Wow!! Kudos!! Well Put. It is crazy how these people who make these types of decisions actually believe bad guys will follow their rules or any laws about guns. This is what makes them the "Bad Guys". The sooner we allow our citizens to carry where they go and where it might be needed the most the better off we will be.

This is a fine example of why one should carry concealed…not only may one defend him or herself, but also defend other innocent bystanders.

In any normal town USA, there are only 3 groups of people that carry. 1. The police 2. The law abiding citizen with a Concealed Carry Weapon Permit, & last 3. Criminals, felons, gangs, ect. So when the city, town, school or business puts up a "gun free zone", the ones not permitted to carry is the ones abiding by the law. Do they really think a criminal is going "stop" his agenda when he see's one of these signs? It's a bunch of BS. All it is, is just a bunch of "Smoke and Mirrors" to make ignorant people feel safe. Felons & criminals don't follow the law, that's why they are criminals!

I have asked several anti-gun people that same simple questions. Exactly how does the gun free zones stop criminals from breaking those laws? and Exactly how does the 1000 foot mark stop criminals from being with in the 1000 feet? How do those laws stop the criminal who is intent on shooting and killing people? I have yet to get one response. Just insults are thrown at me.

I bet the people who lost loved ones at one of these shooting wishes a licensed person with a concealed handgun could have protected them. It's ironic that any licensed carrier I know would try to help an innocent person; even if they are against LCC. We don’t single them out when they need help. “Ooops, hold on gunman, let me find out if they are for LCC. OK, they are not. Go ahead and shoot them. I doubt this would be the scenario and I feel this is what the anti LCC is trying to do to me, my family, and my friends. Take my protection away so the bad guys can have free aim. Let’s ban all weapons in the US; military and all. That will stop Al Qaeda, the Cartel and others. I wish the liberal gun hater would come up, or out, for some air; reality check!!

THE PRESIDENT DOES NOT WANT CITIZENS TO HAVE GUNS I WONDER WHY

At BEST …… the people who promote nonsense like " gun free zones " are motivated by a pathological fear for their own safety . It's not about keeping other's safe ( which it doesn't ) , it's about desperately trying to keep themselves safe ( which , ironically , doesn't work either ) . You are wasting your time if you try to tell them differently because phobias are by nature unreasoning .

The second amendment the ONLY law that restricts the government not the people and of course they want to repeal it!!!!!!!

Another great little law is the"drug free school zone" , anyone ,even the idiot who wrote that little jem of legal mumbo-jumbo ,should recognise that it really says is: outside that zone drug deals are legal.
The best cure for drug dealers might just be to force them to take ALL their own drugs and observe them for say a week or two then document time of death .

"Gun Free Zones" only prevent self-defense and effectively create "hunting preserves." Not just a bad idea–it's a disastrous one.

Another intellectual stretch– retired law enforcement officers may carry nationwide via Congress, but not "ordinary citizens". I have no beef with LEO's, and hold them generally in high regard, but what makes their lives inherently more valuable than "ordinary citizens"? There are a number of laws that apply to "ordinary citizens", but not LEO's. This concept puts a divide between 2 groups of citizens, illegitimate on its face. Yes, there are those who would hunt down retired cops, so make ALL citizens equal in the eyes of the law. That would reduce both crime and the dichotomy between groups. Otherwise, LEO's will become more militarized in the eyes on John Q. Public, not something we want.

I work at Pitt. I am also a gun owner. In my building, not just handguns but all weapons are forbidden. Because I use public transit to get to and from my office, this leaves me in an unfortunate situation where I am relatively defenseless every time I go to work. Especially since I am a woman, I would much prefer to be able to carry a handgun, or even a freaking can of pepper spray, when I get stuck walking through a sketchy neighborhood after dark.

But I still don't believe that the university should be an open-carry fiesta. College students are technically adults, yes. But I don't think that the current university culture is one that can coexist with projectile weapons. Especially in our current generation of kids who have been brought up in an insanely overprotective environment, college is the first time they get any freedom whatsoever. And when you're young and out from under your parents' thumb for the first time, you tend to be a little excessive with alcohol. A bunch of drunk 18-year-olds with guns is a recipe for tragedy. And I would personally feel less safe on a college campus where concealed carry is permitted. I know all too well what it is like to be on a campus with an active shooter. It happened last week. However, I have been living and/or working on college campuses for over a decade, and this is the first time such a thing has ever happened at a university I was affiliated with. Meanwhile, undergraduate students get into trouble with drinking or drugs, or just use terrible judgement, every day. Every weekend, someone gets into a fight on pretty much every college campus. Although they are technically adults, 18-22 year-old students do not function at a fully-adult level. Part of it is just how our society and culture currently operate — the students don't have any sense of responsibility — and part of it is that their brains aren't done developing yet (there is a lot of evidence that the brain isn't done maturing until 25 or so). Either way, if my students were allowed to carry guns on campus, I would be wearing body armor under my lab coat. Because I can guarantee you that there WOULD be deaths. We are talking about a group of people whose judgement is so poor that they will drive while drunk, scream obscenities out of cars at the TAs who grade their work, or plagiarize entire essays off of Wikipedia (really? Do they think we don't check?) Is this a group of people you want to be carrying guns? Especially in PA, where you can obtain a license to carry without ever having to demonstrate that you've taken a firearms safety course or any other form of training?

And another side of the question is: Is there a way to let the sane members of society have access to their Second Amendment rights, while preventing the John Schicks of this world from getting guns? This is a man who had previously been committed to a mental institution, a man who was known to commit violent and antisocial crimes against police officers, a man who was so visibly disturbed and alarming that he was expelled from graduate school for harassing female students. We don't allow toddlers to have handguns, because they aren't able to act like reasonable/sane adults. And I believe the severely mentally-ill, especially those with a history of violence, should also have restricted access to guns — like a toddler, they cannot handle them responsibly.

So maybe some heroic member of the public could have stopped the shootings at Western Psych before the LEO's got there. But Pitt police arrived VERY quickly and killed the shooter. For a shooting on a university campus, we had a very low number of injuries (seven) and fatalities (two, including the shooter). Would someone with a CCW permit in our state have performed as well? (Bear in mind that it is entirely possible in our state for that individual to have had no training in the use of the weapon they would be permitted to carry.) And what happens in a situation where there is a shooter and a bunch of would-be saviors with guns? It seems to me that there would be a lot of room for additional confusion and tragedy, both between the private citizens and between the officers responding to the scene.