Let Us Provide Our Own Security
BY Herschel Smith
4 years, 9 months ago
Vincent Smith wasn’t in the office when a fellow Virginia Beach city employee opened fire there, ultimately killing 12 and wounding five in the carnage five weeks ago.
After getting notice of the shooting that afternoon in Building 2 of the Virginia Beach Municipal Center, Smith, 49, raced to the nearby emergency operations center, where he helped out until late in the night.
It was soon clear that although law enforcement arrived within two minutes of the report May 31 of an active shooter, the gunman had been able to move through offices and fire at fellow city employees without being confronted by another firearm.
Now, Smith, the city’s division manager for construction services, is taking action in hopes of preventing such a situation from occurring again.
“Their policy failed, and it failed their employees, and we’ve got to do something different,” Smith said of Virginia Beach officials in a phone interview Monday with The Daily Signal. “I’ll take it all the way to the Legislature if I have to.”
Bringing back a petition he started over three years ago to allow city employees to carry a concealed firearm at work, Smith so far has garnered support from almost 5,000 of Virginia Beach’s estimated 450,000 residents, many of them fellow city employees.
Among the petition’s original 260 signees was construction project manager Herbert Snelling, the only person to lose his life in the shooting who wasn’t a city worker. His family described Snelling, 57, as a gun rights activist and a man “who loved Jesus deeply.”
Smith’s petition seeks to overturn a policy that prevents the resort city’s 6,000 employees from carrying a concealed handgun in the workplace.
Good. This is just the way God intended it to be. This is good for city workers. Now, what about everyone else?
On July 4, 2019 at 6:32 am, Matt said:
This is a good and necessary step. However, it is also becoming increasingly obvious that it is imperative for people to consider the risks versus benefits of violating disarmament policy and even law.
On July 4, 2019 at 9:48 am, Blake said:
I had someone where I work ask me about CCW at work. (It’s prohibited by law)
I told them, “Don’t ask, don’t tell” and by don’t tell, don’t tell anyone, nada, zilch, nein.
No idea if they took my advice…..
On July 4, 2019 at 10:51 am, Fred said:
“His family described Snelling, 57, as a gun rights activist and a man “who loved Jesus deeply.”
Not a bad way to be remembered, no, not bad at all.
There is a higher Law. Where we fail to offer, without fee and without fanfare or even a single word, protection for us and our own we violate Holy God’s Sixth Commandment, which I would not be above calling one of His general orders to the sentry or watch, for we are all watchmen on the wall and whose blood will be required if we fail. While not written to us, all is written for us, another scalable concept from Holy God.
“Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Son of man, speak to the children of thy people, and say unto them, When I bring the sword upon a land, if the people of the land take a man of their coasts, and set him for their watchman:
If when he seeth the sword come upon the land, he blow the trumpet, and warn the people; Then whosoever heareth the sound of the trumpet, and taketh not warning; if the sword come, and take him away, his blood shall be upon his own head. He heard the sound of the trumpet, and took not warning; his blood shall be upon him. But he that taketh warning shall deliver his soul. But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned; if the sword come, and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at the watchman’s hand. So thou, O son of man, I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel; therefore thou shalt hear the word at my mouth, and warn them from me.”
You can take away my rights, the duties to God remain. Pity how few know what that means. I have no idea why God took Snelling, but God does, and now he does. He was unarmed. Is the trumpet not blowing?
On July 5, 2019 at 1:03 pm, JD said:
This is great.
However, Ralph “Coonman” Northram has called a special session for the VA General Assembly to bring up red flag laws, ban suppressors, magazine bans, and bump stock ban (shows how much he is paying attention). As we all know, NONE of which would have stopped the Va Beach shooting (or any other crime for that matter). Never let a crisis go to waste, as the democrats always say.
In the end, it looks like the piece of human excrement that shot up Va Beach was not a model employee, had anger issues, and one of the now-deceased even told her husband that “that guy is going to come back to work and shoot up the place.”
If nothing passes in this special session, we are hosed come November due to redistricting and the cancer that is NoVA, Richmond, and a few college towns…RIP Virginia.
On July 6, 2019 at 4:29 am, Dan said:
He could bring a petition with signatures from ALL of the residents and the political animals in charge won’t change the law.