VA's Campus Gun Laws Punish Adults

Students carry many necessities with them to class each day, toting backpacks filled with everything from textbooks to virtual over-the-counter drug stores stocked with every pain reliever and stay-awake medication known to man. Most students look for ways to reduce the number of items they must carry across campus, but a determined group of college students in Virginia are making national headlines not for what they carry in their backpacks but for what they want to carry under the concealment of clothing: handguns.

The debate over a student’s legal right to carry concealed handguns on college campuses did not begin with the tragic Virginia Tech shooting spree in April, but that event more than any other has provided the impetus students needed to push this issue to the forefront of public awareness. While officials at various levels and parents of Virginia Tech students immediately engaged in the blame game over actions that might have minimized the death toll from Seung-hui Cho’s rampage, students at George Mason University organized Students for Concealed Carry on Campus and have worked to overturn the Virginia law that allows colleges to dictate whether students, faculty, or staff members with valid concealed-carry permits from carrying their firearms on campus.

Emotional levels skyrocket when conversations turn to guns on school campuses, and the debate over this issue in Virginia has been quite spirited. The initial reaction by schools nationwide has been to oppose any measures permitting concealed weapons on campuses, and Virginia’s colleges have, with the backing of Governor Timothy Kaine (D), reaffirmed their desire to retain authority to ban handguns from Virginia campuses. As this debate will likely escalate and venture into Supreme Court case territory, an analysis of the arguments on both sides should prove useful.

State and university administration arguments against allowing concealed handguns on campuses revolve around one central concern: safety. These concerns encompass a host of already dangerous and irresponsible behaviors by college students that administrators foresee as becoming even more potentially lethal with the introduction of concealed handguns to the mix: parties, alcohol, drugs, DUI, student fights or altercations, domestic disputes, grudges over grading issues, accidental discharges, and others.

From a law enforcement perspective, these are all valid concerns, but there is a significant flaw in the logic behind the safety concern, and that is the fact that at most universities and colleges, the majority of students live in off-campus housing, where by state law they are permitted to carry their concealed handguns to all of these types of activities. Very few students actually engage in the type of behaviors listed above while on campus because most campuses have behavioral restrictions and students seek to avoid running afoul of them. Thus, enforcing campus bans on handguns does nothing to prevent students from involving themselves in potentially dangerous behaviors while enrolled as students but performing them off campus.

I found the official position of The International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators, which represents campus public-safety officials, very questionable from a 2nd Amendment viewpoint. The association claimed that:

…the presence of students carrying concealed weapons "has the potential to dramatically increase violence on our college and university campuses."

Allowing concealed weapons brings the potential for accidental gun discharge or misuse of firearms at parties, including those where alcohol or drugs are used, and the possibility for guns to be used to settle students' disputes, the group said.

That argument deserves careful scrutiny. In most states, campus police are POST certified police officers with full police powers in a limited jurisdictional area, within a university’s geographical boundaries. They naturally like to know who within their jurisdiction is known to possess weapons. Yet when those officers go home, off campus, and go out to dinner or to the store, they do not know who else in these establishments might be legally carrying a concealed weapon. If these campus police officers feel that the very presence of students carrying concealed weapons “has the potential to dramatically increase violence on our college and university campuses,” what is the basis of that conclusion or belief?

Do those same officers feel that the presence of concealed weapons among private citizens off campus dramatically increases violence among the general population? If a 21 year-old Virginia man who is not a college student obtains required training and a concealed-carry permit and carries his concealed handgun to the local mall, does this association feel that he “dramatically increases” the potential for violence in that mall? If so, the association may be the only law enforcement organization I am aware of that is uniformly opposed to the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms.

All of the risks that guns on campus would present as cited above by this association would be present in any population that permits concealed weapons, but what the association cannot or will not explain is why it believes college students who must be 21 years-old to obtain such a permit are considered potentially dangerous, while the 21 year-old non-college student can carry his gun onto any college campus simply because he is considered a citizen and not a student. That is the crux of the Virginia law. It does not provide equal treatment between students who meet all the criteria for a concealed weapons permit and those who meet the same criteria but are non-students. In essence, Virginia students are singled out for restrictions on handguns simply because they are enrolled in school, which should be considered a sign of their desire to be responsible rather than a label that marks them as too immature or potentially dangerous to safely carry their concealed handguns.

I understand the position of the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators. Law enforcement always, from a tactical perspective, wants to know who is carrying weapons in their jurisdiction, because that knowledge could prevent a tragic accidental shooting due to mistaken identity and is considered essential to officer safety. Yet it is not the law-abiding, permit holding, concealed carry-trained citizen or student that is likely to present a threat to police officers. Crime statistics do not support any argument that legally owned firearms increase crime. On the contrary, most crimes are committed using unlicensed and illegally acquired handguns, because using “anonymous” weapons reduces the risk of being caught later.

In the case of the Virginia Tech shootings, it is quite possible that students carrying concealed weapons might have killed Seung-hui Cho and reduced the number of his eventual victims. It is also possible that SWAT teams responding to the scene might have shot those students brandishing firearms. The key issue here, though, is not what might have happened in that one incident. The issue is much larger. The central point of this debate over campus firearms is the legal reasoning involved in allowing non-students to carry concealed weapons on campus, which Virginia state law currently permits, while denying students who hold the same concealed weapons permit from carrying their firearms on those same campuses.

Emotional appeals against permitting legal handguns on campuses seem to be the political weapons of choice for educators and Virginia Democrats. Dismissing the legal arguments raised by Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker clouded the issue with appeals to sentiment rather than logic:

We don't believe that guns have any place in the classroom," Mr. Hincker said. "We've experienced far more of guns in the classroom than any university should have to endure."

What Hincker refuses to address is that guns in the classroom was not what caused the Virginia Tech tragedy. The tragedy was that Seung-hui-Cho’s were the only guns present on that terrible April morning. Twenty-one year old students can vote; they can drive; they can drink legally; they can own handguns and qualify for concealed carry permits. They are, under the laws of all states, adults. Virginia’s legislators have only two legal options available to resolve this debate over the right to carry handguns on college campuses: Either the law needs to be changed to forbid anyone but campus police to possess firearms on campuses, or the law needs to be changed to give adult students the same right to carry firearms on campuses that non-students currently enjoy. Educators and Democratic legislators find both options unpalatable, as one would certainly be challenged constitutionally, and the other would increase the number of guns present on campuses. There is nothing more fearsome to these groups than lawsuits and an armed populace.

As these entities and campus law enforcement administrators have demonstrated through their statements, they do not trust 21 year-old college students to be responsible with their legal right to carry handguns on or off campus, but they do trust 21 year-olds who chose not to attend college to be responsible while carrying their firearms on campus. The disparity is stunning, but is overshadowed by emotional pleas from Virginia Tech administrators, who insist that guns, and not a mentally ill individual, were responsible for the tragedy on that campus. As a result, they hold hostage the right of adult students at all Virginia universities and colleges to be treated the same as non-student adults when it comes to firearms.


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Seung-hui Cho, Virginia Tech, School Shootings, Concealed Carry, Virginia, Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators, 2nd Amendment, Gun Control

Illegal Video Games or Illegal Immigrants?

Which is a greater threat to America’s national security, pirated video games or criminal illegal aliens? While the answer to that question may seem obvious, apparently the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has funding for spending its time and resources to conduct raids and seize illegally modified Wii and PlayStation video game console chips but insufficient funds to dedicate its full resources to the highest priority job that Americans expect of it: locating and deporting criminal illegal aliens. When it comes to prioritizing between video game piracy or illegal immigration investigations, ICE must face the decision, paraphrasing Shakespeare, to Wii or not to Wii.

In fairness to ICE, many federal law enforcement agencies are mandated to enforce multiple federal criminal statutes, some of which have conflicting priorities that often force those agencies to choose investigations based on dollar-loss amounts, likelihood of prosecution by U.S. Attorneys, and positive media attention that generates increased budgets from a media-influenced Congress. Enforcement of immigration statutes and subsequent deportations, as important as they are to national security, do not meet these criteria. As a result, ICE is vilified in the media for tearing apart families, “unfairly” targeting day laborers, or ruining American businesses by disrupting their workforces when it actually enforces existing illegal immigration statutes.

The uproar over ICE enforcement of immigration statutes tends to remind ICE officials that it has multiple missions to perform, and not surprisingly those officials logically conclude that the best way to garner positive media coverage and subsequent Congressional gratitude is to actively enforce other criminal statutes that are less controversial than illegal immigration. One such statute involves the smuggling and distribution of illegal devices that allow pirated video games to play on video game consoles.

This crime may not have any impact on national security, but it does cost businesses like Sony and Nintendo approximately $3 billion in video game sales annually. Of course Sony and Nintendo have effective lobbyists who bring these losses to Congress’ attention, and when ICE conducts raids and executes search warrants to curb this $3 billion per year loss, the media praises it, congress basks in the positive coverage given to its well-spent law enforcement funding, and ICE’s decision to actively enforce non-controversial crimes unrelated to national security is reinforced.

After raids and search warrants were conducted yesterday on 32 businesses and homes in 16 states, the Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for ICE made the following statement:

Illicit devices like the ones targeted today are created with one purpose in mind, subverting copyright protections. These crimes cost legitimate businesses billions of dollars annually and facilitate multiple other layers of criminality, such as smuggling, software piracy and money laundering.

The same is true of illegal immigration, which costs taxpayers billions of dollars annually and involves smuggling, human exploitation, money laundering, and a host of other criminal activities. Yet ICE officials recently made it clear to Virginia’s state legislature that it cannot scrape together sufficient funds to train and work with state and local law enforcement officers in Virginia’s jails to deport criminal illegal aliens already in custody. That is worth repeating. Virginia was merely asking ICE to train its deputies to deport illegal alien criminals already in custody and sitting in the state’s jails. Virginia had previously enacted a law allowing its law enforcement agencies that staff state jails to attend official ICE training programs designed to help local agencies check the immigration status of prisoners and begin the deportation status on behalf of ICE. However, earlier this week ICE officials informed Virginia’s legislature that it simply did not have adequate funding to extend the immigration enforcement training to agencies throughout the state. ICE has received similar requests from many law enforcement agencies throughout the nation and its budget to provide the training that would help locals enforce existing illegal immigration laws cannot keep pace with the current demand. Meanwhile, ICE continues to use a portion of its funds to investigate video game piracy.

Virginia’s response was predictable and poignant:

Delegate Robert G. Marshall, Prince William Republican, declined to say whether he would support using state funds for immigration enforcement, but said the federal government should pay to enforce its own laws.

"If we're doing the job of the federal government, they should be humiliated that they wouldn't offer to pay for all of this," said Mr. Marshall, who sits on a separate commission studying the effects of illegal aliens on the state. "I'm not going to start putting the state's cards on the table until the federal government is going to openly say, 'We don't have the interest. The state of Virginia can [forget] their efforts to enforce immigration law.' "

There are an estimated 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens in the United States. More than 250,000 of them lived in Virginia in 2005, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.

Virginia’s counties have been so impacted by illegal immigration that two, Loudoun and Prince William counties, recently voted to deny county services to illegal immigrants, a move that was widely applauded by residents who already pay some of the highest taxes in the nation.

The question this budget shortfall for ICE training for local agencies raises is an important one: in a War on Terror, should Homeland Security agencies like ICE continue dividing their manpower, equipment, energy, and budget resources between financial crimes like video game piracy and national security responsibilities like illegal immigration? Like many other agencies, ICE has conducted many successful high-profile criminal investigations of smuggling, counterfeit merchandise, and child pornography materials, among others. They are good at what they do. However, as the recent national uproar over the “comprehensive immigration reform bill” demonstrated, Americans do not want amnesty or new laws; what they want is enforcement of existing illegal immigration laws, and the issue is considered to be directly related to national security. In war, priorities are paramount.

While it is unfortunate that Sony and Nintendo lose money annually due to video game piracy, there are many agencies in departments other than Homeland Security that could enforce piracy and intellectual property statutes. It would make sense if the agencies grouped into the behemoth Department of Homeland Security actually performed duties that directly protect some aspect of the homeland. Agencies that do not perform national security functions should be relocated to other departments, so that the remaining agencies would all reflect what the Department of Homeland Security’s name implies. ICE clearly belongs in Homeland Security, but some of its investigative case load includes enforcement of statutes that are completely devoid of any national security nexus.

If ICE could dedicate its funds, manpower, and other resources exclusively to criminal investigations related to national security rather than to a year-long investigation of video game piracy, it would find funds to help Virginia’s jails start criminal illegal aliens on the path to deportation. ICE did good work in its raids and seizures of 61,000 illegal game console chips, but there is more important work to be done to secure the homeland and our resources must be dedicated to priorities that improve national security. Illegal immigration is such a priority; illegal video games are not.

Americans care far less that their neighbor’s Wii or PlayStation games are legal than they do that their neighbors themselves are here legally.

Technorati Tags:
ICE, Illegal Immigration, Software Piracy, Video Games, Sony, Nintendo, Wii, PlayStation, Virginia, Loudoun County, Prince William County

Debunking The Deified Lee

I was born with a lifelong passion for history, as reflected by my choice of undergraduate and graduate degree programs. I received my M.A. from a university in Virginia, a state in which General Robert E. Lee is worshipped as the embodiment of Jesus Christ and George Washington combined into one hallowed figure. At times I was convinced Lee ranked above both in the minds of some Virginians. Anyone with even a basic history education has been fed the traditional portrayal of Lee: Reluctant to war against his Union brothers; brilliant tactician; beloved by troops and citizens alike; a deeply religious and righteous man; impeccable integrity and southern honor; considered slavery evil. So revered is Robert E. Lee among historians, southerners, and especially Virginians, that nearly every historical portrayal, fact or fiction, has accepted the Lee myths as gospel truth. To criticize Lee is to criticize southern honor and nobility, and few have attempted the Herculean feat of separating Lee’s actual behavior from the larger-than-life stories told of him through print and film.

Having visited Gettysburg again recently after viewing the Turner production “Gettysburg” (1994), starring Martin Sheen as the "venerable" Lee, I was struck by the portrayal of Lee as a pious, tired general who was to be pitied because of his long sacrifice for what he believed to be a noble cause (states rights versus federalism). This states rights issue was the smokescreen put up by southerners to obscure the real issue of racism and preservation of slavery and its accompanying lifestyle of comfort and affluence for the slaveholder. At long last a historical biography is available that did not intentionally seek to destroy the image of Lee as a reluctant warrior and despiser of slavery, but by publishing his own letters and correspondence from his friends and family, the book reportedly allows his own words to demonstrate that Lee was not as noble or saintly as southern apologists insist.

NY Sun reviewer Eric Ormsby reported in today’s issue that Elizabeth Brown Pryor’s Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee Through His Private Letters sheds light on certain aspects of Lee’s personality and belief structure that Lee worshippers, if they are even aware of them, would prefer to keep in the dark. Two paragraph’s from Ormsby’s review capture effectively where history and reality diverged when it came to casting Lee as one who believed slavery was evil or who valued the lives of his troops:

The most disturbing chapters deal with Lee's views on slavery. He thought slavery an evil system not because it stripped slaves of freedom and dignity but because it was such an awful burden on slave owners. For Lee, slavery formed part of some inscrutable providential design through which slaves might someday rise to a higher condition (though never to the level of whites). He was a brutal slave owner, destroying families to make a quick profit. "By 1860 he had broken up every family but one on the estate," Ms. Pryor writes. Once he had a runaway slave given 50 lashes, urging his constable to "lay it on well," and then had brine poured onto the victim's flayed back — this was a slave who had been manumitted at Lee's father-in-law's death but whom Lee refused to free. Despite Ms. Pryor's best efforts to put all this in context, Lee stands revealed as both cruel and hypocritical.

Lee had wit and grace in abundance, as his letters prove. And they display other unsuspected aspects of his personality. He was a lifelong flirt, indulging in startling sexual innuendo with female friends and relatives. He was a domestic tyrant who adored his children, lavishing them alternately with caresses and commands. But despite his considerable charm, something cold, some abstractly calculating tendency, characterized Lee. His troops regarded him as a father, but he let them be butchered by the thousands without so much as a backward glance; most conspicuously at Gettysburg, when even his own generals stood appalled. As Ms. Pryor shows throughout, Lee was simply unable to imagine the lives of others, whether slaves torn from their families or young soldiers squandered in suicidal charges. In crucial ways, Lee the man was more hollow — and more heartless — than the icon he became.

Ordinarily I am an outspoken critic of “revisionist history," as that genre has produced many volumes tearing down the reputations of the Founding Fathers, Abraham Lincoln, and other historical icons for which it is healthy for Americans to hold high opinions. There is something inherently wrong about debunking men who, though hampered by human weakness or error, wore out their lives in service to righteous ideals such as life, liberty, and constitutional government. I am much more forgiving when historians debunk iconic figures who wore out their lives defending evil practices such as slavery, as Lee did. It is never noble to fight for an evil cause. While many of the Founding Fathers were slaveholders, most of them abandoned the practice within years of constitutional ratification. Further, they laid the foundation for a system of government that could later be amended to eliminate slavery, discrimination, and a host of other inequalities over time. The northern colonial representatives in particular recognized that an accommodation for slavery would be necessary if the United States was to be established, and the mechanisms for future change were incorporated.

Lee, however, was firmly entrenched as a slave owner and was willing to kill other Americans and wage war to preserve his right to white supremacy and a life of luxury at the expense of other humans. The Founders fought a war with Britain to establish a free nation. Lee fought a war to keep other humans permanently enslaved. To revere him on a par with the Founders is to denigrate their ideals and accomplishments. Perhaps Pryor’s new book will help Americans better understand why statues of Lee and other Confederate “heroes” stir sentiments of anger and resentment within local African-American communities. They should stir those same sentiments within each of us regardless of race. Lee should not be considered a historical figure worthy of enshrinement in statue and laudatory biography. If more Americans were aware of Lee’s actual attitudes toward and personal treatment of his slaves, historical justice would be served. The next time you hear someone invoke “southern honor” or “states rights” to describe what the South fought for in the Civil War, you can point to Lee, the ultimate “southern gentleman,” and dispel the historical myths.

Virginia Tech Blame Game

Who is to blame for the shooting massacre of 32 Virginia Tech students yesterday? At last count, the following had been blamed for the tragedy:

President Bush and Vice President Cheney - Although both were hard at work in D.C. battling Congress over funding Operation Iraqi Freedom when the shootings occurred, they were nonetheless blamed for using the incident for political points, and for not supporting nationwide gun control laws.

Charles Steger, President of Virginia Tech – Blamed for not “locking down” an entire sprawling university campus the size of a small city after the initial 2 murders were committed in a VaTech dormitory on one side of campus. Blamed for not cancelling all classes after the dormitory shooting, despite his being advised by law enforcement that it appeared to be a domestic incident between the shooter and an ex-girlfriend. VaTech parents are calling for him to be fired.

Commonwealth of Virginia’s Gun Control Laws – Blamed for being too liberal, making it easier for citizens to keep and bear arms.

Commonwealth of Virginia’s Gun Control Laws – Blamed for being too restrictive, making VaTech a gun free zone where students and faculty could not protect themselves.

VaTech PD, Blacksburg PD, Montgomery County Sheriffs – Blamed for sealing off a small perimeter around the dormitory where the initial 2 killings took place, but not ordering a campus-wide lockdown because they believed the first incident to be a domestic incident.

VaTech PD, Blacksburg PD, Montgomery County Sheriffs – Blamed for not immediately rushing, with guns blazing, into the classroom building where gunfire could be heard on the opposite side of campus from where the domestic shooting occurred earlier that morning.

VaTech PD, Blacksburg PD, Montgomery County Sheriffs – Blamed for not capturing the shooter alive so that he could explain his motives and help society prevent similar tragedies in the future.

Notice that someone is conspicuously absent from the blame list: the shooter. Much like the urge to blame America for terrorism in the wake of 9/11, broadcasters yesterday could not resist the urge to spend most of their air time speculating about how society needs to be kinder to outcasts (like the allegedly picked on Columbine killers) to prevent such massacres.

A Washington Post article addressed the issue of why, after the initial dormitory shootings, warnings were not issued:

Although the gunman in the dorm was at large, no warning was issued to the tens of thousands of students and staff at Virginia Tech until 9:26 a.m., more than two hours later.

"We concluded it was domestic in nature," Flinchum [VaTech PD Chief] said. "We had reason to believe the shooter had left campus and may have left the state." He declined to elaborate. But several law enforcement sources said investigators thought the shooter might have intended to kill a girl and her boyfriend Monday in what one of them described as a "lover's dispute." It was unclear whether the girl killed at the dorm was the intended target, they said.

The sources said police initially focused on the female student's boyfriend, a student at nearby Radford University, as a suspect. Police questioned the boyfriend, later termed "a person of interest," and were questioning him when they learned of the subsequent shootings at Norris Hall. A family friend of the boyfriend's said the boyfriend was stopped by police alongside Route 460 in Blacksburg, handcuffed and interrogated on the side of the road and later released.

However, VaTech students, affected by the emotional incident, were outraged over what they perceived as a failure by the university to warn them of a pending disaster no one knew was going to occur. Students interviewed by CNN expressed their initial observations:

Police said they were still investigating the shooting at the dorm when they got word of gunfire at the classroom building.

Some students bitterly questioned why the gunman was able to strike a second time.

"What happened today this was ridiculous," student Jason Piatt told CNN. "While they send out that e-mail, 20 more people got killed."

Students and Laura Wedin, a student programs manager at Virginia Tech, said the first notification they got of the shootings came in an e-mail at 9:26 a.m., more than two hours after the first shooting.

The e-mail had few details. It said: "A shooting incident occurred at West Amber Johnston earlier this morning. Police are on the scene and are investigating." The message warned students to be cautious and contact police about anything suspicious.

Student Maurice Hiller said he went to a 9 a.m. class two buildings away from the engineering building, and no warnings were coming over the outdoor public address system on campus at the time.

Everett Good, junior, said of the lack of warning: "I'm trying to figure that out. Someone's head is definitely going to roll over that."

"We were kept in the dark a lot about exactly what was going on," said Andrew Capers Thompson, a 22-year-old graduate student from Walhalla, S.C.

Clearly law enforcement and university officials had investigative leads pointing to an off campus suspect, and given the nature of domestic disputes, the decision not to lock down an entire university based on what they knew was appropriate. There was no investigative information that could have predicted that the dormitory shooter possessed multiple firearms, was a VaTech student, and had laid plans to massacre students on the opposite side of campus, carrying chains to lock students in, intending to execute them with no apparent emotion. Such behavior would have been incompatible with a domestic incident, which usually diffuses once action has been taken against the girlfriend/spouse.

The campus lockdown that occurred at VaTech on the first day of classes last fall was ordered because intelligence then indicated the escaped felon was at large on campus and had shot a sheriff’s deputy. That was not the case yesterday, as the initial domestic shooting at the dormitory pointed to an off-campus suspect. Comparisons of the handling of these two very different situations are not productive and lead to unfair conclusions about the decisions made yesterday.

The university administration and police department deserve the prayers and support of the community rather than finger pointing. When they responded to the first 911 call about the classroom shootings, they rushed to the scene, secured as many students as possible and then risked their lives entering the building to confront the gunman. After witnessing the shooter commit suicide, the responding officers swept the area, still without knowledge of the motive for the attack or whether there were multiple suspects. They rescued the barricaded students, provided first responder medical assessments and care, carried the wounded to safety, and witnessed a horrible scene of carnage while feeling helpless. There is no feeling more disturbing to someone who has worked in law enforcement than the helplessness when you cannot protect someone from harm. Yet for these brave officers there appears to be only insult added to injury with each criticism.

The Virginia Tech webmaster, tasked with updating the university’s web site throughout the ordeal and with a police scanner at his desk, shared the following assessment of emergency response with friends on the blog Wired:

This was a multiple-agency response and there is little interoperability -- but the police still got the job done. Virginia Tech Police Department was and is lead agency in the whole event, with Blacksburg PD right there with them. The Montgomery County Sheriff's Department is also involved and the Virginia State Police. Give all the various dispatchers credit for a great job, as they were the linchpins that kept all the communications straight between all the agencies. There was a massive response from all the local rescue squads, let by the student-run Virginia Tech Rescue Squad. A triage area was set up adjacent to Norris Hall and ambulances shuttled in and out of the area to transport victims to Montgomery Regional Hospital, the Carillion New River Valley Medical Center, and to hospitals in the Roanoke Valley. Carillion's helicopters and the State Police helicopters were unable to be used for transport due to the high winds we are experiencing.

The campus (and surrounding public schools) were locked down, since no one really knew what the situation was, how many shooters there might be, and where any more might be. The incident ended after 11 a.m. and people on that side of campus were released to go home. Other parts of the campus were released at 12:30. SWAT teams from various police agencies in the region are doing a sweep of campus and the crime scenes are being processed.

Without imposing martial law and a complete police state, college campuses cannot be protected from a shooting rampage like this one. Steps can be taken to reduce the possibility, but prevention is not possible. Gun control has never kept guns out of the hands of criminals. The university reportedly did not have a campus-wide surveillance camera system, and perhaps the Commonwealth of Virginia will include funding to install one in the next university budget. However, the absence of cameras cannot be blamed on the university president, and the initial decision not to lock down the campus was made in good faith based on available information.

To blame is human, to sympathize divine.