On Saturday, George Zinkhan, a marketing professor at the University of Georgia, got into an argument during his wife’s theater group picnic, left in a rage and came back with two guns. While his children waited in the car, he shot and killed his wife and two others.
An esteemed professor at UGA’s Terry College of Business, Zinkhan has no record of convictions or previous disciplinary problems. His colleagues, shocked by Saturday’s events, have described Zinkhan as a well-respected scholar. In reaction to the triple homicide, Bob Covington, a neighbor of Zinkhan’s, told the Atlanta Journal Constitution,
“You would never expect anything like that. There was never any sign to expect anything like that. I never even heard him raise his voice. We’re clearly shocked by the event.”
UGA Professor Michael Hyman told the Associated Press that, if given “a list of 100 people who might crack in this way,” he would have put Zinkhan “at the bottom of that list.”
This incident sadly and disturbingly illustrates a scenario not often addressed by the pro-gun lobby: the crime of passion. It is unclear whether or not Zinkhan had a concealed carry license, but it seems unlikely that a college professor with no history of violence or mental illness would have been denied one. And yet, his possession of weapons lead to three deaths in a matter of minutes on a quiet Saturday afternoon.
Not including Zinkhan’s crime, at least five people have been killed by verifiable concealed handgun license holders in crimes of passion in 2009. On Feb. 6, Robert Schwerin of Tenessee made the mistake of arguing over a parking spot with someone who, unbeknownst to him, was legally armed. Harry Raymond Coleman felt that Scherwin was parked too close to his Hummer in the parking lot of an Italian restaurant.
Their argument ended when Coleman shot Scherwin in the chest.
On Feb. 14, Frank Garcia, a concealed carry license holder, shot three people, killing two, in the parking lot of a hospital in Brockport, New York. He was angry because the hospital fired him. He later shot a married couple execution-style inside their home.
In October of 2008, Robert Stahl took his daughter to a Halloween party. A child at the party asked about Stahl’s gun. Since he thought he had unloaded the gun, Stahl took it out of his holster. In doing so he shot his daughter’s ten year old friend in the stomach.
Another license holder, James Patrick Wonder, was involved in a road rage incident on Aug. 5, 2008. He and Donald Pettit, another driver, pulled into a parking lot, where Wonder shot Pettit in the head in front of Pettit’s twelve-year-old daughter.
In 2008 and the beginning of 2009, concealed carry licensees have committed more than 60 documented offenses. Most of them involve assaulting citizens while license holders are under the influence of drugs or alcohol or in a state of rage. They included assaults at sporting events, school campuses and grocery stores.
Incidents such as these lead us to wonder if any of our well-respected faculty or fellow students could harbor equally sinister undercurrents, or be inclined to use their weapon in the heat of a moment. After all, Zinkhan had shown no signs of dangerous behavior.
His fatal rage highlights the difficulty in determining who is, and who is not, qualified to wield deadly force.
A key argument made by pro-gun groups on campus has been that ordinary citizens with guns could stop a Virginia Tech-like shooting on campus. There are quite a few problems with this unsubstantiated argument. The Brady Campaign reports that even police officers hit their targets less than 20 percent of the time. The Zinkhan tragedy proves that it is more likely that a seemingly refulgent concealed carrier will use his or her weapon for evil or handle it recklessly.
Even if concealed carry on campus could thwart large, premeditated shootings, the ubiquity of guns on campus would most likely increase the number of crimes of passion, accidental shootings and suicides. Will guns in the hands of citizens help when an otherwise normal professor or student gets angry? What about when a drunk freshman walks into his dorm room to find that his otherwise responsible roommate left his gun unguarded? What about when a student struggling with depression has a weak moment and knows that there is a gun under her roommate’s bed?
Premeditated murders are not the only gun deaths the Legislature must consider. In fact, those kinds of crimes may be the ones representatives have the least control over. Drugs, alcohol use, suicide and mental health issues all peak for people ages 18 to 24. There are countless people struggling with mental health and alcohol dependence living in UT dorms, many undiagnosed. If the Legislature makes guns readily available to them, a weak moment could lead to irrevocable tragedy.
