Over at T&S, Kaimi linked this Slate article on what to do if you are confronted with an armed madman like Cho Seung-Hui, the Virginia Tech killer. It’s worth noting that one of the things the article did not say was, “go to your car or dorm room and get a weapon.” That’s because VT is a “gun-free zone,” which means the only people who can have guns are armed madmen like Cho and very occasional police officers.
I am not a pro-gun fanatic (believe me, if you want to see gun fanatics travel to some of the rural areas of the West). At my house, I have a legally registered pistol in our safe, and I know how to use it. It brings me some comfort to know that when I travel my wife also knows how to fire our handgun. If somebody breaks into our house, we can have a handgun ready in less than 20 seconds.
I am extremely uneasy about the idea of shooting somebody. There is a part of me that says I would rather be killed than kill another human being. Given my testimony of the Gospel, I have no fear of death, but I do have a fear of my wife and/or children being harmed or killed. I also feel it’s my responsibility as a priesthood holder to protect the home.
I was an anti-gun fanatic most of my life. I know all of the arguments in favor of gun control. I guarantee there is no argument anti-gun activists could make that I have not considered. I have lived in countries (such as the UK) where guns are tightly controlled. I have visited places like Japan where guns are virtually nonexistent among the general population.
Here is the bottom line: guns will never be eradicated from American society the way they are in Japan and many European countries. So, most gun control laws in the United States do nothing more than create isolated areas where the law-abiding do not have guns and the scofflaws do have guns. This is an extremely unstable situation that leads to places like Virginia Tech, a “gun-free zone,” where nobody could run to his or her car or dorm room and get a gun. Apparently Cho went on his rampage for almost 10 minutes. That is enough time to get a gun and defend yourself and your fellow students.
What if VT were not a “gun-free zone” and one of the professors or students at VT had a license to carry a concealed weapon and was able to kill or disarm Cho early on in his rampage? What if that person saved 25 or 28 lives?
Having once been an anti-gun fanatic, and knowing the politics of the Bloggernacle, I have no illusions about convincing most anti-gun people out there. But I’d like you to consider this column by Mark Steyn and pay special attention to the wackos in New Hampshire who were out to kill some people. They wandered from armed house to armed house with no luck and finally headed to Dartmouth, where they were able to kill professors in a “gun-free zone” at an Ivy League university. I am simply not convinced that, until every single American gives up his guns, gun control laws buy me anything but more insecurity.