The proposed regulatory ban serves no purpose except to restrict private freedoms, criminalize otherwise innocent conduct, and prevent private citizens from defending themselves.  At best, it will not have any impact on the likelihood of gun crime in state facilities.  At worst, it will make them more dangerous by making them soft targets where innocent citizens are unable, by law, to have a means to defend themselves.

Concealed carry permit holders have all passed background checks and received training on how and when to use firearms in self defense.  They are the least likely segment of society to engage in criminal activity.  Statistics demonstrate that, on a national level, they commit almost ZERO violent crimes.  The proposed regulation is a wrong-headed attempt to solve a non-existent problem.  Concealed carry permit holders pose no danger to the public.

By contrast, those bent on murder do not care that they're violating a regulatory provision by carrying a weapon.  Whether common criminals or mass-shooters, the only thing a gun-free zone sign tells a would-be killer is that he and/or she is in no danger of returned fire.  Criminals generally, and killers specifically, choose soft targets.  This regulation turns state buildings into soft targets.  It makes them more dangerous.

While I certainly don't contend that armed citizens will stop every mass shooter, or even the majority of them, they have done so in limited circumstances before.  The proposed regulation simply serves to foreclose any possibility of a private citizen saving their own life, or the lives of others, in a nightmare situation.  It turns patrons of Virginia's state facilities into the proverbial "fish in a barrel".

I was at Ft. Hood on 5 November 2009.  Federal laws and installation regulations prohibiting Hasan from walking into the SRP site with his guns didn't stop him, but one armed individual might have.  However, those same laws and regulations prohibited anyone else there from being armed.  I've often heard gun control advocates argue that "if this law saves one life, it's worth it," but that argument cuts both ways.  If allowing the most statistically responsible segment of society to possess a means to respond in a crisis saves just one life, isn't it worth it?