2007 Report from the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
On April 16, 2007, the day of the “Massacre at Virginia Tech,” in which 32 innocent college students and faculty lost their lives to a crazed gunman armed with two semi-automatic pistols and a couple hundred rounds of ammunition, the first reaction of the gun lobby was that we need more guns on the college campuses of our Nation. That’s correct. Before a single funeral was held for any of the victims of the Virginia Tech tragedy, and before anyone even knew who the victims were or the perpetrator was, the gun lobby called for college campuses to be turned into armed camps.1 The gun lobby also wants to repeal the Federal Gun-Free School Zones Act and arm public school teachers.2
Was this your reaction to the horrific tragedy at Virginia Tech – to think society should eliminate gun-free schools and campuses? Do the students of the Nation want classrooms to be filled with guns? Will they feel safer knowing that the student sitting next to them could be packing? Would the parents of those students want to select schools for their children where the teachers and staff members, and even the students, were armed? Would putting guns into classrooms contribute to robust academic debate and foster a climate of learning? Do we really want to give guns to binge-drinking college kids, or let college sports fans bring them to stadiums? What about suicidal students or those in need of psychological counseling? How will more guns help them? Is “more guns on campus” the only answer our society can come up with in response to horrific gun violence on a college campus?
As it turns out, the Virginia Tech shooter had been “adjudicated as a mental defective” prior to purchasing the two handguns he used in his rampage.3 Thus, had records of mental health decrees been entered properly, the Brady background check would have barred him from purchasing those guns at a Roanoke gun store and Blacksburg pawn shop. The gun lobby, of course, vehemently opposed the Brady Bill.4
