Keith Fimian is coming under fire from the left, again, for comments he made to Mark Seagraves on Channel 50 in an interview that, among other things, discussed his stance on gun control laws. Specifically, Fimian made this statement, which has the left up in arms: “I think that at Virginia Tech, if one of those kids in one of those classrooms was packing heat, I think that would not have happened … The perpetrator of that crime would have thought twice before walking into a classroom if he thought there was any chance of someone being armed and preventing him from doing that.”
You can watch the video here.
It took about four nanoseconds for the Connolly campaign to put out a press release condemning the statements, and their willing sycophants at Blue Virginia have already chimed in as I linked to above.
I know that the Fimian campaign has apologized for his comments, saying that the choice of words was inappropriate. I can only assume they mean the “packing heat” reference, which I find not so much inappropriate as dated – this isn’t a 1940s gangster movie. The sentiment Fimian made, however, does not need to be apologized for. He is right.
There is ample empirical evidence, beginning with John Lott’s groundbreaking study “More Guns, Less Crime” and confirmed by other research that as the number of concealed weapons permits goes up, crime goes down. When criminals can’t be sure that they are the only ones armed, they are less likely to commit crimes. Lott and others have demonstrated this statistically time and time again – and critics, at best, have only been able to argue that an increase in concealed weapons has no impact on crime rates. Banning guns simply does not reduce violent crime. Given the crime rates in DC, Chicago and other major cities which have, until the Supreme Court wisely struck them down, the most stringent bans on gun ownership, I don’t see how anyone can argue the opposite with a straight face.
Now I want to be clear – listen to what Keith said. He didn’t say one of the other students could have shot and killed Cho and saved the lives of the 32 other students who died that day. Anyone who is familiar with firearms and shooting under a stressful situation knows that even the best trained police and military types can falter under that kind of pressure. What he said was that Cho would have thought twice about shooting up Tech if he felt someone else could be armed to stop him. While there is no way to prove him right beyond a shadow of a doubt, what Fimian said is likely true. Other than Fort Hood – which was a terrorist act, not a spree killing – you rarely, if ever, hear about armed gunmen storming into places where there’s a potential for someone armed to stop them. Post Offices and schools – both gun free zones under a variety of laws and regulations – are the most common targets. Spree killers are generally suicidal, but unwilling to die alone. They want to commit suicide and they want to take as many people with them before they go. But they never seem to march into police stations, do they? No. They go for the softest of soft targets – the most blatant being the Amish schoolhouse killings in 2006.
Cho was no different. He was mentally unbalanced, but he wasn’t insane. He planned what he was doing over a long period of time. Had Tech been a place where students were free to arm themselves for self-defense, Cho very well may have altered his plans, and that may have resulted in fewer deaths.
Fimian has no need to apologize for what he said. His opinion expressed here is a common one among gun rights activists, and it’s an opinion that is backed up by evidence and hard data. Spree killers don’t choose targets where people will fight back. Gun free zones are not safer than areas where guns are permitted. What he said should not be controversial – at least, not for anyone who cares about facts and isn’t going to let the fearmongering of the gun control proponents cloud their reason.
Nothing he said was derogatory about Virginia Tech or made light of the tragedy there. What I continue to find disgusting is the use of the Virginia Tech tragedy by gun control proponents to advance their agenda – namely, trying to close the mythical “gun-show loophole” that had absolutely nothing to do with what happened at Virginia Tech. No one on the left seems to think it’s offensive to use tragedies like this to advance an unrelated political agenda, however. If anything, that Connolly again trotted out the “gun show loophole” nonsense in his press release is something HE should be apologizing for.
Speaking of apologizing, what I don’t really understand is Fimian’s apology. Anyone who thinks Fimian said something outrageous enough to warrant an apology wasn’t planning on voting for him anyway. I suppose he could have been more eloquent, but I don’t see the need for an apology at all. He said nothing that was false, inaccurate, or insensitive. He was making a policy statement – and one I agree with. When the state takes away the people’s right to defend themselves, tragedies will continue to happen.
