>Reminding us that several recent situations were resolved by private
>individuals, including schools/universities, but the vast majority of the
>press stories did not mention it!!
> When mass killers meet armed resistance.
>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. 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.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.
>
>
>
>No virus found in this incoming message.Checked by AVG Free
>Edition.Version: 7.5.446 / Virus Database: 269.5.5/769 - Release Date:
>4/19/2007 5:56 PM
>_________________________________________________________________
>Explore the seven wonders of the world
>http://search.msn.com/results