Friday, October 13, 2006
The criminally minded don't get concealed-carry permits
From the RoundTable blog
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Mark MacDanel
MacDanel, of Harrisonburg, is a laboratory technician at the Merck & Co. Inc., Stonewall Plant in Elkton.
This is in response to the commentary by Nancy A. Gibbs concerning the presence of guns on campus ("Keep guns, licensed or not, off campus," Sept. 24).
My daughter attends school at Virginia Tech and was in her dorm room when the campus was turned upside down by the presence of a loose killer.
She lives in one of the dorms that overlooks the Drill Field. She called me several times on her cellphone during the incident.
She remained calm and reported seeing a large number of military type people all over the campus.
I asked her if they were armed. She said she thought they were. She was struck by the fact that students were still walking around the campus, too, apparently oblivious to the danger.
My reaction was the opposite of Gibbs'. I was glad the campus was locked down with armed officers, and I wished some of the responsible students were also armed.
When I visit my daughter, I discretely carry my concealed weapon with me. Why? For the same reason the police carry their weapons. To protect the public and myself.
My daughter was trying to escape the campus and get to her boyfriend's apartment, where it was assumed safer.
I wish either she or her boyfriend had a gun when she walked out the back door of that dorm and headed down the street into the town of Blacksburg. She might have needed it. She made it.
The idea that guns are inherently unsafe is not as naïve as the notion that some campus rule is going to keep any nut from bringing a weapon onto the campus and using it.
People who get a concealed-weapon permit subject themselves to a formal application process, fingerprinting by the local police and a $50 fee. Our fingerprints are on file nationwide with the FBI.
Does anyone really think a criminally minded person is going to subject themselves to that kind of scrutiny, when they can just get a gun anywhere on the street, put it in their pocket and walk anywhere they want with it? Do you think a sign or a rule will have any effect on their behavior or intentions?
In the words of another gun supporter: "Have you noticed that every time an anti-gunner calls a gun owner 'paranoid,' the anti-gunner then proceeds to show himself to be the one who is actually paranoid?"
I have to laugh every time they do that. Gibbs' last paragraph is typical of such a person. She is saying that no student can be trusted and even questions guns in the hands of police. How's that for paranoid?
