Brady Campaign Protest

I agree with Bitter than people need to know how classless the Brady Campaign’s protest was yesterday.

She reprinted three letters to the editor that ran in the Roanoke Times, and I want to run them here as well.

Gun protest on Tech campus is a disgusting idea

So this gun-control group is going to protest gun laws by having 32 people lie on the Drillfield (”Advocates of gun control plan lie-in,” April 9 news story). And this is supposed to be a protest against guns? Disgusting.

First, they are using a tragedy to further their agenda. Don’t get me wrong, other groups have done the same, but their methods are inappropriate.

Second, they are doing so by having 32 people lie as if dead on the Drillfield during a time of healing. How is their having people play the victims supposed to help a community heal?

Third, they are disregarding the request of the university. How is anyone supposed to have any respect for this organization when they have no respect for those they are supposedly representing?

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Protesters should show a little respect

Regarding “Advocates of gun control plan lie-in” at Virginia Tech, (April 9 news story):

Rather than politicizing a memorial service to honor and remember the victims of Seung-Hui Cho, gun-control advocates should respect the student body’s request not to hold a protest to overshadow their day of healing.

This is not the first time the lead protest group has used the Tech victims to raise its profile. The day of the shooting, before victims were fully evacuated from the campus, the Brady Campaign changed its Web site to reflect a Virginia Tech-themed fundraiser. It urged those who felt sympathy for the victims to give to the organization to fund political activity rather than to funds set up to help the victims.

It’s a shame they are refusing to honor requests of students to back off for a day before they use the campus as a public relations ploy and fundraising excuse again. As a friend to many Virginia Tech alums moved by last year’s tragedy, I hope that on April 16 we spend the day remembering those who deserve to be honored instead of wondering what kind of political stunts will be pulled by D.C. lobbying groups.

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Tech’s student body asked: No protests, please, on April 16

In response to “Tech plays censor on April 16,” (April 10 editorial):

As a Tech student, I would like to point out that school officials are not acting on a “whim,” but in response to the overwhelming student desire not to have protests of any sort disrupt the anniversary of April 16, 2007.

The Collegiate Times, the school’s paper, is full of letters expressing the desire for no protests. Our Student Government Association passed a resolution that respectfully requests any protests be done at another time.

Our community is not creating “artificial peace and harmony,” as you state it. We had a strong community before April 16 and we have a strong community now. We simply don’t want outsiders coming onto our campus, our home, to protest on that day.

If the very few students involved with the protest feel that’s the way they should honor their friends, why not choose another location or another day?

This is a classic example of liberal media rushing to protect First Amendment rights. Why do you not do the same for Second Amendment rights? How can you claim that one freedom is more important than another?

The editorials above show a decent representation of how a lot of people felt about Brady’s protest – from talking to friends who go to VA Tech and live in the great Commonwealth of Virginia, the sentiment was widely agree with.

Any “activist” group that is willing to put a “donate” button on their website on the day of the shooting, or run another cheesy membership drive on the one year anniversary deserves to be torpedoed out in the open where everyone can see the kind of base, crass tactics that they are willing to employ in the name of their agenda.