Man who confronted law school shooter says Gingrich wrong on arming students

<p>Ted Besen bristles when politicians suggest that armed classmates could have stopped Virginia Tech gunman Seung-Hui Cho.</p><p>Five years ago, while a student at the Appalachian School of Law in southwestern Virginia, he tackled and subdued a mentally unstable student named Peter Odighizuwa who had fatally shot the dean, a professor and another student.</p><p>In the days that followed, many applauded two other students who followed Besen with guns in hand.</p><p>"Their guns had no effect on Peter," Besen said Tuesday. "I already had Peter on the ground before they got out their guns."</p><p>Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" Sunday that armed students have successfully stopped killers in the classroom. Cho killed 32 students and faculty members last week before killing himself.</p><p>"In states where people have been allowed to have concealed weapons, in Mississippi and Kentucky, there have been incidents of this kind of a killer who was stopped because in fact, people who are law-abiding, people who are rational and people who are responsible had the ability to stop them," Gingrich said.</p><p>Gingrich spokesman Rick Tyler said the Republican was referring to the shootings at Appalachian, which is near the Kentucky border.</p><p>Besen, a former Marine and police officer, said Gingrich is flat wrong: "The facts were so distorted."</p><p>After Odighizuwa finished shooting, Besen said, he walked onto a lawn, put his gun down and started yelling at students as they fled. Besen said he charged Odighizuwa, knocking him to the ground.</p><p>"And as soon as I saw him put the gun down, I took off," Besen said. "I tried to get between him and the gun."</p><p>Tyler said those details don't alter Gingrich's position. Besen could have been shot by Odighizuwa, he said, and then he would have needed help.</p><p>"The point is, you don't know if arming students would stop people from getting hurt," Tyler said. "But I think it lessens the odds."</p><p>Odighizuwa pleaded guilty to capital murder charges and was sentenced to six life terms. Besen, who is now a lawyer in Wilmington, N.C., said the past week has brought up a lot of memories.</p><p>"You can stick your 9 mm in your backpack, but stopping a madman is the last thing you're thinking about when you're in class," Besen said. "It's not something you can predict."</p>

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