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My name is Jeannine Everhart. I am a doctoral student in Health Education at the
University of Toledo. I own a house in Toledo and am employed at the University.
Although I own property in Ohio and pay taxes here, I am from Virginia and wish to
speak to you as one who is not only an Ohio resident interested in the health and safety of
all persons, but also as one who was at Virginia Tech during the April 16, 2007
shootings.
Virginia, and southwestern Virginia in particular, is a conservative area. Hunting
is common and most people from that area, myself included, own guns. The gun owners
typically are well trained and very knowledgeable about their firearms; they have a strong
respect for the firearms and for the law. The area near Virginia Tech University is
considered safe; many people do not even lock their doors. When a mentally ill gunman
killed 32 people and injured many others by using rapid fire handguns loaded with high
capacity magazines, the university and entire surrounding community was in shock and
mourning.
I have heard some people – people who were not at Virginia Tech and who have
never been in such a dangerous situation – state that the gunman would surely have been
stopped if only students and faculty had been given the right to carry firearms on campus.
Really? To me that seems patently absurd. From the time the first shots were fired,
buildings on campus were put into lockdown. I was unable to leave my building. I had
family curled under an overturned desk at Torgeson Hall, adjacent to Norris Hall where
the gunman was located. People in Torgeson were not scrambling to get out and be
heroes; they were scared out of their heads as they heard gunshots in rapid succession. It
is simple for someone to brazenly state what he or she would have done under these
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circumstances, but the fact of the matter is that one never really knows how he or she will
behave in a life or death situation. The situation is frightening and chaotic. Even the
police officers were scrambling and on high alert. To quote from a study concerning the
shootings:
“The guns-on-campus advocates cited statistics that overall there are fewer
killings in environments where people can carry weapons for self-defense. Of
course if numerous people had been rushing around with handguns outside
Norris Hall on the morning of April 16, the possibility of accidental or mistaken
shootings would have increased significantly. The campus police said that the
probability would have been high that anyone emerging from a classroom at
Norris Hall holding a gun would have been shot.” (citation follows)
I wish to emphasize this last point, from Virginia Tech campus police. In that
chaotic, dire situation “the probability would have been high that anyone emerging
from a classroom at Norris Hall holding a gun would have been shot”. Where is this
quote taken from? In August of 2007, an independent panel finished an in-depth study on
the shootings, and provided their findings in a document titled “Mass Shootings at
Virginia Tech, April 16 2007. Report of the Review Panel. Presented to Governor Kaine,
Commonwealth of Virginia”. Since you are deliberating on the pressing issue of
concealed weapons, with one venue being Universities, I am sure you are familiar with
this report. If interested, you can find it online here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpsrv/metro/documents/vatechreport.pdf”.
This report studied the shootings and provided a set of recommendations. Pages
73-76 discuss concerns with guns on campuses, stating that students are uncomfortable
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with the idea that they may be in a class with armed students or professors. Campus
police chiefs “voiced concern that as the number of weapons on campuses increase,
sooner or later there would be accidents or assaults from people who are intoxicated or on
drugs who either have a gun or interact with someone who does. They argued that having
more guns on campus poses a risk of leading to a greater number of accidental and
intentional shootings than it does in averting some of the relatively rare homicides.” (p.
75) The panel then stated, in one of its recommendations, “The Virginia General
Assembly should adopt legislation in the 2008 session clearly establishing the right of
every institution of higher education in the Commonwealth to regulate the possession of
firearms on campus if it so desires. The panel recommends that guns be banned on
campus grounds and in buildings unless mandated by law.” (p. 76)
I do not recall my friends and neighbors wishing they had a gun with them to stop
the gunman on April 16. I do, however, recall numerous community members expressing
a strong desire to have legislators ban the high capacity magazines that allowed Cho to
kill so many in such a short time.
As a student, and one who occasionally teaches classes at the University of
Toledo, I take no comfort whatsoever in the possibility that I could have other students
next to me with guns in their book bags. I have seen and felt the fear and extreme sorrow
that comes when someone at a University campus decides to pull a gun and use it against
classmates, professors, friends and family. In my opinion, the best way to keep from
being a victim of firearms on campus is to keep firearms OFF campus.
Thank you for your time and attention.