WASHINGTON, Aug 13: A group of students in the US state of Virginia wants to be allowed to carry guns to class, saying it would prevent a repetition of the massacre at Virginia Tech in which 33 people died, a press report said on Monday.

“The students at Tech, they really should have had a chance to defend themselves,” Andrew Dysart, a former Marine and now final-year student at George Mason University in Virginia, was quoted as saying in the Express freesheet, published by the Washington Post.

Dysart has set up a chapter of Students for Concealed Carry on Campus (SCCC) to press legislators in Virginia to change a state law that allows schools and universities to decide whether guns should be allowed on campus.

In Virginia, academic institutions can set policies as to whether students can carry weapons, but cannot bar non-student, licensed gun-owners from bringing their firearms onto school property.

“In a sense, students don't have the same rights to self-defence on campus as the general public,” Dysart said.

Gun laws in Virginia were slammed as being among the most lax in the United States after student Seung-Hui Cho went on a shooting spree on the campus of Virginia Tech in April, gunning down 32 fellow students and faculty members before taking his own life.

The SCCC is represented at four Virginia campuses, according to its website. No chapter was listed for Virginia Tech.—AFP