Random thought of the day

Various news outlets have been repeating what Virginia Tech shooting survivor and Brady Campaign staffer Colin Goddard says:

But Colin Goddard, who was wounded in the Virginia Tech shooting and now works with the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, says that allowing guns on campus won’t provide a defense to students in emergency situations.

You have no idea what a situation like this is like. There was never a time that I thought I could have saved the day or defended myself. I didn’t know what was going on until I got shot.

It occurs to me that the Brady Campaign is promoting Goddard as an expert and the media is accepting that. But does he have any training or expertise as a shooter? I’ll grant that he is an expert at getting shot. But I don’t think that takes a whole lot of practice or that his experience is something that we can use a guide for how to handle the situation he experienced.

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16 thoughts on “Random thought of the day

  1. I think if I remember this right, the students at Virginia Tech were quite vocal about wanting to be able to carry on campus. There was a group of about 25 or 30 students that I remember on Nightline at a BBQ which was to support the carrying of guns on campus. The report of course had a “you won’t believe what these wackos want, sort of slant”. But the students came off very well, they were level headed.

    Why is it that one kid from a bankrupt organization (Brady) got so much press? Just makes you wonder…. Maybe the press is a bit biased.

  2. And what, exactly, would he suggest instead? Sure, the killer probably would have gotten the drop on everyone–after spending far too much of my life on a college campus, I can say with authority that a shooting is far from normal or expected behavior. But at least allowing concealed carry allows regulars like me to have a chance at having a fair fight, and that chance may be all that stands between a national tragedy and a single justifiable homicide committed in self-(and others-)defense.

  3. The only way the killer could have gotten the drop on everyone is if each of the victims was sufficiently isolated from each other that the next victim did not realize what was going on. Unless the attacker is very, very good (which I think insanity makes that possibility very low) the chances of having a mass shooting with more than three or four victims ending up dead is very low. Run your simulations with laser tag guns, people with a little bit of training as the defenders, and see what the result is.

    “Getting the drop” on someone is insufficient and more accurately suicidal unless you have a numeric advantage or an unarmed and/or unexperienced victim. If you are just pointing the gun at me and not actually in the process of pulling the trigger I can step out of the line of fire, draw, and put a bullet in your head before you can change your point of aim and pull the trigger. Take some classes. You’ll be surprised at how badly Hollywood portrays reality.

  4. I believe you, but I suspect that even if concealed carry were allowed, few if any of a given classroom full of students would actually be armed (not least because, given attrition rates etc., well over half of undergrads aren’t 21 yet and most profs are leftists)

  5. Oh, re classes: I’d love to but currently the budget doesn’t allow it & I just spent a chunk of change on a new long gun + ammo. In a few years when I get a real job, heck yeah!!! Although the extra form they put into the handgun database in WA does give me a bit of pause.

  6. But… but… but… Colin served in the Army*… surely that makes him an expert on all things shooting-related!

    I really have to wonder about a person who has been shot, and now wants to force everyone else into situations where, given an equivalent predicament of a school shooter, they are going to be shot as well. Is that some kind of inverse-survivor’s-guilt, wherein he thinks spreading the experience will mitigate his own personal pain or something?

    (* – No, he really did not, but I notice the Brady Bunch has not been parroting that line quite as much recently…)

  7. Colin Goddard is no more of an expert at being shot than my kids and I are. We have nerf gun fights and laser tag battles all of the time. There is absolutely zero skill involved in getting shot. Therefore, there can be no experts in it (unless you also believe in craps rolling experts).

  8. So what is Suzanna Hupp? The fact of the matter is you default to your training. If you haven’t trained at all to deal with the unexpected you will react like a deer in headlights. Of course he didn’t know what was going on because his brain couldn’t process it.

    I think it was ABC who did a BS experiment like you’re talking about Joe(I would like to actually do it much more realistically). The active shooter though was a police firearms training instructor, the kids were inexperienced with firearms. They person concealed carrying was placed in the same seat (front and dead center), and the “active shooter” knew right where the armed person was. Guess who the active shooter always shot first? With someone concealed carrying how is the shooter going to know who to shoot? What was very impressive though is one kid actually took him down prior to being fatally “shot”.

    Plubis, despite all these laws rules, you might be surprised to find out how many people just don’t care and are carrying anyway. Because of how deeply they have to carry to ensure it isn’t seen it will take more time to get the gun, but they all feel better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6. Most school regulations do not actually have legal repercussions other than you can be trespassed if you refuse to leave (This is straight from the mouth of someone at the Pullman Police Department said during a guns on campus debate), in Washington they’re done under the WAC, not the RCWs. The real fear is being kicked out of school for carrying, but carrying in full concealment is easily done especially given all the new pocket pistols.

  9. “I really have to wonder about a person who has been shot, and now wants to force everyone else into situations where…” well said Linoge, his comments were full of “me” and “I” and really illustrate the mindset that control nuts have about deciding for others. It’s a shame he had nothing to defend himself with and I’m sorry that he got shot. But getting shot does not make you the decider for everything and all time.

  10. This is what the Bradys consider to be the perfect spokesperson?

    There was never a time that I thought I could have saved the day or defended myself. I didn’t know what was going on until I got shot.

    I have had two accidents in Honda cars, both of which I survived uninjured, neither of which were my fault.

    By the Bradys standards, it should be me on the home page of Honda Racing and not some dude who just happens to be a professional race car driver.

  11. Hmm, that’s interesting. I was more worried about being expelled by the administration. Even if caught (highly unlikely) & trespassed (which would involve being really stupid at that point) there’s nothing to prevent me from walking back on campus tomorrow, and only another campus cop incident (again seriously unlikely) would involve any kind of meaningful repercussions.

    I’ve considered breaking the rules myself, though if I were to do so I’d probably get a full-size pistol & put it in its own compartment of my backpack. That way it would always be with me, wouldn’t attract attention, would probably take about as much time to draw as a deep concealment, but the firepower would be far more devastating.

  12. He didn’t know what was going on until he got shot, but the teacher who was also a Holocaust survivor, who barred the door with his body and allowed his classroom of students to escape out the windows, and died in the process, might have appreciated a 21-year old licensee offering him a pistol, or maybe staying there with it to shoot the bad guy.

    http://www1.whdh.com/news/articles/world/BO49400/

  13. Publius, I suspect the old Jew with the serial number on his arm at VT might have had a gun. HE had already seen the elephant.

  14. Weer’d,

    True, but after over a decade of bouncing around college and university campuses (3 years in junior college, 4 in college, 4 years and counting in 2 different grad schools) I can count on one hand the number of profs I’ve met who, to my knowledge, probably would actually carry if allowed. If there are others (and there may well be), they tend to bury it pretty deep.

  15. While he certainly has more experience on getting shot than the majority of the public, he is by no means a subject matter expert in the area.

    One experience does not an expert make.

  16. He didn’t know what was going on until he got shot, but the students who were busy trying to climb out the second story windows and jump to safety sure did. I bet any one of them would have appreciated being allowed to carry, and have the opportunity to at least try to defend himself instead of having to risk breaking his neck trying to get away.

    I’m sure the students in the room across the hall from Prof. Librescu’s class, including Instructor Jocelyne Couture-Nowak and student Henry Lee who also died attempting to barricade the door, would have appreciated it, too.

    I won’t go so far as to say Colin Goddard is an idiot, but he has certainly let his traumatic experience blind him to logic.

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