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For the first time since 1964, Democrats actually have a chance of winning Virginia's 13 electoral votes. Barack Obama is up 4.8% according to the Real Clear Politics average, and according to Nate Silver, Virginia could be one of this election's decisive swing states. And, in a state with 161 colleges and 483,159 students, the predominantly Democratic youth vote could play a huge role in tipping the election Obama's way. But there's a hold-up: Virginia's local laws make it exceedingly difficult for students to register in their college towns. Indeed, though other states like Idaho and Tennessee also make student...

The first convention of Students for Concealed Carry on Campus (SCCC) featured at least one speaker who said college students bearing arms on campus would not make anyone safer. Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign, a gun control advocacy group, said studies show that college students are more likely to engage in risky behavior than the general population. “When I look back on my college days, maybe it was a different era in the late ‘60s, but most of my fraternity brothers didn’t have criminal records – not yet, most of them, even those who were in ROTC and...

A Virginia Tech employee shot himself in a room off the Cassell Coliseum arena on Saturday afternoon, officials said. Tech police responded to the incident at 2:15 p.m., and the man was flown to Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital, police Chief Wendell Flinchum said. Officials declined to identify the man, and his condition is unknown. Although officials said the shooting posed no threat to the campus community, Flinchum said police notified the public by e-mail using part of an alert system put in place after the April 16, 2007, shootings.

READING, WRITING, WEAPONS Texas students join a nationwide movement for the right to bear arms while at college BLANCO — Cameron Schober, a 22-year-old Texas State University student, aimed his semi-automatic pistol at the outline of a man's torso just as a gust of wind blew down the target. "Everybody hold up!" hollered instructor Mike Cox. As six other shooters lowered their weapons, Schober scrambled to brace the cardboard target at a makeshift range on a deserted Hill Country ranch. Schober and fellow student Bill Downs were among 13 people who recently completed Cox's shooting proficiency and eight-hour classroom course,...

A year has passed since the tragic events at Virginia Tech, and there are some assumptions upon which gun control is based that require investigation. Chief among them is the misplaced feeling that banning firearms somehow eradicates them. When examining this notion, we can look for another example of a ban to give us a sense of the difference between banning and eradication. There are people in America known as illegal immigrants who are banned from being here. If the state cannot keep a person from coming into the country illegally, what possible hope does it have in banning a...

The owner of the Green Bay-based web site that sold guns a gun to the Virginia Tech shooter and gun accessories to the Northern Illinois University gunman plans to visit Virginia Tech on Thursday. Eric Thompson owns TGSCOM, the company that sold a gun to Seung-Hui Cho last year. Cho killed 32 students and staff at Virginia Tech's campus. Thompson announced Wednesday students invited him to campus to talk about concealed-carry laws. "What I'm really hoping to do is just lend a voice. Unfortunately, a set of coincidences and circumstances, I've been in the media, and I think with that...

The owner of an Internet-based firearms store that sold a gun to Virginia Tech shooter Seung-Hui Cho says he is now offering a discount for students who want to carry guns on campus to protect themselves. The company, TGSCOM Inc., also sold two 9mm Glock magazines to Steven Kazmierczak, who killed five people at Northern Illinois University earlier this year. The owner of TGSCOM, Eric Thompson, announced today that for the next two weeks he will sell firearms at cost in the hopes of targeting students who may be on a tight budget. Customers will have over 5,400 different kinds...

Last Monday, three colleges and four K-to-12 schools were shut down by threats of violence. This week over 25,000 college students at 300 chapters in 44 states belong to a group, Students for Concealed Carry on College Campuses, that will carry empty handgun holsters to protest their concerns about not being able to defend themselves. With the first anniversary of the Virginia Tech attack last week and the discussions that it created, we clearly have not been able to put that and other attacks behind us. There are good reasons why the safety measures adopted over the last year to...

Ohio State University's ROTC cadets have ended the decades-long practice of combat training with mock rifles on the main campus because of public edginess in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings, officials said. Since the decision was made a couple of weeks ago, tactical training with rubber replicas of an M-16 rifle has been moved indoors, or cadets have trained without rifles, said Navy Capt. Steven Noce, who heads the university's ROTC program. The tactical training, typically conducted around the ROTC building near Ohio Stadium, has generated a few calls to police from concerned people in the past year,...

The state has agreed to give 21 families of the Virginia Tech massacre $11 million in blood money to avoid lawsuits that would attempt to assign responsibility to anyone other than the lone nut job. This reflects the grievance-minded culture of the day and unscrupulous lawyers ever willing to sue businesses, institutions and private citizens over the flimsiest reasons. People are killed each day, each loss of life as painful as the next, none more financially worthy than the next, unless apparently you are related to one of the 32 dead and 24 wounded on the Blacksburg, Va., campus. Then...

On the anniversary of the Virginia Tech University shootings, Twin Cities citizens are joining more than 70 cities across the nation in events to remember the tragedy and to call on legislators to strengthen the Brady background check system. The demonstration will be a "lie-in" in front of the Capitol, where citizens will lie down in a group of 32 to commemorate the Virginia Tech victims and the 32 Americans murdered by gun every day. "Gun violence is devastating – and it is preventable," said Mary Lewis Grow, Vice President of Citizens for a Safer Minnesota and local event organizer....

The student government at Virginia Tech asked protesters to demonstrate on a day besides April 16. BLACKSBURG -- Gun-control advocates planning to protest April 16 on Virginia Tech's Drillfield said Tuesday that they hope to reach a compromise with the university that will allow them to protest without interfering with remembrance events. Peter Hamm, spokesman for the Brady Campaign to Stop Gun Violence, said the group has been working with Tech students on the protest. It would involve a 32-person "lie-in" at noon April 16, the one-year anniversary of campus shootings that left 32 people dead plus the shooter. The...

Brady Campaign won't get permit for event on April 16 Virginia Tech said yesterday that it will not allow a national gun-control advocacy group to hold a campus demonstration on April 16 while the school commemorates last year's massacre. Tech spokesman Larry Hincker said neither the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence nor the co-sponsor of the planned demonstration, ProtestEasyGuns.com, had applied for an assembly permit, and even if they had, Tech only issues permits to student groups. Tech's position threw the Brady Campaign's plans into disarray yesterday: The noon demonstration at Tech was supposed to be the centerpiece of...

FREE REPUBLIC NASCAR THREAD Goody's Cool Orange 500 Welcome all to the Sprint Cup race atMartinsville Speedway (Click on the Pics, Graphics, & Links for related news & info.) Current Cup driver standings VT's Beamer Cool Orange Grand Marshal Virginia Tech’s Military Marching Bandwill Perform National Anthem for Goody’s Cool Orange 500 Fans In South Terrace Seats Will Get Martinsville Hotdogs Delivered Track Schedule for the Goody's Cool Orange 500/Kroger 250 Goody's Cool Orange 500 Entry List Qualifying: Friday 3/28 3:40 pm Sprint Cup Qualifying ~ SPEEDRace: Sunday 3/30 1:30 pm SPRINT Cup Race ~ FOX Speed's NASCAR Raceday...

They are crimes some say are becoming all too common: shootings on college campuses. Just Thursday in Texas police say a gunman shot 2 students near an off–campus dorm. Now, a new group popping up at schools across the country says it wants to take action and prevent these tragedies. The group is called "Students for Concealed Carry on Campus" or SCCC. You can find members at over 200 colleges, including the University of Nebraska and Hastings College. As their numbers continue to grow, they hope to convince state lawmakers that change is needed and that concealed weapons should be...

State reportedly offers $100,000 to forestall lawsuits over massacre RICHMOND, Va. - Families of those killed in the Virginia Tech massacre would receive $100,000 each under a settlement the state is proposing to prevent lawsuits, according to a victim's relative who received a copy of the proposal. Medical and counseling expenses would be provided to the families of the 32 killed and dozens of surviving victims, said the person, who asked Monday to remain anonymous because those involved were told not to discuss the settlement. Families would also have the opportunity to question the governor and university officials about the...

RICHMOND, Va. - A relative of a Virginia Tech shooting victim says the families of those killed would receive $100,000 each under a settlement designed to prevent lawsuits. ...

In this fair country of ours, it would seem that the majority of the people consider some of our constitutional rights as more important or more sacred than others. For example, no one, except for the die-hard enemies of democracy, would challenge the first amendment rights of citizens to freedom of speech, religion, and the press. On the other hand, a great multitude of individuals and politicians seem to dismiss the Second Amendment, the right of all Americans to keep and bear arms. Compared to the general public today, our founding fathers felt much differently about this important issue. They...

In the wake of last week’s tragedy at Northern Illinois University and last April’s massacre at Virginia Tech, the seemingly endless series of school shootings has incited debate over the safety of college communities across the country. Yesterday, the Cornell College Republicans placed about 20 signs on the Arts Quad that publicized their stance on the increasingly polarizing issue of the concealed carry of weapons. They have joined the approximately 12,000 students nationwide who are part of a grassroots effort that is advocating for concealed weapons license holders to be able to carry their weapons on campuses. Although prevalent on...

VIN SUPRYNOWICZ: Every shooter crazy 'bout a 'gun-free' zone I see where Clark County School District Superintendent Walt Rulffes has responded to the drive-by murder of a 15-year-old Palo Verde High School inmate by another one of his young charges by whining that it's difficult to prevent his wards from shooting each other given today's "easy access to guns" and television violence. I'm not sure about the TV part -- seems to me most of the drive-bys I've seen portrayed on the tube have concluded with the perpetrator going to prison. Just as it's true that there would be fewer...

Or so it seems, now that our state Legislature considered the issue of allowing firearms on college campuses in South Dakota. Earlier this week, at least six people died at Northern Illinois University when a gunman opened fire in a classroom. Add that to a handful of other recent college shootings, plus the horrific loss of life at Virginia Tech last year, and the idea of letting students defend themselves against deranged gunmen by carrying weapons on campus seems to almost make sense. Almost, but not quite.

Web Exclusive It was a sickeningly familiar scene. A student-gunman opened fire Thursday during a lecture at Northern Illinois University, killing five and wounding 15 before turning the gun on himself. The deadly spree was the fifth school shooting this week—and a traumatic reminder that for all the efforts to improve campus security nationwide since the massacre at Virginia Tech last year, students and faculty remain disturbingly vulnerable. A nonprofit organization called Students for Concealed Carry on Campus would like to change that. The group, whose 12,000 members nationwide include college students, faculty and parents, champions legislation that would allow...

PIERRE, S.D. (AP) -- A measure allowing law-abiding people to carry guns on the campuses of South Dakota's public universities was approved Monday by the state House of Representatives. The House voted 63-3 to send the measure to the Senate after supporters said allowing students, faculty members and others to carry guns would help deter mass shootings. "The only remedy for a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun," said Rep. Thomas Brunner, R-Nisland, the main sponsor of the bill. HB1261 would prevent colleges and technical schools from restricting the right to carry or possess...

Campuses like ASU may no longer be gun-free zones if a bill proposed in the state legislature is passed into law this session. Senate Bill 1214, currently being debated in the Judiciary and Rules Committees, would allow anyone with a concealed weapons permit to carry a firearm on the campus of any state school, college or university. The bill was introduced to the Arizona Legislature on Friday. Currently, criminal charges could not be filed against someone who brought a gun to the ASU campus — but there would be other ramifications, such as suspension or expulsion for students, ASU Police...

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Families of those killed and wounded during a deranged gunman's rampage at Virginia Tech implored a legislative panel to close the loophole in state law that allows criminals and the mentally ill to buy firearms at gun shows. The Republican-dominated committee ignored them, voting 13-9 along party lines Friday to kill legislation to require unlicensed sellers at gun shows to run criminal background checks on buyers. Such checks now are required only of federally licensed gun dealers. Only a few relatives of those slain and wounded during the April 16 shootings at Virginia Tech were able...

Before President Bush left Washington for the Mideast, he signed into law the first major federal gun control measure in more than 13 years. If the new law had been in effect last April, it might have prevented the Virginia Tech shooter, Seung-Hui Cho, from buying a weapon at a gun store.

Enlarge ImageVestiges. A fossil form of Ediacara called Fractofusus andersoni provides evidence of an ancient explosion of life.Credit: Bing Shen/Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University [VIA SCIENCE] Researchers have uncovered what they think is a sudden diversification of life at least 30 million years before the Cambrian period, the time when most of the major living groups of animals emerged. If confirmed, the find reinforces the idea that major evolutionary innovations occurred in bursts. The main points of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, which he carefully laid out in The Origin of Species 149 years ago, have stood the...

Sen. Charles Schumer and Rep. Carolyn McCarthy's previously stalled bill toughening the national gun background check system in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings sailed through both chambers of Congress within hours yesterday after a flurry of legislative activity. "I don't know whether to laugh or to cry," said McCarthy (D-Mineola), who saw her legislation pass the House in June only to have it blocked in the Senate. "You don't know how many times it's come to this point." In a statement, Schumer (D-N.Y.) said, "This simple but very important bill has been a long time coming. It will...

BLACKSBURG, Va. - The Virginia Tech classroom wing where a student gunman killed 30 people and himself and wounded two dozen others last spring will be turned into a place to study peace, the school announced Thursday. Having vowed never again to use Norris Hall for general classes, school officials said the rooms will house the new Center for Peace Studies and Violence Prevention.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Congress, prodded by the deadliest shooting rampage in modern American history, passed legislation on Wednesday designed to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill. Without objection, the Senate and House of Representatives approved the measure, which would bolster background checks for gun buyers, and sent it to President George W. Bush to sign.

At issue: A woman using a handgun to stop a killer in a “soft target,” a church. Our view: The case shows why Michigan school staff need an option for training and concealed carry, not “gun-free zones.” Another month has brought more shooting sprees in what commonly are “gun-free zones.” Four died in two separate shootings Sunday in Colorado. Eight were murdered last Wednesday in an Omaha, Neb., shopping mall. Seven students were slain recently in Finland. That followed a Cleveland school shooting in October. Only in the latest attack did an adult have a right to a gun to...

Last April, an unbelievable tragedy unfolded in Blacksburg. A student, armed and angry, plotted and carried out a brutal assault on the students and faculty at Virginia Tech. After an early morning attack which left two people dead, he locked the doors to an academic building, and then moved methodically from room to room, shooting the occupants while they sat, stood, hid or attempted to flee. ... This Sunday, another unbelievable tragedy unfolded in Colorado. A young man, armed and angry, plotted and carried out a brutal assault on members of a Christian mission organization and a church. After an...

Students Rebuked Over Virginia Tech Shooting Victim Halloween CostumesSaturday, December 08, 2007 STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Photos of two Penn State students dressed up as victims of the Virginia Tech massacre for Halloween prompted a rebuke from the university this week. The pictures, which show the students wearing Virginia Tech shirts covered in bullet holes and fake blood, recently surfaced on Facebook.com, a social networking site. The students were not disciplined, but Penn State condemned the actions in a letter sent to Virginia Tech officials. "We're appalled that these individuals would display this level of insensitivity and lack of common...

WASHINGTON -- Since the Virginia Tech shootings last spring, the FBI has more than doubled the number of people nationwide who are prohibited from buying guns because of mental health problems, the Justice Department said Thursday. Justice officials said the FBI's Mental Defective File has ballooned from 175,000 names in June to nearly 400,000, primarily additions from California. The names are listed in a subset of a database that gun dealers are supposed to check before completing their sales. The surge in names underscores the vastness of the gap in FBI records that allowed Seung-hui Cho to purchase the handguns...

Not even a year after the most horrific school shooting in this country's history, the debate has been brought back to college campuses. The debate as to whether students should be allowed to carry a concealed firearm into a college classroom has been a prevalent topic among special-interest groups, university administrators, lawmakers and students alike since that fateful April 16th morning in Blacksburg, Va. The heart of the debate focuses on whether allowing concealed weapons in a classroom setting can save lives if a catastrophe such as the one at Virginia Tech happens again. Since the tragedy, groups such as...

WASHINGTON - The number of mentally ill people named in a federal database barring them from buying guns has more than doubled since the Virginia Tech shootings earlier this year, the Justice Department said Thursday. The increase follows stepped-up reporting to a federal database used to screen the backgrounds of potential gun-buyers. Attorney General Michael Mukasey announced the increase at an afternoon speech in Park City, Utah. The number of people identified in the national instant background check database as having mental problems grew from 174,863 three months after the April 16 Virginia Tech shootings to 393,957 this month. "As...

RICHMOND Gov. Timothy M. Kaine called Tuesday for new restrictions on firearm sales at gun shows but stopped short of declaring passage of the legislation as a high priority for the 2008 General Assembly session. Under current law, background checks on buyers are not required by unlicensed dealers who privately sell and trade firearms at the shows. Kaine endorsed closing the loophole, saying it provides an opening for felons and mentally ill people to buy weapons they are otherwise forbidden to purchase. "You either want felons to have guns or you don't," Kaine said on a morning radio show. "You...

SAN MARCOS, Texas - Mike Guzman and thousands of other students say the best way to prevent campus bloodshed is more guns. Guzman, an economics major at Texas State University-San Marcos, is among 8,000 students nationwide who have joined the nonpartisan Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, arguing that students and faculty already licensed to carry concealed weapons should be allowed to pack heat along with their textbooks. "It's the basic right of self defense," said Guzman, a 23-year-old former Marine. "Here on campus, we don't have that right, that right of self defense." Every state but Illinois and Wisconsin...

BLACKSBURG -- Several thousands people gathered on Virginia Tech’s Drillfield this morning to form a giant message of thanks to the world for its support after the April 16 massacre. Photos of the event are posted on hokiesthanktheworld.org. Dressed in the school colors of maroon and orange, and surrounded by fall foliage of the same hues along the Blue Ridge Mountains, the crowd was arranged to form Tech’s "VT" logo, and under it, "THANKS YOU." At 11:10 a.m., a satellite aimed to capture the image as the thousands waved up at the sky.

A student at Memorial University in Newfoundland was arrested Tuesday afternoon after he was found with a pellet gun on campus. A professor later confirmed that the student, Chris Hardy, had performed a Monty Python sketch using the pistol for an engineering class project. But despite the fact that the gun was used for comedic purposes, Memorial, like other Canadian universities, didn’t take the incident lightly. The university lauded the efforts of security services for apprehending Hardy, who was not charged, within two-and-a-half hours. The quick and decisive response was typical of Canadian universities, including the University of Winnipeg, where...

Virginia Tech officials gave out more than $8.5 million on Monday to people who were wounded, lost loved ones or survived the shootings at the Blacksburg campus on April 16. The "bulk" of the money, according to university President Charles Steger, was being disbursed "to 79 families and individuals." "There is no right way to disburse these monies, but we believe the best way to continue the healing is to put as much as possible in the hands of those who have suffered most," ... some of the recipients will get "the disbursements over time in the form of free...

WASHINGTON (Map, News) - The father of a student killed in the shooting massacre at Virginia Tech endorsed a Democratic state Senate candidate Monday, further politicizing the deadliest shooting ever on an American higher-education campus. Joe Samaha, whose daughter, Reema, was among those killed inside Norris Hall on April 16, announced his support of Janet Oleszek in her 37th Senate district race against Republican incumbent Ken Cuccinelli. Candidates have discussed their ideas for making campuses safer throughout the campaign and are often asked about the Virginia Tech shooting during citizen forums. Samaha is believed to be the first parent of...

Virginia Tech officials said Tuesday they have distributed more than $8.5 million in donations to help victims of the April shootings. Families of the 32 people killed by student gunman Seung-Hui Cho were eligible for cash or a combination of funds and endowed scholarships in the victims' names. Money also went to more than two dozen who were injured in the classroom building when Cho killed 30 people and then himself on April 16th. Payments also were made to people who were uninjured but were in the classrooms during the shooting rampage. University President Charles Steger said a total of...

During the week of October 22-26, 2007, college students throughout America, organized under the banner of Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, will attend classes wearing empty holsters, in protest of state laws and campus policies that stack the odds in favor of armed killers by disarming law abiding citizens licensed to carry concealed handguns virtually everywhere else. In 39 U.S. states, thousands of collegiate students and faculty—age 21 and above—are licensed to carry concealed handguns throughout their day-to-day lives. And they do so without incident. However, despite the absence of any compelling evidence that these licensed individuals would pose...

Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) - A gun-control bill that advocates say could have prevented the April killings of 32 people on the Virginia Tech campus has hit a roadblock in the Senate. The measure would provide money to states to ensure that they properly update the national database of those prohibited to purchase weapons. It has support from both handgun control groups and the National Rifle Association but Democratic Senator Charles Schumer of New York says his colleague Republican Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, has derailed any hopes of quick passage. Under federal law, people with criminal records and those who...

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - Virginia Tech plans to test its expanded emergency notification system this week, nearly six months after the mass shootings on campus. The system uses text messages, voice mails, e-mails and online instant messages to alert the campus community during emergencies. University spokesman Mark Owczarski says the school will test its ``VT Alerts'' system sometime this week. Nearly 18,000 students, faculty, and staff have subscribed to the system since it was launched in July. That's over half of the university community. The school had already been looking into expanding its alert system when student Seung-Hui Cho (sung-wee...

A three-legged robot with an unconventional and graceful walk has been developed by US researchers. Like humans, it exploits gravity to save energy with each step, but it also flips its entire body upside-down with each stride. The fearsome alien tripods in HG Well's book The War of The Worlds are described as moving like "a milking stool tilted and bowled violently along the ground". STriDER (Self-excited Tripedal Dynamic Experimental Robot) has a far more graceful, and acrobatic, gait (see video top right) that sees its body flip 180 degrees with each step. A second video (bottom right) explains more...

·11250 Waples Mill Road ·   Fairfax, Virginia 22030    ·800-392-8683   Panel On Virginia Tech Murders Pushes Anti-Gun Agenda   Friday, August 31, 2007   Yesterday, the “Virginia Tech Review Panel” released its report on April’s horrific mass murder on campus.  Most media attention has rightly focused on failures of communication. These include failures to share information between university officials, mental health counselors, campus police, and killer Seung Hui Cho’s parents, as well as the university’s failure to promptly notify students, faculty and staff promptly about the first two shootings on campus.  Yet while the panel effectively reviewed those issues, it used...

With school starting, the attack at Virginia Tech that left 32 dead is still people's minds. But Virginia Tech's report on how to prevent future tragedies is pretty disappointing. And one glaring omission remains. The report failed to ask whether there were any common feature among the different multiple-victim public shooting tragedies. All these attacks shared something in common: citizens were already banned from having guns in those areas. Indeed, every multiple-victim public shooting of any size has occurred in one of those gun-free zones. Virginia Tech has rigorously enforced its gun-free zone policy and suspended students with concealed handgun...

Public Safety: A governor's report on the Virginia Tech shootings says earlier warnings might have helped reduce the carnage. It says nothing about VT's complicity in denying the murdered their right to self-defense. After the release of Virginia Tech's internal review of the shooting spree in April that left 33 dead, it was hard to imagine a more clueless document on the tragedy being released. But the report released Wednesday by an eight-member panel headed by Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine takes the prize. VT's review called on police, counselors and other university personnel to monitor students whose behavior might indicate...