Side 1 by Rachel Welte
Monday a group of Colorado College students gathered to remember the innocent victims of the Virginia Tech tradgedy.
They wore red and orange ribbons around their necks hand-made by the families and friends of those who were killed. The students said the massacre is just one example of how many people's lives have been touched by gun-violence.
Now they say the government needs to inact what they're calling "common sense gun laws."
"Last year I had a very close and personal friend of mine from childhood die as a result of an accidental shooting," Colorado College student Angela Cobian said.
Cobian said her friend that was killed was only 17-years-old. She said the shooter should have never had a gun.
"I have always been a firm believer in good gun control and enforcement of our gun laws which is really important," Cobian said.
Angela helped organize the lie-in at Colorado College. 32 people representing Virgina Tech's 32 vicitm's lied down for three minutes in the middle of the school's commons.
"Three minutes is symbolic of the easiness and the amount of time that it takes to buy a gun," Cobian said.
Her lie-in was part of a bigger campaign known as "Protest Easy Guns.com." Their main concern is that it is too easy to buy a gun in America.
Their fix, tighter back-ground checks at the time of purchase.
"We want the federal loophole that allows people to get access to guns at gunshows without a background check, we want that loophole to be closed because it is perposterous," Cobian said.
Cobian, her fellow protestors and "Easy Guns.com" said it is time for the governmnet to change America's lax gun laws.
"I saw a quote that said that 'one person that has a gun has control over 100 other lives,' and what we are saying here is that 'we do not want this to be so easy, Cobian said.'"
"Easy Guns.com" also said the government needs to strengthen the Brady Background Check System which requires a purchaser to wait up to five days before leaving with a gun.
Some states do allow by-passes to the wait.
Side 2 by Laura Forbes
Some say gun control won't stop school shootings like the one at Virginia Tech. They argue the answer isn't fewer guns-- its more. They say stricter laws won't stop criminals, only law-abiding citizens.
"If I see a sign that says I can't bring my firearm into a building, I'm not gonna do it, but the criminal who wants to go in there and shoot his estranged wife or rob the store, he doesn't care what the sign is, he doesn't care what the law is," said Bernie Herpin of the Pikes Peak Firearms Coalition.
Colorado already requires background checks at gun shows. Herpin is uneasy about the idea of a federal law, especially if it means a waiting period. He said, "Where does it stop? If we're gonna regulate the sale of firearms at a gun show, what's the next loophole, the newspaper loophole, the bulletin board at work loophole, I'm giving my son a firearm for Christmas loophole?"
He says if students at Virginia Tech had been allowed to carry concealed weapons lives might have been saved. His example is the shootings at New Life Church.
"We know that he went there to kill as many people as possible, and he thought it was a place where there would be no resistance," said Herpin. "Luckily, there was resistance."
Jim Manley is with Students for Concealed Carry at UC Boulder. He said, "What we think is important is that people have a choice, that they're not left shooting back with cell phone cameras."
They are planning a protest of their own that will be very different from the one at Colorado College.
"Students are going to wear empty holsters to campus to demonstrate the fact that they are left defenseless when they are on campus," said Manley.
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