THE GREATEST DETERRENT
The Virginia Tech episode could have been minimized if more students were armed
BY MIKE ZIGLER

Mike Zigler is editor of Liberty Watch: The Magazine. After serving as news editor at Las Vegas CityLife and editor-in-chief at the UNLV Rebel Yell, he now manages internal communications for multiple Las Vegas Strip properties. Feel free to reach him at [email protected]  Other stories by Mike Zigler

I don't own a gun. In fact, I've only pulled triggers on a handful of firearms. And those experiences occurred on a single day, in the desert with a good-hearted American. He weekly promotes deep-rooted Libertarian principles in Nevada's largest newspaper. The right to bear arms is one of them. 

So, please, allow me to note that I promote and fully back gun rights, but not because I'm an enthusiast.

I write this column on the afternoon of the Virginia Tech incident. Cable, network and Internet journalists, through skewed interviewing techniques, can't help but promote tougher gun laws. Their blind, ignorant agendas theorize that if gun laws were stricter, this event would not have happened.

I beg to differ.

Let's subtract ourselves from the emotions of April 16 and look at this through another lens. Virginia Tech prohibits unauthorized guns on campus. But that didn't make a bit of difference that Monday. If the gunman had no regard for life, he had no concern for rules. No law or policy could have defended those students. However, a firearm could have.

Virginia Tech officials, who sought to prevent its residents from threatening another's life, prevented these students from saving their own. We reside in a world where victimization is more often the story than self defense.

Let's examine some mathematics. Thirty-three people on Virginia Tech's campus died. One was the gunman. If students were not forbidden from carrying firearms, how many of the 32 innocently executed would have died? If a gunman stood before a wall lined with 32 gun-bearing students, would he have killed all 32? If this deranged man entered a room with even a single weapon-bearing student, would the chances of living have increased among those students?

The answer, mathematically, shifts toward saved lives. But the media accuses the weapon, not the individual's responsibility. The public and media insists the root of this evil comes down to an object, not an individual and that individual's choice.

Immediately, I heard an outcry for tougher gun control. The public now turns to the government for more laws, which apparently creates more protection. But would tougher rules have prevented the Virginia Tech incident? During the chaos, the campus community turned to the government for help, but its police officers were caught with their pants around their ankles, unprepared and too incompetent to lock down the campus.

Gun-control advocates argue that strict laws curb access by criminals, juveniles and other high-risk individuals. They contend that only federal measures can successfully reduce the availability of guns. Some seek broad policy changes such as near-prohibition of non-police handgun ownership or the registration of all firearm owners and firearms. They assert that there is no constitutional barrier to such measures and no significant social costs.

Truth is, federal policies don't keep firearms out of the hands of high-risk persons. Such controls only create burdens for law-abiding citizens and infringe upon constitutional rights provided by the 2nd Amendment. Widespread gun ownership is one of the best deterrents to crime as well as to potential tyranny, whether by individuals, gangs or government.

Incidents like what could've been prevented in Blacksburg were in mind when our Founders gave the 2nd Amendment more space in our Constitution than the freedoms of speech, religion and press combined.