As a graduate of Virginia Tech, I remain utterly appalled by the Virginia Tech administration's continuing gross disrespect and disregard for the safety and security of all students on campus. Their argument that it would cause problems is GROUNDLESS. During the years I attended Va Tech I knew nearly a dozen students who kept firearms in their dorm rooms or carried them with them to their classes on campus. Not ONCE did the administrators' "worst nightmares" ever become manifest. As it is, the students' worst nightmare became manifest a few years ago when a madman killed 32 UNARMED students in cold blood. They were unarmed because they were REFUSED their right to keep and bear arms normally afforded to all other adults throughout the state of Virginia.
Denying ANY citizen the right to keep and bear arms is a violation of our nation's Second Amendment to the Constitution and of Virginia State Law. The Virginia Tech Administration could have PREVENTED the Virginia Tech massacre if only they had respected Virginia State Law.
It is for this reason I'm encouraging Virginia Legislators to pass a bill entitled "Student Rights Bill." This bill will explicitly prohibit any public or land-grant college or university from denying students any right normally conferred the population at large, to include, but not limited to, the right to keep (own/possess) and bear (carry) a firearm commensurate with the laws of the State of Virginia.
To that end, I will be forwarding this message, along with the following, to one of my fellow classmates, who is on the state legislature. If you concur, please contact your legislator in Virginia and share your opinion.
Thank you.
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"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms,
and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them." (Richard Henry Lee, Virginia
delegate to the Continental Congress, initiator of the Declaration of Independence, and
member of the first Senate, which passed the Bill of Rights.)
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The proposal finally passed the House in its present form: "A well regulated militia, being necessary for
the preservation of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." In
this form it was submitted into the Senate, which passed it the following day. The Senate in the process
indicated its intent that the right be an individual one, for private purposes, by rejecting an amendment
which would have limited the keeping and bearing of arms to bearing "For the common defense".
The earliest American constitutional commentators concurred in giving this broad reading to the
amendment. When St. George Tucker, later Chief Justice of the Virginia Supreme Court, in 1803
published an edition of Blackstone annotated to American law, he followed Blackstone's citation of the
right of the subject "of having arms suitable to their condition and degree, and such as are allowed by
law" with a citation to the Second Amendment, "And this without any qualification as to their condition
or degree, as is the case in the British government." William Rawle's "View of the Constitution"
published in Philadelphia in 1825 noted that under the Second Amendment: "The prohibition is general.
No clause in the Constitution could by a rule of construction be conceived to give to Congress a power to
disarm the people. Such a flagitious attempt could only be made under some general pretense by a state
legislature. But if in blind pursuit of inordinate power, either should attempt it, this amendment may be
appealed to as a restraint on both." The Jefferson papers in the Library of Congress show that both
Tucker and Rawle were friends of, and corresponded with, Thomas Jefferson. Their views are those of
contemporaries of Jefferson, Madison and others, and are entitled to special weight. A few years later,
Joseph Story in his "Commentaries on the Constitution" considered the right to keep and bear arms as
"the palladium of the liberties of the republic", which deterred tyranny and enabled the citizenry at large
to overthrow it should it come to pass.
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In the colonies, availability of hunting and need for defense led to armament statutes comparable to those
of the early Saxon times. In 1623, Virginia forbade its colonists to travel unless the were "well armed"; in
1631 it required colonists to engage in target practice on Sunday and "to bring their peeces to church."
In 1658 it required every householder to have a functioning firearm within his house and in 1673 its laws
provided that a citizen who claimed he was too poor to purchase a firearm would have one purchased for
him by the government, which would then require him to pay a reasonable price when able to do so.
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Other figures of the period were of like mind. In the Virginia convention, George Mason, drafter of the
Virginia Bill of Rights, accused the British of having plotted "to disarm the people — that was the best
and most effective way to enslave them", while Patrick Henry observed that, "The great object is that
every man be armed" and "everyone who is able may have a gun".
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When New Hampshire gave the Constitution the ninth vote needed for its passing into effect, it called for
adoption of a Bill of Rights which included the provision that "Congress shall never disarm any citizen
unless such as are or have been in actual rebellion". 41 Virginia and North Carolina thereafter called for
a provision "that the people have the right to keep and bear arms; that a well regulated militia composed
of the body of the people trained to arms is the proper, natural and safe defense of a free state."
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The earliest American constitutional commentators concurred in giving this broad reading to the
amendment. When St. George Tucker, later Chief Justice of the Virginia Supreme Court, in 1803
published an edition of Blackstone annotated to American law, he followed Blackstone's citation of the
right of the subject"of having arms suitable to their condition and degree, and such as are allowed by
law" with a citation to the Second Amendment, "And this without any qualification as to their condition
or degree, as is the case in the British government." 44William Rawle's "View of the Constitution"
published in Philadelphia in 1825 noted that under the Second Amendment
"The prohibition is general. No clause in the Constitution could by a rule of construction be
conceived to give to Congress a power to disarm the people. Such a flagitious attempt could
only be made under some general pretense by a state legislature. But if in blind pursuit of
inordinate power, either should at tempt it, this amendment may be appealed to as a restraint
on both."
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