For more info like this go to
www.johnlott.org >
>It took place at a university in Virginia. A student with a grudge,
>an immigrant, pulled a gun and went on a shooting spree. It wasn't
>Virginia Tech at all. It was the Appalachian School of Law in
>Grundy, not far away.
>You can easily drive from the one school to the other, just take a
>trip down Route 460 through Tazewell.
>
>It was January 16, 2002 when Peter Odighizuwa came to campus. He had
>been suspended due to failing grades. Odighizuwa was angry and
>waving a gun calling on students to "come get me". The students,
>seeing the gun, ran. A shooting spree started almost immediately. In
>seconds Odighizuwa had killed the school dean, a professor and one
>student. Three other students were shot as well, one in the chest,
>one in the stomach and one in the throat.
>
>Many students heard the shots. Two who did were Mikael Gross and
>Tracy Bridges. Mikael was outside the school having just returned to
>campus from lunch when he heard the shots. Tracy was inside
>attending class. Both
>immediately ran to their cars. Each had a handgun locked in the
>vehicle.
>
>Bridges pulled a .357 Magnum pistol and he later said he was
>prepared to shoot to kill if necessary. He and Gross both approached
>Odighizuwa at the same time from different directions. Both were
>pointing their weapons at
>him. Bridges yelled for Odighizuwa to drop his weapon. When the
>shooter realized they had the drop on him he threw his weapon down.
>A third student, unarmed, Ted Besen, approached the killer and was
>physically attacked.
>
>But Odighizuwa was now disarmed. The three students were able to
>restrain him and held him for the police. Odighizuwa is now in
>prison for the murders he committed. His killing spree ended when he
>faced two students with weapons. There would be no further victims
>that day, thanks to armed resistance.
>
>You wouldn't know much about that though. Do you wonder why? The
>media, though it widely reported the attack left out the fact that
>Bridges and Gross were armed. Most simply reported that the gunman
>was jumped and
>subdued by other students. That two of those students were now armed
>didn't get a mention.
>
>James Eaves-Johnson wrote about this fact one week later in The
>Daily Iowan <http://www.uwire.com/content/topops012402002.html>. He
>wrote: "A Lexus-Nexis search revealed 88 stories on the topic, of
>which only two mentioned that either Bridges or Gross was armed."
>This 2002 article noted
>"This was a very public shooting with a lot of media coverage." But
>the media left out information showing how two students with
>firearms ended the killing spree.
>
>He also mentioned a second incident. And while I had read many
>articles on this shooting for an article I wrote about school
>bullying not a single one mentioned the role that a firearm played
>in stopping it. Until today I didn't know the full story
>.<http://www.lubbockonline.com/news/101297/LA0540.htm>
>
>Luke Woodham was a troubled teen. He felt no one really liked him.
>In 1997 he murdered his mother and put on a trench coat. He filled
>the pockets with ammunition and took a handgun to the Pearl High
>School in Pearl,
>Mississippi. In rapid succession killed two students and wounded
>seven others.
>
>He had the incident planned out. He would start shooting students
>and continue until he heard police sirens in the distance. That
>would allow him time to get in his car and leave campus. From there
>he intended to go to the
>nearby Pearl Junior High School and start shooting again. How it
>would end was not clear. Perhaps he would kill himself or perhaps
>the police would finally catch up with him and kill him. Either way
>a lot more people were
>going to get shot and die.
>
>What Woodham hadn't planned for was the actions of Assistant
>Principal Joel Myrick. Myrick heard the gun shots. He couldn't have
>a handgun in the school. But he did keep one locked in his vehicle
>in the parking lot. He ran
>outside and retrieved the gun.
>
>As Myrick headed back toward the school Woodham was in his vehicle
>headed for his next intended target. Myrick aimed his gun at the
>shooter. The teen crashed his car when he saw the gun. Myrick
>approached the car and held a gun to the killer who surrendered
>immediately. There would be no further victims that day, thanks to
>armed resistance.
>
>So you didn't know about that. Neither did I until today.
>Eaves-Johnson wrote that there were "687 articles on the school
>shooting in Pearl, Miss. Of those, only 19 mentioned that" Myrick
>had used a gun to stop Woodham
>"four-and-a-half minutes before police arrived."
>
>Many people probably forgot about the shooting in Edinboro,
>Pennsylvania. It was a school graduation dance that Andrew Wurst
>entered to take out his anger on the school. First he shot teacher
>John Gillette outside. He started
>shooting randomly inside the restaurant where the 240 students had
>gathered.
>
>It was restaurant owner James Strand, armed with a shot gun, who
>captured the shooter and held him for police. There would be no
>further victims that day, thanks to armed resistance.
>
>It was February 12th of this year that a young man entered the
>Trolley Square Shopping Mall, in Salt Lake City. The mall was a
>self-declared "gun free zone" forbidding patrons from carrying
>weapons. He wasn't worried. In
>fact he appreciated knowing that his victims couldn't defend
>themselves.
>
>He opened fire even before he got inside killing his first victims
>immediately outside the front door. As he walked down the mall
>hallway he fired in all directions. Several more people were shot
>inside a card store
>immediately inside the mall. The shooter moved on to the Pottery
>Barns Kids store.
>
>What he didn't know is that one patron of the mall, Kenneth Hammond,
>had ignored the signs informing patrons they must be unarmed to
>enter. He was a police officer but he was not on duty and he was not
>a police officer for
>Salt Lake City. By all standards he was a civilian that day and
>probably should have left his firearm in his vehicle.
>
>It's a good thing he didn't. He was sitting in the mall with his
>wife having dinner when he heard the shots. He told her to hide and
>to call 911 emergency services. He went to confront the gunman. The
>killer found himself
>under gun fire much sooner than he anticipated. From this point on
>all his effort was to protect himself from Hammond, he had no time
>to kill anyone else. Hammond was able to pin down the shooter until
>police finally arrived and one of them shot the man to death. There
>would be no further victims that day, thanks to armed resistance.
>
>In each of these cases a killer is stopped the moment he faces armed
>resistance. It is clear that in three of these cases the shooter
>intended to continue his killing spree. In the fourth case, Andrew
>Wurst, it is not
>immediately apparent whether he intended to keep shooting or not
>since he was apprehended by the restaurant owner leaving the scene.
>
>Three of these cases involved armed resistance by students, faculty
>or civilians. In one case the armed resistance was from an off-duty
>police officer in a city where he had no legal authority and where
>he was carrying
>his weapon in violation of the mall's gun free policy.
>
>What would have happened if these people waited for the police? In
>three cases the shooters were apprehended before the police arrived
>because of armed civilians. At Trolley Square the shooter was kept
>busy by Hammond
>until the police arrived. In all four cases the local police were
>the Johnny-come-latelys.
>
>Consider the horrific events at Virginia Tech. Again an armed man
>enters a "gun free zone". He kills two victims and walks away long
>before the police arrive. He spends two hours on campus, doing what
>is unknown. He then enters another building on campus and begins
>shooting. He never encounters a police officer during this. And all
>the students and faculty present had apparently complied with the
>"no gun" policy of the university. So no one stopped him. NO ONE
>STOPPED HIM! And when he finished his shooting spree 32 people were
>dead. It was the killer who ended the spree. He took his own life
>and when the police arrived all they dealt with were the dead.
>
>There were many further victims that day. The shooter never met with
>armed resistance.
