The Virginia Tech Nightmare and The 2nd Amendment - Could Concealed Carry Permits Have Prevented it?

First off, I send my deepest condolences to the victims and their families of the worst single shooting spree homicide in United States History; The Virginia Tech Massacre. While watching the news coverage today, I tried to imagine how horrible it must have been for the students sitting in their classrooms, listening to the barrage of gun shots that rang out. I myself attended college and law school. That is the last place on earth where you would think that some loony toon would walk in and start murdering people by shooting them. I could not imagine the horror that the unarmed students went through.

I then thought about the fact that we are a nation presently at war, and how stories like this might give fodder for our enemies to become copycats.

Going further, I thought about the fact that this tragedy could have either been prevented or diminished had just one or two of the adult students or teachers at the University had concealed carry permits to carry their own guns.

I am an advocate of the 2nd Amendment Right to Bear Arms. There are many people out there that seek to ban firearms by using incidents such as this as proof that banning guns would prevent such tragedies. I beg to differ.

In fact, in nations or States that freely allow their citizens to carry concealed weapons; the crime rates are much lower.

There are some that argue that if you ban handguns than it will be much harder for criminals to get guns. This may or may not be true. Drugs like cocaine and heroine have been banned for years. Is there a cocaine and heroine problem in the United States?

Criminals by nature are criminals. They will get guns whether they are banned or not. So the real victims of handgun bans will be law abiding citizens who follow the law. They will be victims of the criminals that do not follow the law.

Going back to the 2nd Amendment to the United States Constitution; the Supreme Court has interpreted the 2nd Amendment to mean that government cannot ban all guns, but that they can ban some guns based upon a compelling governmental interest. They have left it up to the States to enact their own legislation with respect to regulating guns. Some States make it easy for law abiding citizens to obtain concealed carry permits to protect themselves, and some have made it difficult.

In California, the issue has been left up to the Sheriff of each county to issue concealed carry permits. In places like Los Angeles County, and San Francisco County it is virtually impossible to get a concealed carry permit, even though the crime in these counties by criminals carry guns is basically through the roof.

It is my humble opinion that tragedies such as the one that happened at Virginia Tech could be avoided by more people being issued concealed carry permits so that they can protect themselves in case a loony toon decides to walk into a place and start murdering people. First off, the loony toon might think twice about doing their dastardly deed if the knew that the people that they are going up against may be armed, secondly if they still decide to go on a murder rampage, someone could stop it before 30 plus people end up dead.

In the vast majority of crime situations, the police are not there to protect you. The police act as a deterrent to crime, and are only usually there after the crime has already been committed. Secondly, you cannot sue the police for failing to protect you in an emergency.

I firmly believe that all free law abiding Americans should have the right to bear arms pursuant to the United States Constitution, so that they are able to protect themselves.

I have not heard of one instance of a person carrying a concealed weapon legally with a concealed carry permit, using the weapon to commit a crime. I have heard of thousands crimes against innocent victims.

It makes sense to me that we should be able to carry weapons to protect ourselves against criminals. If this is not the case, than we should be able to sue the police for failing to protect us. Right now the vast majority of Americans are getting the short end of the stick. It's time to give us back our constitutional right to bear arms.

God be with those poor souls of Virginia Tech that did not even have a chance.

By Norman Gregory Fernandez, Esq., © 2007