How To Stop Future Massacres?

In shootings at other schools, armed students or employees have restrained gunmen, possibly preventing additional murders. Four years ago at Appalachian Law School in Grundy, Va., a man who had killed the dean, a professor and a student was subdued by two students who ran to their cars and grabbed their guns. In 1997, an assistant principal at a public high school in Pearl, Miss., likewise retrieved a handgun from his car and used it to apprehend a student who had killed three people. Not only can guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens save lives in situations like these; they may even make such situations less likely. It may seem implausible that the possibility of armed victims would deter a seemingly irrational, suicidal attacker such as Cho Seung-Hui, who ended his attack by shooting himself in the head. But even a gunman who expects to die during an attack does not want to be stopped before he can carry out his homicidal mission.