According to Students for Concealed Carry (SCC) at Florida State University, two students present at the shooting that occurred there could have stopped it, but were disarmed by current Florida law. One of the students — Nathank Scott, an SCC member – was wounded during the shooting. In spite of his wound, he was able to warn other students about the shooter. The other student was a U.S. infantry combat veteran who says he had a shot at the shooter . . .
From the Facebook page of SSC at FSU:
The events of the last week in Talahassee make plainly clear that it is unacceptable for responsible students who have gone to training, had extensive background checks, had their fingerprints taken, are of legal age, and are licensed by the state to be prevented from carrying their self-defense weapons on campus. We have seen the current “Gun-Free Zone” policies have done nothing to curb violence, both in our state and nationwide. As criminals don’t abide by these policies, they only serve to prevent victims from having the ability to defend themselves and their peers.
This is highlighted by two FSU students, one of whom was a US Army Infantry combat veteran and had a clear shot at the shooter, the other is gunshot victim Nathan Scott who is a member of Students for Concealed Carry at FSU who was able to go and warn other students about the shooter despite his injury. Both of these individuals, in spite of having the training and skills necessary to end the shooting, were powerless to prevent it due to Florida’s laws.
This helps explain why a poll taken after the shooting was so onesided. It was 15-1 in favor of more freedom on campus. Whether that carries any weight with the state legislature, we’ll have to see.
©2014 by Dean Weingarten
Another fine example of the anti-gun people actually doing the killing. They are the murderers!
Voters, politicians, the whole anti-gun bunch are non-thinking slime that only want to disarm VICTIMS and do not really care about violence one little bit! They are liars as well. Just check to see if their lips are moving.
No, the murderer is the one who pulled the trigger. They are enablers.
MDA moms like victims. But their argument would be – if the other two concealed carriers were carrying they would join the mass shooter in the massacre and only more deaths would result.
Exactly.
I teach on a college campus. God forbid anything ever happens and my gun is locked in the car per state law when I could have done something.
I don’t know if georgia has any state law preventing CC on campus but I would talk with some other teachers and administrators about it and see what they say. Gun free school zone acts (in normally free states) only passed when the national one was struck down by the supreme court.
Yes, Georgia prohibits campus carry. While parked on campus or traveling through, you can keep the gun in your car if you have a Georgia Weapons Carry License. The Georgia Board of Regents thinks our campuses are “safe enough” despite numerous instances to the contrary. They like to trot out the the old “students aren’t mature enough” which is an asinine argument because only students (and teachers, staff, etc.) 21-years and older are eligible for a license, and there are many mature people who are disarmed by the same law.
As someone who is on campus a LOT for my line of work, it’s very annoying. Some schools are in not great areas and going to meetings on site means parking my car in a questionable location and sometimes getting to it when it’s dark. Not thrilled about that. If they think students are irresponsible, then the language prohibiting carry on campus should be lined up for students (not that I think it should). There are loads of contractors and vendors on a college campus that are well above college age that are equally disarmed.
MDA = Murderers demand action… for safety on the job.
“. . . two students present at the shooting that occurred there could have stopped it, but were disarmed by current Florida law.”
I would argue that but for current Florida law, the shooting would n’t have occurred there, & stopping it would be unnecessary. Crazed shooters are attracted to gun-free zones like moths to light; they may be crazy, but they’re usually not stupid.
I guarantee you that those obsessed with firearms prohibition are thinking the exact opposite. To them, this incident is proof positive that gun restrictions don’t go far enough, and that there need to be many more gun-free zones.
Guarantee.
True, but proponents of civil disarmament are similar to those who push the global warming scam: everything that happens is a result of, and helps to validate, their theory.
This sounds like a perfect opportunity to test the legal ramifications of disarmament.
A civil rights case, resulting in injury no less. More power to him.
The anti-gun crowd can only claim the moral high ground by standing on a pile of corpses of their own making…
Florida Republicans are very antigun. The current President of FSU, John Thrasher, was the Republican senator in charge of the Rules Committee who stopped campus carry in 2011. Republican senators also are at fault for stopping open carry that same year. If the retail federation or Fl Sheriff Association tells them to jump, they say “how high?”
So when are lawsuits going to happen by the people forced to be victims? Maybe this is a perfect opportunity. These students should sue for being forced to be victims, especially the one that got hit. I know darn well that I would sue if I were a victim of one of these “victim zones”.
“Both of these individuals, in spite of having the training and skills necessary to end the shooting . . .
Training, skills, background checks, licenses, nonsense! Any good guy with a gun – regardless of their operational skills or government paperwork (or lack thereof) – would have had a chance of stopping the slaughter.
We need to stop playing their game and start playing ours.
Hear hear, Robert!
The slippery slope of thinking more government interference in RKBA somehow renders a gun owner more effective or safe leads directly and quickly to registration, confiscation, and disarmament.
Shooty McBible, Esq., would have thought many times over about going to gun down students burning the midnight oil in the law library, had he had any expectation that there were armed citizens within its walls. A firearm does not have to be discharged to form a powerful, civilizing, deterrent to crime in the hands of the law-abiding.
There are 3.8 million square miles of the United States. A Florida CCW should be valid on at least 2 million of those.
So why the f*** do legislators think holders of a Florida CCW are only dangerous on the 2.3 square miles of campus property owned by FSU?
I don’t see why it shouldn’t be valid an 3.7 million of those square miles, or even more.
Let the liability begin… The campuses/businesses need to held accountable for their choices, same as citizens who choose to arm themselves. The school may not be legally responsible for the safety/security of the students, but they are darn sure responsible for their disarmament.
Don’t know about Florida, but the Michigan constitution says “Every person shall have a right to keep and bear arms in the defense of himself and the state”. Too bad every person doesn’t include those of us getting an education.
And still they wonder why more and more young people are concluding that college isn’t worth the price they have to pay–in dollars, in lost freedom, and even in basic safety and potentially injury or death.
No. No. NO! They need bigger signs.
Absolutely. The bad guy just didn’t see the sign. If he would have known it was a gun free zone, he would have certainly gone somewhere else.
“Florida Law Prevented 2 Students From Stopping FSU Active Shooter”
No, but it certainly stacked the odds against them.
By the title, are you trying to imply or infer that other states do not have similar laws about guns on campus, or is it just Florida that has a law about it? This is a national scholastic gun free zone policy problem, more than it is a Florida gun free zone policy problem.
Ok, this is a single demonstrable case where the law directly prevented two citizens from having the chance to stop a shooting. Was there a similar case at VT? I don’t know.
Correct. The original GFSZ Act was overturned by SCOTUS in 1995, but quickly modified and re-introduced in 1997. Many States have since issued their own laws modeled on the Federal law, but those have different variations on permitting, and I have to go back and re-read in CA everytime, just in case something has changed, which is about every other week with the Nitwits in Sacramento, who cant pass a budget without crooked accounting tricks, for years, but have no problem dreaming up ever-more outlandish rules on guns.
Per Wikipedia- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun-Free_School_Zones_Act_of_1990 (edits mine)
The Gun Free School Zone Act was introduced in the Senate by then Senator Shotgun Joe Biden, in 1990 and signed into law by President HW Bush. It was challenged and declared unconstitutional for commerce clause reasons in US v Lopez in 1995, and modified by US AG Janet Reno, and included in an omnibus act in 1997, in a bit of legislative trickery, and has survived further challenges in six circuit courts.
On July 21, 2011 US Representative Ron Paul introduced H.R. 2613 which would repeal the Federal Gun Free School Zones Act. It died in committee.
The exception the Florida Student Concealed Carry group is referring to is the exception in the federal law that states-
“(ii) if the individual possessing the firearm is licensed to do so by the State in which the school zone is located or a political subdivision of the State, and the law of the State or political subdivision requires that, before an individual obtains such a license, the law enforcement authorities of the State or political subdivision verify that the individual is qualified under law to receive the license;”
I have no idea what the specifics are in Florida, but obviously, they are not enough to permit students and staff to apply and get a CCW permit, and thus be exempt from the Federal GFSZ law.
When seconds count, the campus police are only minutes away…read the accounts of students hiding in classrooms at VA Tech, and the teacher trying to bar the door.
Legislatures and Governors of the States are responsible for creating Target Rich Zones, when they refuse to create permits that are reasonable for law abiding citizens to get to protect their kids and those entrusted to them. The blood of Columbine, Sandy Hook, and too many others to list, are are on the hands of gun-grabbing politicians, as they are the direct enablers of the mentally ill whack job law breakers who will always prey upon the weak, first.
These students need to up their game. Maybe fake blood splashed on the State House steps with a big protest, by crowds of go-pro wearing YouTubers- shouting “Hands Up, Dont Shoot”.
Seems to work elsewhere. But maybe only for gang thugz, not innocent school kids.
How is mommy Shannon and daddy Bloomberg with their offspring Ladd going to try and spin this one. “If these two students were allowed to carry on campus, there is a good chance they may have just decided to join the shooter to try and take out innocents!!!”
“…students who have gone to training, had extensive background checks, had their fingerprints taken, are of legal age, and are licensed by the state…”
I get so tired of this…
So, the unlicensed, unchecked, not fingerprinted, under 21… none of those are at risk for attack, and none of those would have any possible opportunity to stop a bad guy? Who determines the “training” required to be a self defender, rather than an unarmed victim?
Just what makes all that crap so sacred to so many who say they advocate armed self defense? Just what is magic about any of them to denote a responsible person, let alone one who can legitimately defend him or herself?
The intent is to point out how silly a blanket ban is, when it excludes even such individuals. They could certainly have phrased it better.
Sure, even a non-blanket ban is a violation of rights but when fighting these yahoos, baby steps are necessary, apparently.
While I get they are trying to argue their point, I disagree with the laundry list of “qualifications”, which would be a gun grabbers dream if all of those attributes were actually required to carry a gun in most states.
In this situation, I say break the F-ing law and to hell with the consequences. Carry on your campus. It’s better to be kicked out of school for exercising your Constitutional Rights and deal with the legal ramifications than to find yourself unarmed in an active shooter situation sitting like a neon target hoping luck is on your side, powerless to take the situation into your own hands.
Colorado campuses may not forbid CHP holders from carrying on university campuses (but carry by anyone on a K-12 is still verboten). The University of Colorado at Boulder (you can guess where this is going the minute you hear that “B” word) attempted to ban CHP holders’ carrying guns but got stomped. Their policy now reads that anyone with a CHP can carry BUT they cannot *store* their guns in residence halls. I suppose this could be got around by continuous home concealed carry (regular home open carry won’t do), even in the shower, but you’d better have a room with its own shower (I guess you have to keep the thing in an opaque waterproof bag hung off the neck while actually in the shower).
As a generous concession (that should be read dripping with sarcasm), they will let on-campus residents store their firearms with 24 hour access at a facility they maintain. Which, if nothing has changed since I attended, is pretty far away from any residence hall. (Though even ten feet is too far to be safe.) The upshot is, if you want to be a student at CU Boulder and want to exercise your CHP, live off campus!
People under 21 are ineligible to get a CHP and are completely SOL here.
The moral of the story is that an “active shooter” should attack those huge 100-level lecture halls filled with freshmen and sophomores, after making sure he didn’t pick one being taught by one of the three non-socialists on the faculty who might actually be armed. (OK, so there probably aren’t even three of them.)
I’ve read in several places that carry was restricted only to students and faculty with a CHP but I can’t find anything to that effect on the actual campus policy.
Comments are closed.