Both sides protest at Virginia Tech over guns

By Lerone Graham

BLACKSBURG

The two groups that demonstrated on Virginia Tech's campus Thursday had polar opposite views of rights and safety.

Though their concerns are for the future, the mass shooting that took place four years ago controlled much of the discussion.

Some 35 gun-rights advocates gathered in front of Squires Student Center to demonstrate their support for concealed-carry rights on college campuses.

"Common sense, not PC, is the answer," said Dave Cash of Lynchburg.

Cash said that carrying a gun for protection is a basic human right, on or off a college campus.

Just 30 feet away from the demonstrators, who carried signs and passed out stickers to passers-by, stood a group of 10 to 15 anti-gun demonstrators, rallying in favor of a gun-free campus. Survivors and family members of victims of the April 16, 2007, campus shootings on Virginia Tech's campus were amongthem.

"The fact that these guys are here is morally reprehensible," said Colin Goddard, who was shot four times during the April 16 shooting.

Goddard, who now lives in Washington, D.C., was featured in a documentary about gun control and works with the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

The protest and counter-protests stemmed from an opinion issued by state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli that said in order to ban legal concealed carry in campus buildings, a university's governing body must pass a state regulation. A simple policy, such as that now in effect at Tech, is insufficient, Cuccinelli opined.

The two sides remained separate during most of the rally, with a few arguments and some shouting back and forth. They carried signs that said, on one side of the rally: "No guns on campus." On the other: "Rapists agree, keep VT gun free."

Some exchanges were heard among the crowd, such as a protester shouting, "Go home gun Nazis!," toward protesters, many of whom weren't from the area, and "Does that make you feel safe?" toward the counterprotesters.

Kurt Mueller, with the non-partisan grassroots organization Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, called their position a "sacred right" that should be defended just as vehemently as the First Amendment. Students who have concealed carry permits "don't suddenly become irresponsible when they cross onto a college campus," Muellersaid.

"We believe that law-abiding citizens should be able to carry on campus as they'd have the right to everywhere else," he said.

Omar Samaha, who was among the anti-gun demonstrators, lost his sister Reema in the shooting, which left 33 students and faculty dead. He said that preventive measures, rather than having students "play law enforcement" is the answer.

One measure, Samaha said, is to strengthen the requirements to receive a concealed carry permit in Virginia, which currently consists of an hourlong online course and a 20-question quiz.

Ed Levine attended the demonstration from Northern Virginia to support gun rights on campus. He and many of his fellow demonstrators suggested that a student carrying a gun on campus could have saved lives on the day of the April 16 shooting.

"Instead of there being 32 dead, someone would have stepped up and shot him," Levine said.

"Wherever the bad guy is, I want to be allowed to carry my weapon."

Larry Pratt, director of the lobbyist group Gun Owners of America, said the groups are dealing with "two different ways of thinking."

The desire to "feel" safe by not having guns around is emotional, but not logical, Pratt said. The desire to carry a gun for one's own protection, on the other hand, is logical, he said.

Goddard recalled sitting in French class, which Reema Samaha also attended, when shots rang out, and said most of his classmates thought it was construction.

"I didn't even know what the hell was going on until I was shot," he said.

Goddard said mental health and gun regulation should take priority over blindly allowing guns on campus. He questioned the gun-rights protesters' concern for safety, because Goddard said most gun owners he knows say they hope they're never put in a non-recreational situation where they have to fire theirweapon.

"It seems like that's the first thing they [protesters] want to do," Goddard said.

A student using a gun amid the chaos of April 16 is easier said than done, Goddard said, because most gun owners have never had to shoot in a life-or-death situation.

Tech's Board of Visitors is expected to follow Cuccinelli's advice and take up a regulation banning state permit holders from carrying concealed weapons in buildings and at events, although a timeline for doing so has not been announced. Other universities are considering similar actions.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.