Guns On Campus: Virginia Tech Settlement Still Stubborn and Indecent, Part II.

A Pattern and Practice of denying Civil Rights is emerging, and the license to do it has just been extended thru next time.

By John Longenecker

This is Part II of my April 11th, 2008 piece critiquing this settlement.

In a June 17th, 2008 report from Associated Press, a Virginia Judge approved an $11 Million settlement won by some of the surviving parents of the Virginia Tech shootings. Not all survivors filed.

The reason for the finding is wrong. The liability seems to be found on the idea that the Trustees have a duty to protect the students and that they failed with a ‘watered down' warning from the campus to students. Some experts would say that the Trustees have no such duty, and that it is up to the individual. After all, Police have no duty to protect individuals, an all too often understated factor in deaths.

Insofar as this warning policy goes, the University was found lacking, but here is a different take on the University's faux claim to be struggling for safe streets: i) the pattern and practice of denying a civil right to the detriment of the students, ii) the pattern and practice of forcing students to sue for their rights, and iii) the pattern and practice of ignoring subsequent court orders in adverse rulings.

This is a pattern and practice throughout the United States, including Washington, D.C., New Orleans and elsewhere. Do you begin to understand how it came to be made a Civil Right secured by law?

Without this attention to this pattern and practice as a part of the judgment, nothing will change, and it also proves two things to me: some college campuses will do or say or pay anything to avoid doing the right thing, as some other colleges have done, namely affirming armed students on their campuses and to get out of the may and affirm state law in the armed citizen.

And another, they have just purchased the postponement of such an order and have purchased it for a mere $11 Million. It's not their money and it's not their lives. It could have been any amount, so long as they don't have to recognize the one civil right which backs all our rights.

The good thing about this settlement is that the survivors are suing the right party, Virginia Tech. Had they won the mandate to order the college to respect the civil rights of the armed adult students, it would have had an impact nationwide on campus safety and for the better. It is this diversion and non-issue which was quietly purchased with an $11 Million check every bit as much as with the blood of its students. It is also paid for with the blood of the next students, workers or patrons to be killed for lack of an immediate – immediate – armed self-defense, and there will be more as some of these Trustees around the nation quietly close ranks and allow V-Tech to operate on their behalf.

This peccadillo for defiance of state law is outrageous, of course, but it's now been purchased again as easily as renewing a lease.

The part that is missing is that this can be avoided by the constituency. Students as Taxpayers have more authority over Trustees than Trustees have over Taxpayers, and it is unreasonable to expect individuals to check their civil rights at the door of the Admissions Office.

That's the pleading that needs to be filed. It would begin a process the Trustees fear the most, namely a nationwide affirmation of guns on campus and armed students. Instead of being sued for a ‘watered down' warning, a meager win, it would give the Trustees the mandate they asked for in the Virginia Tech Review Panel.

It would be good for the whole country.

John Longenecker is author of Safe Streets In The Nationwide Concealed Carry Of Handguns now available.