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If this shooting teaches us anything, it is that the police can't be relied upon to protect us. People who are not prepared to take responsibility for their own protection have to resign themselves to the possibility that they may be slaughtered someday by some nut case.

A couple of years ago, a shooting almost this bad happened at a school in GERMANY, where so-called "gun control" laws are 100 times more strict than anything we have here.

I believe the Germans' response to this was to pass more gun control laws.

Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker was happy to hear the bill was defeated. "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."

What an utter moron.

Sure, people will "feel" safe, until someone blows their heads off. Then they won't "feel" anything.

And they won't be around to complain.

Time for another story. When I was a 21 year old idiot, I purchased a revolver, legally, "because I could". I had no training of any kind. All I knew about gun handling was what I had seen on TV.

I was a student at URI at the time. No guns were allowed on campus. But I didn't care, and kept it in my dorm room, fully loaded, with a trigger lock.

One night, my roommate and I had a few drinks and he asked me to show it to him. So I took the gun from my drawer, removed the trigger lock, and handed it to him - still fully loaded.

I know! I know! What an idiot, right?

He was from NY, and didn't know anything about guns himself. While fiddling with it, he cocked it. He didn't know what to do at that point, and I told him to give it back to me.

Heedless of where the muzzle was pointed, I tried to decock it, incorrectly, and the hammer slipped out from under my thumb causing the gun to go off.

I know! I know! What an IDIOT!

The bullet hit the concrete block wall a few INCHES from my roommate's left ear.

We both freaked out. Luckily, neither of us were hurt. But considering our massive ignorance and the fact that we both violated almost every safety rule ever devised, (drinking, failing to clear the gun before giving it to him, failure to keep the muzzle pointed in a safe direction, and on, and on, and on.........) it's a miracle that one of us wasn't killed.

Shortly after that, I took the gun back to the store and sold it back to them. I went 18 years before buying another one. But this time, I was determined to do it "right". I joined a club, took safety training, and eventually earned several NRA Instructor ratings.

To this very day, I often think about how our lives (mine and my roommate's) would have been changed if the gun had been pointed just a LITTLE bit more to the left than it was. He most likely would have been killed, and I would have gone to prison and been, rightfully, branded a criminal for life.

I know this does not bear on whether CHL's with safety training should be allowed to have guns on campus. But it shows what can happen if there aren't SOME limits.

I might be an idiot, but I'm not the only one in the world. If I could screw up like that, I'll bet some other 21 year old kids could do so as well.

That's why I am such a big fan of safety training for ANYONE who carries a gun in public. I've been there, done that, have the teeshirt, and am still looking for the book deal.