BLACKSBURG — They lay down on the grass of the Drillfield, roughly halfway between the places where two groups of victims lay one year ago in Norris and West Ambler Johnston halls.

In silence, the 50-some protesters stayed down for three minutes, about the time they said it takes to buy a gun.

Unlike the other vigils and ceremonies held on campus and around the region to mark the one-year anniversary of the Virginia Tech shootings, this one did more than commemorate the dead: It appealed to the living to do something about the ease with which guns are purchased in America.

“I have no fear of firearms,” said Peter Read, a U.S. Air Force veteran whose daughter, Mary, was one of the 32 victims of last year’s shootings on the Tech campus.

“But I am afraid of what can happen in this country when we don’t take the most simple, common sense precautions,” said Read, who spoke to about 100 people attending the protest.

At Tuesday’s lie-in and about 75 others like it across the country, participants called for better gun control laws, including one that would require background checks for all potential buyers at gun shows.

“Dangerous individuals, mentally ill people and even terrorists can buy guns today at a gun show unchecked,” said Omar Samaha, who lost his sister, Reema, to the shootings.

“That should not be allowed to happen in this country.”

In the context of April 16, perhaps the biggest failing of Virginia’s gun laws was a gap in the reporting system for a database intended to prevent mentally ill people from buying guns.

Before the shootings, only people who had been committed to a mental institution were included in the database used to run background checks on gun buyers. That allowed two handgun purchases by Seung-Hui Cho, the troubled Tech student who had been ordered to receive outpatient treatment 16 months before he committed the mass murders.

The gap Cho slipped through has already been closed. But protesters said Tuesday that more needs to be done — including closing the so-called gun show loophole.

Lori Haas, the mother of shooting victim Emily Haas, made a plea before lying down in the grass: “Let your voices be heard,” she said.

“Please let our legislators know how you feel. They can close the gun show loophole, and they will if we let our voices be heard.”

Cho did not buy his guns at a gun show, where unlicensed dealers are not required to run background checks on potential customers.

Even before it started, the protest generated controversy.

Some worried that political activism would mar the day’s somber tone. After the Student Government Association passed a resolution last week urging students not to protest, a compromise was reached. Organizers agreed to push the event back several hours to avoid a conflict with a morning commemoration ceremony, and to hold it on the opposite end of the Drillfield.

The event drew a lone counter-demonstrator. Joe Painter, a Blacksburg attorney and Virginia Tech graduate, stood at the edge of the crowd wearing a sign that read: “Brady Go Home; Show some respect.”

Although the lie-in was organized by students, it had the backing of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and ProtestEasyGuns.com, a grassroots organization formed after the Tech shootings.

“This is pure politics,” Painter said of the lie-in. “It has nothing to do with the memory of the 32 who were murdered.”

Updated 12:58 p.m.

RICHMOND -- A small crowd of gun control advocates marked the anniversary of the Tech shootings with a quiet demonstration this morning on Capitol Square in Richmond.

About 65 people attended the 11 a.m. rally, including 32 black-clad demonstrators who staged a "lie-in" on the grass near the Bell Tower on Capitol Square. The Brady Campaign to Stop Gun Violence and a group called Protest Easy Guns organized the rally, and plan a similar demonstration at Tech this afternoon.

Demonstrators read the names of the Tech students and professors killed in last year's shootings and called for tougher gun control laws in Virginia. Specifically, the group made a plea for state lawmakers to pass legislation requiring background checks for all firearms purchased at gun shows. Lawmakers rejected such a bill earlier this year, allowing unlicensed gun sellers to continue making transactions without background checks on buyers.

 "I don't think it's appropriate for felons, terrorists, abusers, even an angry teen or someone that's mentally challenged, to have a right to purchase a weapon without that background check," said Bobbie Ansell, the aunt of Tech student Emily Haas, who was wounded in Norris Hall.

Ansell urged the audience at the rally to keep pushing for the legislation.
"The gun lobby in America is very loud, very strong and has very deep pockets,' she said. "We have to speak louder."

Gun rights advocate Philip Van Cleave observed the demonstration and later said that gun show regulations have no relationship to the Tech shootings. Gunman Seung-Hui Cho purchased his firearms from licensed dealers. Information that Cho had been ordered by a court to get mental health treatment was not reported to the records database used for background checks.

 Van Cleave, president of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, called the gun show debate "a political football."

"It's inappropriate,' he said. "It wouldn't have done anything in this case, and we'll continue to fight it."

-- Michael Sluss