A proposal for an international peace and crime prevention center at Virginia Tech

This is another post from Michael and Jeri Bishop, supporting the establishment of a center for the study of international peace and crime prevention to be housed in Norris Hall at Virginia Tech. In This Moment will post more information on this movement as it becomes available.

- Nancy Jane Moore
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To Whom It May Concern:

We, Michael and Jeri Bishop, the late Jamie Bishop's parents, wholeheartedly support our daughter-in-law, Stefanie Hofer, and several others in their fervent desire that at least a portion of Norris Hall can be turned into a center for the study of international peace and crime prevention -- as one component of a major effort on Virginia Tech's part to take the lead in promoting campus safety at institutions of higher learning all across the country and indeed the world.

As Steffi has repeatedly pointed out, many of those slain, physically wounded, or psychologically scarred by the events that took place on April 16 in Norris Hall were international students (or international faculty), and there could be no more fitting memorial to those who died or more fitting tribute to those who survived than to acknowledge the horror that occurred in Norris Hall and to redeem that horror by establishing, within its repainted walls, a center for the study of international peace and crime prevention.

Many currently say, and no doubt believe, that no one will ever forget that morning or the lessons implicit in it, but as a species we have to be reminded repeatedly of matters that we would prefer to forget (as is demonstrably the case with the Holocaust); thus, the total necessity of appropriating space in Norris Hall for the purposes of remembering, redeeming, and preventing further acts of the sort that killed Steffi's husband (our son) and so many other good, kind, and productive people that we cringe before the raging bonfire of so much loss.

We intend no slight to, or diminution of the importance of, the concept of Norris Hall as an engineering facility; we recognize its significance to the engineering program and applaud the fact that no one wants to completely decommission the building. However, we think it crucial to champion the equally vital notion that only two or three classrooms in the building devoted to the study of international peace and crime prevention would stand as a permanent, proactive memorial and as a bold statement that we can not only learn from past horrors but also take steps to prevent them and better our world for everyone. We understand all too well that some people disparage this vision as naive and Pollyannish, but we argue just as vehemently that if figures as naive and Pollyannish as Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Nelson Mandela had not put forward their powerful ameliorating visions, the world would today be a poorer, less just, and more violent place than it currently is.

We would like to relay these sentiments to all those discussing the fate of Norris Hall and instrumental in making decisions connected with its future use. We would also like to acknowledge that taking this visionary step will pose difficult financial, organizational, and teaching challenges, but that the benefits accruing to Virginia Tech, our country, and the world from accepting and overcoming these challenges would outweigh almost all the costs and attendant struggle.

Some of these benefits would perhaps be intangible, especially at first, but they would not be trivial or merely symbolic. They would include a clear communication of the fact that Virginia Tech intends to do something concrete and coherent to redeem the events of April 16 (not only for itself but also for other universities, colleges, and educational plants around the world), and an authoritative daily proclamation that through vision and effort even the most intractable of human problems can be taken apart, diagnosed, and treated. Greatly daring, we assert that this approach to establishing peace and preventing crime even has a conspicuous engineering element wholly in line with the original provenance of Norris Hall.

Forgive this small treatise, but we wish to lay before you and others not only the heartfelt rationale behind our proposal but also our passionate conviction that this idea will prove practical, doable, and beneficial. Even if others demur and even if it must start humbly, we envision this center growing incrementally in size and impact until it works, and goes on working, positive measurable change in the world at large. This we propose in remembrance and redemption of an April morning too dreadful to forget.

Voices from the Tragedy of Virginia Tech: Maybe an armed society isn't the solution to violence

This is a message from Michael and Jeri Bishop, whose son Jamie was one of the teachers killed in the Virginia Tech massacre (I've edited it slightly to make easy blog links)

- Nancy Jane Moore
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Michael and Jeri Bishop write:

Take a look at this site, just to read the thumbnails, then go on to the reports themselves, especially if you have a computer that doesn't rely on an old-fashioned modem to call them up.

Yes, the Brady Center supports sensible gun-control legislation, and I suppose that it is *biased* in that direction, but at least its bias is built into its name. The NRA, on the other hand, rarely encounters any gun-control legislation that it cares for, even if that legislation is difficult to refute on grounds of either logic or commonsense.

For two examples, 1) keeping guns out of the hands of mentally impaired veterans (who, after all, know how to use them); and 2) letting the ATF track guns used in crimes back to their point of sale. The NRA vigorously opposes both of these controls, for "reasons" that strike us as benefiting absolutely no one, except (in the second case) gun dealers who knowingly traffic with persons buying firearms for criminal purposes.

Indeed, the NRA thinks that the massacre at Virginia Tech could have been prevented if every student and teacher there had carried a handgun. Perhaps that massacre could have -- who knows? -- but the notion of arming 18-24 year olds, at the very time that "drugs and alcohol use and suicide and mental health issues all peak" is, well, CRACKPOT CRAZY. We might well prevent another Norris Hall (although there are other means), but gun deaths on campuses across the nation would inevitably rise.

After all, as the Brady Center schools report observes, on the whole "college campuses are safer than the communities that surround them, precisely because those institutions have barred or tightly controlled firearms. We need to support those institutions, not strip them of the ability to control firearms on campus. Arming teachers is also a bad idea. Do we really want teachers shooting at students? Even police officers hit their targets less than 20% of the time."

Right now, by the way, the Brady Center could use your support to help fight the strong possibility that activist judges --this is rich -- will strike down Washington, D. C.'s and eventually every major city's most effective gun laws. [Ed. note: The D.C. government is appealing the decision that struck down its gun laws and according to this Washington Post editorial, the Supreme Court is likely to hear it this term.]

Explore the Brady site to see how you can help in this fight . . . unless, of course, you believe the bumper sticker that greeted me on the rear of a hunter's pickup when I returned to Pine Mountain from Blacksburg after the shooting spree at Virginia Tech on April 16 took our son Jamie's life: "Gun Control: Simple Solutions for Simple Minds."

Neither of the two controls mentioned in my third paragraph would have affected the man driving this pickup unless (1) he were a mentally disturbed veteran, or (2) someone who illegally sold guns to criminals. Maybe he qualified on both counts.

Simple, simple us for failing to see why he or anyone else should own a gun if the first condition held, or should have the right to sell firearms if the second held.

P.S. Robert Heinlein once wrote, "An armed society is a polite society." Unfortunately, he never had an opportunity to visit current-day Iraq.