onmykneesforhim
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Joined: 6/18/2006
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Wednesday, April 18, 2007
When mass killers meet armed resistance.
It took place at a university in Virginia. A student with a grudge, an
immigrant, pulled a gun and went on a shooting spree. It wasn't Virginia
Tech at all. It was the Appalachian School of Law in Grundy, not far
away. You can easily drive from the one school to the other, just take a
trip down Route 460 through Tazewell.
It was January 16, 2002 when Peter Odighizuwa came to campus. He had
been suspended due to failing grades. Odighizuwa was angry and waving a
gun calling on students to "come get me". The students, seeing the gun,
ran. A shooting spree started almost immediately. In seconds Odighizuwa
had killed the school dean, a professor and one student. Three other
students were shot as well, one in the chest, one in the stomach and one
in the throat.
Many students heard the shots. Two who did were Mikael Gross and Tracy
Bridges. Mikael was outside the school having just returned to campus
from lunch when he heard the shots. Tracy was inside attending class.
Both immediately ran to their cars. Each had a handgun locked in the
vehicle.
Bridges pulled a .357 Magnum pistol and he later said he was prepared to
shoot to kill if necessary. He and Gross both approached Odighizuwa at
the same time from different directions. Both were pointing their
weapons at him. Bridges yelled for Odighizuwa to drop his weapon. When
the shooter realized they had the drop on him he threw his weapon down.
A third student, unarmed, Ted Besen, approached the killer and was
physically attacked.
But Odighizuwa was now disarmed. The three students were able to
restrain him and held him for the police. Odighizuwa is now in prison
for the murders he committed. His killing spree ended when he faced two
students with weapons. There would be no further victims that day,
thanks to armed resistance.
You wouldn't know much about that though. Do you wonder why? The media,
though it widely reported the attack left out the fact that Bridges and
Gross were armed. Most simply reported that the gunman was jumped and
subdued by other students. That two of those students were now armed
didn't get a mention.
James Eaves-Johnson wrote about this fact one week later in The Daily
Iowan. He wrote: "A Lexus-Nexis search revealed 88 stories on the
topic, of which only two mentioned that either Bridges or Gross was
armed.
"This 2002 article noted "This was a very public shooting with a lot of
media coverage." But the media left out information showing how two
students with firearms ended the killing spree.
He also mentioned a second incident. And while I had read many articles
on this shooting for an article I wrote about school bullying not a
single one mentioned the role that a firearm played in stopping it.
Until today I didn't know the full story.
Luke Woodham was a troubled teen. He felt no one really liked him. In
1997 he murdered his mother and put on a trench coat. He filled the
pockets with ammunition and took a handgun to the Pearl High School in
Pearl, Mississippi. In rapid succession killed two students and wounded
seven others.
He had the incident planned out. He would start shooting students and
continue until he heard police sirens in the distance. That would allow
him time to get in his car and leave campus. From there he intended to
go to the nearby Pearl Junior High School and start shooting again. How
it would end was not clear. Perhaps he would kill himself or perhaps the
police would finally catch up with him and kill him. Either way a lot
more people were going to get shot and die.
What Woodham hadn't planned for was the actions of Assistant Principal
Joel Myrick. Myrick heard the gun shots. He couldn't have a handgun in
the school. But he did keep one locked in his vehicle in the parking
lot. He ran outside and retrieved the gun. As Myrick headed back toward
the school Woodham was in his vehicle headed for his next intended
target. Myrick aimed his gun at the shooter. The teen crashed his car
when he saw the gun. Myrick approached the car and held a gun to the
killer who surrendered immediately. There would be no further victims
that day, thanks to armed resistance.
So you didn't know about that. Neither did I until today. Eaves-Johnson
wrote that there were "687 articles on the school shooting in Pearl,
Miss. Of those, only 19 mentioned that" Myrick had used a gun to stop
Woodham "four-and-a-half minutes before police arrived."
Many people probably forgot about the shooting in Edinboro,
Pennsylvania. It was a school graduation dance that Andrew Wurst entered
to take out his anger on the school. First he shot teacher John Gillette
outside. He started shooting randomly inside the restaurant where the
240 students had gathered.
It was restaurant owner James Strand, armed with a shot gun, who
captured the shooter and held him for police. There would be no further
victims that day, thanks to armed resistance.
It was February 12th of this year that a young man entered the Trolley
Square Shopping Mall, in Salt Lake City. The mall was a self-declared
"gun free zone" forbidding patrons from carrying weapons. He wasn't
worried. In fact he appreciated knowing that his victims couldn't defend
themselves.
He opened fire even before he got inside killing his first victims
immediately outside the front door. As he walked down the mall hallway
he fired in all directions. Several more people were shot inside a card
store immediately inside the mall. The shooter moved on to the Pottery
Barns Kids store.
What he didn't know is that one patron of the mall, Kenneth Hammond, had
ignored the signs informing patrons they must be unarmed to enter. He
was a police officer but he was not on duty and he was not a police
officer for Salt Lake City. By all standards he was a civilian that day
and probably should have left his firearm in his vehicle.
It's a good thing he didn't. He was sitting in the mall with his wife
having dinner when he heard the shots. He told her to hide and to call
911 emergency services. He went to confront the gunman. The killer found
himself under gun fire much sooner than he anticipated. From this point
on all his effort was to protect himself from Hammond, he had no time to
kill anyone else. Hammond was able to pin down the shooter until police
finally arrived and one of them shot the man to death. There would be no
further victims that day, thanks to armed resistance.
In each of these cases a killer is stopped the moment he faces armed
resistance. It is clear that in three of these cases the shooter
intended to continue his killing spree. In the fourth case, Andrew
Wurst, it is not immediately apparent whether he intended to keep
shooting or not since he was apprehended by the restaurant owner leaving
the scene.
Three of these cases involved armed resistance by students, faculty or
civilians. In one case the armed resistance was from an off-duty police
officer in a city where he had no legal authority and where he was
carrying his weapon in violation of the mall's gun free policy.
What would have happened if these people waited for the police? In three
cases the shooters were apprehended before the police arrived because of
armed civilians. At Trolley Square the shooter was kept busy by Hammond
until the police arrived. In all four cases the local police were the
Johnny-come-latelys.
Consider the horrific events at Virginia Tech. Again an armed man enters
a "gun free zone". He kills two victims and walks away long before the
police arrive. He spends two hours on campus, doing what is unknown. He
then enters another building on campus and begins shooting. He never
encounters a police officer during this. And all the students and
faculty present had apparently complied with the "no gun" policy of the
university. So no one stopped him. NO ONE STOPPED HIM! And when he
finished his shooting spree 32 people were dead. It was the killer who
ended the spree. He took his own life and when the police arrived all
they dealt with were the dead.
There were many further victims that day. The shooter never met with
armed resistance.
Labels: gun control
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