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Some people have suggested that, if CCW holders had been allowed to carry defensive handguns on campus, there would have been far fewer fatalities in the Virgina Tech shootings. Recent history seems to confirm that viewpoint.
Some of us may have forgotten, but in 2002, there was a shooting at the Appalachian Law School,ALS), also in Virginia. There are many interesting parallels with the VA Tech incident, but the end result in the ALS case was much different because of intervention by armed students. In both the ALS and VA Tech situations, the shooter was a foreign student, apparently disgruntled with his situation in school. In the ALS case, the shooter, Nigerian Peter Odighizuwa, shot and killed three people and wounded three others. But then Odighizuwa was disarmed, at gunpoint, by two students:
"When Odighizuwa exited the building where the shooting took place, he was approached by two students with personal firearms.
At the first sound of gunfire, fellow students Tracy Bridges and Mikael Gross, unbeknownst to each other, ran to their vehicles to fetch their personally-owned firearms. Gross, a police officer with the Grifton Police Department in his home state of North Carolina, retrieved a bulletproof vest and a 9 mm pistol. Bridges pulled his .357 Magnum pistol from beneath the driver's seat of his Chevy Tahoe. As Bridges later told the Richmond Times Dispatch, he was prepared to shoot to kill.
Bridges and Gross approached Odighizuwa from different angles, with Bridges yelling at Odighizuwa to drop his gun. Odighizuwa then dropped his firearm and was subdued by several other unarmed students, including Ted Besen and Todd Ross.
There has been dispute about this account of events, with Besen saying that before Odighizuw saw Bridges and Gross with their weapons, Odighizuw set down his gun and raised his arms like he was mocking people. Either way, once Odighizuwa was securely held down, Gross went back to his vehicle and retrieved handcuffs to detain Odighizuwa until police could arrive."
Source: Wikipedia, with citations to News and Police reports.
Related Link,explains how the Media initially failed to disclose the role of armed ALS students): http://www.thepriceofliberty.org/04/01/13/lang.htm
Quote: "Soon after the [ALS shooting] criminologist and scholar John Lott ran a LexisNexis search on the story and came up with this: Only 4 of 208 news reports ... mentioned that the rescuers had guns. James Eaves-Johnson did his own Nexis search for the Daily Iowan,at the University of Iowa) and found that just two of eighty-eight stories reported that guns were used to subdue the killer. A third search conducted by Eaves-Johnson, this time using a database called Westnews ... turned up 112 stories on the subject – and again only two mentioned that the gunman was subdued by students using guns themselves."
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In the media debate surrounding the Viginia Tech tragedy, you won't find mention of the ALS shooting, but it certainly provides some important lessons.
Some of us may have forgotten, but in 2002, there was a shooting at the Appalachian Law School,ALS), also in Virginia. There are many interesting parallels with the VA Tech incident, but the end result in the ALS case was much different because of intervention by armed students. In both the ALS and VA Tech situations, the shooter was a foreign student, apparently disgruntled with his situation in school. In the ALS case, the shooter, Nigerian Peter Odighizuwa, shot and killed three people and wounded three others. But then Odighizuwa was disarmed, at gunpoint, by two students:
"When Odighizuwa exited the building where the shooting took place, he was approached by two students with personal firearms.
At the first sound of gunfire, fellow students Tracy Bridges and Mikael Gross, unbeknownst to each other, ran to their vehicles to fetch their personally-owned firearms. Gross, a police officer with the Grifton Police Department in his home state of North Carolina, retrieved a bulletproof vest and a 9 mm pistol. Bridges pulled his .357 Magnum pistol from beneath the driver's seat of his Chevy Tahoe. As Bridges later told the Richmond Times Dispatch, he was prepared to shoot to kill.
Bridges and Gross approached Odighizuwa from different angles, with Bridges yelling at Odighizuwa to drop his gun. Odighizuwa then dropped his firearm and was subdued by several other unarmed students, including Ted Besen and Todd Ross.
There has been dispute about this account of events, with Besen saying that before Odighizuw saw Bridges and Gross with their weapons, Odighizuw set down his gun and raised his arms like he was mocking people. Either way, once Odighizuwa was securely held down, Gross went back to his vehicle and retrieved handcuffs to detain Odighizuwa until police could arrive."
Source: Wikipedia, with citations to News and Police reports.
Related Link,explains how the Media initially failed to disclose the role of armed ALS students): http://www.thepriceofliberty.org/04/01/13/lang.htm
Quote: "Soon after the [ALS shooting] criminologist and scholar John Lott ran a LexisNexis search on the story and came up with this: Only 4 of 208 news reports ... mentioned that the rescuers had guns. James Eaves-Johnson did his own Nexis search for the Daily Iowan,at the University of Iowa) and found that just two of eighty-eight stories reported that guns were used to subdue the killer. A third search conducted by Eaves-Johnson, this time using a database called Westnews ... turned up 112 stories on the subject – and again only two mentioned that the gunman was subdued by students using guns themselves."
- - -
In the media debate surrounding the Viginia Tech tragedy, you won't find mention of the ALS shooting, but it certainly provides some important lessons.
