Virginia Tech Commemorations Focus on Demands for More Helplessness

By David Codrea

USA – -(Ammoland.com)- Sunday was the 10^th anniversary of the slaughter at Virginia Tech. In case you’d forgotten that, opportunistic, oath-breaking politicians and the gun-grabber groups were happy to remind you. As the above photo demonstrates, the “Authorized Journalist” media enthusiastically accepted its role as publicist and amplifier.

For their part, gun owner rights advocates continue to properly point out the futility of the citizen disarmament edicts demanded by the blood-dancers, how many of the infringements they now call for were already in effect, and how the others would have made no difference.

The one inescapable fact is Virginia Tech was a “gun-free” campus. Their spokesman, Associate Vice President for University Relations Larry Hincker, had actually rubbed that in everyone’s faces before the carnage.

He was responding to a letter published in The Roanoke Times the year before the massacre by graduate student Bradford Wiles, who had a concealed carry permit but was forbidden to have his gun with him when the school went on lockdown due to an escaped inmate roaming the campus.

“I am qualified and capable of carrying a concealed handgun and urge you to work with me to allow my most basic right of self-defense,” Wiles advocated. After all, if he’s trusted to go armed off campus, what about him would magically change once he crossed an invisible property line?

Hincker positively dripped with ridicule for Wiles’ plea in his rebuttal, using terms like “insane,” and admonishing the student for not feeling safe with “hundreds of highly trained officers armed with high-powered rifles encircling the building and protecting him.

“Guns don’t belong in classrooms,” Hincker concluded. “They never will. Virginia Tech has a very sound policy preventing same.”

Yeah. We saw.

The other point that can’t go unaddressed is professional victim Colin Goddard, making his living (first with the Brady Campaign, and now as “Senior Policy Advisor” for Everytown) off the fact that he was one of eight students in the classroom who survived. At the time of the killings, he was 21, old enough to lawfully carry a concealed handgun, so the only things stopping him were his choices and Hincker’s “very sound policy.”

We know from his own recollection and from phone records he had advance warning a killer was coming his way, and time to call for help:

About a minute later, the blasts were much closer. The teacher cracked the wooden door open to peek out. “This time,” Goddard said, “her expression dropped.” She told everyone to get down and told someone to call for help. Goddard dialed 911 for the first time in his life. When someone picked up, he hurriedly stated, “Norris Hall,” assuming he’d been connected to a local emergency line. But the person had no idea what Norris Hall was. “Norris Hall, Virginia Tech University, Blacksburg, Virginia. America!” He tried to stay calm, but he was in complete disbelief of the words about to come out of his own mouth: Someone was shooting a gun in their building. Seconds later, bullets were coming through the door. In the instant before he dove down, he caught a glimpse of a figure — a flash of brown combat boots, khakis and a holster over each shoulder. Goddard dropped down on his right side between two rows of desk chairs. He kept 911 on the line. At this point in his recollection, his words slowed and his voice became somber. “Then he turned down our row.”

That means Goddard had time to take a defensive position and return fire had he been armed and prepared, and had Larry Hincker et al. “allowed” the means to do it. Instead, he has devoted his life to demanding all other students, workers, faculty, and visitors be mandated just as useless at protecting themselves and others as he was – and still is. And expanding such disarmed defenselessness everywhere, to “everytown”…

Here’s a thought experiment for gun owners: Imagine, right now, you hear shots. They’re getting closer. You’ve got about a minute and it’s going to be on you, and to leave where you are means exposing yourself to potentially lethal unknowns. What are you prepared to do about it? And what would “voice of experience” Goddard be prepared to do, besides repeat what catastrophically failed him and everyone else the last time?

Back in 2008, The New York Times asked me to participate on a panel discussing Virginia Tech on the one-year anniversary of the murders. I didn’t realize until I’d committed that it was stacked – my lone voice against six prominent antis.  You can read all the posts from this link by picking “next post” in the right sidebar and continuing through all of them.

I’m sure they thought ganging up on one “pro-gun” voice would result in a stomping, so go read the entries – and resulting comments – for yourself and see if you think they were right.

About David Codrea:

David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating / defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament.

In addition to being a field editor/columnist at GUNS Magazine and associate editor for Oath Keepers, he blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.