There have been two markedly different tales of violence and bloodshed from two different college towns that ended two different ways, reflecting the vast differences in culture and the gaping chasm that exists between the political correctness of the gun-free zone mentality and the common sense of being prepared.
Story #1 comes from Middletown, CT, where 21-year-old Johanna Justin-Jinich will not see another birthday because a man identified by police as Stephen Morgan shot her dead on May 6 at an off-campus bookstore café. Morgan was caught by a surveillance camera with a gun in his hand.
Alarming about this tale is that two years ago, Justin-Jinich filed a harassment complaint against Morgan when the two were attending a summer school session in New York. Published reports say the 29-year-old suspect had sent the woman “dozens of insulting e-mails” and had called her repeatedly on the telephone.
Police found a journal in Morgan’s car that suggested he planned to murder the young woman, and then go on a campus shooting spree.
Police responding to the fatal shooting of astudent found a journal with an entry saying "I think it okay to kill Jews and go on a killing spree" and "Kill Johanna. She must Die," Wesleyan University
He is in custody, charged with murder, and she is dead, and it is not because the college campus environment is safer without guns. There is no way of knowing if this young woman might have availed herself of a firearm for personal protection, but on college campuses around the nation, and in the immediate surrounding neighborhoods, guns are frowned upon by the PC set because, as we all know, there is some sort of moral superiority to being a murder victim, rather than a survivor whose attacker is found lying dead because he made a fatal error in the victim selection process.
And that brings us around to Story #2, from College Place, GA where ten college students were celebrating a birthday party at an off-campus apartment early on May 3 when two thugs came crashing in. One of these gentlemen was later identified by police as 23-year-old Calvin Lavant Jr., and he will not be doing home invasion robberies anymore.
According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Lavant and another man first took wallets and cell phones from their intended victims. They then separated with men from the women. According to WSBT News, as Lavant was moving the women into another room, his companion reportedly asked “how many bullets” he had. His reply was that “he had enough.”
What Lavant didn’t have was bullet-proof clothing. One of the men reached into a backpack and pulled his handgun and opened fire. The other thug ran off, and when the armed student rushed into the other room, he found Lavant evidently preparing to rape his girlfriend. He fired at Lavant, who jumped out of a window. He made it to another part of the apartment complex before he dropped dead.
They just came in and separated the men from the women and said, ‘Give me your wallets and cell phones…The other guy asked how many (bullets) he had. He said he had enough,” said Bailey.
One of the women was wounded in the exchange of gunfire, but she will recover, and she had not been raped or murdered.
There are lots of stories like this. Anybody familiar with a string of crimes up in Seattle’s University District should recall the murder of Rebecca Griego two years ago in her office on the University of Washington campus understands how defenseless some students feel.
Yet college administrators pontificate from their ivory towers that armed students on their campuses would be a very bad thing and distract from the educational process.
As if being raped, robbed and/or murdered doesn’t.
Visit other Gun Rights Examiners:
For more info: America Fights Back: Armed Self-Defense in a Violent Age, Students for Concealed Carry on Campus.
Comments
"Off campus" being the key words in BOTH scenerios. Being able to carry on campus has nothing to do with either scenerio. Colleges could hire more trained, armed security to eliminate the "gun free" aspect of campuses without the need for students to carry guns into classrooms. Trained, armed professionals on campus would have the ability to have plans, coordinate actions with each other, coordinate with law enforcement, etc.
Re: 'Dave'
The questions is whether you have the Basic civil right of being able to defend oneself – on campus, off campus, anywhere.
In BOTH scenarios, “Trained, armed professionals” didn't KNOW about these incidents until after the fact,
Therefore, it was up to the Law-abiding citizen in the one scenario to defend himself and10 others.
Consider that if this Law-abiding citizen hadn't been armed, it quite possibly been another massacre that the MSM would have USED as another reason to Disarm the law-abiding.
How's that for irony?
So you plan to put an armed guard in every classroom? That's the only way your plan might work. How much would that cost? Who do you think would bear the cost? Certainly not the University. It would obviously be the students bearing this cost. How many do you suppose would be capable of doing so? Thus your plan would deny a college education to a large percentage of potential students.
MD
Dave,
The point, as was so disastrously made at Virginia Tech and many other "gun free safety zones", is that the "armed and trained profesionals" never, ever, get to the scene of the mayhem until entirely too late.
What is it with you spineless morons that you are sooooo afraid to defend yourselves, let alone accept that anyone else could and should be able to do so. You transfer you illogical, irrational schisms upon everyone else, BECAUSE YOU DON'T TRUST YOURSELF TO BE RESPONSIBLE ENOUGH TO BE TRUSTED. You folks have a mental disorder. Get some help.
What T Sgt. B said.
I can't help it, I tried not to say this, but it must be said.
Dave, let's assume your plan would work, it won't, but for the point of this question let's assume it would.
What kind of coward are you that you would have others risk their lives to protect yours when you won't even attempt to defend your own life? Why would anyone else consider you worthy of defending, when you don't?
Dave (NOT Workman)
There is a phrase which has been bouncing around the Self Defence Rights community for a while:"When seconds count, Police are only minutes away". They tend to enter to resolve the problem when most of the potential damage has already been done. If Johanna owned a gun, It was likely at home because it was not allowed on campus and she was in transit home.
As far as the first incident, there's no way in hell that Johanna could have prevented Morgan if she had a gun. He walked right up to her and shot her seven times. She was working at the cafe, and would not have been in a position to grab a weapon even if she had one. Using this situation as an example for why people should be able to have handguns is ridiculous.
To T Sgt B:
It has nothing to do with trust. There is evidence that the parts of the brain that control "executive" functions, etc., don't fully develop until the early 20s. This, coupled with the tumultuous atmosphere of binge drinking, drugs, stress, relationships -- not conducive to having guns. Not a mental disorder.
How can you possibly compare these two scenarios? In the second, the men were thieves. They stole wallets and purses, and gave the men time to get out their own gun and fire in self defense. In the first, the murderer was stalking the girl - even if she had a gun the goal was the kill her. Nothing would have changed even if she was holding a gun in her hand while working at the cafe. I'm not attacking your basic idea of freedom to own a gun, but these examples prove nothing. Using the girl's tragic murder for this purpose is disrespectful and selfish.
A stalker is at war with his target. In those cases where the threats are not just braggadocio a stalker can be like a Terminator -- he will not stop until his target comes (back) to him or is dead. Maybe a gun won't stop every pathetic loser who can't accept reality but with a gun the victim will have a chance. A small chance maybe, but better than the zero chance that victim disarmament offers.
and further, if being armed in public was common, this stalker almost certainly would not have chosen to murder in public for fear of immediate retribution from others, even if his target did die. Further still, it what I have just said makes the killer seek a different opportunity sans an armed audience, the victim may have been able to see his approach and if armed be prepared to fire or return fire. Regardless how one looks at it, an armed citizenry is much safer from predators than one in which we must all be helpless and unable to present even the threat of unpleasant immediate consequences for the predator. As has been said already a slim chance is orders of magnitude better than no chance.
Add in the umbrella effect mentioned above and that slim chance improves to something better.
That doesn't mean one cannot be ambushed, one can. But we shouldn't invite it.
No. Put yourself in the position of Johanna (the girl from the first scenario): You're at work in a cafe, serving customers during the busy lunch hour. Then, a man who you haven't seen (possibly in years) enters wearing a disguise (a wig) and has grown thick facial hair. You will not recognize him, and you would have no reason to pull out a gun if you had one. He then walks up to you and shoots you seven times from point blank range.
You would not have had any reason or chance to pull out your gun to defend yourself. This is a terrible thing that happened, and it's insensitive and stupid to use it as an argument against disarmament. Even if she had a gun, it would not have helped.
AA, are you being intentionally dense? One more time, and I am typing real slow to make it easy for you.
The assailant most probably would not have opted to do such in a busy cafe if he had reason to believe it held armed patrons. Therefore she would most probably haved survived that work shift anyway.
You are correct that it may not have mattered in this particular case, but we'll never know, will we? Since the only one with options was the assailant. It's just too damn bad he had no reason to consider one of his possible outcomes was to shot to death by others for an unprovoked attack on an innocent.
That is the umbrella effect of an armed populace.
I kow yall might say that this is crazy but Calvin Lavant was my brother and yall need to keep his name out of yalls mouth, he wasn't trying to rape no one he wasn't even in the room when they robbed the place he was in the room with his old lady having sex and the girl he was having sex with her old ex-man came in and thats how Calvin Lavant died, so yall tell me did he deserve to die, thats encident with that girl I don't know nothing about that but if she died then the man that shot her need to be in the electric chair.
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