Speaking in the final Virginia gubernatorial debate on October 24, Democrat candidate Terry McAuliffe said he doesn’t care “what grade [he] got from the NRA” and that more gun control is necessary.
The debate took place at Virginia Tech, and McAuliffe referenced the 2007 shooting on that campus as justification for more gun control.
Republican candidate Ken Cuccinelli correctly stated more gun control would not have prohibited that shooting and that shooters like the killer in that instance, Seung-Hui Cho, are “almost impossible” to find before they decide to start shooting. McAuliffe replied, “Some people should not own guns.” He then defended his gun control proposals, saying: “I don’t care what grade I got from the NRA. I never want to see another Newtown or Aurora or Virginia Tech again.”
Cuccinelli’s argument is in line with experts on the subjects of firearms and the mentally ill. Mayo Clinic psychiatrist J. Michael Bostwick, M.D., recently wrote that more gun control aimed at the mentally will not end mass shootings. According to Bostwick, not even confiscating guns from the mentally ill will do that.
He says this is because the great percentage of the mentally ill are not dangerous, while individuals who commit mass shootings and are mentally ill are usually only discovered to suffer from mental illness after the fact.
On top of this, an internal investigation by a Virginia Tech Review Panel reported that more gun control would not have stopped the Virginia Tech shooting. Looking particularly at bans on “high capacity” magazines–bans which McAuliffe supports–the review panel said having 10 round magazines instead of 15 round magazines “would have not made that much difference in the incident.”
Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter @AWRHawkins.
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