The high price of feel-good legislation

From WorldNetDaily:

More than one year before today's unprecedented shooting rampage at Virginia Tech, the state's General Assembly quashed a bill that would have given college students and employees the right to carry handguns on campus.

At the time, Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker said he was happy to hear of the bill's defeat, according to the Roanoke Times.

"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 Virginia Tech spokesman said.

The proposal, House Bill 1572, was initiated by Del. Todd Gilbert, R-Shenandoah County, on behalf of the Virginia Citizens Defense League.

But the bill didn't make it through its first stage, the House Committee on Militia, Police and Public Safety.

The Roanoke paper said most universities in Virginia require students and employees, other than police, to check their guns with police or campus security upon entering campus.

Backers of the bill wanted 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."

[. . .]

In the spring of 2005, a Virginia Tech student who had a concealed handgun permit was disciplined for bringing a handgun to class.

Second Amendment groups questioned the university's authority, but the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police argued against guns on campus.

In June 2006, Virginia Tech's governing board approved a violence prevention policy that reaffirmed the school's ban.

How many of the 32 (and possibly more) dead would still be alive if the Virginia legislature had upheld the constitutional rights of Virginia's college students and employees? Instead they chose the route of hollow left-wing sanctimony by willfully blinding themselves to the fact that anyone evil enough or crazy enough or fanatical enough to be willing to commit mass murder would certainly have no problem with ignoring a "no guns on campus" law.

The state legislators who voted to keep the students on Virginia's college campuses disarmed and helpless before any predator wanted to be able to pat themselves on the back and brag about how they had made Virginia "safer".

Well the cost of their phony self esteem is there for all to see. More than thirty dead bodies and more than twenty injured. The blood spilled today is partly on the hands of those politicians and the pro gun control activists and law enforcement administrators who supported them and may they spend eternity in the deepest pits of hell paying for it.