2/08/2008

Citizens banned from Carrying Concealed handguns where City Council Attack occurred

At least five people were killed in Kirkwood, Missouri last night at a city council meeting:

A total of seven people were shot, including the mayor and several city officials, before police shot and killed the gunman. The mayor is in critical condition. . . .


Citizens are banned from having concealed handguns at these public meetings. The only exception are members of the city council and a reporter might have inside information on whether any of them have concealed handgun permits.

Apparently some people were reduced to throwing chairs at the killer to stop the attack:

At some point he fired at City Attorney John Hessel, who told McNichols he fended the attacker off by throwing chairs. She saw Hessel later, appearing uninjured except for a knot on his head.


While there was a police officer in the room where the attack occurred, apparently the killer shot the officer immediately when the attack started. This is a typical problem with uniformed guards where killers either wait for them to leave the area or kill them first. This is one big advantage of concealed handgun laws.

Meanwhile, there was a shooting at a University in Louisiana on Thursday and of course it occurred in another gun free zone.

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - A young woman killed two female students in a college classroom at a vocational college Friday, then killed herself, police said.
The students apparently were shot in their seats in the second-floor classroom at Louisiana Technical College, Sgt. Don Kelly said.
Officers ran into the building within four minutes of the first 911 call, which came at 8:36 a.m., he said.
"There was mass pandemonium, people running," Kelly said. "One officer - the first into the classroom - told me he could still smell gunpowder."
The students' names and ages were not immediately released, and it was not clear whether the shooter also was a student.
The school offers classes in a dozen subjects including early childhood education, practical nursing, drafting and welding.


In this case, even though the police officer got to the classroom very quickly it was still not fast enough.

UPDATE: Three attacks in gun free zones in one week discussed here.

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5 Comments:

Blogger The Duck said...

But the anti's will point out that the two officers were armed, & if they couldn't stop the shooter, how could a common ccw'er do it?

2/08/2008 9:01 AM  
Anonymous Colorado Kid said...

Is it my imagination or is there a theme here? People upset with what government is doing to them (denying a liquor license, etc.) taking up arms against (what they perceive as tyrannical and interfering government?

I'm not condoning it, but it seems like there's a slight uptick in this kind of thing as cases like Kelo and other "constitutional" and nanny-state issues start to weigh on people's hearts, minds, and livlihoods.

2/08/2008 12:11 PM  
Blogger Hypnagogue said...

But the anti's will point out that the two officers were armed, & if they couldn't stop the shooter, how could a common ccw'er do it?

Respond with the truth. The public safety value of concealed carry is that a criminal cannot know who is or is not carrying. The police officers in this tragedy were targeted first because they were uniformed and carrying openly.

Only an undercover cop or a CCW holder could have intervened in this situation.

2/08/2008 10:41 PM  
Anonymous Steve B said...

I hope that the shooters in these cases were not valid CW permit holders. Does anyone know if their guns were legal?

2/10/2008 8:35 PM  
Blogger John Lott said...

Dear Steve B:

THanks for asking, but, no, of course none of these involved permit holders. Permit holders are extremely law-abiding and if one of them just happened to do something like this, it would be all over the news.

2/11/2008 10:28 AM  

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