Sorry, but I don't buy it...
AUSTIN — John Woods sometimes sits in a classroom at the University of Texas and wonders what would happen if somebody walked in and started shooting.
In April 2007, he was a student at Virginia Tech when his girlfriend and several other people he knew there were gunned down in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. Thirty-two people died, plus the gunman.
There were times when Woods thought that maybe he should get a gun.
“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.”
Today, Woods is among the leaders in a fight against bills in the Texas Legislature that would allow licensed concealed gun carriers to take their weapons to school.
Nothing in there about how he "learned pretty fast" that being armed wasn't a solution. I can't help but think it was one of his leftist professors that just told him that and he took said prof's word unquestioningly. (Seeing the Obama-Biden button on his bag, for me, only makes that explanation the more likely one.) Or maybe he's one of those folks that's under the impression that RKBA advocates think a gun is some sort of magic talisman. At any rate, for him being a graduate student at one of the premier universities in the nation, John Woods is pretty damn ignorant. I'm sure people such as Joel Myrick, Tracy Bridges and Mikael Gross would definitely beg to differ that having a gun available "wouldn't solve anything" or that "the idea that somebody could stop a school shooting with a gun is impossible," considering that, y'know, they actually STOPPED SCHOOL SHOOTINGS WITH GUNS -- that they didn't even have on their respective persons, no less! (And civilian shooters with firearms in their cars also played a pretty big role in limiting the carnage on the UT campus in August 1966.) Honestly, when one gets right down to it, one could say keeping a fire extinguisher handy is just as reactive a measure as carrying a gun, but no one shits their pants about having those on campus. I wonder why that is? I sympathize with what Mr. Woods dealt with that day in Blacksburg -- that was something that no one should ever have had to deal with -- but I don't understand why any right-thinking person would see or cite him as an authority just because of that. As a matter of fact, I know some might see this out of line, but I can't help but agree with one of the commenters to that story:
"So John Woods, who was in a 'gun free zone' at VT, and watched so many die, now wants UT to be a 'gun free zone' too. Does he like to see people die?"
It might sound harsh, but sometimes that's just the way you have to be. As one of the commenters said here, "No matter where you are in the world, no matter your race or religion, there is only one antidote to an armed bad guy and that is an armed good guy." And at the end of the day it's just that simple. I hope our legislators remain unswayed by those who would leave our colleges target-rich environments.
Welcome, visitors from Chron.com! Main page is here, pull up a seat and stay a while!
|