[Originally posted on Saturday, June 1] Another horrifying attack and immediately gun control politicians and organizations are calling for more gun control laws. Former VP Joe Biden, Sen. Kamala Harris, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, former congressman Beto O’Rourke, Cory Booker and many others put out calls for more gun control within a few hours of the tragedy. The question of “How many more?” is a question that we ask ourselves all the time. Now the desire “to do something” is very understandable, but let’s try to do something that would actually matter.

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Here is something that people might want to consider. Virginia Beach bans employees from being able to carry guns (see employee handbook info). In addition, while it was indeed possible for a civilian to enter the “Operations Building” where the attack occurred and carry a gun, the “Operations Building,” as its name suggests, was a building where virtually only employees would be in and indeed everyone who was killed in the building was a public employee. In addition, the killer “used his employee keycard to gain access to parts of the municipal building where the shooting occurred,” so only employees are allowed in this area, and none of them are allowed to carry a gun there. Even worse, without a keycard, the police had trouble bypassing the locks for this employee-only area, thus giving the killer more time to attack. Unlike all his law-abiding colleagues, the killer didn’t obey the ban. Note that the killer was a public employee and yet he still carried the gun into an area where he was banned from having a gun.

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Operations: IT; Planning; Public Works; Public Utilities; Communications and Information technology; traffic engineering; City/Schools Print services; Mail Room. Even with regarding Public Utilities, bills were not paid in that building. Bills were paid in Building 1, not Building 2. This operation actually ran the nuts and bolts of the Public Utilities. One office handles permits for local contractors, but “virtually all” of those are handled electronically or by mail and contractors rarely stop by. The attached picture below also shows how isolated this “operations” building is from the rest of the buildings.

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Not all municipal governments in Virginia ban employees from carrying guns. For example, it is OK for employees to carry in Bedford and, we are also told, Campbell Counties.

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The one person shot to death in his car outside the building is still missing information, but there are several points to make. Guns would have been allowed around there, though the relative isolation of Building 2 and the nature of who would be going in and out of that building is also relevant. Were there any other people in this area of the municipal center shortly after 4 PM? Was this person also an employee?

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available here. For some of the quotes from the killers themselves on explicitly picking targets where people won’t have guns, More on our list of mass public shootings and gun-free zones since 1950 in the US is. For some of the quotes from the killers themselves on explicitly picking targets where people won’t have guns, see the information here . The prevalence of mass public shootings around the world can be seen here . Of course, all the mass public shootings in Europe since at least 1980 have taken place in gun-free zones.

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Here is a list of those who have been killed as well as information on their employment. Note that all but one of these twelve people were public employees who were banned from having a gun for protection.

Laquita C. Brown of Chesapeake: A right-of-way agent with more than four years in public works. Tara Welch Gallagher of Virginia Beach: An engineer with six years in public works. Mary Louise Gayle of Virginia Beach: A right-of-way agent with 24 years in public works. Alexander Mikhail Gusev of Virginia Beach: A right-of-way agent with nine years in public works. Katherine A. Nixon of Virginia Beach: An engineer with 10 years in public utilities. Richard H. Nettleton of Norfolk: An engineer with 28 years in public utilities. Christopher Kelly Rapp of Powhatan: An engineer with 11 months in public works. Ryan Keith Cox of Virginia Beach: An account clerk with more than 12 years in public utilities. Joshua A. Hardy of Virginia Beach: An engineering technician with more than four years in public utilities. Michelle “Missy” Langer of Virginia Beach: An administrative assistant with 12 years in public utilities. Robert “Bobby” Williams of Chesapeake: Special projects coordinator with 41 years in public utilities. Herbert “Bert” Snelling of Virginia Beach: A contractor there to fill a permit.

The contractor was the one person who was killed outside the building. The Associated Press notes:

Even after the gunfire erupted, Ned Carlstrom thought the shooting at the Virginia Beach government building where he works was an elaborately staged drill for city employees. He crossed paths with the gunman three times — and survived. Reality set in when Carlstrom looked outside and saw a team of police officers point guns at the building as they dragged away a fatally wounded contractor, leaving behind a pool of blood. . . .

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Of course, the media seems immune to even discussing these points. The irony is that rather than going back and removing an existing policy that created a place where people couldn’t protect themselves, the attack will likely be used to make all the other buildings gun-free zones.

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Click on the picture below to enlarge.

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gun free zones, mass public shootings

By johnrlott

