Is Anyone in There?

As I have often noted in this column, media’s primary question is not necessarily “what’s the truth?” Instead, media’s greatest efforts are driven by the question: where’s the conflict? A few years back that big question drew reporters, pundits and other commentators to concentrate on shooting-crimes committed in schools, as it looked like those horrible crimes might serve a political purpose by helping progressives turn towns, cities, states, and even the entire country into “gun-free zones.” A gun-free America is progressives’ dream – although the numbers involved make their dream unrealizable. The Second Amendment genie simply can’t be put back in the bottle when 300 million Americans have over 300 million weapons.

The gun-free quest carried on for a while, but eventually the media moved on to more fruitful ground, like the demonization of presidential candidate, and then President Donald Trump. And today it’s two wars that our ruling class would like us to join.

This doesn’t mean that school-shootings have disappeared. The inner pages of any newspaper will tell you that nothing of the kind has occurred. Young (and old) fools with murderous intent are still mowing down innocent people in workplaces and schools, but those conflicts are, generally speaking, not media’s primary concern at this time.

That change of media-direction notwithstanding, the issue of gun crimes – particularly in schools – is still out there, along with the perversely counter-productive issue of “gun-free zones.” I’ll review their relationship in the body of this piece.

Delaware State University.

A few years back a news item emerged from DSU in Dover, Delaware. It detailed the arrest of student Loyer T. Braden¹, age 18, from East Orange, NJ. He was charged with attempted murder, reckless endangerment, and using a firearm in a crime. He had allegedly shot and wounded two students at the school.

What caught my attention – beyond the alarming fact of yet another shooting at a university that is supposedly a “gun-free zone” – was officials’ assurances to the campus community, during the weekend following the shooting, that the gunman was no longer on campus. Mr. Braden had fled following the incident, but he was unexpectedly found in his college dormitory room and arrested at 3 AM on the following Monday morning. Officials could not explain how he had slipped back onto the campus and into his room.

Virginia Tech.

Where have we heard this sort of thing before? At Virginia Tech, of course, where a student fatally shot two students in a dormitory around 7:30 AM on April 16,^, 2007. The killer fled, and officials quickly assured the university community that he had left the campus and probably had left the state. (How the “left the state” claim was formed remains unexplained.)

University administrators were slow in summoning state police, as they were evidently convinced that the shooting was merely a “domestic dispute.” So they waited two hours before sending an e-mail warning to the entire community. But by that time it was too late. The heavily armed killer had returned unnoticed to the campus, had chained the doors of a building shut, and had begun methodically shooting students and faculty. Ultimately he killed thirty-two and wounded dozens more before taking his own life.

Following the shootings, officials were criticized for failing to “lock down” the campus, but administrators argued that it was impossible to seal off the huge campus, which is honeycombed by numerous roads and has no fenced perimeter. The argument remained unresolved, but the lockdown issue is just a red herring that diverts attention away from more important issues.

Virtually unexamined was the initial claim that the early shootings were merely an isolated “domestic incident;” also, the further claim that the killer had left not only the campus but probably the state. Both claims caused the campus – including security staff – to relax its guard. The burning questions were these:

• Why did officials not summon police at once to flood the campus with men, arms, and vehicles?
• Why were calls not made and messengers not immediately dispatched to every part of the campus to warn that a killer was at large – whereabouts unknown?
• Why was a campus-wide manhunt not demanded and conducted until the killer was apprehended – or until it could be conclusively determined that he was not on campus?
• Why did officials downplay the threat when they had no real basis for doing so?

These important questions all had the same answer. Officials felt compelled to tell people what they wanted to hear: that all was well; that the situation was under control; that there was no danger. An announcement that a killer was at large and might be a threat to the university community might have cast aspersions on those officials – perhaps made them look incompetent. Far better to play lets-pretend and hope for the best.

Unfortunately, that little game cost thirty-two students their lives and cost many others serious injury. Scores of families will be scarred for life because officials dithered, made foolish assumptions, and delayed taking decisive action when a serious threat to the campus arose.

Conclusions.

A theme heard repeatedly in the wake of that horrible event was “Never again!” University officials across the country have rolled up their sleeves, launched “task forces” to work on contingency plans, and vowed never to let such an event happen on their campuses.

“Now we’re really serious,” was the near-universal proclamation. “We know what has to be done, and by god we’re doing it.” We all assumed they were really serious. Well, maybe some were. But the company of the “really serious” evidently did not include officials of Delaware State. After a shooting incident on campus, DSU officials blithely announced that all was well and went back to contemplating their belly-button lint.

The announcement that Mr. Braden – whose absence from the campus had been guaranteed – had been apprehended in his dormitory room should have sent shock waves through the university. Hopefully, heads have rolled. But I doubt it. More than likely, the incident has been marked down as an anomaly, and campus security – is that an oxymoron? – is already back to “normal.”

Parents and students should be storming the university shouting, “Hello! Is anyone in there?!” and demanding the president’s resignation. His security staff’s inexcusable bungling could have led to a repeat of the Virginia Tech incident. It is an outrage. They should all be tarred and feathered and ridden off the campus on a rail.

Until various university administrators stop telling themselves that their campuses are “different from those yahoos down there,” we’re going to see repeats of the Tech tragedy. We need to stop fooling around with incompetent campus security, and replace them with real professionals. And we have to abandon the delusion that “gun-free zones” actually make anyone safer.

They might make us “feel safer,” as a VA Tech spokesman exulted after Virginia legislators rejected a provision that would have allowed permit-holders to be armed on campus. But banning the legitimate carrying of arms does not truly make us safer. Even after the Tech shootings – which illustrated that the killer was not deterred in the least by campus gun-prohibitions – university officials stubbornly cling to the discredited fiction that legally carried weapons pose an unacceptable threat to the university community. This precludes any possibility of resistance, should another shooter come calling.

Nope. There’s nobody in there. Liberal mantras have replaced brains. Keep your kids home if you want them to survive until graduation. Common sense is out to lunch for the duration.

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1. Records show that in May 2009 Delaware Superior Court Judge William Witham, Jr., dismissed all charges against Loyer T. Braden, the suspect in the Delaware State shootings. The ruling was made because prosecutors failed to disclose that a witness had told investigators that Braden was not the gunman. Attorneys said they learned of the witness more than a year-and-a-half after the shooting. Prosecutors in the case have not attempted to appeal the judicial ruling.

Virginia Tech memorial to victims of 2007 shooting