I spent my first couple of years of college in Lexington, VA, just up the road from Blacksburg. I've always had an affection for that school, as opposed to the snootier UVA. For that reason, today's horror cuts to the heart.

An outburst of gunfire at a Virginia Tech dormitory, followed two hours later by a ruthless string of attacks at a classroom building, killed 32 students, faculty and staff and wounded about 30 others yesterday in the deadliest shooting rampage in the nation's history.

The shooter, whose name was not released last night, carried two 9mm semiautomatic handguns and wore blue jeans, a blue jacket and a vest holding additional ammunition, law enforcement officials and witnesses said. Witnesses described the shooter as a young man of Asian descent -- a silent killer who was calm and showed no expression as he pursued and shot his victims. He killed himself as police closed in.

It will be interesting to learn why this evil happened, though it will not bring back the dead or heal the wounded and grieving.

But there is another point that has to be made.

Virginia Tech is a gun-free school. Students, employees, and visitors are not allowed to bring their guns to campus, even if they have a concealed carry permit and have met all of the stringent requirements to get one.

And so the law-abiding adults of Virginia Tech were disarmed by government policy.

As this murderer calmly executed his victims, not one had the means to actually engage in self-defense. As he massacred these innocents, not one of them could stop the evil-doer. All they could do was wait for help to arrive -- and die waiting.

Because you see, in the name of some sort of illusory security, these adult citizens were stripped of the essential liberty to defend one's own life -- while one man intent upon mayhem was unconcerned about the niceties of the campus gun ban.

Some will use this event to call for more gun control. That is not the solution. Rather, more guns in the hands of more trained and licensed individuals would have made Virginia Tech a safer place today -- and that is an equation that I would contend would be true at any college or university in the country.

Or in (almost) any workplace or any shopping mall.

Or any public place, for that matter.

How many more tragedies will it take, with disarmed citizens slaughtered like sheep, before America will wake up to the reality that more guns in more hands equals more safety?

Because, to use a trite cliche that happens to be true, when guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns.

That is the lesson to draw from today's carnage.

UPDATE: Here's a thought from one of the disarmed concealed carry permit holders who attends Virginia Tech -- WRITTEN FOLLOWING LAST FALL'S INCIDENT.

Of all of the emotions and thoughts that were running through my head that morning, the most overwhelming one was of helplessness.

That feeling of helplessness has been difficult to reconcile because I knew I would have been safer with a proper means to defend myself.

I would also like to point out that when I mentioned to a professor that I would feel safer with my gun, this is what she said to me, “I would feel safer if you had your gun.”

The policy that forbids students who are legally licensed to carry in Virginia needs to be changed.

I am qualified and capable of carrying a concealed handgun and urge you to work with me to allow my most basic right of self-defense, and eliminate my entrusting my safety and the safety of my classmates to the government.

This incident makes it clear that it is time that Virginia Tech and the commonwealth of Virginia let me take responsibility for my safety.

Doesn't that argument look quite reasonable in light of the unfolding horror at Virginia Tech?

H/T Gates of Vienna, Combs Spouts Off

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