‘There’s nothing to stop students packing heat’

IT is a college where guns are treasured as much as human life, according to a Co Monaghan professor working for the tragic Virginia Polytechnic Institute.

For 10 years Prof Gerard Toal, aged 44, built an internationally acclaimed career as a politics professor on the Blacksburg campus.

He continues to struggle with the intensely pro-gun culture but as yesterday’s death toll continued to rise his thoughts turned to his students.

“It is still too early to take it all in. I know I was talking to some of the lecturers and they just do not know how to react. It is horrible.

“Obviously the first thing you think of is your own students and fear that one of them may be among the dead.

“At this stage I think it was in the engineering side but I have no more information,” he said.

Prof Toal is a native of Monaghan and a graduate of National University of Ireland in Maynooth.

He still works for the Virginia Polytechnic Institute but has moved to a satellite college in nearby Washington.

He said people back home in Ireland find it very hard to grasp how important gun ownership is in this part of America.

The college itself is built on a military tradition and dealing with guns is an everyday part of life.

“Carrying weapons is just a part of their culture. As far as I know there is nothing to stop students from packing heat on campus.

“I would often have joked with students at the start of exams to turn off their cell phones and put away their firearms.

“I would never have seen any of my students with guns but that is not to say they were not carrying concealed weapons.

“Of course it is something that is jarring and you are never easy with it but it is part of life over here and especially in this part of America,” he said.

The shootings took place in two dormitories separated by a 15-minute walk.

To cover the distance the gunman would have crossed an area known as the Drill Field where military cadets go through their routines.

“The college is historically tied to the military so when you are looking at the footage on television and seeing male and female students in grey uniforms they would be the cadet corps,” Prof Toal said.

“The Drill Field is where the drills would be done but it is a very open area and it is hard to understand how a gunman could have crossed between the two places without being stopped.”

He does not know how the community will react in the aftermath of the shootings.

In 1999, when 12 people were shot dead at Columbine High school, he remembers being shocked at the lack of uproar around the Virginia Tech.

“I was actually in Blacksburg on the day the news of Columbine broke and what really struck was not so much what happened but what didn’t happen.

“There was no debate there and there was no discussion because the NRA (National Rifle Association) lobby is just so strong. To even suggest passing a law against weapons here would be laughable to people,” he said.

“Engineering would be the main course on campus and with the cadet corps it can be a very masculine culture with a lot of pressure on young men to succeed.

“It is coming into exam week on May 6 to the 10th so there are a lot of final projects in and it usually a very stressful time,” he said.

He said it is a poor area but the campus provides a bubble of affluence.

Although dominated by white conservative southern-American culture Prof Toal said it is a cosmopolitan campus with a large number of Chinese and Indian students.

Last week a bomb scare was phoned into the university.

“Last week there was bomb threats that were phoned in to the campus. I don’t think they found anybody.

“They put it down to people trying to disrupt an exam but I don’t know if it was linked,” he said.