"Thirty-two University of Virginia students marked the six-month anniversary of the Virginia Tech massacre Tuesday by holding a "lie in" to protest what they see as overly lax gun laws.

The students, representing the 32 victims of student gunman Seung-Hui Cho, lay on the grass for three minutes in front of Old Cabell Hall at UVa. Three minutes, they said, was the amount of time it took Cho to obtain the firearms he used on April 16.

At least two family members of Cho's victims attended the rally, including UVa student Randa Samaha, whose sister, Reema Samaha, was killed in the shooting rampage.

"I am attending this lie-in in honor of my sister, Reema, and the rest of the amazing and talented people slain at Virginia Tech," said Samaha, wearing black clothes and an orange-and-maroon ribbon.

Samaha and other protesters said federal and state gun laws make it too easy to obtain firearms. In Virginia, they pointed out, guns can be purchased from private sellers at gun shows without performing background checks. Virginia's General Assembly, they said, ought to close the gun show "loophole" and require tougher background checks for gun buyers.

"There may be a cost to doing so," Samaha said, "but it is a small price to pay compared to the lives of our sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers and other valuable members of our society. We need to act now."

Dillon Hauptfuhrer, a second-year UVa student, organized the protest, which was the latest of 30 similar anti-gun violence demonstrations in 13 states.

"My heart goes out to family members who have lost loved ones because of gun violence," Hauptfuhrer said.

Hauptfuhrer, who had never protested anything before, said the Virginia Tech slayings pushed her into advocacy. "It really hit home and I realized that this could happen anywhere," she said. "A lot of people don't recognize just how lax our gun laws are. We've got to change that."

In addition to the 32 UVa students, another 95 students and faculty members attended the rally Tuesday. Included among the crowd was Andy Goddard, a Richmond resident whose son Colin Goddard was shot four times at Virginia Tech. Goddard called the nation's background check system for gun buyers a "fig leaf." It should be instead be a "shield," he said.

"We're not rabid gun haters," he said. "But we need to do some simple things to make it harder to keep guns out of the hands of people who shouldn't be allowed to have them."

According to the Virginia Tech Review Panel's report, Cho apparently should not have been allowed to purchase guns, as federal and state laws prohibit people from buying firearms if they have been committed to mental institutions. In December 2005, a special justice in Montgomery County found Cho to be a danger to himself and ordered him to receive outpatient mental health treatment.

When buying a gun in Virginia, the buyer must fill out a form that asks 11 questions about their eligibility to purchase firearms, such as whether the buyer has been convicted of a felony. Firearms dealers transmit the forms to the Virginia State Police, which run the buyer through federal and state databases. Yet not all gun transactions in Virginia require background checks, including in the case of personal gifts, sales of private collections and sales by collectors at gun shows.

Attempts Tuesday to reach legislators known for having "pro-gun" stances for comment for this story were unsuccessful." (Brian McNeill, The Daily Progress, October 17, 2007)