"Guns, and the knowledge of guns combined with bravery, has saved lives during campus shootings."

It is important to recognize that many of those former military folks that are or will be making use of the GI bill in the next few years have already been in a gunfight or dozen. We think they are just the thing to carry arms overseas and execute national policy, but they are treated as untrustworthy and incompetent once they get back home?

MG- depends on which we.

Most of the folks I know who are anti-gun don't think that highly of the military unless said military is acting like civilians.

"The idea that somebody could stop a school shooting with a gun is impossible. It's reactive, not preventative."

Pitiful wretch.

Once the shooting starts the best way to stop it is with another gun - otherwise why bother calling the cops.

Want preventive? - try a significant percentage of the population carrying as well - significant enough that the first one to draw would be in the sights of two or three others who are packing to see if he even attempts to draw a bead. (analogy is a hunting party with a rank amateur who does not have muzzle discipline - where the heck are you pointing that and why???)

Wow. Great post. It was a pleasure to read.

Liberals have some very weird ideas about firearms. A couple months ago one of my coworkers saw a pic of me in Iraq kneeling by some kids that we saw almost every day. She could have said a thousand things, like "They're cute", or "That doesn't look like pure desert like I imagined."

But she said "You have a gun?! Weren't you worried that you'd shoot those kids?"

Yeah. Armed on a foot patrol in Iraq? How ridiculous. Everyone knows that it's impossible to stop someone from shooting you by shooting them first. It's impossible I say!

Unfortunately, and I speak as a high school teacher, teachers commonly receive no training whatsoever in dealing with violence of any kind. Some schools have procedures for violent incidents that usually include locking classroom doors, or even overturning and hiding behind student desktops. None of these and similar measures will do more than momentarily slow any determined armed attacker.

As a military veteran and ex-cop, I find myself horrified at the very real potential of one day finding a school shooter in my school, because unlike sensitive and highly evolved souls like Mr. Wood, I have no doubt that I would not play dead or hide. Because I am responsible for my students, I will counterattack any school shooter. I will try to do it as quickly and effectively as possible, but any deadly force encounter is governed by timing and distance. Unless I can close to hand to hand range, for my school forces me to choose between the ability to protect lives and the ability to feed my family (like virtually all American schools), I am likely to die in the attempt to save lives, leaving a subhuman killer to continue killing. If I was armed, the moment a shooter was in my sights, they would start absorbing carefully placed bullets.

Gun free schools zones signs merely suggest the possibility--not the certainty--of arrest and punishment after a crime has been committed. One of the great ironies of our age is that it is the honest citizen who accidently brings a firearm into such zones who is most likely to be punished, and punished for causing no damage whatever. School shooters almost always kill themselves after murdering many innocents.

Mr. Wood brings to mind the Virginia Tech official who, not long before the shooting, bragged about his role in defeating a bill that would have allowed concealed carry on campus. He crowed that everyone could therefore “feel safe.” There is, for those with sufficient intellect to make such conclusions, an enormous chasm between feeling safe and being safe. One wonders how that official feels now. Mr. Wood has made his feelings, and his fecklessness as a human being and a man, quite clear. A shame that a great many more children and teachers will have to die before Americans will come to understand that it is always better to have the means to make survival possible rather than hopeless at hand.

The tragedy in the United States is that individuals are no longer routinely trained to arms. Many people fear the unknown, and as a result unfamiliarity with firearms breeds contempt and revulsion.

I was trained to shoot by my father at age eight, after a year of hunting seasons carrying an unloaded rifle. My most memorable lesson was sending a round into a can of tomato soup and carefully inspecting the resulting damage. After that experience, I knew firearms were not a plaything.

The ignorance of the news media is on full display when the subject is firearms. If any reporter ever spent an afternoon on the range and received proper instruction, much of the misinformation, confusion, and--yes, outright lies--about firearms would disappear.

Do any of these people ever wonder why so-called "insane" shooters never attack a police station? Storm NRA headquarters? Assault the local FBI office? Could it be they're not so "insane" after all?

Those who choose to rely on the police for protection have chosen to be victims. A firearm is an object, like an automobile, that can be used for good or for ill. Firearms are evil when used by a perpetrator to commit a crime; good when used by police to end the perpetrator's rampage. It is only common sense to recognize that a firearm in the hands of a law-abiding citizen can end that rampage in seconds, where the police can require an eternity of minutes to respond.

I pity Mr. Wood, but do not condemn him. He has chosen his victim status. Should he ever experience another such crisis, he can cower and "play dead", hoping to be spared. And perhaps pray that someone--anyone--who has elected to attempt the "impossible" and carry a firearm will act to save him.

No arguments from me on this issue. I agree with you 100%

Dude

I'm puzzled.

John Woods said "The idea that somebody could stop a school shooting with a gun is impossible."

Does he mean that he wants the cops who respond to be unarmed?

If not, his train of thought has lost both its locomotive and caboose.

I hate these cowardly PsOS. They need to just barely survive one of these things they're talking about, and be just conscious enough to watch as an armed citizen fixes the problem.

I found him on Facebook and fired a message at him. I'm a college student, and I live in Richmond, VA. I remember the VT shooting.

Below is my message to Mr. Woods.

_____

"Then I learned pretty fast that wouldn't solve anything," said Woods, who is now a graduate student at UT. "The idea that somebody could stop a school shooting with a gun is impossible. It's reactive, not preventative."

What kind of crap is that? It's not impossible at all. In fact people defend themselves with a firearm about a million times a year, according to the Brady Campaign, and over two million times a year according to the NRA.

Fine, you hide under the desk, I'll return fire. You can thank me later. I can stomach a coward, but you're worse then a coward. No, you want everyone else helpless. It's not enough that you be able to wring your hands and say "it happened so fast, there was nothing I can do". No, you need to be able to make sure that no one else is capable of resistance. Because if you wet yourself and curl up in a ball, and someone else kills the psycho then you look bad. Much better for you to mourn the dead then do something that could prevent their deaths. Much better to hold a candle and cry then do something constructive, something that actually works.

No one is forcing you to carry a weapon. Your fragile feelings won't even be hurt, because it's concealed carry. You won't ever know which people are armed and ready to respond. All that the people want is for their constitutional rights to be respected, especially on campuses paid for by their tax dollars. You, well...you'd lick the boot stomping on your face. Which is fine. It's your face. But you don't have the right to tell me what I do, you don't have the right to tell me to disarm myself.

Some reading for you

http://gunowners.org/wv45.htm

There's also the 2007 shooting in Colorado Springs. (Wikipedia article here - yes, I know, but in this case the Wikipedia article is actually pretty decent). It was a church, not a school, but that's still an environment where the shooter would have expected a bunch of unarmed targets to kill. Given the fact that the shooter, Matthew Murray, was carrying two handguns, a rifle, and 1,000 rounds of ammo, he was clearly planning to kill a lot of people. But he'd only killed two people and wounded three before Jeanne Assam, a volunteer security guard at New Life Church, shot him and stopped the attack.

Furthermore, the reason Assam and others at New Life were armed is because they had heard about the shooting twelve hours earlier at the Youth With a Mission Center in Colorado Springs. The same shooter, Matthew Murray, had attacked the YWAM center, killed two people and wounded two others, then left the area on foot. Police had been searching for him, but hadn't found him yet when he attacked New Life Church. It's quite possible that he might have repeated the same pattern, leaving New Life and heading elsewhere to kill again, had Assam not taken him down.

So that's yet another case -- quite a recent one -- that you can add to your list. More evidence that guns in the hands of the law-abiding can and do stop gun violence.

(P.S. You're got a spam comment by "crysun" at 02:34 AM that made it past your spam filters, FYI).

I agree with all of you. We need the ability to protect ourselves as we really do not have an effective police force. They are demons on giving tickets for anything, but ask one for help in a violent situation and they hussle to the nearest dounut shop. I have had personel experience in this and can tell you they only pick up the pieces after a crime.

You can look at the situation in Australia to see what a gunless world would be like. Home invasion, sky rocketing crime, etc.

Just a bit of information that most folks don't know: Not only are the police unable to protect individual citizens, they have no legal obligation to do so. Most people would be amazed to learn how few officers are on duty, patrolling their town or city, at any hour of the day or night. Of course, rural residents, served by sheriff's departments understand this, but most Americans assume that if a real emergency ever occurred, the police would be minutes away. Maybe, maybe not.

Police agencies are chronically understaffed, and so they assign most officers when they're most needed on Friday and Saturday nights. The fewest officers commonly work when school is in session. It's not that the police don't absolutely love to catch bad guys in the act and wouldn't salivate at the thought of stopping a school shooter--they do and they would. It's just that, for the most part, they can't. There just aren't enough of them and never will be.

The Supreme Court has also ruled that the police owe no duty of protection to individual citizens. This is the law of the land. It might seem outrageous, but it's completely rational. After all, if any citizen could sue the police for failure to protect them from harm, what city could possibly afford a police force? The only legally mandated function of police forces is to deter crime through their patrol presence and to investigate crime after it occurs. Unfortunately, this does not stop school shooters.

The reality of life always has been and always will be that we are individually responsible for our safety, and for that of our families. Anyone who relies on the police for such protection is abandoning themselves and their families to the mercy of those who have no mercy.

Britt, good letter. You are exactly correct. The sheep are shamed by their inability to protect themselves, so they do not want to be outdone by a sheepdog.

I am interested to read any response he writes. But I am not holding my breath.

Let's say you're an armed student walking down the hallway to class in your gray hoodie, you hear shots coming from a nearby classroom, and like a very brave and good citizen you enter the room to see some guy in a gray hoodie shooting another armed guy in a gray hoodie. Who do you shoot, and who should the next guy coming into the room seeing the now three armed guys in gray hoodies shoot?

I appreciate the need for an active and courageous fantasy life, but give it a rest already guys, a few thousand armed teenagers and 20 somethings aren't going to make colleges safer any more than they made Tomestone AZ safer in the 1880s than it is today.

It's not only the fact that other armed persons with gun skills may very likely subdue the lunatic shooting, but the calculus of the homicidal criminal with the gun may change if he thinks that there are others at the location with concealed weapons who might kill him before he can kill. Right now the universities are sitting ducks to killers because the killers know they have unilaterally disarmed the populace like sheep waiting to be slaughtered. But change the calculus and no longer will the wolf be sure that he has free access to slaughter, but may become the one with the toe tag.

Jim: What if there were no hypothetical situations?

The situation you present has never happened and will never happen. If by some miracle it ever does, bully for you: you can tell me to shove it up my magazine. Until such time, address reality and real history, and nothing else. The Attack of the Grey Hoodie Zombies exists not in shooter sprees of reality, but in gang wars and active, if un-courageous, fantasy lives.

Jim is something of an idiot creating a fantasy so implausible as to be the stuff of a child's outlandish excuse of what could have been the reason mommy's lamp broke.

And while we're on the subject of Jim's stupidity, are there just tons of states issuing CCH permits to teenagers?

Every state I'm familiar with requires someone to be a minimum of 21 to have a CCH, and the median age of the classes I've attended is far closer to 40 or 50 than 18 or 20. Those individuals that take personal security seriously enough to spend hundreds or thousands of their hard-earned dollars on firearms, holsters, ammunition, training, and certification tend to be among society's most conscientious citizens.

Jim can't see that, or rather, he won't. Challenging his ill-informed emotive biases with facts is uncomfortable for Jim, and so he'd rather retreat into self-edifying fantasies. It's not intellectually honest, but then, Jim's not a very honest person.

I'm surprised you did not mention the Appalachian School of Law shooting, which was at a university only a short distance away from VT, occured 5 years earlier, and in which not one, but two students used personal firearms to subdue the shooter, and prevent the death toll (3 killed, 3 injured) from climbing higher.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachian_School_of_Law_shooting

Zombie Fantasy? Maybe I made the mistake of saying the guys were wearing gray hoodies, but have you been to a campus lately? :)

Forget who's wearing what, a guy blazes away in a classroom, one of the students in the class is armed, he shoots back, you - also armed - enter the room to save the day - who do you shoot at? Who does the next the guy who enters the room shoot at? When the good guys prevail, and walk into the hallway, what happens when the last good guy on the scene sees an armed man at the scene?

There is nothing hypothetical at all about the results of our own Wild West past, how peaceful where those towns? Not very. Lot's of armed young men walking around, working, drinking, screwing around, stressed out from all of the above, you know, kinda like college.

Confederate Yankee, you're the one who said students in the classroom with CCH permits would be safer than they would without them. It's your hypothetical that placed armed students in class (and hence the surrounding hallways and classrooms), not mine.

As for the personal attack about my honesty, emotional bias. etc... I have no idea what specifically set you off. I've posted here what, 5 or 6 times, I think I've been pretty darn civil and willing to talk. You, not so much. In short you don't know me, don't pretend you do.

I've heard this canard a lot from the anti crowd.

Let's take VT as a direct example, modifying what actually happened to what could have happened had the VT campus been like other places in Virginia.

The shooter went through several buildings, opening classroom doors, entering them, and firing at the people inside.

Let's say I'm in my class, and I hear shots and screams down the hall. My immediate reaction will be to draw. So I'm inside the class, gun out. Everyone in that class knows I'm a good guy, because I'll tell them so. Now, I can move out to engage the shooter, or I can flip over a desk and crouch behind it. If I move out, I am risking a friendly fire incident with like minded people. However, if I chose to take a defensive position, then I have good cover, a place to rest my shooting arm, and I know that the target will come through the doorway. When he opens the door, confident that he's facing yet another unarmed class, I take a moment to ensure that he is in fact armed and firing at innocents, then I shoot him. After he goes down I listen for more shots. Hearing none, I safe my weapon and go to provide first aid to the wounded.

Jim we're not saying that armed students would carry no risk whatsoever. That should go without saying, but the Left doesn't believe in things like risk, trade offs, or intrinsic constraints on reality any more. No one is arguing that there are no risks to allowing campus carry. We are simply arguing (with a massive amount of evidence, I might add) that people being able to defend themselves is, all things considered, the best possible policy.

If you honestly believe that someone who's goal it is to kill dozens of strangers cares about gun free zones then you've got bigger problems then people being snippy with you on a website.

CY, nice place you have here. Can I reply to Jim?

Jim, let me pick apart your scenarios with hard, rational, TRAINED thoughts. And NO, I do NOT know you, so I just think a little education is in order here. In a very civil manner.

In your first scene, entering and seeing some guy shoot or shooting at another armed guy?

Well, first off, I would not ENTER the room, but I would open the door and take cover behind that nice metal doorjamb, staying outside. I would yell, "POLICE! FREEZE! DROP THE WEAPONS! NOW!"
(No, I'm not a cop, but THAT would get one of 2 reactions from the unknown variables with firepower. More on that later.)

Second, I would notice the positions of the shooters. The odds are that the goblin is the one nearest the door. The defender would most likely be the guy deep in the room in a cover position.

Third, I would look at the faces of the rest of the people, as to who they are FEARING.

I would cover both of them but give my primary attention to the one everyone is freaking out on.
All of this would take place almost instantly.

As to the reaction to my command, I would believe that the "good guy" would surely drop his weapon.
Maybe both of them. Then we sort it out. Of course (MY fantasy), the "bad guy" tries to take a shot at ME, and I waste him! :) The "good guy" is NOT going to shoot at someone he believes to be a cop.

As far as multiple armed persons in the room when I open the door? Well, rinse and repeat.

As to anyone coming behind me? I will be barking orders from my cover position like a Marine DI while sending people for help, letting them know to inform everyone that *I* AM the "good guy", maybe even posting the teacher outside in the hall to relay that info.

Jim, now that I've thought this through into a
clear plan, I actually have to thank you. You may have done an unintended service to some future
people in such a situation.

BTW Jim, "The Wild West" was predominantly a FICTION of dime novels of the era and Hollyweird. THAT is a FACT, man. Go research the reality...

Hey, CY, did I tell you this is a nice site you have here? :)

Britt,
I was busy typing and thinking while you posted that, but if I was INSIDE the room at the time, that is precisely what I would do. Right on...

"There is nothing hypothetical at all about the results of our own Wild West past, how peaceful where those towns? Not very."

Jim, your perceptions have far more to do with Hollywood movies and pulp novels than with reality. In point of fact the "Wild West" was fairly peaceful. Sure, drunken rowdies existed but they knew better than to bother good citizens. Life is far more violent today.

Jim,

I apologize for my rudeness, but I though you were someone I knew IRL whom I have very little patience for. I'll try to answer your question with a bit more restraint.

I happen to live in Raleigh, NC, the fastest growing metro area in the United States. There are roughly 833,000 people here in Wake County, and just 8,301 of us have CCH permits as of 12/2008, the last date for which they have updated statistics.

There are seven institutions of higher learning here (Meredith College, North Carolina State University, Peace College, Saint Augustine's College, Shaw University, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and Wake Technical Community College) with multiple campuses and/or satellite locations for several of them.

According to Wikipedia, we also have 20 high schools, 30 middle schools, 93 elementary schools and 8 specialized schools. In addition, there are nine charter schools and 31 private schools.

That's 98 centers of learning (not including day cares) of all types in the county.

All 8,301 of us with carry permits are a minimum of 21 years old, and we're a very law-abiding bunch; since we've had the option of legal concealed carry for 14 years, just 36 people have had their permits revoked. To the best of my knowledge, none of those was revoked for violence with a weapon. You can't come close to that level of safety and nonviolence in the general "unarmed" population you immerse yourself in every day.

Because the remaining armed student in your scenario must be a minimum of 21-years old to legally have a permit here, he's probably either a non-traditional student--for example, a former soldier going to school on the GI Bill--or an upperclassman or graduate student, or faculty or staff member with a CCH permit. Or he's a felon. Period.

The other armed student is either incapacitated, or dead. He's a non-issue by the time you even recognize and process that a shooting is in progress.

Now, I can't tell you what this hypothetical student would do in your scenario, but I can tell you what I'd try to do if I was the responding "gray hoodie boy" out in the hallway or in another classroom.

If I heard shots being fired in a university building (or any building, for that matter), my immediate reaction is to duck. Stray bullets kill.

If this is my normal classroom building, I would have already noted what the buildings interior walls are made of, and would have decent idea if they would stop or slow bullets. This is the kind of observation and situational awareness you pick up if you carry a weapon for any length of time.

I'm going to put my hand on my weapon as people in the hallway flee, but my response from there depends on the number of shots fired, and whether that fire continues for more than a short, staccato flurry.

If the shots quickly occur and then tail off with no other immediate reaction, acoustics in the hallway may keep me from being able to pin down which room the shots came from. In this scenario, I'm probably down on one knee in a doorway with a doorframe hopefully providing some cover as I try to assess the situation. I may or may not draw my firearm from my strongside IWB holster depending on how threatened I feel at that moment, but if I do have it drawn, my finger is alongside the frame (not in the trigger guard) and pointing at the ground in a low ready position.

In your scenario, what goes on inside the shooter's classroom next is going to dictate my next response as adrenaline forces me to fall back on my trained responses to the threat.

If the shooting incident is aburpt, lasting no more than a span of several seconds as 99% of shooting incidents do, I will not come into play at all. If the student still standing is a good guy, he could go through a whole range of emotions and reactions, but most would probably hinge around him making sure that bad guy is no longer a threat and remaining on the scene to await the inevitable police response. He'll probably either re-holster his weapon or unload it so that the police converging on the scene don't see him with a weapon out and start shooting. He may even have his driver's license and CCH permit in his hands, but you simply don't know how he will respond.

If the surviving shooter flees after the shooting, and that is the point at which I would feel most threatened in this hypothetical scenario.

If the shooter exits with his weapon in-hand and goes the opposite way but doesn't threaten anyone with it, he walks.

I can't and won't fire, because he's not an immediate threat at that moment, even if he was just seconds ago when he shot that other student for whatever unknown reason. I have no right to try to detain him or fire upon him if he is not an immediate lethal threat.

If the shooter exits weapon in hand and comes toward me, I'll instinctively present my weapon as I've been trained and challenge him to drop the weapon, keeping as much of my body as possible behind cover. He'll probably comply if I get the drop on him and have a better position (which is way I've taken a position where most of my body is behind cover).

If he raises the weapon, or attempts to engage me in any other way, I'll focus on putting the front sight of my pistol on the center of mass, and I'll press the trigger.

I'll continue to fire as long as he is still a threat and no longer than that. This could be a single shot or all 13 shots, or he's a better shot and I've suddenly got other things on my mind, like how to deal with new orifices and the collapse of my motor skills.

If I'm fortunate enough to survive the incident physically unscathed I'll try to secure his weapon (something I wouldn't do in a less congested environment) and my own, and try to assess the scene so I can give accurate information to the dispatcher as I call 9/11 on my cell.

If we have the nightmare scenario of a Virginia Tech with a shooter executing students one after another in a near continuous roll of fire, I'm not exactly sure how I'd respond.

If I don't think that I can help the people in the classroom (thinking them already dead, perhaps) I'd try to find a doorway from which I could cover the classroom door and keep him from exiting to continue his assault. If there is still sounds of life and he's continuing to fire, I think you have to go in and try to get a shot.

If psychologists are correct and the shooter has extreme tunnel vision as a result of the stressors on his system, I may even be lucky enough that he never notices me, and I may be able to take him down from just inches or feet away with a single shot.

If he notices my entrance and wheels around blazing away, I have no choice but to attempt to end the threat, even if innocents are behind him.

Why?

I may very well hit people behind him, but if he's already on a rampage and executing students right and left anyway, there is very little to be lost in attempting to take out the shooter. Sally Coed might die from my bullets, but she's almost certainly dead if I don't fire.

The simple fact of the matter is that sometimes life doesn't give you good options. Sometimes it's between bad and worse.

People who take the time and effort to go through the training to get a CCH prepare for the worst, and hope for the best, and would not go around blazing away in some sort of imaginary wild west like the fearful and uninformed suspect in their ignorance.

FWIW, it is a statistical fact that you are far more likely to be shot by a responding police officer in said scenario than a CCH holder.

Jim, are you more afraid of the responding police officers than a possible CCH permit holder who has his gun that day?

If you aren't, that should be a strong clue that you are reacting emotionally in your fear of CCH holders, not logically to the greater threat of responding police.

I've linked back to you here: http://consul-at-arms2.blogspot.com/2009/04/re-cowardice-as-crutch.html

Jim. As CY said, most if not all of the CCW holders would be non traditional students. I would be included in that number.

Now I can not speak for all of the CCW holders in the US. But me personally. I recently got out of the Corps after better than ten years, and in my two weeks off from the oil field every month I go to school. I have literally had thousands of hours of trigger time, both in training, and places like Iraq, Afghan, Kosovo, Haiti, the Horn, and several others. I have also spent thousands of dollars on additional training. Sent thousands of rounds down range in personal practice. Ive been through just about every school for small arms that the Corps has to offer. I am the type of guy that would likely be there confronting the insane while you cower under your desk.

I am sorry for being hostile, but you need a reality check, you need to wake up.

To steal a bit of work from Colonel Grossman.

"Most of the people in our society are sheep. They are kind, gentle, productive creatures who can only hurt one another by accident." This is true. Remember, the murder rate is six per 100,000 per year, and the aggravated assault rate is four per 1,000 per year. What this means is that the vast majority of Americans are not inclined to hurt one another. Some estimates say that two million Americans are victims of violent crimes every year, a tragic, staggering number, perhaps an all-time record rate of violent crime. But there are almost 300 million Americans, which means that the odds of being a victim of violent crime is considerably less than one in a hundred on any given year. Furthermore, since many violent crimes are committed by repeat offenders, the actual number of violent citizens is considerably less than two million.

Thus there is a paradox, and we must grasp both ends of the situation: We may well be in the most violent times in history, but violence is still remarkably rare. This is because most citizens are kind, decent people who are not capable of hurting each other, except by accident or under extreme provocation. They are sheep.

I mean nothing negative by calling them sheep. To me it is like the pretty, blue robin's egg. Inside it is soft and gooey but someday it will grow into something wonderful. But the egg cannot survive without its hard blue shell. Police officers, soldiers, and other warriors are like that shell, and someday the civilization they protect will grow into something wonderful.? For now, though, they need warriors to protect them from the predators.

"Then there are the wolves," the old war veteran said, "and the wolves feed on the sheep without mercy." Do you believe there are wolves out there who will feed on the flock without mercy? You better believe it. There are evil men in this world and they are capable of evil deeds. The moment you forget that or pretend it is not so, you become a sheep. There is no safety in denial.

"Then there are sheepdogs," he went on, "and I'm a sheepdog. I live to protect the flock and confront the wolf."

If you want to be one of these sheep that is fine, but do not try to turn me into one too. I am a sheepdog, I was born one, and I choose to continue to be one.

Be careful of what you wish for, I asked for some dialogue and got four great responses, obviously I'm going to inadvertently ignore some of what's been said or I'll be typing all day!

I understand, and perhaps even accept the idea that respondents to a shooting would behave rationally enough to either wait inside a classroom for someone to enter - and start shooting - or use various other means to try and determine who is who before taking aim. Having said that, adrenaline is going to kick in big time, and if we're talking about the typical Econ 101 type lecture hall there could be extended chaos no matter how careful folks try to be.

As far as the number and age of students who would get a CCH, I appreciate the numbers you give CY, but, I'm sure the demand would go way up once kids knew they could make use of them when they live and 'work'. There isn't much point in having CCH now if you're a full time student living on campus.

One question I have for you CY is about the 21 or older factor. Obviously the 21 number is arbitrary, I would think there would be an easy Constitutional argument made by kids 17, 18, 19, that they have just as much of a right to CCH as anyone - and I'd normally think you would be on there side on this issue. If the Founders militias were every man over 16 or 17 it's hard to argue any intent to limit access for 18-20 year olds if you're giving it to the 21+.

Again, I could easily see this resulting in lot's of guns in dorms, and no matter how careful the owners mean to be, that environment is not exactly gun safe. I honestly believe you'd end up with more accidental and crime of passion type deaths from having a bunch of guns around 18-22 year old (drunk) guys, than you'd ever save from the once in a generation or hopefully more shooting at a given school.

Oh yeah, one last one b/c it's on my screen:

"FWIW, it is a statistical fact that you are far more likely to be shot by a responding police officer in said scenario than a CCH holder.

Jim, are you more afraid of the responding police officers than a possible CCH permit holder who has his gun that day?"

You're more likely NOW to be shot by a responding officer because so few people have CCH. My fear isn't of officers, it's of adding to the number of people like officers who would be armed. The police are obviously trained in such matters and they still shoot the wrong people. Add to the number of responders, kids, teachers, and the police, and the accidents will inevitably mount.

Again, thanks for all your responses. I know what I think about the subject, it's great to hear from people who hold other views.

"You're more likely NOW to be shot by a responding officer because so few people have CCH."

I am sorry Jim. Perhaps you did not understand what he was saying, or maybe he was not clear enough.

He was speaking to a percentage not total numbers.

Right now and since about 1994, 2% of shootings involving a private citizen defending their lives hurt or kill an innocent person not involved in the attack. 11% of police shootings kill or wound a person not involved in the attack.

"Cramer C and Kopel D. "Shall issue: the new wave of concealed handgun permit laws." Golden CO: Independence Institute Issue Paper."

Please educate yourself a bit more in the topic at hand. It would make things easier for you.

If I'm not mistaken Matt just called me ignorant, but in a really nice way. :)

Can you point me to their study (Cramer and Kopel? I can find that quote all over the place, but I couldn't find the study to see how they define things or where they got their numbers. I'm not saying it's BS but either this is a case of definitions or sample size distorting things or it's saying the Police are reckless idiots. I'm leaning towards the former. I can see where someone with CCH in their own home is going to be very much unlikely to hit anyone innocent, but we're not talking about people in their homes here, we're talking about people on campuses surrounded by other students either in classrooms or dorms.

It's more than a little bit apples and oranges to compare the behavior of a 50 something on a farm in Idaho defending his property with a 18-22 year old in a dorm at a huge state school.

"If I'm not mistaken Matt just called me ignorant, but in a really nice way. :)"

Pretty much. Kind of the same way I am ignorant in regards to Quantitative physics.

"but I couldn't find the study to see how they define things or where they got their numbers."

You must not have looked very hard. There was a paper on it in the first link on my Google search.

Sorry that I do not post it here. It isnt getting through CY's spam filter. Just run a google search on

Cramer C and Kopel D. "Shall issue: the new wave of concealed handgun permit laws.

It should be the first link on google.

Don't worry, they did reference their materials.

"It's more than a little bit apples and oranges to compare the behavior of a 50 something on a farm in Idaho defending his property with a 18-22 year old in a dorm at a huge state school."

But we are not only talking about people in their homes, or some redneck protecting his chickens. We are talking about Doctors, Lawyers, Teachers, Mechanics, etc ad nauseum.

Funny how the argument you used is the same one the anti crowd uses every time a new state enacts a CCW law. Yet each time, and each year more and more honest citizens are legally carrying and there has been no such scenario.

CY, this spam filter is about frigging annoying.

Quantum i can do, google apparently not. In my defense I was searching for the 11% quote, not the authors and name of the paper, my bad.

But, that paper doesn't have the details, they cite another study, Silver and Kates who apparently got those numbers from newspaper accounts of incidents in MO. Without knowing what they count as a civilian encounter the numbers don't mean much. Plus I really have a hard time believing Police hit a civilian 1 out of every 10 times they fire their weapons.

As far as the Dr, Lawyers etc go, we may or may not be talking about them in terms of the Silver and Kates study - they don't say - but what we're talking about here is kids in classrooms. A very different data set than any previous study because students haven't had CCH in classrooms. Apples and oranges again.

For what it's worth I have no problem with guns, I love target shooting, and ownership is a hard and fast constitutional right. I just have a hard time seeing more people carrying more guns as the solution to the problem of gun violence. Especially when we're talking about kids at college.

Jim, you say that gun ownership is a hard and fast constitutional right, yet you have no problem imposing an entirely arbitrary limit on said right. Please explain how that's logical.

I understand, to a point, your concern regarding young adults living at college and allowing the presence of firearms. However, the fact remains that in this country, we assume someone is a capable adult until they prove otherwise. Are you similarly worried about drivers running you down in the parking lot of Wal Mart? What about the local field hockey team snapping and beating you to death with those odd little sticks? Do you watch the waitress like a hawk to make sure she doesn't suddenly stab you? How about the barista at Starbucks, he's got large amounts of boiling liquid. Better watch out.

Do you never attend college sporting events? The argument you are making is that college students are more dangerous then average. So, logically, you go out of your way to avoid them, right? You move to a new neighborhood when they move in next door, you take up two seats on the bus to make sure they don't sit next to you, you cross the streets to avoid them, right?

Of course not Jim, no one does those things. Which means it's not students you're afraid of, it's guns. Your unstated assumption is that guns cause otherwise stable people to become violent. Since you believe that, you actually do have a problem with guns, the "I love target shooting" line notwithstanding.

I'm not imposing any limits on gun ownership, it was CY who seemed to be suggesting permits would only be given to people over 21, not me.

My opinion is that students bringing guns onto campuses would in the end cause as many or more gun deaths as they would save during the extremely rare VT gunman incidents. Just my opinion, nothing more.

"A very different data set than any previous study because students haven't had CCH in classrooms. Apples and oranges again."

Not so much. And IIRC, I really do not feel like digging through all the data before I have had my two pots of coffee, but most of the data coming to those percentages comes from Local and Federal law enforcement agencies.

Now for a exercise in logic for you. Pretend that you are a criminal that has his wits about you (as many of these school shooters did because they were able to plan out their attacks), are you going to hit a campus where you know there is a likelihood of you running into a legally armed student, or are you going to pick one where it is not likely?

Now, while it is our right to keep and bear arms, it is a right with responsibility.

"Good old Jefferson said no freeman shall be debarred the right to bear arms"

Now to me that is not describing slaves. Think of it like this.

A child is not a free person because they are under their parent's control. A person who is mentally insane is not a free person because they can not control themselves, and a criminal, or excon is not a free man. Smell what I am stepping in?

But nothing here says that it is right or ok to restrict a legal adult from exercising their 2A rights.

"An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life."

I'm not imposing any limits on gun ownership, it was CY who seemed to be suggesting permits would only be given to people over 21, not me.

I wasn't "suggesting" anything. That is the law on the books in North Carolina where I live, and in every state I'm aware of that issues a carry permit.

As for your disbelief over why police shoot so many more innocent bystanders than armed civilians (not just CCH permit holders) do, perhaps a bit of perspective is in order.

The stereotypical shootings you see on the nightly news are the most common, and typically involve either attempted robberies or similar property crimes where deadly force is employed, or attempted violence crimes, such as assault, rape, or murder. A quick look at the basic type explains why police have more problems separating the felon(s) from the victim(s).

Let's look at a hypothetical based upon all too common real-life events.

The Home Invasion

John Q is awoken from his sleep in the middle of the night to the sound of breaking glass. He reaches for his handgun in the nightstand, and quietly opens the bedroom door, trying to hear what is going on.

When he opens the door, he notes that his daughter's bedroom door is ajar. Thinking his daughter might have dropped a glass while trying to get something to drink, and not wanting her to cut herself trying to pick it up, he walks down the hall, gun in hand, finger off the trigger, muzzle pointed at the floor to tell her to wait and he'll help her clean it up.

As he enters the kitchen he is startled to find a man man standing there just inside the door holding a knife.

John Q quickly raises his gun and yells for the man to drop the knife. At the sound of yelling, John's wife calls 911.

As his wife is on the phone with the dispatcher, they hear shots fired and the nearest officer takes the call of a home invasion with shots fired.

The officer exits his car and runs towards the house, notes the front door is locked, and runs around the back to find a bleeding man holding a gun towering over a man lying prostrate on the kitchen floor.

The man holding the gun has it pointed at the man on the ground. The officer tells the man holding the gun to drop it but he's non-responsive (side note: it is common for people in such situations to develop tunnel vision and even go temporarily deaf from both stress and the concussive blast of a gun going off).

There is a pretty strong chance that in scenario above that the next action taken by the man holding the gun could lead to the officer firing on him. But is the man holding the gun the suspected invader, or the homeowner?

The cop simply doesn't know.

Luckily, police training and tactics have come a long way over the years, and in most instances this situation will end without the officer firing his weapon. But there is still a very significant chance that someone may be shot, and the police officer will not know who he is shooting at until after the incident is over.

Police officers shoot more "good guys" than armed civilians do because police officers roll up on the scene after the crime has been committed in the vast majority of cases, though on rare instances, they might interrupt a serious crime in progress. The almost never witness a crime from beginning to end, and they have to rely on (good but imperfect) training and instincts to separate the good guys from the bad guys. There are times that they see something they deem suspicious, misinterpret actions, and gun down someone that has done nothing wrong at all and wasn't a criminal at all (like the NYPD seems to do every couple of years).

By the nature of their work, police interject themselves into uncertain, potentially violent situations. This isnt' a criticism, just a fact.

Gun owners in general don't interject themselves into situations, and react only to immediate threats, thus they tend to shoot fewer people, and have a generally good idea of who they are shooting at.

CCH holders, a more highly-trained class of gun owners, are required in most states to take hours of mandated legal training explaining a very clear and specific range of restrictions and responsibilities on the escalation of deadly force. They are trained in scenarios the show when the use of lethal force is justified, how situations can de-escalate from justifiable lethal force, and the responsibilities they incur when they present their weapon. As a class of people acutely aware of the legal ramifications of firing a bullet (each one has an attached legal cost of $100,000, or so we are told), and without having a department or other government entity to pay for civil damages, we tend to be more careful.

Because we are non-uniformed, and mandated by law to react to deadly force only (you can slap your wife, and I can't pull a gun on it for you unless you're beating her to the point her life is threatened), CCH holders have a distinct advantage over the police when it comes to knowing who the bad guys are.

We are a participant in the action, and we will know with far greater certainty who to good and bad guys are, as opposed to the police who arrive after the fact.

Cops shoot more people than civilians (and especially CCH permit holders) because the police typically lack the context of the situation they are entering.

It isn't their fault they cant' be there to prevent crimes or be everywhere to keep situations from escalating in the first place, but it should be obvious now that police shoot more good guys than CCH permit holders do for the simple reason that they arrive at the scene not knowing who the good and bad guys are.

CY, that is one scenario that does happen, but more often than not it is a scenario like you will read below.

Years ago when I was teaching BUST I would begin my class teaching about functional accuracy. As an attention gainer I used a video from I believe the LAPD. There was a gangbanger hold up on the front step of a home, he clearly had a pistol in his hands, and the cops were trying to talk him down, he had not yet pointed it at anyone, so they only had weapons drawn and trained in on him. After a good bit of time the K9 officer on scene decided to send in his dog. He notified the dozen or so officers that he was sending the dog in, and when he did the bad guy went to throw his firearm away.

Now watching the video you could clearly see that he was attempting to discard the weapon, but things change when you are the guy with boots on deck and adrenalin is pumping. So I can not say what I would have thought the BG was doing if I were actually there.

One officer thought he was about to fire, so the officer opens up on the guy. One shot rings out, followed by many dozen more.

The bad guy is hit five or six times, and a dozen or so more impact the dog, the house, the bush next to him, and some just fly totally wild.

In this case they were lucky that there was a house in the background, and it seemed to be of sturdy construction. So using the JHPs that they were, there were no other injuries. But had that been in the open, bad things could have happened.

Professionals too are subject to tunnel vision.

Now, I love and respect our good boys and girls in blue. But from my experiences with many that I have trained with, and learned from tell me that not all LEOs are professionals, and many will only fire their weapon during their required annual or biannual qualification. Many do not see their firearms as anything more than a heavy hunk of steel and composite that they are required to carry.

While most of the CCW holders that I know spend as much time as they can on the range training.

I am not saying that all CCW holders do so. But from my experience I can say that the majority do.

Matt, I second that many officers do not spend as much time shooting their duty sidearms as CCW holders do, at least as far as uniformed officers go. The uniforms have a LOT of training and retraining to do, in many areas. Civilians often focus on the fact that "they carry a gun."

For everyone: Well, yes, they carry a gun, but they also need to know many aspects of ever-changing laws, how to handle many emergencies, how to perform basic first aid at the scene of an accident, how to drive at above-normal speeds, control traffic, how to handle court appearances, etc. (Full disclosure: I've known a LOT of cops -- I used to teach their instructors, I have some cops in my family, and have a deep respect for the profession and a fondness for some of its practitioners).

Anyway, "the gun" that some seem to faint over is just one aspect of the job for many police officers, and often not even considered the most important one -- most officers will never fire a shot in anger, more will be involved in a traffic accident.

Additionally, how many of you folks want to do the same thing AWAY from work that you do on the job ? So, with the exception of some high-risk specialists in law enforcement (USSS and DEA come to mind), is it any wonder that most officers qualify with their sidearms but don't go much further ?

Contrast that with a civilian CCW holder. Many of us were hobby shooters long before, so we ENJOY shooting. Additionally, most had reason to jump thru all the hoops (and there are MANY) to get that CCW. Often, they have some concern for their own safety for some reason, hence they bought a gun (most carry arms are quite expensive), took the mandated training, applied for the CCW, jumped the hoops, paid the gelt, and got set up. As with PAYING for a gym membership (instead of just having a Bowflex in the basement), they want to "get their money's worth" or to feel safer. So they generally practice MORE than most of the uniformed police officers I knew. Again, this is not the rank and file firearms owners -- this is specifically the CCW holders.

So the idea that many CCW holders may practice more than many uniformed police officers is not hard to understand.

And Jim -- What we are addressing here is NOT forcing or even encouraging college students to get guns. But rather trying to undo the foolishness that says I, former instructor who still holds a CCW and can carry almost everywhere else, must leave my carry arm behind when I go on campus. Repeat for everyone on campus, and you have a "happy hunting ground" for the whackos since even I can't shoot back. You create an environment guaranteed to be full of prey, and no protection in sight.

Will repealing the ban on CCWs on campus change anything ? Heckfino. Just cause a law is stupid and pointless doesn't mean its repeal automatically raises the IQ. But it's sure a stupid law. And besides, as the anti's say, "If if saves JUST ONE LIFE isn't it worth it ?"

Confederate Yankee,

The scenario where you describe the problems a cop arriving on the scene of a home invasion that could easily lead him to shoot the homeowner is exactly what I'm talking about when CCH holders find themselves running to shots fired situations in public. Like at a University. Well meaning, well trained people in chaotic public situations where they are unlikely to know who did what are going to lead to accidental shootings.

Matt,

The 2% for CCH and 11% for police officers was taken from accounts from Missouri newspapers, not from state or federal law enforcement agencies. I can't find the original Silver & Kates study online (yet) but they are using a ton of home invasion style accounts, which skew the numbers wildly from what would happen in a public setting.

"The 2% for CCH and 11% for police officers was taken from accounts from Missouri newspapers"

And guess where those newspapers got their numbers?

From reporters talking to homeowners about incidents at their homes. "I heard a noise, came downstairs with my gun, and the guy must have run off", and then that counts as a 100% win in an 'armed confrontation'. Here's some discussion:

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?p=5381859

If you have access to national data, and the criteria they use to come up with the 2% and 11% numbers please share them. Otherwise you're taking a number you've seen quoted in Cramer C and Kopel that comes from some kind of research by Sliver and Kates using MO newpaper stories involving homeowners and pretending those numbers would apply to civilians in public encounters. Apples and oranges.