Historical
This incident is the deadliest shooting on a college campus, exceeding the 16
deaths of the University of Texas shooting by Charles Whitman in 1966. It is the
second deadliest school-related killing in U.S. history, behind the 1927 Bath
School disaster which claimed 45 lives, including 38 school children, through
the use of explosives.
With a death toll of 32 victims plus the killer, this is the deadliest
single-perpetrator civilian shooting in United States history, surpassing the
Luby's massacre of 1991, in which 24 people were killed. Internationally, it is
surpassed by the 1982 massacre of 57 South Koreans by off-duty police officer
Woo Bum-Kon and the 1996 Port Arthur massacre in the Australian state of
Tasmania where 35 people were killed by gunman Martin Bryant.
The shooting has been likened to the Columbine High School massacre, the April
20, 1999 school massacre in which two senior students killed 12 students, one
teacher, and wounded 24 others before turning the guns on themselves. In the
media package sent to NBC, Cho discussed "martyrs like Eric and Dylan"
apparently referring to the Columbine High School gunmen.
Inaccurate media reports
Chicago Sun-Times columnist Michael Sneed reported several hours after the
incident that "authorities were investigating whether the gunman who killed 32
people in a rampage on the Virginia Tech campus was a Chinese national who
arrived in the United States last year on a student visa. The 25-year-old man
being investigated reportedly arrived in San Francisco on a United Airlines
flight on Aug. 7, 2006, on a visa issued in Shanghai", a claim which was widely
used by media, including Fox News, MSNBC, ABC News, Sina.com, and Sohu, to hint
the gunman might be a Chinese student. The report later turned out to be false
and Sneed's article was removed quietly by Chicago Sun-Times without any
explanation. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said it was
regrettable that "some US media made irresponsible reports on the Virginia Tech
shooting before finding out the truth, which violated their professional
ethics."
Fox News reporter Geraldo Rivera brought to attention Wayne Chiang, a Virginia
Tech graduate student and weapons collector, as a potential perpetrator of the
crime, after several web surfers discovered the student's LiveJournal profile.
Chiang responded by coming forward and explained he was not the shooter.
Following his response, Chiang was interviewed briefly on CNN and appeared on
the April 19 episode of Good Morning America.
Gun control debate
The massacre reignited the gun control debate in the United States, with
proponents of gun control legislation claiming guns are too accessible, and
citing the fact that Cho, a mentally unsound individual, was able to purchase
two handguns in the first place. Proponents of gun rights and the Second
Amendment claimed Virginia Tech's gun-free "safe zone" policy ensured that none
of the students or faculty would be armed, guaranteeing that no one could stop
Cho's rampage.
Background
Law enforcement officials have described finding a purchase receipt for at least
one of the guns used in the assault. The shooter had apparently waited one month
after buying his Walther P22 .22 caliber pistol before he bought his second
pistol, a Glock 19. Cho used a 15-round ammunition magazine in the Glock. The
serial numbers on the weapons had been obliterated, a Federal felony, but the
ATF National Laboratory was able to reveal them, and thereby perform a firearms
trace.
Virginia Tech has a policy forbidding unauthorized possession or storage of
firearms on campus by students, faculty, and staff, even by state licensed
concealed weapons permit holders. This policy has been challenged in recent
years. In April of 2005, a student licensed by the Commonwealth of Virginia to
carry concealed weapons was discovered possessing a concealed firearm in class.
While no criminal charges were filed, it is unknown whether disciplinary action
was taken by the school for violating Tech policy due to student
confidentiality.
University spokesman Larry Hincker, in response to challenges over the authority
of the university to enforce such a policy, said "We think we have the right to
adhere to and enforce that policy because, in the end, we think it's a
common-sense policy for the protection of students, staff and faculty as well as
guests and visitors."
Virginia bill HB 1572, intended to prohibit public universities from making
"rules or regulations limiting or abridging the ability of a student who
possesses a valid concealed handgun permit … from lawfully carrying a concealed
handgun" was introduced into the Virginia House of Representatives by delegate
Todd Gilbert. The university opposed the bill, which died in subcommittee in
January of 2006. Spokesman Larry Hincker responded "I'm sure the university
community is appreciative of the General Assembly's actions because this will
help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on our campus."
The sale of firearms to permanent residents in Virginia is legal as long as the
buyer shows proof of residency. Additionally, though, Virginia has a law that
limits purchases of handguns to one every 30 days. Federal law requires a
criminal background check for handgun purchases from licensed firearms dealers,
and Virginia checks other databases in addition to the Federally-mandated NICS.
Prior to the shootings, Bradford B. Wiles, a graduate student at Virginia Tech,
published an editorial in 2006 in the Roanoke Times calling for a change in
Virginia Tech's policy prohibiting the carrying of licensed firearms.
U.S. media response
The response to how gun control affected the massacre was predominantly
split—while some believe the university's ban on students carrying concealed
weapons contributed to the massacre as students were unable to defend themselves
against the perpetrator, others believe that the United States', and Virginia's,
relatively liberal gun control laws allowed the gunman to purchase the guns and
ammunition that allowed the shootings to take place.
The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, an American gun control group, said
that it was easy for an individual to get powerful weapons and called for
"common-sense actions to prevent tragedies like this from continuing to occur",
and also noted that the 15-round ammunition magazine used was illegal to
manufacture between 1994 and 2004, under the elapsed Federal Assault Weapons
ban. The New York Times ran an editorial calling for more gun control:
"Yesterday’s mass shooting at Virginia Tech—the worst in American history—is
another horrifying reminder that some of the gravest dangers Americans face come
from killers at home armed with guns that are frighteningly easy to obtain."
On the other side of the issue, the Conservative Voice contrasted the Virginia
Tech massacre with the Appalachian School of Law shooting in 2002, when a
disgruntled student killed only two students before he was subdued by two other
students with personal firearms they had retrieved from their vehicles,
declaring that "All the school shootings that have ended abruptly in the last
ten years were stopped because a law-abiding citizen—a potential victim—had a
gun." However, it should be noted that in this 2002 incident, the shooter's gun
was already empty when he was confronted by the two students.
The Washington Post described both sides of the gun control debate in an
editorial, asking how and when the shooter obtained his weapons, but also asking
if the tragedy would have occurred if Virginia law did not prohibit the carrying
of lawfully concealed weapons on college campuses.
Virginia Governor Tim Kaine condemned this debate in the press and elsewhere as
occurring at an inappropriate time. "People who want to take this within 24
hours of the event and use it as a political hobbyhorse — I only have loathing
for them," Gov. Kaine said during an evening press conference on April 17, 2007:
"To those who want to make this into some sort of crusade, I say take this
elsewhere."
