April 22: Should guns be allowed on campuses?
Also on the Sunday shows: Specter says Gonzales harms Justice; '08ers Dodd and Brownback speak
Days after a Virginia Tech student fatally shot 32 people on campus before killing himself, former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) suggested that the tragedy could have been stopped earlier if students and teachers were allowed to carry guns on the college campus.
"I would just suggest here that the professor who gave his life to save a class, who himself was a Holocaust survivor, had he been in a position to stop this deranged person, would have saved an awful lot of lives, including his own," Gingrich said on ABC's "This Week." He was referring to Liviu Libresco, a professor who died while trying to protect his students from the gunman, Seung Hui Cho.
Former House speaker Newt Gingrich (AP Photo/ABC News, Lauren Victoria Burke)
Larry Hincker, the associate vice president of university relations at Virginia Tech, noted on CBS's "Face the Nation" that Gingrich himself has been a university professor and he asked whether faculty members "would want to be in front of a class knowing that one or more students would be carrying a pistol."
Virginia Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling (R), appearing on the "Fox News Channel," said it's not the time for political questions.
"It's kind of natural, I guess, in the wake of a tragedy like this, that you hear folks on one hand saying, 'Well, if we had had tighter gun laws, this wouldn't have happened,' and on the other hand, you hear folks saying, 'Well, if we would have just let people arm themselves, this wouldn't have happened,' " Bolling said. "The truth is we don't know the answer to that question. And to be quite frank, I don't have a lot of time for folks on either side of that issue right now who want to take advantage of a situation like this to ride their political hobby horse."
That was the most politically-loaded question posed on the Sunday news shows.
On CNN's "Late Edition," Bob McDonnell, Virginia's attorney general, addressed several remaining questions about the shooting.
* Cho bought ammunition over the Internet, and possibly through eBay.
* There is no new information about why Cho decided to kill student Emily Hilscher first, why he chose Norris Hall to kill 28 people, or whether he was helped in any way.
State officials and Washington lawmakers agreed that they would have to examine how to ensure that state laws match federal laws. Cho was able to buy two handguns even though a judicial ruling on his mental state should have prohibited him from buying firearms under federal law, according to many legal experts.
Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said he would push legislation with other lawmakers to require states to use a federal database of people prohibited for buying firearms because of mental illness.
More stringent gun-control measures, though, are not likely to be forthcoming from the Democrats, he indicated. "Smaller but really serious pieces of legislation, such as the one I mentioned, have a very, very good chance of passing," he said.
NBC's "Meet the Press" focused much of its show on how college campuses should deal in the future with mental illness and violence. Yet none of the guests -- including Virginia Tech president Charles Steger and former Homeland Security secretary Tom Ridge -- were ready to say anything specific about the Virginia Tech case or its national implications. They agreed that universities must have central warning systems on campus, but disagreed about whether there should be federal standards.
Specters says Gonzales hurting Justice
Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.), ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said Attorney Genera Alberto Gonzales is hurting the Justice Department and the Bush administration by not resigning.
"No doubt, it is bad for the Department of Justice. It is harmful," Specter said on "Fox News Sunday." "There has been a very substantial decrease in morale. There's no doubt about that. The other 93 U.S. attorneys don't know who is up next. There is a suspicion of improper motivation" for the recent firings of eight U.S. attorneys.
Gonzales testified before the Judiciary Committee last week, hoping to quell a controversy over whether the Justice Department dismissed federal prosecutors for partisan purposes. Instead, his appearance was panned by both sides of the aisle, and Republican and Democrats called for his resignation. Bush has stood by the attorney general.
Specter didn't call directly for the attorney general to step down. But he said "testimony was very, very damaging to his own credibility. It has been damaging to the administration, because without answers as to what really happened, there is a lot of speculation. And the charges are being made that the Department of Justice was the political arm of the White House. Now there is no proof of that, but there is no proof of anything else either."
Sen. Patrick Leahy (Vt.), the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said it's not enough for Gonzales to resign.
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) (AP Photo/ABC News, Lauren Victoria Burke)
"I don't think he can be effective. But who would he be replaced with? If it's going to be another person who is going to be really run by the White House, and if the White House is continued to be allowed to interfere with the criminal justice system throughout this country, something that affects everybody right down to the officer on the beat, then it does no good," Leahy said on CBS's "Face the Nation." "This is -- never in the history -- never in the history of the Department of Justice has there been a case where there's been so much interference from the White House in our criminal justice system. That is what's wrong."
Schumer, an influential member on the committee, had some suggestions for replacements: Jim Comey, a former deputy attorney general; Mike Mukasey, a former federal judge; or Larry Thompson, a former deputy attorney general.
2008 candidates speak
Two presidential candidates -- Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kans.) -- appeared on the Sunday shows.
On ABC, host George Stephanopoulous noted that Sen. Thomas Dodd called for new gun laws the day after 14 were shot dead at the University of Texas in 1966, and he asked Dodd whether he would follow in his father's footsteps.
"He was a pioneer in this area. And, in fact, he started earlier than that. It took the assassinations of John Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy before he was able to pass something called the Omnibus Crime Bill and the Safe Streets Act. And I've been a strong supporter of gun safety issues. And certainly, putting aside the tragedy at Virginia State -- Virginia Tech, excuse me - this is an issue that should be something we're willing to talk about in this country. But I think ..... there are issues of mental health, what's on our television and video things. And it isn't just about legislation or regulation."
Dodd's wife, Jackie, also appeared, and was asked what kind of role she'd play in the White House.
"I'm mainly a mommy right now," she said.
On CNN, Brownback argued, sounding somewhat like a Democrat, that Iraq needs a "political solution," and said he had problems with President Bush strategy of sending thousands of more combat troops to Iraq. "What I think you have to do is mix both the military and the political with this, and that's why I've been joining with people like [Sen.] Joe Biden [D-Del.], ... to push a three- state, one-country solution in Iraq, where you have a Kurdish state which basically already exists, a Sunni state and a Shia state with Baghdad as the federal capital and a loose, fairly weak, federated system."
By Zachary Goldfarb |
April 22, 2007; 3:12 PM ET
Previous: April 22: Va. Tech Tragedy and AG Gonzales in the Spotlight |
Next: April 29 Preview: Rice and 2008 Candidates
Posted by: NYC | April 22, 2007 6:02 PM
Newt is crazier than a barn cat. I pray that the GOP chooses him for its presidential candidate.
Posted by: mikeasr | April 22, 2007 7:07 PM
Hey Newt:
How about issuing a grenade launcher and and machine gun along with a 6 shooter to each incoming law abiding freshman? According to your reasoning, this should help minimize mass killings.
Posted by: daveH | April 22, 2007 8:55 PM
Oh Newt, what an awesome solution. We give more people guns so they can use their guns to stop other people from using guns. Brilliant, simply brilliant. Now why didn't I think of that? Maybe we can encourage more gun ownership by letting people deduct the costs of buying a gun and ammunition on their income taxes?
But we shouldn't just allow students and professors to carry guns with them on campus. Why not go a step further and encourage all US citizens to carry guns to their places of business, their gyms or the restaurants and bars they frequent after work? Then they can stop deranged people like those who shoot people eating in cafeterias, postal workers or their co-workers and employers? You know these things don't just happen on college campuses. They can happen anywhere, anytime and anyplace. If more people had been carrying guns with them in those other incidents, they could have stopped those other killings before so many people had been shot.
We need someone with your kind of logic and intelligence to take charge of the Oval Office when all those brilliant people in the Bush administration are no longer there to make sure we are safe from terrorism. They were smart enough to start a war in Iraq, where there were no al-Qaeda terrorists, so that they could draw al-Qaeda terrorists into Iraq and fight them in a country far away from the US. Now that we have al-Qaeda pinned down in Iraq, we can feel safer and don't have to worry as much about them attacking us here in the US again.
Please run for President Newt? Please?
Posted by: charles laffiteau | April 22, 2007 8:58 PM
americans, ha, ha, ha, ha...
Posted by: jwh | April 22, 2007 10:35 PM
They actually had a shooting incident at Appalachian State a year or two ago that was stopped by an armed professor. Not that you would have read about it in the Washington Post, though.
Posted by: Jerry | April 23, 2007 12:13 AM
"the second amendment"
"form a militia"
"president newt"
uuuuuuuuuggggggghhhhhh
Posted by: saxophonejoe | April 23, 2007 2:24 AM
Right on Newt! Then our college students can focus on a real education, instead of all the touchy feely crap they teach at our Universities now... gone will be Literature, and Humanities, replaced with "Quick Draw Workshop," and "Manly Pissing Contest 101." Perhaps a real solution to this problem would be making campus safety officers a bit more... what's the word... trained? I obvioulsy cannot speak for every campus in America, but in my particular state institution, the campus cops were merely police department rejects, who every year would mount a major campaign to be allowed to carry guns - insisting that they, as first responders, should be equipped to meet deadly force with the same. The fact that they underwent a 2 week training before being handed their uniforms and flashlights, combined with the fact that they were all total nitwits usually served to deter. Thankfully. Increasing firepower usually only leads to more people getting shot in these situations, not less.
Posted by: petro | April 23, 2007 3:13 AM
those that use a sword gets killed by one.
Posted by: jwh | April 23, 2007 4:49 AM
More guns will decrease gun violence? Is Newt dipping into Rush's stash?
Posted by: Dick Tuck | April 23, 2007 5:46 AM
simply the fact that you bring up this story means that your country is completely rotten. I mean nothing to be proud of. There are a few young politicians in Europe who think the american way, they need to be beheaded or exiled to the u.s..
Posted by: jwh | April 23, 2007 6:18 AM
I like the comments I've seen on this site. In addition, from what I saw this kid was picked on about his being quiet and his accent. That's strange, the kids that did the same thing at Columbine were picked on too. Yet the so called American 'justice' system says that mere teasing is not a problem. I guess you can't judge what you do. Wow, you would think people could catch on some day, but our 'justice' system can't, yet they 'think' they're smart. Maybe after another hundred school shootings they would have the mental ability to understand. Maybe someday America will realize that people that pick on people are idiots. I can understand if someone is picked on for bombing a country for no good reason or for wanting more guns to solve a problem with guns, but for a non-legitimate reason or non-moral reason, only an insane person would do that. Instead of trying to meet the challenge with more guns, maybe someone would be smart enough to use logic and meet the problem at the root. If America truly trusts in God as they claim, then I don't think God would justify picking on people for no good reason. But I know for a fact that America isn't God although they play that role. Someday America is going to learn that lesson either internally or externally. Let's hope that these comments help.
Posted by: John | April 23, 2007 6:27 AM
More on Newt at http://www.solidpolitics.com
Posted by: William | April 23, 2007 7:31 AM
Australia passed rigorous gun control laws after a horrible mass murder and guess what
Newty? No mass murders in the years since. Not a one.
Lets collect money to send Newt to Bagdad where he can experience first hand how univeral gun ownership has brought a reign of peace and tranquility. Let's give every nation several nuclear weapons. Then we'd finally know world peace. Perhaps Newt should be forcibly committed to a mental institution.
Posted by: D. Arnold | April 23, 2007 7:34 AM
The universities in Utah are running an experiment with concealed carry on campuses right now, since the state supreme court last month invalidated blanket gun bans on campuses and elsewhere that conflicted with the state concealed carry law. The age limit for concealed carry in Utah is 21, so by no means can one assume many of the students will be armed. So far, no on-campus gun battles, and no need for defense against shooters of any kind. Im sure we*ll be well informed if gunfire erupts.
Posted by: Bill Mosby | April 23, 2007 7:42 AM
To be quite frank, I don't have a lot of time for folks on either side of that issue right now who want to take advantage of a situation like this to suppress debate on guns, their hobby horse. If every freshman is given a free assault weapon, shouldn't they also be given a free stockpile of UHFs - Unarmored Humvee Firecrackers - ? On the other side of the issue, as Australians know, there is no point in debating because the debate in America is suppressed.
Posted by: John Howard | April 23, 2007 8:02 AM
re: Australia
Australia also saw its violent crime rates soar after its 1996 Port Arthur gun-control measures banned most firearms. Violent crime rates averaged 32% higher in the six years after the law was passed (from 1997 to 2002) [Table 10] than they did the year before the law went into effect.[5] Armed robbery rates increased 74%. According to the International Crime Victimization Survey, Australia's violent crime rate is also now double that of the U.S.[6]
from http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.22768/pub_detail.asp
Posted by: C.Fan | April 23, 2007 8:06 AM
See also interesting article from the Sydney Morning Herald entitled
Buyback has no effect on murder rate
October 24, 2006
HALF a billion dollars spent buying back hundreds of thousands of guns after the Port Arthur massacre had no effect on the homicide rate, says a study published in an influential British journal.
The report by two Australian academics, published in the British Journal of Criminology, said statistics gathered in the decade since Port Arthur showed gun deaths had been declining well before 1996 and the buyback of more than 600,000 mainly semi-automatic rifles and pump-action shotguns had made no difference in the rate of decline.
What a colossal waste of Australian taxpayers' money, 500 billion Aust. Dols.!!
D.Arnold needs to treat the topic more seriously. Violent crime in Australia is up, murders still occur. Whether murder is wholesale or retail is not the point. The point is "gun free zones" do not work.
Posted by: C.Fan | April 23, 2007 8:16 AM
We need tighter gun laws and we need to be able to carry in the classroom and in more areas that are public. I am a gun enthusiast with a concealed carry weapon (CCW) permit. Getting a gun is too easy it takes 5 minutes. Getting a CCW is a little more difficult, requires some gun class/training, finger printing and a trip to the courthouse. I also attend graduate school and I cannot bring my gun on campus, which bothers me. In a situation like the VT, I do believe that I someone armed could have stopped this sooner. A recommendation is to train certain students and pay them to be undercover security like the air marshals. Students will have to undergo a background investigation and training. Then they could carry a weapon and respond to threats like the one at Virginia Tech. Doesn't even necessarily have to be a gun could be pepper spray but a gun is preferable or a combination of pepper spray and a gun. The other option because college students are generally too immature for such responsibilities is to let professors carry.
Posted by: xom3000 | April 23, 2007 8:34 AM
Guns allowed on campus? That is such a brilliant idea! Especially on Friday and Saturday night when some students get drunk. The slightest disgreement would turn into "Shhoting at the O.K. Corral".
Is it the Newt who came up with this brilliant idea? Maybe he should confine himself to serving divorce papers to wife #1 while she is in the hospital recovering from cancer surgery, or cheating on wife #2 by night while leading the charge to impeach Clinton for a b.j. by day...
Posted by: Anonymous | April 29, 2007 12:21 AM
The comments to this entry are closed.
That old chestnut fits here...'God made man, Colt made man equal.' I think it would have been really interesting to have about a dozen students with guns drawn firing at everyone in sight. Perhaps we would have avoided 32 deaths; perhaps we would have topped that. Who knows?
As you see by the photos and videos the police when they don't know whom the shooter is make everyone raise their hands. Now, imagine the police come in to that situation and shot anyone holding a gun. How cool would that video be? Assuming that an armed public is trained to deal with a killing machine like that is ridiculous. He was a one man swat team. But what the hell, wild west is what America wants? Film at 11 would be a boon to the media.