Unarmed & Vulnerable - Bradford Wiles Virginia Tech Student

[5.56X45mm]

Unarmed and Vulnerable
Bradford Wiles, a grad student at Virginia Tech, made a pointed argument in an editorial for the Roanoke Times in August of 2006, following a previous incident on the VT campus*. His argument matches my own, and I understand his frustration.

I can understand Bradford Wiles. I cannot understand the thought processes of those who when thrust into a position where they are helpless decide that making themselves more helpless is the solution.

Living in a society requires compromises. These compromises must be carefully considered, and continuously evaluated and reevaluated to see if the benefit is worth the price. The current situation in schools does not pass that process of evaluation.

A college campus is a place where students go to increase their knowledge, learn a trade, and broaden their perspectives on the world. It is fundamentally no different than a factory or an office, which are places where workers go to earn a living or produce a product, with the goal of earning income to support themselves or their family. It is also no different than a store, where people go to trade their income for products they need. It is simply a location, where people gather to accomplish a specific task.

It is not a magical place, populated by angels who are helpless to take care of themselves and dedicated so fiercely on learning that they are no longer responsible citizens. It is a location overwhelmingly populated by adults.

Getting killed by a nut with a gun certainly prevents students from accomplishing their goals. It also prevents workers from earning their wage, shoppers from buying the products they need, or a farmer from raising his crops. Death is just as final for a cubicle worker as it is for a college student.

So why must we insist that colleges are “gun-free zones”? Why does entering a campus turn a Professor who is trusted to educate his students into a potential criminal who cannot be trusted with a firearm? Why should a student who is properly licensed by the state to carry a concealed weapon off campus automatically be considered a dangerous risk once he walks past that invisible dividing line?

There is no logic behind that argument, only emotion.

For a new student college is a vulnerable time. This is usually the first time that they have experienced full freedom - there are no parents checking that they are going to class, forcing them to do their homework, or making sure they they aren’t getting drunk at a frat party when they should be studying for finals. It is often the first time they have been isolated from their friends and family, and can initially be a lonely place. Dealing with these issues is perhaps the most important experience that they will take away from college. No matter how coddled they may have been growing up, they are adults by the time they enroll and must make these adjustments to survive.

The emotional aspect is much tougher on the parents. For eighteen or so years, they have overseen their child’s development. They have provided food, shelter, protection, and emotional support. Sending their child across the country and not being able to immediately see that their needs are being taken care of is a shocking break. That is probably one of the hardest times on a parent. Their child is now an adult, and can buy porn, join the Marines, vote, or get a job without them being able to do anything about it. That is simply the way the world works - it has always been that way.

The situation we have on college campuses right now is not representative of the real world, though. It is an extended childhood. It is a means for some students to lengthen their period of dependency on others, and a means for some parents to continue their period of control over their children.

That situation, based on emotion rather than logic, is why our schools are “gun-free zones”. What happened at Virginia Tech is a direct result of bad decisions and a poor societal compromise.

These societal compromises we make are based on simple math. We give up an inherent right to provide for ourselves and grant the state the authority to ensure that these rights are still protected. With that granting of authority comes the responsibility to ensure that it actually happens. When the state meets their responsibilities, the equation is satisfied and we benefit from the arrangement. We have made a good decision, and by sacrificing some of our personal liberties we have gained greater freedom for our society as a whole.

Sometimes we make bad compromises, and the result is a worse situation than the one we were trying to correct. That is the case we now face on college campuses.

No one wants to see a promising young student senselessly murdered. We decided to make a compromise - we would use the law to ban guns from college campuses. Students and faculty would give up their right to defend themselves and each other, and give the state that authority. The correlating responsibility is that students and faculty must be able to rely on the state to protect them.

This compromise has failed. The reasons are many and should have been obvious, had we not allowed emotion to rule over logic. One person who has reached the point where they decide that killing random people is the answer to their problems can wreak absolute havoc. The problem isn’t guns. A knife will do, as will poison, a machete, or a baseball bat. As horrible as the death toll at Columbine turned out to be, it was a fortunately low number - Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold had planted several bombs in the school, and only poorly constructed fuses stood in the way of hundreds of additional victims.

 

[5.56X45mm]

Here at Tennessee Tech, we’ve talked a lot about what we will do in a similar situation. The official answer is “Lockdown”. Buildings get sealed, students and professors hide under desks and tables, and we wait for the police to give the “all clear”.

“Lockdown” is exactly what the VT shooter did anyway. He chained the doors to the engineering building, so that no one could escape.

Thirty people died in that locked-down building. There was no shortage of police or SWAT team members buzzing around, but much like Columbine they were in no position to stop the violence as it was occurring. No one inside was armed. There were heroes - Professor Liviu Librescu gave his life to save his students. He did all he could, and bought them time as they jumped out of a second story window. He survived the Holocaust, yet still ended with a bullet in his head. All of his students lived.

This is the point when I find it hard to speak coherently and the rage starts flowing. One student, one Professor with a concealed gun could have ended this. There still would have been at least one death in that building - the shooter was going to die. How many others could have been saved, if we hadn’t made that compromise?

There was a time in America when faced with a problem or disaster we examined the root causes and fixed them. The current answer when faced with a problem or disaster is to sue. We don’t look for solutions - we look for who is to blame.

This attitude is glaringly obvious in news coverage of the VT massacre. The predominant question is not “How can we prevent this from happening again?”, but rather “Why didn’t VT lockdown the entire school after the first shooting?”

Using hindsight, a lockdown after the first shooting would have trapped the shooter in his dorm. Considering the time of day, this would have probably saved some lives, since many students would have been at class instead of in the dorm. It would still have been a massacre there, though. Even though it would have saved some lives, it wasn’t the right answer.

I don’t think VT officials messed this one up - they took the information they had and did the best they could with it. With our current laws, a criminal has a sanctuary on campus and is able to kill with impunity - it is only going to end when he decides to take his own life. A “Lockdown” would only help him in any case - he can be certain that no other law-abiding student or faculty member has a gun, and unless he tries to storm out and commit suicide-by-cop he’s not worried about armed resistance.

I’ve mentioned authority and responsibility, but there is a third part to that equation of societal compromise: accountability.

This is where the blame comes in. It has started with the news - “Should the President of VT be fired?” Soon to follow will be accusations at the rest of the leadership of VT, especially their security. Next will be fingers pointed at the state of Virginia, and their gun laws. All of it will miss the mark.

There is one guy to blame for this - Seung-Hui Cho. He is the guy who did the killing. He should be blamed, but he isn’t who we should hold accountable for the greater tragedy.

We can dole out drugs and try to give a psychiatrist to every child, but people will still snap. When they do, they can cause a lot of damage. That will never change. We must make sure that when it does happen, we can limit the effects.

We, the citizens of the US, failed VT. We are the ones who have to be held accountable. It was specifically Virginia state law that bans CCW holders from carrying on campus at VT, but all fifty states have that same provision, so it could have happened to all of us. We decided to make that compromise, and give up our rights in exchange for greater security. It was a bad choice, and we paid the price. It is time to correct that mistake.

The orgy of reporting on the VT shootings demonstrates that accountability is the most desired and least aptly applied part of the equation. That is the problem with emotionally based arguments.

The recent events at VT are exactly the reason why those emotional arguments were posited in the first place. The thirty-two deaths are also the result of emotional arguments winning the issue. The desired endpoint is good, but the emotional reaction which created “gun-free schools” also extended this tragedy. Correct feelings resulted in poor results. Accountability lies with those who created this criminal sanctuary in schools.

The very same arguments that put us into this losing compromise are going to be doubly applied to compensate for this latest tragedy. No matter how many mathematicians you throw at the problem, 2+2 will never equal 5.

We had a problem, and we chose between two solutions. We chose poorly. We cannot compound that mistake by applying more veneer to the broken solution. We gave up the right to defend ourselves in this specific situation. The state was unable to meet the responsibility required of it. We must hold ourselves accountable for this mistake, and correct it.

The equation failed, and the contract was broken. We must take back the right of self defense. CCW holders, students and faculty alike, must be permitted to carry on campus.