree, that tells you it’s something worth doing,” Schumer said. (Yeah, right… -Yuri)

Mental health gap in gun law?
The legislation aims to fix flaws in the national background check system that allowed Seung-Hui Cho, a mentally ill Virginia Tech student, to buy guns and kill 32 people April 16 in the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

Cho had been ruled a danger to himself during a court commitment hearing in 2005. He had been ordered to undergo outpatient mental health treatment and should have been barred from buying the two guns he used in the rampage. However, the commonwealth of Virginia never forwarded the information to the national background check system.

The legislation clarifies what mental health records should be reported to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System and gives states financial incentives for compliance.

The Senate version of the bill is very similar to the House version, with a few changes.

The Senate authorizes up to $400 million a year over five years in new grant funding for improvements to the information technology and state compliance programs, an increase over the House version’s $250 million a year over three years. The Senate version would begin appropriations in 2009, rather than 2008 as in the House-passed version.

It also gives the attorney general discretion to penalize states beginning after three years if they do not meet compliance targets.

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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.”

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Lt. Col. Grossman on the VT Report


Lt. Col. Grossman: Virginia Tech Tragedy Report Misses Point

A leading expert on mass violence has taken issue with a presidential task force report delving into the Virginia Tech shootings and school violence in general, saying it fails to address the key issues.

The report, released to the public on June 13, was issued by a panel that included Michael Leavitt, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and was officially titled “Report to the President on Issues Raised by the Virginia Tech Tragedy.”

But Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, a former West Point instructor, declared: “I think they missed the boat.”

Grossman is the author of several book including the Pulitzer Prize-nominated “On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society,” which is required reading for FBI recruits.

After reading the government report, Grossman told NewsMax exclusively:

“All they are reporting on is largely mental illness, sharing information about threatening individuals, keeping guns out of the hands of the mentally ill, getting help to mentally ill people, and improving emergency preparedness and violence prevention.

“A full spectrum plan looks at: Deter, Detect, Delay, and Defeat.”
Grossman elaborated on each of the four points:

“Deter: The killer can be deterred. That is why there are seldom any successful workplace massacres in police stations. We need to start putting pressure on schools that refuse to arm their police.

“Most colleges and universities are small cities. Any city leadership that refused to arm their cops, and then had people murdered, would be put out business at the next election. We entrust our kids in the care of organizations that neglect the most fundamental aspect of public safety: armed cops.

“And of course we have the whole issue of not permitting concealed weapons permits to apply on campus. These are laws that disarm law-abiding citizens, and attract killers who want a body count.”

On “Detect,” Lt. Col Grossman told NewsMax:

“The whole focus of the president’s task force report was on detecting mentally ill killers before they strike. But most of the high school killers were not mentally ill. The kids that gave us Jonesboro in the middle school and Columbine in the high school are now showing up in the colleges. And the high schools are getting very good at identifying these wannabe killers. All the methodologies learned in blood in the high schools now must be applied in the college.

“An alternative is to identify (‘detect’) and list in a national database all the colleges that refuse to arm their police, and to recommend that parents not send their kids to these colleges. Instead of trying to detect the killer, just detect the negligent schools.”

As for “Delay,” Grossman says: “This generally means lockdown drills and securable facilities. Lockdown is to violence what fire drills are to fire. Every classroom must be quickly securable. How many teachers and professors and students have to die blocking doors with their bodies before we learn this lesson? “Also, every classroom must have two exits, even if one is out the window. And colleges have to do lockdown drills, just like high schools. The faculty must be briefed on where and how to secure their students.

“Defeat: This brings us back to our cops again. First, armed cops need to be onsite. The Virginia Tech shooter killed 32 in nine minutes. How many more would he have killed if armed police were not onsite?

“Secondly, the police need rifles so they can defeat body armor (the high school killer of seven at Red Lake, Minn., was wearing body armor) and so they can effectively engage snipers. The campus police need SWAT teams trained in explosive breaching so they can quickly and effectively respond to barricaded gunmen scenarios.

“Remember, if a gunman is trapped in a bank or convenience store with hostages, he isn’t there to kill people. But if a gunman takes hostages in a school, he can be there for only one purpose: to kill kids and to carve his name in history in your children’s blood.”

The expert concludes: “In these scenarios, seconds equal lives, and just as colleges have fire hoses and fire extinguishers on site, they need to have the tools to respond to violence on site.

“If they are not going to permit their citizens (students and faculty) to carry lifesaving tools (firearms), then they must provide those lifesaving tools, in the hands of trained professionals. This is a moral, legal obligation.”

© NewsMax 2007. All rights reserved.

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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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From The Shooting Wire…


The Fight We Knew Was Coming Is Here
By Russ Thurman
Editor, Shooting Industry Magazine

The mind-numbing events surrounding the shootings at Virginia Tech on April 16 provided a stage for some of the most bizarre actions of the anti-gun movement. On one side, there are hard-core, anti-gun advocates screaming for action, shamelessly seeing in the tragic shootings a grand moment to advance their cause. On the other side, there are the near-humorous antics of the Congressional leadership, who are more interested in power than advancing “gun control” — for now.

But make no mistake, there’s a firestorm raging. While most of us grappled with the tragedy, desperately trying to cope with the shock, terror and magnitude of the killings by a deranged 23-year-old student, the hardcore, anti-gun movement rolled out its well-prepared message: “Guns are to blame.”

Even before the killer had been identified, even before the bodies had been removed from classrooms, even before relatives knew if their sons, daughters, husbands, wives, brothers or sisters were among the dead, the call for more gun control sounded across the country, encouraged by a willing media that thrives on “if it bleeds, it leads.”

Not even a rebuke from Virginia Governor Tim Kaine deterred the overly eager anti-gun media. At a press conference on April 17, following the emotion-filled convocation at Virginia Tech, a reporter asked the governor if it wasn’t time for more gun control. Governor Kaine responded harshly: “I think that people who want to take this within 24 hours of the event and make it their political hobby horse to ride, I’ve got nothing but loathing for them. To those who want to try to make this into some little crusade, I say take that elsewhere.”

But hard-core, anti-gun advocates would have none of that. The call for more gun control, even an outright ban, grabbed large chunks of talk radio airtime and network and all-news television segments. In a shameless pampering of the anti-gun movement, Chris Matthews threw the softest of pitches on MSNBC’s “Hardball,” as he provided House Representative Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.) a soapbox she never thought possible a few days earlier.

In February, McCarthy introduced H.R. 1022: “Assault Weapons Ban and Law Enforcement Protection Act of 2007,” which is a greatly enhanced version of the Clinton-era law. H.R. 1022 would ban hundreds of present firearms and “Large Capacity Ammunition Feeding Device(s).” On March 15, the proposed bill had 26 cosponsors. On April 19, it had 38.

On “Hardball,” McCarthy greatly misrepresented her position on gun control, sounding supportive of the Second Amendment. She misstated the effectiveness of the original Assault Weapons Ban and the purpose of H.R. 1022. Matthews eagerly fed her the “right” questions.

McCarthy, who most Americans would not have recognized before April 17, was featured on all the television news programs and ABC placed her interview with Sam Donaldson on its Web site. Overnight, McCarthy was the face of “reasonable gun laws,” one who wasn’t afraid to prod her colleagues into action.

“For too long Congress has stood idle while gun violence continues to take its toll. The unfortunate situation in Virginia could have been avoided if Congressional leaders stood up to the gun lobby,” McCarthy said. Translation: It’s not the fault of the person who pulled the trigger, but those who made the trigger and those who support gun ownership.

The Brady Campaign stooped to a new low following the shootings. On April 17, it spewed its standard mantra about guns, the “gun lobby,” etc., etc., including its ever-present, “Please make a contribution to keep the momentum going.” By the end of the week, the Brady Campaign had taken its fundraising to a despicable level. Instead of the Brady home page, visitors to bradycampaign.com, were greeted with a fundraising pitch: “CRISIS RESPONSE: Elected officials continue to ignore our gun violence epidemic. It’s time to answer one question, ‘What are YOU going to do about it?’ DONATE NOW!” Obviously, Brady didn’t see blood in the Virginia Tech shootings, but money.

Gun Control? Never Heard Of It.

Despite the screeching call for action, the Congressional Democratic leadership wasn’t about to step into the gun-control fray. No Congressman of any prominence is going to publicly utter the words “gun control.” Yes, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said the shootings would “reignite the dormant effort to pass common sense gun regulations in this nation,” but the normal anti-gun shrillness was missing.

If not for the seriousness of the week, the actions of some ardent anti-gun politicians would have been comical. Democrats in Congress did everything they could to avoid talking about “gun control.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s unwillingness to address the possibility of such legislation so exasperated the anti-gun editors at ABC News, they panned her on their Web site, saying, “But this week, when directly asked (by ABC) about Congress’ mood to pass gun control after the worst school shooting in American history, liberal House Speaker Nancy Pelosi acted as if she’d never even heard the term.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said, “I hope there’s not a rush to do anything. We need to take a deep breath.”

If you didn’t know any better, you would have thought Pelosi and Reid were on the NRA’s board of directors.

Why the seeming lack of backbone by the Democratic leadership? Timing. Power. Now is not the time to push for gun control in Congress. The Democrats’ control of Congress is razor-thin, and a number of freshman Democrats, who gave the party control, are not rabid anti-gunners.

More important, Democrats remember 2000 well. Gore’s anti-gun position contributed to his losing Tennessee, Arkansas and West Virginia. Had Gore taken one of the states, he would not have needed Florida to take the presidency. With that misstep, word went out, “Abandon gun control in future elections.”

All-Out Fight

Make no mistake, the fight we knew was coming is here. The tragedy at Virginia Tech is being used to its fullest by hard-core, antigun forces to change the way Americans view gun ownership and those who make firearms. This is indeed their grand moment and they are exploiting it to the fullest.

For anti-gun forces in Congress, they are just waiting for the right time. The seemingly pro-gun, or at the least, neutral-gun position of the Congressional leadership has nothing to do with the issue, it has to do with staying in power. Democrats want to stay in power, increase their numbers in Congress and elect a Democrat president. Once that’s accomplished, anti-gun legislation and laws will again become fashionable and the order of the day.

For the industry’s part, this is not a time for the faint of heart. While there’s plenty of fighting ahead, there’s also optimism. The American people are not buying the anti-gun rhetoric wholesale.

On ABC News, Donaldson, in opening his April 18 interview with Rep. McCarthy, said, “Our latest polls, and consistently for the last 20 years, show that over 60 percent of the public wants stricter gun controls.”

However, on its Web site, ABC asked, “Do you think this incident is a reason to pass stricter gun control legislation?” As of April 19, here are the results:

- 78,139: No. Violent shootings are isolated incidents and it’s irresponsible to link them to gun control.

- 25,169: Yes. This shows the violence that can occur when someone has access to handguns.

- 1,873: I’m not sure. I need more information.

So, despite the ranting of anti-gun advocates, the American people are not stupid. However, their minds can be changed and often are in the volatility of a national election. The 2008 elections loom even more important now.

To prevail in this fight, it will take banding together as an industry as we’ve never done before. Fortunately, over the past 10 years, the industry has developed a strong solidarity.

The Hunting & Shooting Sports Heritage Fund of the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) was pivotal in defeating industry-wide litigation cases, the passage of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, the Vote Your Sport campaigns and other initiatives. However, there was an imbalance in the number of companies contributing to the fund and those benefiting from its work. Less than 150 companies took part in the fund. That is remarkably low, considering there were 1,846 exhibiting companies at SHOT Show 2007. If you were a member of the Heritage Fund, thank you. If you were not, now is the time to join the fight.

As the industry prepares for the battles ahead, the vital work of the Heritage Fund is now being assumed by the entire NSSF organization. We at FMG Publications were longtime members of the Heritage Fund and as members of the NSSF will continue our support of the organization as it battles lawsuits and hostile legislation, and unveils its voter education programs. If your company is not a member of the NSSF, now is the time to join. If your business profits directly or indirectly from the firearm industry, you need to support its fight against those who would destroy it. Visit nssf.org. Join.

We also need to strongly support the NRA and its efforts. It really was the NRA’s strength that pushed through the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, and the organization has fought alongside the industry in countless battles at all levels of government. The NRA will play a vital role during the upcoming presidential campaigns and election. We need to support them.

A major industry-backed campaign will launch soon to strengthen the NRA membership, its get-out-the-vote campaigns and its support for the firearm industry.

As always is the case following such tragic events, everyone has an answer as to how it could have been prevented. One side proposes eliminating guns and the industry that makes them. It’s up to us — all of us — to ensure that doesn’t happen.

Contact:
Russ Thurman
(434) 929-6321
russ@shootingindustry.com

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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.

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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.

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Fred Thompson on "Gun-Free Zones"


Signs of Intelligence?

By Fred Thompson


One of the things that’s got to be going through a lot of peoples’ minds now is how one man with two handguns, that he had to reload time and time again, could go from classroom to classroom on the Virginia Tech campus without being stopped. Much of the answer can be found in policies put in place by the university itself.

Virginia, like 39 other states, allows citizens with training and legal permits to carry concealed weapons. That means that Virginians regularly sit in movie theaters and eat in restaurants among armed citizens. They walk, joke, and rub shoulders everyday with people who responsibly carry firearms — and are far safer than they would be in San Francisco, Oakland, Detroit, Chicago, New York City, or Washington, D.C., where such permits are difficult or impossible to obtain.

The statistics are clear. Communities that recognize and grant Second Amendment rights to responsible adults have a significantly lower incidence of violent crime than those that do not. More to the point, incarcerated criminals tell criminologists that they consider local gun laws when they decide what sort of crime they will commit, and where they will do so.

Still, there are a lot of people who are just offended by the notion that people can carry guns around. They view everybody, or at least many of us, as potential murderers prevented only by the lack of a convenient weapon. Virginia Tech administrators overrode Virginia state law and threatened to expel or fire anybody who brings a weapon onto campus.

In recent years, however, armed Americans — not on-duty police officers — have successfully prevented a number of attempted mass murders. Evidence from Israel, where many teachers have weapons and have stopped serious terror attacks, has been documented. Supporting, though contrary, evidence from Great Britain, where strict gun controls have led to violent crime rates far higher than ours, is also common knowledge.

So Virginians asked their legislators to change the university’s “concealed carry” policy to exempt people 21 years of age or older who have passed background checks and taken training classes. The university, however, lobbied against that bill, and a top administrator subsequently praised the legislature for blocking the measure.

The logic behind this attitude baffles me, but I suspect it has to do with a basic difference in worldviews. Some people think that power should exist only at the top, and everybody else should rely on “the authorities” for protection.

Despite such attitudes, average Americans have always made up the front line against crime. Through programs like Neighborhood Watch and Amber Alert, we are stopping and catching criminals daily. Normal people tackled “shoe bomber” Richard Reid as he was trying to blow up an airliner. It was a truck driver who found the D.C. snipers. Statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that civilians use firearms to prevent at least a half million crimes annually.

When people capable of performing acts of heroism are discouraged or denied the opportunity, our society is all the poorer. And from the selfless examples of the passengers on Flight 93 on 9/11 to Virginia Tech professor Liviu Librescu, a Holocaust survivor who sacrificed himself to save his students earlier this week, we know what extraordinary acts of heroism ordinary citizens are capable of.

Many other universities have been swayed by an anti-gun, anti-self defense ideology. I respect their right to hold those views, but I challenge their decision to deny Americans the right to protect themselves on their campuses — and then proudly advertise that fact to any and all.

Whenever I’ve seen one of those “Gun-free Zone” signs, especially outside of a school filled with our youngest and most vulnerable citizens, I’ve always wondered exactly who these signs are directed at. Obviously, they don’t mean much to the sort of man who murdered 32 people just a few days ago.

— Fred Thompson is an actor and former United States senator from Tennessee.

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