The press loves the spectacle of a gun massacre. But just as naturally, when a massacre doesn't quite happen, or doesn't happen as large as might otherwise have happened, it does not make as good a story. Case in point: the killing of three people at the Appalachian School of Law, last January 16. The killer, leaving the scene, was confronted by three students, two with guns that they had just retrieved from their cars. Are guns only good for killing, as the left likes to say? No -- they are made for threatening, too; the ability to maim or kill is necessary to communicate an effective threat; but the threat is the thing. As in this case: the killer, seeing two guns pointed at him, surrendered. The killer's gun was used for killing. The students' guns were used for communicating with the killer. Read it yourself.

Bridges, Gross, Besen, and Ross are heroes. They may have stopped several murders and maimings from occuring, using their guns. (It is not stated in the article whether the killer had the means to reload his gun, which was empty when he was stopped.) Bridges is quoted saying "I'm not a gun nut or militia-type person", but on January 16 he was a militiaman, whether he likes it or not. (I am sure his point in saying that was to disassociate himself with the press stereotype of the modern militiaman, who as we all know is a vaguely organized, right-wing, racist, sexist, heavily armed conspiracy theorist.)

What really burns me about the article is down toward the end: "Bridges... said he has heard rumblings that a few students are unhappy he and and Gross keep handguns in their vehicles." OK, so here are two men, both with police training, on your campus. They have shown in an actual deadly emergency courage and level headed good judgement in using their weapons. What more could one possibly ask for?

I know what I would ask for: I would be begging these guys to get a concealed carry permit so they could have their weapons on them at all times. If that had been true on January 16, then these guys could have reacted instantly and not had to run to their cars to get their lifesaving communication devices. It seems quite possible to me that at least one life would have been saved, or one less person maimed. In the article Bridges is quoted as saying "I only wish we could have stopped him a little sooner." Yes, exactly.

I got the linkup from the all-seeing InstaPundit.