Virginia Tech at weeks end

Many stories in the Post about this weeks events especially in the Outlook section. This one in particular is good. It is written by a current student.

I find this very poignant:

I will always be proud to say I'm a Virginia Tech alumnus, that I was in Blacksburg during our darkest hour and that we all came together for something much greater than just cheering our football team. I'll be proud to recall the way the football field overflowed for the convocation last Tuesday, with students and faculty tearfully staring up at the live feed from Cassell Coliseum. Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine said it best in his speech that day -- we showed the world our fortitude, our community and who we are as people.

I'm ready to leave, but only as a graduate. And a part of me will always remain at Virginia Tech, with a university that has offered me far more than I could ever hope to give back.

In fact the entire week I was very very impressed by the students at Virginia Tech. If any ounce of good can come from this horrible tragedy it was shown by those students. It gives just a little bit of hope.

There of course continues to be the second guessing. The campus should have been put on lock down. Like locking down a area that size happens with a snap of one's fingers. There was even some silly security "expert" on NBC that said the National Guard should have been called out. No one called her on this one. I think it would have taken a couple of days for the guard to arrive. This is not one building. This is hundreds of buildings. It's also thousands of people that have to secured somehow. This from the Post:

"Trying to lock down a college campus with over 25,000 people in over a dozen buildings spread across acres and acres presents monumental challenges. It is like trying to lock down an entire city," said Kenneth S. Trump, president of National School Safety and Security Services, a consulting firm.

Then there was this reaction from a mental health professional on Larry King. I don't remember the guys name or his exact title. His suggestion was that these types of incidents should be handled by Homeland Security. His idea that people like Seung Hui Cho should be on a government list. It was unclear exactly how bad your mental health would have to be in order to be added to the list. The people on the list would be tracked by Homeland Security and essentially every move they make would be monitored. The doctor thought that in this way when Cho had tried to buy a weapon he would have been denied it.

I have to say my jaw literally dropped open. I don't even know where to start with how many things are wrong with this idea. I would think the idea would be to have people seek out a mental health professional if they though they needed help. To me this idea guarantees that people will avoid seeking help at any cost. It also makes mental health professional an arm of homeland security. This is just a very bad idea. Hopefully this one goes away quickly.

What I hope for is people pause and reflect on what happened. As I said in an earlier post we need to think about:

What in the society so alienates or angers these guys? What conditioning in society makes it so that the only way these guys know how to express or solve the pain they have is through anger, rage and violence.

I hope the families can heal. I know that that will be a very hard task. They will be in my thoughts and prayers.

I'm not sure how to end this post. But what comes to mind is the spontaneous chant that went up at then end of the memorial service:

Let's Go Hokies!

What happens next

What happens next. What to do to make sure there is not another Viriginia Tech (didn't we say that after Columbine too).

There will be many questions about the way Cho Seung Hui was able to get the guns he used. (Here's a link to the story about the very strange package that he sent to NBC news. He mailed it between shootings) The unfortunate thing is that it is extremely unlikely that the Virginia legislature will do anything to restrict access to guns. If anything, the agrument will be advanced that if more people had guns they'd have been able to protect themselves against this guy.

The much tougher issue to look at is why people feel compelled to do such things. Ever notice that just about all of these major shootings are done by males. (In fact I can’t think of one that hasn’t been done by a man. )

Why is that?

What in the society so alienates or angers these guys? What conditioning in society makes it so that the only way these guys know how to express or solve the pain they have is through anger, rage and violence. That’s a much harder problem to solve than passing real gun control (and that ain't going to be easy either). It will take lots of thinking and a very radical shift within American society (or any society for that matter). In other words, it will be really hard.

The accessibility of guns makes the ability to do something like this, killing so many people, much easier. But there are much harder questions that also need to be answered to solve this problem. Until we do something about both of these, events like this will continue to happen.