Back on the range, shooters ask why one 'madman' should stop their fun

Back on the range, shooters ask why one 'madman' should stop their fun
By Andrew Buncombe in Blacksburg
Published: 19 April 2007
The shots from his Glock sounded like blasts from a cannon as Jimmy Lyon took aim and then emptied the ammunition clip - the spent cases dropping to the ground beside him. "This is really for shooting at close range," he said of the compact semi-automatic handgun, one of four weapons he had brought to the shooting range. "It's not for shooting at distance." Yesterday morning, there were just a few shooters at the range set in the forests north of Blacksburg, but the empty cartridges littering the ground suggested this was a popular place. At the far end of the range, a series of makeshift targets had been set up in front of a high earthen wall.

Did Cho Seung-Hui bring his weapons here to practise shooting and reloading - something at which he was obviously proficient? One can only speculate, but locals said there was no other range in the area. It was hard not to stare at the piles of spent shells and wonder whether any of them belonged to the Korean student who used his skills for such devastating ends.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Mr Lyon and the other shooters at the range believed Cho was an aberration and said that his actions should not impact on their freedom to buy and shoot weapons. "It's mainly a hobby, going to the range to keep myself busy," said the 31-year-old, who lives in Centreville, the small town west of Washington DC that was also Cho's home town, and who was visiting friends in Blacksburg. "To think that he may have practised shooting here ..."

Europeans have long failed to understand Americans' "thing" with guns, their apparent obsession with owning firearms, the insistence that their constitution - written more than 200 years ago - gives them the God-given right to arm themselves to the teeth with the latest and most deadly weapons. What is it with this American exceptionalism, they ask. Why do they think different rules apply?

Likewise, many Americans don't understand why Europeans get so worked up. For many in this country - especially in rural areas - guns are a way of life and no different to any other tool. And those who own or carry them for self-defence insist that guns provide an immediate form of protection that no police officer or house alarm can offer.

"I grew up in northern Michigan," said Duane Wilder, who was taking turns shooting a .22 rifle with his son, Cody, 21, a third-year student at Virginia Tech. After Monday's shooting at the college, Mr Wilder had driven from his home in Williamsburg to visit his son and the pair had decided to clear their heads with a visit to the range.

"If you grow up in the cities or suburban areas you think of guns and gangs," said Mr Wilder. "If you grow up in the country, you think of guns with hunting or shooting." Mr Wilder and his son were not against some restrictions on guns. But they failed to see why the fact that Cho - who reportedly had psychiatric problems - was able to easily and legally buy two deadly weapons should necessarily lead to tougher laws.

"Obviously, this man had a lot of problems. You don't know. If he had not got guns, would it have been something else ... People crash cars into people," said Mr Wilder. "When something like this happens, when there is a tragedy, this is not the time to jump on all the political agendas. I tend to believe that when you have freedom, there are responsibilities that go with that freedom. When there is a problem, does it mean we should reduce the freedoms, or increase responsibility?"

Some have been shocked with the ease with which Cho was able to buy his weapons - one from a gun store in the city of Roanoke, and the other from a pawn shop close to the campus. But Rebecca Peters, the director of International Action Network on Small Arms (Iansa), a London-based arms control group, said studies suggested that most Americans believed existing gun laws were significantly stronger than they were. "They don't know really how slack they are," she explained.

She also said the debate about gun control was not helped when it was presented as a choice between a total ban on guns, or else a free-for-all. "Like most areas of regulation, that is not the choice. We don't say you cannot drive a car or else you can drive a car however you like. We require things like driving licences."

While the shooting at Blacksburg will reopen the gun control debate, at least locally there is anecdotal evidence that the shootings at Virginia Tech have led to an increase in the purchase of weapons by people buying them for self defence.

Yesterday morning at Harkrader Sporting Goods, a gun shop in Christiansburg, 10 miles from Blacksburg, a 63-year-old police officer who declined to give his name was buying a .45 calibre semi-automatic.

He said he already owned a number of weapons, but that he wanted another. He said he carried a firearm "24 hours a day, seven days a week", and added: "The more guns I have, the better I feel. I have one in the bedroom, one in the living room, one by the bedside and all of that."


[link to news.independent.co.uk]