How many more must die? "Gun Free Zones" = "Free Fire Zones"
Ladies and gentlemen, I am embarking on a mission of sorts. I would ask that you consider joining me in the endeavor. All of us have heard and read about the killing rampage that occurred at Virginia Tech as well as the rampage out at JSC as well as the apartment complex out on Post Oak. The death toll amongst these three alone is something like 37 people. Two of the three occurred on a government mandated "gun free zone", and I'd bet that the apartment complex had a "gun free workplace" rule for it's workers. I myself work for an employer that stipulates that no employee may bring a weapon onto the property, and that includes the parking lot which has the effect of even banning them from our vehicles going to and from work. However, we do not have the legally mandated gun ban signs, which means that visitors may legally carry, only employees may not. As we see from these examples, "gun free zones" fail to take into account that those who would do us great bodily harm, care little about the rules. Loss of their job or incarceration is nothing compared to the fact that if they survive the encounter (most chose to save the last bullet for themselves), their biggest worry will be whether they get the death penalty or not.
While it is outside the realm of possibility to do something about the federally mandated "free fire zones" at JSC with a state law, and it would be a difficult exercise to impose such a gun free zone ban on a private employer or private property beyond the bill that allows employees to keep their weapons in their vehicles that has already passed, we CAN look to lift such bans from public buildings such as schools and college campuses.
Unfortunately, we have a very small window of opportunity to do something about this, this legislative session. Barring a special session, if we do not get something passed in the next week or so, we will have to wait two years to revisit this. By that time we will be confronted with two major obstacles: The Democrats may have increased their power base (all the demographers and political analysts think this is a lock to occur), and time will have passed and the issue will not be fresh in everyone's mind (unless yet another mass shooting takes place). I for one do not want to ask myself "what if?" when the next shooting takes place, and mark my words, another shooting will occur, there is no way to prevent it, but we can allow people the means to stop it before the death toll rises too high.
Dr. Gratia Hupp, "The Mother of CHL in Texas", as well as a survivor of the 1991 Luby's massacre, one of the bloodiest prior to the Va Tech shooting. Gave an interview to Austin's CBS affiliate last week and said much the same thing.
I urge you to contact your representatives in Austin and ask them to find a bill that is still in process that can be amended to remove the restriction of lawful concealed carry in all state and local government buildings with the exception of the capitol itself, and courthouses. Let us try, we cannot know how many lives we may save, but we can know how many we will lose.
While it is outside the realm of possibility to do something about the federally mandated "free fire zones" at JSC with a state law, and it would be a difficult exercise to impose such a gun free zone ban on a private employer or private property beyond the bill that allows employees to keep their weapons in their vehicles that has already passed, we CAN look to lift such bans from public buildings such as schools and college campuses.
Unfortunately, we have a very small window of opportunity to do something about this, this legislative session. Barring a special session, if we do not get something passed in the next week or so, we will have to wait two years to revisit this. By that time we will be confronted with two major obstacles: The Democrats may have increased their power base (all the demographers and political analysts think this is a lock to occur), and time will have passed and the issue will not be fresh in everyone's mind (unless yet another mass shooting takes place). I for one do not want to ask myself "what if?" when the next shooting takes place, and mark my words, another shooting will occur, there is no way to prevent it, but we can allow people the means to stop it before the death toll rises too high.
Dr. Gratia Hupp, "The Mother of CHL in Texas", as well as a survivor of the 1991 Luby's massacre, one of the bloodiest prior to the Va Tech shooting. Gave an interview to Austin's CBS affiliate last week and said much the same thing.
I urge you to contact your representatives in Austin and ask them to find a bill that is still in process that can be amended to remove the restriction of lawful concealed carry in all state and local government buildings with the exception of the capitol itself, and courthouses. Let us try, we cannot know how many lives we may save, but we can know how many we will lose.
posted by Rorschach at
4/26/2007 07:38:00 AM
13 Comments:
Inkblots: Wasn't she the one who lost both parents in the shooting? Her father was shot, her mom comforted him as he lay dying, and both died, but she survived? I heard (I think her on a talk radio show.) Very powerful. I'm in.
There are something like 400 bills that have passed through committee waiting to get on the legislative calendar to even be voted on. What do we have? Less than 5 weeks? Crazy.
Anon, yes I know the odds are long, but we may get lucky and find a bill that could be amended for our purpose. I have my eye on one that may serve the purpose.
1991; have a seat in Luby's in Killeen, TX 12:03pm.
Do we have time?
Would this take a grass fire effort?
Strike a match....
Do you think this is going to work? Do you think that the majority of people in either party, of any persuation, thinks that more guns everywhere equals more safety?
Please, all of you, step back from the emotional response you feel and think with reason, with your minds.
If there is a person with a gun in a classroom, and that person gets ticked off and decides to respond, will the fact that another person in the same room has a gun stop the first person? No. At least not in time.
to answer your questions in order:
1: Yes I do believe it will work.
2: Yes, I think I can get a majority of people to agree that it will work.
3: And finally yes, if someone enters a classroom with a gun and decides to go postal, there will be something on the order of at least 30, if not more, people around him. if one has a concealed weapon, then it is entirely possible that that person could halt the attack before too many people die. It has been PROVEN Michelle. Might I remind you of the shooting in Pearl Mississippi? The Assistant principal ran out to his truck to get his 1911 .45 to stop the rampage (and was violating the law even having it in the parking lot thank goodness). Or Appalachian Law School where two students went to their cars to stop a man who had already shot a dean and an assistant dean. Or the Mall shooting in Utah where the guy from Bosnia was stopped by an off duty cop carrying his concealed carry weapon in violation of mall policy. (it was a free fire zone too).
There are numerous cases where the proper use of a weapon has halted a rampage. Name one instance, JUST ONE where someone with a concealed carry permit was a liability in such a situation instead of a help.
Get your facts straight Michelle and stop emoting. People are dying while you try to wrap your head around the fact that some people are evil. Fine, you don't like guns, get over it. I don't want my daughter to die because you are afraid of guns.
1. Delusional -- no surprise there.
2. ditto -- or is that trademarked?
3. "if someone enters a classroom with a gun and decides to go postal, there will be something on the order of at least 30, if not more, people around him." Like I said -- give me a lock on my door, I'll be happy.
"Might I remind you of the shooting in Pearl Mississippi?"
Why yes, I read about Pearl today as a matter of fact (heard it before, too) on Ankle biting pundits -- former Houston blogger Kathleen McKinley (aka Rightwingsparkle and TexasSparkle on the chron)brought it up.
That doesn't negate what happened at VT. It wouldn't address my situation either. Think about it. . . middle school campus . . . university campus . . .proximity of parking lots. You get it right?
"Or Appalachian Law School where two students went to their cars to stop a man who had already shot a dean and an assistant dean."
I covered this with Jason. You can go there.
"Or the Mall shooting in Utah where the guy from Bosnia was stopped by an off duty cop carrying his concealed carry weapon in violation of mall policy. (it was a free fire zone too)." Not a classroom -- you are grasping at straws.
"There are numerous cases where the proper use of a weapon has halted a rampage. Name one instance, JUST ONE where someone with a concealed carry permit was a liability in such a situation instead of a help."
While this is such a load question that Chris Baker would be envious, I'll give you what I've got. As you have framed it, none. Now, answer this. How many times have people been killed by lawfully carrying types?
"Get your facts straight Michelle and stop emoting."
That's rather defensive, wouldn't you say? Especially since I threw that crap at you first :)
"People are dying while you try to wrap your head around the fact that some people are evil."
No, I got it that people can be evil a very long time ago.
"Fine, you don't like guns, get over it."
I don't like people dying. Guns aren't loyal to me or you.
"I don't want my daughter to die because you are afraid of guns."
While that is another Baker-load, if you don't want your daughter to die, teach her self-defense.
One last point. I am a teacher. If I know that there is a student or students in my class with guns, then I won't teach the same way. I'm thinking that you have a problem with political correctness, no?
Let guns in the classroom or on campus, and you have political correctness to the nth degree.
Is that really what you want?
Kathleen and I both have relatives in Pearl. We know people that were involved. This is not a isolated incident for us.
No, I'm not delusional. I've spoken with a whole bunch of people on the topic and the agreement was virtually universal (with the exception of yourself obviously). In fact I was quite surprised at the level of agreement.
And a locked door is not foolproof, The Holocaust survivor that died at VT was holding the door closed. He was shot through the door. Locked doors can be disabled. Ever hear of a breaching round? It is a specially designed shotgun round designed for the specific purpose of blowing a hole through a door where a lock used to be in order to gain entry. They are not commercially available (LEO only) but you'd be surprised how effective 00 Buckshot or Slugs can be in that regard.
Proximity of a parking lot is not an issue. Since I'm talking about the CHL holder carrying IN the classroom at all times, the distance to the car is therefore irrelevant. Ask Dr. Gratia-Hupp how useful keeping your gun in your car is. Both of her parents were shot and killed in front of her in 1991 in the Luby's in Killeen while she rifled through her purse looking for her .38 in order to stop the rampage before she realized she left it in her car in order to comply with the law in place at the time. Middle schools certainly aren't completely populated with liberal hopolophobes, at least a few of the faculty would be CHL holders in most larger schools. It does not have to be a classroom to be relevant. My question to you is, why is it that a person on the bus next to you or standing next to you on the elevator, or at the check out stand perfectly safe with a CCW on their person, but somehow that same person standing in front of a schoolroom teaching English is not?
Your question as framed is irrelevant since you neglect to ask how many of the killings were justified. Yes, some people DO need to die. People who would harm me or my family or steal my property forfeit their right to breathe my air when they threaten me or mine. Yeah, I'm in favor of the death penalty too, and no it is not contradictory to my stance on abortion or killing sick people either, the baby or the sick person didn't do anything to deserve death, the criminal did. You see, it is not about death, it is about responsibility.
So let us restate your question so that the answer has some possible meaning in this context.
"How many instances are there in which a person with a CHL license committed an unjustifiable homicide?"
Now there is an question that can be answered. I don't know specifically. Statistically, CHL permit holders are more law abiding than the general population. However there was one instance not long ago here in Houston where it would seem that instead of trying to defuse the situation as he was trained to do, a CHL holder chose to escalate a situation and it lead to him shooting and killing a verbally threatening person on a METRO bus. Was it justified? From all indications, no it was not.
No system is foolproof, there will ALWAYS be a few that cannot act responsibly, but I might add that many of those without such a capacity to act responsibly would not bother to take the class and pay the fee anyway. Just by doing so, they have shown more responsibility than many.
I do intend to teach my daughters self-defense, ARMED self-defense since my oldest is 4'5" and weighs only 75 lbs, there is likely no way she would be able to overcome her attacker physically. The problem is that misguided souls such as yourself keep trying to designate places where she may not defend herself, hence the point of my post.
Nobody is talking about allowing middle school kids (or just any person for that matter, just CHL holders) to carry guns to school. Hell, they already do that, which is the very reason why teachers should be armed as well.
And on a personal note: If you are disrespectful of your students enough to be afraid of how they might respond to your "teaching" then maybe teaching is not what you need to be doing to begin with. I can tell you now that if you tried to teach ME the way you respond to my posts then I'd be dropping your class in a heartbeat and doing everything I could to get you canned. You are rude and abusive and there is no way in hell you will EVER convince ANYONE you have a clue about anything with that attitude. Certainly not students.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/4763469.html
Ror; if we depended on others... we would not be writing this.
striking the match may be working.
Dude, calm down. It's not like I've got a gun in your face.
Clearly you are opperating from a position of fear and emotion. Don't you ever tire from being at hysteria 24/7? Take a deep breath and try to look at this from a rational perspective. Attacking me personally doesn't make your point any stronger -- in fact it weakens it.
There have been a couple of instances -- not including the one you cited -- here in Houston in the past couple of weeks of CHL holders killing people. One was over a performance review, the other an eviction.
There is absolutely no reason to have a gun in a classroom, much less on a campus -- any campus. You completely missed my point about teaching -- it's not that I or any other teacher for that matter says anything wrong (of course, some do at times), it's that students go off at teachers and each other. Why should I or any other teacher or student trust my safety to someone just because s/he has a CHL? It's no guarantee that the person won't lose it.
I can tell you now that if you tried to teach ME the way you respond to my posts then I'd be dropping your class in a heartbeat and doing everything I could to get you canned. You are rude and abusive and there is no way in hell you will EVER convince ANYONE you have a clue about anything with that attitude. Certainly not students.
Dude, this is a blog. We are commenting on a blog. I'm not trying to convince you of anything. Teaching is my profession -- I know how to conduct myself in a classroom. I actually have a life outside my work. If your response to my comments on this little blog is so viceral, I really think you should take a step back, like I suggested above.
Lastly, do you actually think Gov. Perry carries any weight with the legislature at this point? Much like he did before the election wrt the border, he's just talking to make you all happy. It's just talk.
You are incorrect. Neither Bill Phillips (JSC shooter) nor David Howard Thurm, had CHl permits as far as I can tell. Thurm should not have been able to purchase one anyway since he had tried to commit suicide twice previously and was undergoing psychiatric therapy at the time.
Statistically 0.25% of CHL holders have their license revoked, usually due to what is termed "family violence" which is a very broad offense. Compare that to 5% of the state population that is in prison or on parole. in 2005 which is the last year data is available, out of over 260,000 permits issued, only 673 were revoked.
as far as I can tell
I'm incorrect according to you, but as to the facts, well, not so much.
Your stats actually make my point.
Thanks
I can find no evidence that either man had a CHL, do you have any evidence to the contrary? I'm calling bullshit. You have none, you are running off at the mouth. Prove to me I'm wrong.
How do my statistics prove your case? They show that the average person is 20 times more likely to be a law breaker than a CHL holder. How do you extract anything else from that?
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