Advocacy Day lie-in to be held in Richmond
Thursday, January 17, 2008; 12:00 AM
Hundreds will be flooding the Virginia State Capitol on Jan. 21, joined by the families of Virginia Tech shooting victims, to ask their elected officials to implement the Virginia Tech Review Panel's gun policy recommendations.

Following April 16, the panel requested to eliminate the gun show loophole, which allows private gun sellers the ability to bypass background checks. Other issues the panel recommended include a request that guns stay away from college campuses and school grounds and to require background checks for all potential gun purchases. Abby Spangler, founder of protesteasyguns.com, began advocating for these changes following the shootings.

So far, 17 states have at least partially closed the gun show loophole. Virginia is one of 33 states that has yet to make a change. "Every gun sale at a gun show should have a background check," Spangler said. "Ultimately, the protest movement hopes to change gun laws."

Spangler has put together numerous lie-ins throughout the country in which 32 participants lay down for three minutes, symbolizing the length of time it took for Cho Seung-Hui to purchase the guns used on April 16.

Monday's event, deemed Advocacy Day, falls on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Buses from all over Virginia, including Tech, University of Virginia, Norfolk and Hampton Roads, and Northern Virginia Community College, will be joined by students from Virginia Commonwealth University for a day of peaceful protest. The buses are provided free of charge. Around 8:45 a.m., the participants will be briefed on the legislation in question before meeting with their respective elected officials. The lie-in is scheduled for 1 p.m. and a vigil featuring speeches by several victims' families will follow.

Omar Samaha, brother of victim Reema Samaha, joined the movement after sister, Randa, who attends the University of Virginia, participated in the UVa-32 lie-in and was contacted by Spangler via Facebook. The Samaha family plans to speak at the vigil.

"We are trying to make a sensible change out of a senseless tragedy," Omar Samaha said.

Associate Professor Jack Lesko and Tech student Larissa Mihalisko have also become involved with the cause and plan on attending the lie-in. Along with Omar, Mihalisko has been trying to get students and faculty motivated to participate in Advocacy Day.

"It's refreshing to see people getting involved that aren't normally involved," Mihalisko said.

The lie-in, which usually includes 32 participants, has been expanded to anyone who wishes to participate and will occur on the lawn of the Capitol building. "We owe it to our 32 students and professors," Samaha said. "We are given a second chance, and I think that every student that is behind us should make their best effort to come to Richmond on Monday."

Since the beginning of Spangler's movement, shortly after April 16, several bills have been proposed in the Virginia State Senate and House of Delegates requiring vendors to perform background checks and preventing the mentally ill from handling firearms.

"We desperately hope that legislators respond to our calls across the state to improve gun laws, and we want the gun show loophole closed so that criminals and dangerous individuals don't have easy access to guns," Spangler said.

Spangler has recently begun to organize a national lie-in to occur on the anniversary of April 16.

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Posted by: Fred at 1/20/08 Joseph - The mistake is that assuming a gun ban on campus will "deter" criminal activity. It will not. As Cho demonstrated, he went ahead and used two semi-automatic handguns to shoot around 50 fellow students and members of faculty. They were defenseless because they were "following the rules". Cho was not "following the rules" and thus they are now dead or wounded. One's decision to commit an act of violence is based on what is in their psychological wiring. I respect other life and would never use a weapon to harm anyone, but would use it to defend myself in that situation where Cho was attacking. It is no secret that at universities, mostly liberal professors abhor guns. That's their choice. However, what alternative do they wish to present to protect themselves against the likes of a Cho? Force must be met with force in such situations. Flag Abuse
Posted by: Scott Lewis at 1/20/08 Anyone who wants to know the TRUTH about ProtestEasyGuns.com should go to ProtestEasyGunsLies.com. Flag Abuse
Posted by: Jason T at 1/18/08 Joseph, first let me point out to you that there is a difference between those allowed to HAVE guns and those allowed to CARRY CONCEALED guns. To do the latter, you must apply for a permit, be at least 21, take a safety course, undergo a background check, and wait. Now allow me address your argument. We're talking about allowing the same people that are allowed to carry concealed guns while walking past you in Kroger, down Main Street, around the University Mall (just not the Math Emporium), etc. to do so in your classroom as well. You're already trusting them everywhere else in Blacksburg. More importantly, you're trusting that people who AREN'T supposed to carry concealed weapons actually aren't. But that's the problem. Both in public and on VT's campus, we have no way of ensuring that people who aren't supposed to have guns actually don't. What's more, I can't think of a reasonable way to do this. Shall we line the streets with guards and metal detectors? How about a total ban on guns? The metal detectors are clearly too much of a nuisance to our daily lives, and a ban only works if you can collect existing guns AND dry up sources of new guns. Show me your proposal to do this and I'd be happy to have a look. As for someone who already carries a gun "snapping," this unlikely scenario is further mitigated because the "snapper" knows that he may face armed resistance. The problem is that when Cho snapped, (which by the way happened far before he even purchased his guns) everyone else was obeying VT policy and leaving their guns at home. He knew this. Who knows - he may have even carried the guns with him to classes before April 16. But since there are no metal detectors (nor should there be), who would have ever known? He TRUSTED that everyone else was playing by the rules, and this trust allowed him to fire upwards of 170 rounds from 17 magazines without threat of armed retaliation. Flag Abuse
Posted by: Dayna at 1/18/08 Me too! Flag Abuse
Posted by: Fred at 1/18/08 I'm a psycopath who should never have access to a gun Flag Abuse
Posted by: Joseph at 1/18/08 and if you think that guns will be allowed at our university...you're fooling yourself Flag Abuse
Posted by: Joseph at 1/18/08 Fred, if you only knew what the Samahas were going through. You are misguided and misinformed. You think having guns in a classroom will stop this from happening again, you're wrong...nothing is going to stop a crazed killer, who's to say that you aren't going to snap and start doing the same thing one day? You think that other students should trust you? Why? cause the state let's you have a gun? Nice to see that most of the posts are yours...a small vocal minority with guns. Flag Abuse
Posted by: Fred at 1/17/08 To 32: Eric Harris was a psychopath according the the post-mortem psychiatric examinations of his life and writings. Had he not been able to get a gun via the gun show through his friend, he would have found some other way to carry out an act of mass carnage. Among the things Harris fantasized about - crashing a plane into the World Trade Center. Klebold was his follower (and possibly his lover), blindly influenced by the evil that Harris continually spouted. Gun shows were not to blame for Columbine. Flag Abuse
Posted by: Fred at 1/17/08 I am not attacking the Samahas on a personal level, but rather their ignorance about the fallacy of "gun free zones". It is as foolish as suggesting to a woman to walk down the length of Broad Street in Richmond in the evening alone and say, "it is against the law to harm you, nothing will happen to you". Virginia Tech meant well in an idealistic way when it set the "gun free campus" rule. However, they didn't (or couldn't) anticipate that someone in their midst bent on causing death and mayhem would break that rule as Cho did. Those who obeyed the rule in Norris Hall had no alternative but to jump out of the window or lie under their desk and wait to be shot, like animals going to the slaughter. Allowing the right to permit holding students to concealed carry would have improved the odds, had one been in the building. Flag Abuse
Posted by: 32 at 1/17/08 Robyn Anderson, a friend of the two students responsible for the killings at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999, assisted them in buying three of the four weapons used in the massacre from different sellers at the Tanner gun show outside of Denver. Anderson later stated, "It was too easy. I wish it had been more difficult. I wouldn’t have helped them buy the guns if I had faced a background check." Flag Abuse
Posted by: Anonymous at 1/17/08 Like for instance, Coo Coo below me, should never have access to a gun. Flag Abuse
Posted by: Dayna Shell at 1/17/08 I have my own oppinion guns dont kill people it's people who kill people with bullets they put in guns.bein crazy is a state of mind just the same as being happy or any other feeling is just a state of mind as well! everyone is uniqe and noone is the same everyone has there own ideas of how things work. if you give a man/woman a gun some how something will happen to effect someones life. think about the world not the situation!!! they need to use there brain!! Flag Abuse
Posted by: to freedom4all at 1/17/08 Please describe where you believe anyone on these posts below attacked the Samaha family. I don't see any attack by any extremists. If you were referring to Fred, it seems to me that he simply stated his opinion that we were not safe on campus that day even though Tech has a policy against carrying of guns by faculty, staff, and students. Flag Abuse
Posted by: Anonymous at 1/17/08 "your sister might still be alive today if Virginia Tech had allowed students who were CCW permit holders to carry on campus" This is ignorant -- if your theory was accurate then there were never be any police officers killed because they all carry guns. Flag Abuse
Posted by: Andy at 1/17/08 I little bit more that I forgot to add on previous post. The measures discussed here regarding the changing of prison systems should be coordinated with a increase in punishment and an increase in actual time served by the felon. Take a stroll through some of the date collected by the dept of justice and you will be absolutely horrified at the average time served by criminals in this country for various crimes. Criminals love America's policies. Rape someone, get a few years in jail. They will be out to do it again. Steal a car, go to jail. Funny thing is that some statistics show criminals steal on average 15 cars for every one time that they are captured and sentenced. Any idea how much that costs the rest of us. Any idea of the pain and suffering of the victims and families, especially when they learn that the person who raped them has an extensive criminal record and should probably have already been permanently removed from society. We put up with a lot of crap, all because we are too good. As I said in last post, you can't stop the insane or suicidal. However, most criminals are rational to a degree. They are lazy and they do whatever is easiest to get what they want, and they do what they can to avoid punishment. Well, I say we jack up mandatory minimum punishments. We have to make it unappealing to be a criminal. We have to make it unappealing for those who hurt others. We have to make it unappealing to be in prison. And furthermore, hopefully these prisons will be self sufficient or as close to it as possible. Why are we footing the bill for some low life who has spent his entire life stealing, assaulting, raping, killing us? Send him to a prison with work camp or where they farm their own food. Build these economical prisons rather than spending tens of millions of dollars on a prison that only holds 1000 criminals. Do a little reading or check out a documentary about prisons such as Angola in Louisiana. Flag Abuse
Posted by: Andy at 1/17/08 Let me start by saying that I am a supporter of individual rights, especially when it comes to keeping, carrying and using firearms. Now, to get to the truth. Innocent people will always die tragically as long as a given assailant is suicidal. Anti-gun activists either don't realize this, or they simply ignore that fact in order to make their arguements. Not even a complete gun ban in the United States coupled with a complete dismantling or the gun industry of this country would stop them. If a ban was written into law, criminals would simply import guns from other countries. However some Americans would think, "hey I am safe now that guns are banned." Well, the fact of the matter is that we would all be a lot less safe. The people in this world that lack a respect of human life and decency would have a field day. They would know that since the vast majority of us are law abiding we would have laid down our arms, drastically diminishing our ability to protect ourselves. So, how we curb criminal activity and/or gun violence? Well, as I said you will never stop the suicidal individuals like Cho, those responsible for September 11th, or similar terrorist attacks. But what can we do, how can we do some good? Revamp the prison system. We should demand an end to the building of prisons that cost tens of millions of dollars. Prisons should constructed in a fashion similar to the WWII era boot camps. These prisons should be built far away from population centers, surrounded with razor wire, and watched over by guards in towers with guns. There would be simple wooden barracks, no AC, no TV, and we would implement any other cost effective cuts we can think of. Criminals would do hard labor all day, cleaning roadsides, or whatever else. Once back at the barracks at night, there would be less fighting and violence. They would be worn out from having worked 12 hours outdoors. Nor would they want to go back to prison a second time. Under this plan, I am certain that cost savings in building these types of prisons and such would allow us to pay the guards very healthy salaries rather than the average wages they probably see today. These cost savings would probably allow our states and the federal gov to have smaller budgets for the prison system, thus allowing a redistribution of funds to other areas (perhaps universal healthcare or whatever you like). It is time for us to hold the CRIMINALS responsible. The bad apples ruin everything for everyone else and that has to stop. Final note. I know that for some reason some people are afraid of guns. Personally, I fear a criminal with a gun. I fear a rapist who uses a gun to control his victim to get what he wants because rape is a tragedy that nobody should have to go through. I fear a carjacker who shoots me because I don't get out the my vehicle fast enough. I fear a criminal or criminals who uses a gun to perpetrate home invasions and then proceeds to steal, rape, torture, or kill the innocents in that home. But I am just a fearful of the anti-gun movement that would take my guns away and leave me defenseless against these aweful people. Do not let the criminals ruin everything for us. Finally, the police cannot be everywhere at once, therefore there is violence and criminal activity everyday. When someone is about to become a victim, odds are that a policeman will not be within earshot. Everyone please be careful and vigilant. Flag Abuse
Posted by: kt at 1/17/08 The article gives no history that Advocacy Day has been occurring for fifteen years. MLK Day has been the tradition for many years as a way of honoring his message/life of finding peaceful ways to impact public policy and of course he was assassinated by a man with a gun. Citizens meet with their legislators every year to advocate for better firearms policy in the Commonwealth. Finally we have a vigil to remember ALL vicitims of gun violence - every year we lose close to 800 human lives to gunfire in Virginia. The public's awareness has been awakened as a result of the VT tragedy. The VT Review panel recommended background checks for ALL gun sales including sales at gun shows. This legislation would not prevent any law abiding citizen from purchasing or owning firearms. The VT Review panel also recommended NOT arming students as a way to protect the masses and again the opposition has been advocating armed students and professors. Our visions for the world are radically different. Flag Abuse
Posted by: Freedom4All at 1/17/08 Sad to see the gun nuts attacking the Samaha family here, but certainly no surprise. I look forward to the day when extremists in America don't dictate our gun policy, and it's coming. Flag Abuse
Posted by: Chris at 1/17/08 In addition to those trying to take away the rights of law abiding citizens, there will be plenty of people at the General Assembly on Monday who will be fighting to protect our rights. I fully encourage those who want to tell to your representatives that more gun control will not be tolerated to get on one of these buses. Once you get to the GA look for those with orange "Guns save lives" buttons. Hey the bus to Richmond is apparently free - why not take the opportunity to meet your legislator and tell them how you feel. Those who would give up essential liberty to gain a temporary safety deserve neither. Flag Abuse
Posted by: Chris at 1/17/08 You have to love the irony in these Lie-Ins. They lie down for 30 seconds to simulate how long it took for Cho to buy his weapons. They should lie down for 30 days - because that is how long Cho had to wait before he could buy his second gun. I won't be surprised if there are people with signs saying something like "this is what happens in a gun free zone" or "32 people who were't allowed to defend themselves." I feel for the people who lost loved ones in the tragedy - but this won't bring them back. This won't save any lives either - it will more likely than not cost more lives when someone else is killed in a "gun free zone" by a man with a gun. Flag Abuse
Posted by: Michael at 1/17/08 April 16th had nothing to do with gun shows. Cho purchased his guns legally in gun stores and he passed the background check. Even if he had, there is no such thing as a "gun show loophole." Sales between private parties are not subject to the background check; this is state law and has always been such. If any of the people spouting the "gun show loophole" nonsense had ever actually been to a gun show, they would know that 99.9% of the guns sold at a gun show are by dealers. Private sellers are few and far between, and criminals have better ways of getting guns than to roam a gun show looking for the one guy who happens to be selling something from his personal collection. It's far easier for the criminals to rob your house while you're at the gun show, and last I checked they don't have to pass a background check to do that. Flag Abuse
Posted by: Fred at 1/17/08 The Samahas seem to overlook that their daughter was already protected by virtue of Virginia Tech being a "gun free campus". Wait? Only law abiding citizens follow laws? I guess that didn't apply to Cho. Ahem, let me rephrase -- note to Randa and Omar - your sister might still be alive today if Virginia Tech had allowed students who were CCW permit holders to carry on campus. When the menace of an armed Cho was there, seconds counted, but the police were minutes away. Thus all the students, guaranteed to be unarmed by the "gun free campus" measure, could do was huddle under their desks and wait their turn to die. Sad option. Having CCW on campus in line with the laws of the commonwealth on such matters would make a lot more sense. Flag Abuse






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