And while I had read many articles on this shooting for an article I wrote about school bullying not a single one mentioned the role that a firearm played in stopping it. Until today I didn't know the full story.
Luke Woodham was a troubled teen. He felt no one really liked him. In 1997 he murdered his mother and put on a trench coat. He filled the pockets with ammunition and took a handgun to the Pearl High School in Pearl, Mississippi. In rapid succession killed two students and wounded seven others.
He had the incident planned out. He would start shooting students and continue until he heard police sirens in the distance. That would allow him time to get in his car and leave campus. From there he intended to go to the nearby Pearl Junior High School and start shooting again. How it would end was not clear. Perhaps he would kill himself or perhaps the police would finally catch up with him and kill him. Either way a lot more people were going to get shot and die.
What Woodham hadn't planned for was the actions of Assistant Principal Joel Myrick [1]. Myrick heard the gun shots. He couldn't have a handgun in the school. But he did keep one locked in his vehicle in the parking lot. He ran outside and retrieved the gun.
As Myrick headed back toward the school Woodham was in his vehicle headed for his next intended target. Myrick aimed his gun at the shooter. The teen crashed his car when he saw the gun. Myrick approached the car and held a gun to the killer who surrendered immediately. There would be no further victims that day, thanks to armed resistance.
Via Instapundit [2], “When mass killers meet armed resistance. [3]”
The above article has more examples of armed civilians stopping mass murderers at schools that are rarely, if ever, mentioned in the mass media.
I have to wonder why? Is there perhaps some bias against guns in the mass media? You'd think that an armed citizenry is anathema to the mass media.
But given our (and I'm talking about the United States here) history and gun culture, trying to remove all guns is pointless. And we have plenty of laws stating who can carry, who can't, and waiting periods. I see no problem with gun carrying citizens. Might make for a more polite society. And what better way to curb crime than to have a criminal ask, “Who might be packing [4]?”
Also, Zach [5] has the right idea—let us remember Emily Jane Hilscher, Ryan Christopher “Stack” Clark, Ross Abdallah Alameddine, Brian Bluhm, Austin Cloyd, Matthew Gregory Gwaltney, Caitlin Hammaren, Jeremy Herbstritt, Rachael Elizabeth Hill, Matthew Joseph La Porte, Jarrett Lane, Henry J. Lee, Partahi Mamora Halomoan Lumbantoruan (died protecting a fellow student), Lauren Ashley McCain, Daniel Patrick O'Neil, Juan Ramón Ortiz, Minal Hiralal Panchal, Daniel Pérez Cueva, Erin Peterson, Michael Steven Pohle, Jr., Julia Pryde, Mary Karen Read, Reema Joseph Samaha, Waleed Mohamed Shaalan (died protecting a fellow student), Leslie Geraldine Sherman, Maxine Shelly Turner, Nicole Regina White, Christopher James Bishop, Jocelyne Couture-Nowak (died while saving the students in her class), Kevin Granata, G. V. Loganathan and Liviu Librescu (died while saving students in his class).
[1] http://www.lubbockonline.com/news/101297/LA0540.htm
[2] http://instapundit.com/archives2/004449.php
[3] http://freestudents.blogspot.com/2007/04/when-mass-
[4] http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/20/brave.beauty.queen.ap/index.html