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04/17/2007: "Time To Reflect"

I was in a foul mood yesterday, and tend to not blog on days like that. Then I heard about the shooting at Virginia Tech and suddenly my little problems didn't add up to much.

The town of Blacksburg, Virginia and, in fact, all of America are in shock today at yesterday's events. 33 dead, including the shooter, and many more injured in what will go down as the most violent shooting spree in American history - so far. The press, of course, has begun their orgasmic coverage, all racing to the scene in the hope of getting footage of just one body being carted away. The networks are wall-to-wall coverage, each with their own hand-wringing correspondant and an interview of someone who lives down the street from someone who knows someone who has a friend who's son used to go to VaTech. Events like these are seldon a shining moment for the press.

Of course, the gunsmoke had barely cleared before the second-guessing began. High on the target list is the university officials who, after the first shooting at a dormitory in which two students were killed, didn't evacuate the campus. Frankly, if I thought I might have a shooter on the loose, the last thing I want to do is wake everyone up and have them running around campus as moving targets. But the truth is that two hours later, a gunman - presumed to be the same - went into a classroom across campus and essentially executed the entire class before taking his own life.

In the aftermath of this tragedy, an evaluation of the decisions made and the preparations in place for such an event is reasonable. Certainly, we could make our campuses safer, but do we really want to? You could make VT look like San Quentin, and it may or may not stop the next gunman. It will most certainly outrage the students and faculty. Frankly, history has shown that there is really little you can do to stop a dedicated gunman once they've decided to act.

In 1992, I had a chance to visit the VaTech campus. It's located in western Virginia surrounded by the town of Blacksburg - a classic college town where love of the Hokies is inbred. If a shooting like this were to happen at USC or UCLA it would be tragic, but would have little impact on the town surrounding campus. For Blacksburg, this is devastating. Keep their residents in your hearts along with those whose lives were cut short by this madman.