-Caveat Lector-
From
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/38115.htm
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THE MISSING GUN
By JOHN R. LOTT, JR.
January 25, 2002 -- ANOTHER school shooting occurred last week and
the headlines were everywhere the same, from Australia to Nigeria.
This time the shooting occurred at a university, the Appalachian Law
School. As usual, there were calls for more gun control.
Yet in this age of "gun-free school zones," one fact was missing from
virtually all the news coverage: The attack was stopped by two
students who had guns in their cars.
The fast responses of two male students, Mikael Gross, 34, and Tracy
Bridges, 25, undoubtedly saved multiple lives.
Mikael was outside the law school and just returning from lunch when
Peter Odighizuwa started his attack. Tracy was in a classroom waiting
for class to start.
When the shots rang out, utter chaos erupted. Mikael said, "People were running
everywhere. They were jumping behind cars, running out in front of traffic, trying to
get away."
Mikael and Tracy did something quite different: Both immediately ran to their cars and
got their guns. Mikael had to run about 100 yards to get to his car. Along with Ted
Besen (who was unarmed), they approached Peter fro
m different sides.
As Tracy explained it, "I aimed my gun at him, and Peter tossed his gun down. Ted
approached Peter, and Peter hit Ted in the jaw. Ted pushed him back and we all jumped
on."
What is so remarkable is that out of 280 separate news stories (from a computerized
Nexis-Lexis search) in the week after the event, just four stories mentioned that the
students who stopped the attack had guns.
Only two local newspapers (the Richmond Times-Dispatch and the Charlotte Observer)
mentioned that the students actually pointed their guns at the attacker.
Much more typical was the scenario described by the Washington Post, where the heroes
had simply "helped subdue" the killer. The New York Times noted only that the attacker
was "tackled by fellow students."
Most in the media who discussed how the attack was stopped said: "students overpowered
a gunman," "students ended the rampage by tackling him," "the gunman was tackled by
four male students before being arrested," or "Stu
dents ended the rampage by confronting and then tackling the gunman, who dropped his
weapon."
In all, 72, stories described how the attacker was stopped without mentioning that the
student heroes had guns.
Unfortunately, the coverage in this case was not unusual. In the other public school
shootings where citizens with guns have stopped attacks, rarely do more than one
percent of the news stories mention that citizens with
guns stopped the attacks.
Many people find it hard to believe that research shows that there are 2 million
defensive gun uses each year. After all, if these events were really happening,
wouldn't we hear about them on the news? But when was the la
st time you saw a story on the national evening news (or even the local news) about a
citizen using his gun to stop a crime?
This misreporting actually endangers people's lives. By selectively reporting the news
and turning a defensive gun use story into one where students merely "overpowered a
gunman" the media gives misleading impressions of
what works when people are confronted by violence.
Research consistently shows that having a gun is the safest way to respond to any type
of criminal attack, especially these multiple victim shootings.
John Lott is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of
"More Guns, Less Crime."
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are trademarks of NYP Holdings, Inc.
Copyright 2001 NYP Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved.
End<{{{
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A merely fallen enemy may rise again, but the reconciled
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