This week, Virginia Tech saw another brutal killing, and without a gun. The interesting thing about knives is that they are silent and they do not run out of ammunition. Witnesses did nothing. The campus alert system announced the incident long after it was a completed act, taking fifteen minutes to complete the student body list of cell-phone recipients.
One of the best kept secrets in the anti-violence movement is to tone down - obfuscate - details of the incident. It takes a little curiosity and a little searching to discover how brutal this killing was on campus, a gun free-zone. Some reports say that the victim was stabbed. Others more graphically describe a complete decapitation.. In a gun free zone. The theory is that if you make it illegal for the honest to be armed, the thugs will go along with it.
Many critics have shown that the "Active Killer" plans and protocols on campus are not only ineffective, but contribute to the death toll. It doesn’t take an expert to see that a policy of "Don’t do anything until we get there," and "Give them what they want," might as well hold the killer’s coat for them. In the case of Virginia tech’s most recent death toll, witnesses did as instructed: they did nothing, and they waited until someone got there. With such crimes as murder, rape and abduction, how do you live with the policy of give them what they want when it is your child they want?
What do these policies really ask of us and our children who go to school?
These policies ask of us the suspension of our sovereign authority and the surrender of our safety to others who cannot keep a promise of safety. Most wriggle out of it saying they never made such a guarantee. In truth, we never transferred the responsibility of our safety to others – they cannot be guarantors of that – we gave them nothing, yet they behave as if we surrendered our knowledge and abandoned our will. The responsibility is still ours and no one else’s.
These policies ask more from us. They ask of us the choice of choosing between felony and funeral for our adult children attending college. As a condition of admission, the Student Code of most campuses is that you come unarmed and run the risk of being maimed or killed, or come armed and run the risk of expulsion and being charged with a felony. As I mentioned in my Examiner piece Guns On Campus, many colleges affirm student concealed carry, and they don’t seem to regret that affirmation. They do not allow or disallow guns, they affirm the right to carry in recognition that you do not check your civil rights or citizen authority at the Admissions office. Right to carry on campus is proving to be the better policy with every passing day. It's time to repeal gun bans everywhere.
It's time to repeal gun bans everywhere in the United States.
If we achieve anything at all in writing for a non-gun owner readership in America, it is that you and what you stand for in protecting yourself and loved ones are worth fighting for, in rhetoric, in authority, in many questions and many venues. When it comes to discouraging violence – trying to discourage it purely for a silly misguided notion about fighting -- we begin to abandon principles and surrender to the idea that nothing is therefore worth fighting for at all. I believe I can state without fear of contradiction that your daughter’s life is worth fighting for. Decerebrate mantras such as violence never solved anything, I don’t care who started it, and other empty-headed slogans indoctrinate adult students to surrender more than they might think (as we see), and dislocate critical thinking. Virginia Tech is getting a reputation now. Such political stubbornness gets our kids killed.
I believe I can state without fear of contradiction that your daughter’s life is worth fighting for.
On a much larger scale, these discourage not only sovereignty, but the never-ending endeavor for security of our freedoms. Individuals who rise to use force when there is positively no alternative are castigated often as jingoistic and abusive – as we have seen, even Vigilante – while other factions are more than violent; the ‘Active Killers’ who thrive on those policies. They prevail in most of the larger cities where people there, too, have been talked out of their liberty and their authority obfuscated.
When good judgment prevails and when courage backs it, it becomes clear that discouraging violence is nothing more than a trap to discourage resistance, to vex authority and our better judgment, and I hope you take that with you from this series.
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John Longenecker’s book Safe Streets In The Nationwide Concealed Carry of Handguns features a critique of the Virginia Tech Review Panel.
Comments
John, I am enjoying your articles on personal sovereinty. I agree with your position that we are all sovereign. But, how does the law view it? Can you give references that affirm this position? Maybe Dave Hardy can help?
Jay, self-defense in both tort law and criminal law is what the lawyers call an affirmative defense. An affirmative defense carries real weight in long-established legalese from way back. Beyond this, it varies from state-to-state. In California, we have a presumption of intent to do great bodily harm when someone breaks into your home; in another state I won't mention, you have a duty to retreat. In still other states, you have no such duty and you might have a Castle Doctrine in place. It's a case-by-case answer best answered in your home state's rules. Generally, the average reasonable person doctrine (TARP) is at the core of how your actions will be judged. The a codification of Law as you asked is only part of it. Reasonableness under the circumstances guides most gun owners in responding in purpose and not mere reaction. Check your locale. Hope this helps.
Continued excellence. I'm going to feature your Examiner column at my website along with David Codrea.
www.thepriceofliberty.org
Thanks for what you are doing!
John, IIRC carrying on campus in Virginia is not a felony, but can result in expulsion. But the point of your article is still perfectly valid. Well said.
No one should be forced to chose between an education or their employment and the right to defend themselves. Indeed the right to protect oneself supersedes all others.
I say don't goto VT for college!
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