Gun woes call for more guns?

Ellis Henican

April 18, 2007

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The debate was raging before the sun came up.

Cho Sung-Hui hadn't even been publicly named yet - or his weapons identified - and the pro-gun people were already firing off their explanation for the carnage at Virginia Tech:

Too few guns on campus.

Not too many. Too few.

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"It is irresponsibly dangerous to tell citizens that they may not have guns at schools," declared Larry Pratt, veteran director of the Gun Owners of America lobby group.

"Americans have been brainwashed into taking a passive role in their own survival," agreed pro-gun activist Chris Bird, whose new book is called "Thank God I Had a Gun."

Bird, Pratt and other Second Amendment absolutists have turned their rhetorical firepower onto the idea of gun-free schools. "When will we learn that being defenseless is a bad defense?" Pratt wanted to know.

Only Utah and Oregon, he said, have taken a real step in the direction of an armed campus, allowing their faculty to carry guns to class. "Isn't it interesting that you haven't read about any school or university shootings in Utah or Oregon?" the gun lobbyist asked.

It was a startling argument, especially yesterday, so soon after the worst mass shooting in American history. The dead were still being identified. Many of the wounded were still in surgery. And the first wave of American gun zealots was already looking to score policy points.

There's no denying school violence is a scary epidemic. Parents are concerned everywhere. We're lucky these on-campus shootings don't happen more often than they do.

But pistols in the cafeteria? Uzis in the science lab? Shotguns on the quad?

God only knows what arsenals some frat boys would build in their basements if given a chance!

As the day wore on, investigators gathered more and more detail about their suspect and his guns.

The shooter bought his first gun, a 22-caliber Walther, in February. In March he bought his second gun. It was a Glock 9-mm semiautomatic, not so different from the weapons police carry in departments across America. His Glock, a model 19, was outfitted with a 15-round magazine plus one in the chamber.

The purchases appear to be perfectly legal under Virginia law. That state allows residents, including permanent resident aliens like the Korean-born Cho, to buy one handgun every month.

But Cho's respect for the law seemingly ended there.

When police finally got to the guns Monday morning at Norris Hall, the serial numbers had been filed down on both guns, which is illegal. And just bringing weapons on campus, of course, violated Virginia Tech's gun-free zone.

Pratt and his allies did their best to reverse the gun-free zones.

In 2005, they got a bill introduced in the Virginia state legislature, allowing the arming of professors, even students so long as they were at least 21 years old. The proposal died, thanks to the outcry from college administrators from Virginia Tech and other schools.

Guns on campus, they convinced the legislators, would only make matters worse.

"We believe guns don't belong in the classroom," university spokesman Larry Hinckman said quite plainly at the time. "In an academic environment, we believe you should be free from fear."

Sadly, the fear came anyway.

And yesterday, as the post-shooting posturing began, Pratt and the other gun advocates tried to use Hinckman's words against Virginia Tech. "I think we can see how well that policy worked out," Pratt sneered.

But the more we learned about the shootings - and the shooter - yesterday the more one basic fact became clear: Cho had little trouble arming himself under Virginia's loose gun laws. And nothing would have likely stopped him, short of keeping those guns out of his hands.