I'm From Virginia
You're watching the Virginia Tech coverage, so I won't repeat any of that stuff. But I have some comments and some questions.
1. The person most likely to hate his life for the longest period after this is the chief of campus police at Virginia Tech.
2. This is by far the longest-duration shooting in history. It took roughly three and a half hours.
3. During this entire 3 and a half hours - 210 minutes - the shooter was not confronted with one other person with a weapon, with the possible exception of right at the very end.
4. Virginia Tech is a weapons-free zone.
5. Weapons-free zones are also known as "target-rich environments" by people that want to shoot other people.
6. How on earth does someone shoot a dozen people in one part of the campus, take an hour and a half, get a latte, go all the way across campus and take 30 or so more lives?
7. May God Himself bless the incredibly fast response of the Salt Lake City PD at Trolley Square. I think it is now possible to see how monumentally unusual that kind of speed is.
8. It takes an unbelievably long time to kill 32 people.
9. What almost always stops a shooting is the presence of other people with guns.
10. Even the experts - even security experts - admit there is absolutely no way to "secure" a campus and make sure that the students are safe in the event of a shooting. This is not a problem that can be eliminated altogether and it CANNOT POSSIBLY be prevented by a government that still allows any sort of civil liberties.
11. It has always been true that you have one good method of defense against being shot by someone: have the means to defend yourself. I'd add one more: hang around with people that can defend you if you don't want to do it yourself.
12. My wife and I both just looked at each other and confessed that if this kind of thing happens at our kids' school, part of us will hope that our children are the ones that are killed, instead of someone else's. We're ready. We know our kids are on loan to us from a God that knows their names, and that He's going to want them back. They're ready, too. Our family knows where to find God in time of trouble. We also know so very well that most people don't. We're not asking for it. We love our children as much as any parents. But this life is not the beginning, and it's not the end, and we're all going to come into it and leave it at some point. Dying in bed after 20 years of pain is not necessarily better than being shot while protecting someone else - and I know my sons. They'd be protecting someone.
13. That said, if I can find a school where it is broadly known that every teacher is licensed and trained to carry a weapon on campus, my children are going to go there no matter what it costs us.
14. Many people are going to be angry and/or horrified by things I've written above. Post what you like in the comments about it. My way is not the only way.
15. God keep you and yours safe. If you read this, Diana, call me. I know you live hundreds of miles from Tech, but I just wanna check.
posted by Cj at 1:36 PM
3 Comments:
Chris,
I posted some comments on our facebook group page but I will repost them here in response to your blog.
"What is stopping someone from walking into the Walmart where I shop and killing everyone in the store? Nothing. The only thing that can protect us is righteousness. If people relied more on God and less on their own strength as spouses, parents, friends, neighbors, we would stop raising children who turned into raving lunatics and murderers."
Well, speaking for my Walmart, there are two things that would stop a shooting almost immediately. One, that this area has a very high percentage of concealed-carry permitholders, and I'd bet that a great number of those shop at Walmart. It would only take one or two. The second thing is that Walmart sells weapons. Someone, in an emergency, is going to realize this before the shooter gets to the sporting goods department.
But I will agree with you that once we reach the point that the only thing restraining people from shooting other people is the thought that they themselves might get killed in the process, we're a long way down the slippery slope. On the other hand, since the dawn of time, the only method of restraining evil men is the presence of heavily-armed good men.
So, so sad.
chris,
i'm a friend of diana and ben's and diana encouraged me to post here, so blame her.
i think something to take into account here is that a mall or a walmart is a very different setting from a school campus. the opportunities for crime at malls is much higher and security is much tighter. most stores have the whole place on camera 24/7. response time is going to be very fast and there will be a substantial number of respondents. also, va tech campus is big and open. its a very difficult environment to control, as was mentioned.
on to the more serious issue: guns.i think we learned from the cold war that bigger and better weapons are not the answer.
i look at the situation in the middle east right now, where guns are readily available to the populace, and i cant imagine that a more heavily armed populace can possibly be a good idea. teachers and authority figures can be lunatics too (officer hand, once the 'security' officer at west springfield robbed banks with his police issue shotgun, for example).
trying to scare the 'bad guys' doesnt make us safe. it makes the bad guys scarier. look at the oklahoma city bombing. look at 9/11. when people want other people dead, there are ways of getting it done and guns wont stop them. more guns just provide more opportunities for innocent people to get shot, in my opinion.
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